China is the greatest threat to the United States and represents a “very serious threat,” says Bill Barr.

US Attorney General Bill Barr has called China the biggest threat, saying the danger posed by the communist country is “very serious” amid mounting tensions with Beijing over the coronavirus pandemic.

In an interview yesterday, amid growing administration rhetoric against China about Beijing’s alleged “cover-up” of its coronavirus infection rate, Barr was asked if he viewed Russia or China as the greatest security risk to the next presidential elections.

“In my opinion, it is China,” Barr told FoxNews. “Not only for the electoral process, but, I think, in all areas.”

“There is simply no comparison,” added Barr. “China is a very serious threat to the United States: geopolitical, economically, militarily, and a threat to the integrity of our institutions, given its ability to influence things.”

He also said: “The Chinese are engaged in a blitzkrieg war of theft of American technology, trying to influence our political system, trying to steal secrets from our research universities, etc.”

The attorney general’s comments come shortly after a series of anti-Beijing rhetorics by senior administration officials due to the perceived cover-up of China’s COVID-19 infection count, as the U.S. numbers soar.

The World Health Organization has not escaped the wrath of President Donald Trump as it intensified its war of words with the humanitarian group yesterday after accusing them of being “China-focused” earlier this week.

Trump’s main problem with the United Nations health group is that its directors said there was no need to ban travelers coming from China when the coronavirus began to spread beyond Wuhan, where it originated.

The president boasted that his early ban on some travelers from China prevented him from being a major threat to the United States.

Trump has followed the example of prominent conservatives by complaining that the WHO has been too friendly to China during the coronavirus crisis.

He wrote on Twitter: ‘The WHO really screwed it up. For some reason, largely funded by the United States, but highly focused on China. We will give you a good look.

Vice President Mike Pence added fuel to the Hannity fire last night, warning the administration will ask WHO “difficult questions” after the coronavirus pandemic.

The World Health Organization has been criticized for not pressuring China to clarify its response and question its numbers on the disease. There is skepticism about the numbers that Beijing reports.

The president was later asked why he thought the WHO was “China-focused.”

Trump replied: “I don’t know, they seem to fall on the side of China.”

‘Do not close your borders with China, do not do this, do not report what is really happening, you did not see it, and yet you were there. They didn’t see what was going on in Wuhan … they should have seen it, but they didn’t report it, ” he said.

On January 31, the Trump government announced travel restrictions on people coming from China due to the outbreak.

Trump was following the example of American conservatives, including Florida Senator Rick Scott, who blamed the WHO for “helping Communist China cover up a global pandemic.”

Other Republican lawmakers have raised the theory that the WHO is under China’s spell.

Last week Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, said WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus should resign because he “allowed Beijing to use WHO to deceive the global community.”

Like Senator Martha McSally, a Republican from Arizona.

“They need to be clarified and another part of this is that the WHO should stop covering them,” he said of China. “I think Dr. Tedros needs to resign,” McSally said on the Fox Business Network.

‘We need to take some steps to address this problem. It is simply irresponsible, it is unconscionable what they have done here while we have people dying all over the world, ” added McSally.

Scott, the Florida senator, said the Senate National Security Committee needed to start an investigation into the handling of the virus by the WHO.

In late January, Tedros congratulated Chinese President Xi Jinping on the country’s handling of the virus, as the Chinese leader centralized the response after local officials in Wuhan were unable to keep the outbreak under control.

But Xi also controlled the flow of information, with reports coming out of China that the country had been trying to silence the whistleblowers.

At the same time, Democratic governors, lawmakers and experts have condemned Trump’s response in the fight against the virus, suggesting that he did too little, too late.

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How the man who runs the World Health Organization ripped apart by Trump as China-centered is a career politician who worked for a communist junta and became the WHO’s first non-medical Director-General after an intense lobbying from Beijing ‘

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, a little-known figure before the coronavirus pandemic, has risen to fame as Director-General of the World Health Organization, which is spearheading global responses to the virus.

Dr. Tedros, who has never practiced as a doctor, is a career politician who was born in what is now Eritrea, started working under the communist board of Derg, came to study in the UK, and then reached the top of the Ethiopian government first as Minister of Health and then Minister of Foreign Affairs before being elected to head WHO in 2017.

Now he faces strong criticism for his handling of the pandemic, especially for the praise he gave the Chinese Communist Party for its response: He praised the regime’s “ commitment to transparency ” and said the speed with which it detected the virus it was “ beyond words ”.

That has led to accusations, mostly recently made by Donald Trump, that the WHO is “focused on China,” a position that the President of the United States has promised to “analyze.”

Trump has threatened to suspend US funds. USA To WHO until an investigation has been carried out, while suggesting that they withheld information about the virus.

In fact, it is not the first time that Dr. Tedros has been accused of approaching China. Shortly after his electoral victory in 2017, it was alleged that Chinese diplomats had been heavily involved in lobbying for him.

UN records also show that Chinese contributions to both Ethiopia’s and WHO’s aid budget have increased substantially during the times when he was in top leadership positions.

Shortly after his election to the WHO, a report in The Times said: “Chinese diplomats had campaigned strongly for the Ethiopian, using Beijing’s financial clout and opaque aid budget to generate support for him among countries in development”.

Dr. Tedros, who is married with five children, was born in 1965 in Asmara, which was part of Ethiopia at the time, but is now in Eritrea.

As a child, he saw his younger brother die from an infection, which he believes was measles, which he later said encouraged his determination to work in health and health policy.

He graduated from university in Ethiopia in 1986 with a degree in biology and went to work as a health officer in the regime of Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, while the country was governed by the Derg military junta.

According to the BBC, Dr. Tedros joined the extreme left-wing TPLF, which started life as a communist party and played a major role in the overthrow of Mariam in 1991. He later became part of the EPRDF, a coalition of political parties. left that ruled Ethiopia until last year.

Around the same time as Mariam’s expulsion, Dr. Tedros left Ethiopia and arrived in the United Kingdom, where he studied at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where he graduated with a Master of Science in Infectious Disease Immunology in 1992. .

He then studied at the University of Nottingham, where he received a doctorate in community health in 2000.

Following this, he returned to Ethiopia, where he joined the health ministry and rose in rank from the regional health minister to the national minister for Heath, a position he assumed in 2005.

During his tenure, which lasted until 2012, he was widely praised for opening thousands of health centers, employing tens of thousands of doctors, reducing rates of HIV / AIDS, measles and malaria, as well as incorporating information technology and the Internet into Internet. Health System.

In November 2012, he was promoted to Minister of Foreign Affairs, and was widely acclaimed for helping to negotiate a boost in UN funding for Ethiopia, including as part of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda.

In fact, UN funding records show that around this time the country received millions of additional funds, including from China, which had previously given little or nothing to support the country.

In 2015 and 2016, China awarded some $ 16 million to Ethiopia in spending commitments and cash contributions, largely in support of food or refugee programs.

In 2011, just before Dr. Tedros took over the role, and in 2017, just after his departure, China delivered another $ 44 million in pledges and contributions.

His total contributions outside this period, dating back to 2000, were only $ 345,000.

In 2017, Dr. Tedros left the Ethiopian government and applied for the post of WHO Director-General when the term of Dr. Margaret Chan, a Canadian-Chinese physician, ended.

The election was the first to be held under a voting system of all UN member states as part of a secret ballot. Previously, leaders were chosen by closed-door voting by an executive committee.

Ultimately, the field was narrowed to two candidates: Dr. Tedros and British Dr. David Nabarro, a lifelong physician who had helped lead UN responses to past outbreaks, including bird flu, the outbreak of cholera in Haiti and the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

Dr. Tedros won the ballot by 133 votes in favor and 50 votes, becoming the first African leader of the WHO and the first non-physician to hold office. His victory came in part thanks to 50 of the 54 African states that voted for him.

However, he quickly faced controversy by recommending African dictator Robert Mugabe as the WHO Goodwill Ambassador, amid accusations that he was trying to return favors awarded during the elections.

There were reports that the move was also intended to reward China, a former defender of Mugabe, for using his influence to get him elected.

The Times added: “China has praised the authoritarian development model of the Ethiopian regime, which rules under emergency powers and has quelled protests in favor of democracy.”

During the 2017 elections, various groups within Ethiopia opposed the appointment of Dr. Tedros due to his ties to the TPLF and allegations that they stifled journalists and cracked down on minorities.

Dr. Tedros was also accused of covering up three cholera outbreaks in 2006, 2008 and 2011 by mistakenly denouncing it as “watery diarrhea”, charges he dismissed as a “smear campaign” by his British rival.

Following his election to the WHO, Dr. Tedros promised to reform the organization with an emphasis on universal health care at his center while increasing funding.

Other UN funding records show that, during his tenure, China’s assessed contributions to WHO have also increased significantly, from about $ 23 million in 2016 to $ 38 million in 2019.

China has also promised to finance another $ 57 million in 2020, although it has not yet paid the balance.

Meanwhile, financing from other major world economies, including the US. The US, Russia, Japan, and Germany have remained largely flat or even fell during the same period.

The contributions indicated represent only about a quarter of the WHO budget, the rest comes from donations.

MailOnline contacted WHO for comment, but had not received a response at the time of publication. This site also contacted the University of London and the University of Nottingham to verify Dr. Tedros’ biographical information, but did not receive a response either.

Recent criticism of WHO and Dr. Tedros stem specifically from their handling of the coronavirus pandemic, and in particular from their perceived closeness to authorities in Beijing.

Dr. Tedros visited Beijing in January and spoke to President Xi about the country’s response, returning to deliver a speech that praised the regime’s transparency, the speed of its response, and attributed it to saving lives both in the country and in the Foreign.

That despite the fact that Taiwan doctors, who have not been represented in the WHO since China claims it as part of their country, claimed to have expressed concern over the response since December 2019.

Doctors told the Financial Times that they had anecdotal evidence of person-to-person transmission of the virus, something that China denied at the time and a key factor in turning the disease into a global pandemic.

They claim that this was reported to WHO on December 31, but was not shared with other countries. China itself did not report person-to-person transmission until almost a month later, on January 20, when the disease began to spread across the country and around the world.

A petition calling for Dr. Tedros’ resignation that began in Taiwan has now surpassed 750,000 signatures.

China has also faced allegations that it tried to silence doctors, including the now-deceased Dr. Li Wenliang, who first reported on the disease and covered the early cases.

In his coronavirus briefing on Tuesday night, Donald Trump pointed to the WHO and said the United States would consider suspending funding to the organization until an investigation is conducted.

“They misqualified him, missed the call,” he said, adding: “They should have known and they probably knew it,” suggesting that the WHO was withholding information about the coronavirus.

“The WHO, which is the World Health Organization, receives large amounts of money from the United States and we pay for most, most of their money, and they actually criticized and disagreed with my travel ban on the moment I did, ‘Trump said near the top of the briefing.

‘And they were wrong. They have been wrong about many things.

“And they had a lot of information at the beginning and they didn’t want to, they seemed to be very focused on China,” he said.

Today, Dr. Hans Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe, defended the organization.

He said: “We are now in an acute phase of the pandemic, now is not the time to cut funds.”

He also said his administration would analyze whether the United States would withdraw its $ 513 million financing.

The coronavirus has now infected at least 1.4 million people worldwide and has killed more than 80,000, although these figures are believed to be underestimated.

The facts of the coronavirus that China wants the world to forget: Beijing publishes a COVID-19 timeline, but does not include whistleblowers, the Huanan food market and ‘the order to destroy all samples’

China’s official news agency has released a coronavirus timeline to respond to allegations that Beijing attempted to cover up the full scale of the outbreak.

State-run Xinhua said the timeline, released Monday, showed how the country “has shared information and advanced international cooperation” in the fight against the killer bug.

The 37-page document included, as described by Xinhua, the “main facts and measures China has taken” to contain the epidemic. In particular, he praised the role of President Xi Jinping and other communist leaders.

However, the gigantic report has left out some of the most crucial events of the health crisis, each of which has played a decisive role in the development of the global emergency.

Here, MailOnline has listed these findings along with relevant information from previous reports and the Xinhua timeline.

1. The complainants

Probably one of the most notable stories related to the COVID-19 pandemic, eight Wuhan medical workers who raised the alarm about the virus in late December were accused of spreading false news and reprimanded by the police.

The most famous of them was the late Dr. Li Wenliang, who died of coronavirus on February 7 after contracting it on the front line.

As early as December 30, the 34-year-old man posted messages on a social media chat group used by local doctors, warning them of ‘SARS in a Wuhan seafood market.’ His alert came three weeks before Wuhan entered the running of the bulls.

A statement by the Wuhan police on January 1 convicted Dr. Li and the others of spreading “inauthentic” information without evidence. Officials said their actions had had a negative impact on society and that they would be “treated” by law, according to a previous Xinhua report.

These events were not mentioned in the Xinhua timeline.

However, the report referenced Dr. Li in a March 19 list.

It said: ‘An inspection team from the National Supervisory Commission published the report of an investigation into issues related to Dr. Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital.

“Following the report, the Wuhan Public Security Bureau decided to revoke the previous letter of reprimand and apologized to the Li family for the error.”

It did not explain the “problems related to Dr. Li”.

Beijing named Dr. Li “a martyr” this month and mourned for him on National Day of Mourning for COVID-19 victims.

Although Dr. Li was the most famous coronavirus whistleblower, a colleague, emergency physician Ai Fen, had warned him. Read our report on Dr. Ai here.

2. The Huanan Seafood Market

Since the start of the outbreak, researchers and authorities have linked the virus to the Huanan wholesale seafood market, a wet market that was once popular in the city of 11 million.

Interestingly, it did not appear on the timeline.

One of the first connections between COVID-19 and Huanan dates back to a statement by the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission.

He stated that as of December 31, 27 cases had been identified in the market and that city officials had begun to study their association with Huanan.

Some other reports, however, suggested that the first patient had no connection to the market.

An investigation by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that the virus had been transmitted to humans by wild animals sold as food in the market, Xinhua reported on January 26.

Xinhua’s timeline did not refer to the Huanan market or its connection to the pandemic.

In a January 26 listing, he quoted Ma Xiaowei, head of the China National Health Commission (NHC), who stated that “the source of infection has not yet been found and is still needed. studies to understand its pathogenicity “.

In another list on March 6, he quoted a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry as saying: “Although the first case of COVID-19 was detected in China, it does not necessarily mean that it originated in China.” We should jointly oppose the “information virus” and the “political virus”.

Although it is unclear why the market was skipped in the timeline, Beijing has rejected the widespread assessment that Wuhan is the birthplace of the global outbreak after cases began to fall there, but soared in Europe.

Geng Shuang, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, on March 17 accused “certain American politicians” of promoting stigmatization by connecting the new coronavirus with China.

3. ‘Gag Order’

A high-profile investigative report has accused Chinese officials of ordering laboratories to suspend testing and destroy all samples of the coronavirus in the early stages of the outbreak.

On January 1, Hubei Health Commission officials imposed the gag order on some gene sequencing companies that had identified a new strain of SARS-like coronavirus on December 27, according to the report.

The date was more than a week before the first patient in Wuhan, a 61-year-old man, died of the virus on January 9.

The revelation was made by one of the most-mentioned investigative reports on China’s coronavirus outbreak, released by pioneering Beijing-based media group Caixin on February 26.

It was shared tens of thousands, if not millions, times on the Chinese social media platform WeChat, before disappearing.

An English version of the article still lives on the Caixin website.

The Xinhua timeline did not mention any laboratory testing efforts in December.

He said that on January 2, the CDC and the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (CAMS) “received the first batch of samples from four patients in Hubei province and began identifying pathogens.”

He added that three other institutions began conducting parallel laboratory tests on January 3.

Un equipo de expertos designados oficialmente dijo el 9 de enero que un nuevo tipo de coronavirus se identificó inicialmente como la causa de la neumonía viral en Wuhan, según la línea de tiempo y un informe anterior de Xinhua.

4. ¿Cuándo sabía Xi?

Sigue siendo un misterio cuando el presidente de China, Xi, se enteró del brote.

La línea de tiempo, así como muchos informes de los medios estatales, afirmaron que Xi ‘dio instrucciones sobre la respuesta epidémica al presidir una reunión del Comité Permanente del Buró Político del Comité Central del PCCh’ el 7 de enero.

Sin embargo, una investigación sobre documentos del gobierno público e informes oficiales revela que su discurso no se mencionó en ningún informe hasta el 15 de febrero, lo cual era raro para la propaganda china, especialmente aquellos sobre Xi.

Qiushi, una revista de teoría política dirigida por el Partido Comunista, publicó la transcripción de un discurso de Xi el 3 de febrero.

Xi se dirigió a los funcionarios: “El 7 de enero, planteé demandas sobre el control y la prevención de la nueva epidemia de neumonía por coronavirus mientras recibía el comité permanente del politburó del Partido Comunista de China”.

Este artículo, mencionado en la línea de tiempo, se convirtió en la fuente de muchos informes, que afirmaban que Xi tomó el timón de las fuerzas de tarea de coronavirus el 7 de enero.

Un informe de Xinhua el 7 de enero sobre la reunión política se tituló ‘Xi Jinping organizó una reunión de liderazgo del PCCh’ y no se refirió a la neumonía viral en Wuhan.

Radio Francia Internacional calificó el 7 de enero como un “momento misterioso en el tiempo” para Xi.

Un comentario del 3 de marzo dijo que era “muy interesante” para un líder chino de su calibre tener que señalar una referencia de tiempo sobre sí mismo, especialmente considerando la “poderosa máquina de propaganda” de China.

Xinhua informó por primera vez que Xi dio instrucciones sobre el brote de coronavirus el 20 de enero.

5. Los misteriosos días del ‘caso cero’

Wuhan reported no new cases between January 6 and 17 when the city was holding a series of important political meetings, known as the ‘two sessions’.

Nearly 700 officials, lawmakers and government representatives attended the conferences.

By January 5, the city’s health commission had recorded 59 cases and no deaths.

The 12 days would have been critical in preventing the virus from spreading, but officials either reported zero new cases or did not release a daily update.

‘Like this, Wuhan, a city of 11 million people, missed the key 12 days to block a malignant epidemic disease from spreading further,’ criticised Shanghai-based news outlet Yicai in an article from February 1.

The Xinhua timeline listed 25 entries under the 12 days to give details about a variety of official actions, including the isolation of the first novel coronavirus strain, the development of testing kits and a statement from the World Health Organization on the outbreak.

It did not mention any new cases in the period.

Furthermore, officials of a Wuhan community organised a huge banquet on January 18, inviting more than 40,000 families to welcome the Lunar New Year, reported Caixin, citing local Chutian Urban Daily.

The banquet sparked fears of an impending outbreak among Wuhan residents, who rushed to buy face masks, Caixin added.

The timeline did not mention the banquet.

On the day, Wuhan reported four new cases. A statement said the city had recorded 45 cases and two deaths by then.

6. Wuhan mayor admitted slow reactions

One of the most influential interviews in the early days of the outbreak came from Zhou Xianwang, the mayor of Wuhan.

Mr Zhou confessed that his team had not released information about the situation ‘in time’ to state broadcaster CCTV on January 27.

Mr Zhou disclosed at a press conference the day before that around five million Wuhan residents had left the city before all forms of transport were halted on January 23.

Mr Zhou said those people had left because of the Lunar New Year as well as ‘public opinions’. Nine million people were in Wuhan when it was locked down, he said.

The timeline did not mention Mr Zhou’s comments, which were widely reported by media outlets in and outside of China.

Mr Wu, 56, told CCTV that his government would need to receive authorisation from higher-ups before making any announcement regarding the novel coronavirus.

‘On one hand, we did not reveal [information] in time; Por otro lado, no utilizamos información efectiva para mejorar nuestro trabajo a un nivel satisfactorio ”, dijo Zhou durante la entrevista que se transmitió en vivo en línea.

He said: ‘Regarding the untimely disclosure, [I] hope everyone can understand. [Coronavirus] is a contagious disease. Contagious diseases have relevant law and information needs to be disclosed according to law.’

He then explained the restriction his government faced.

‘As [the head of] a local government, after I receive the information, [I] can only release it after being authorised. [Many people] could not understand this at the time,’ he said.

7. The disease is ‘largely controllable’

The condition of the patients who suffered the ‘mysterious viral pneumonia’ was ‘largely controllable’, reported Xinhua in a January 10 article, citing an expert.

Professor Hu Ke from Hubei Provincial People’s Hospital claimed that most patients had developed minor to medium symptoms and some of the earliest patients had recovered and left the hospital.

This article was published one day before Wuhan reported its first death from COVID-19.

It came five days after another Xinhua report said no evidence showed that the virus could spread from one person to another.

The timeline did not mention either article.

Professor Zhong Nanshan, the leader of Beijing’s coronavirus expert team, confirmed human-to-human transmission on January 20, according to a CCTV report and the timeline.

The coronavirus pandemic has so far killed more than 81,000 people and infected over 1.4 million worldwide as of writing.

The lockdown on Wuhan, the former centre of the outbreak, was lifted on Wednesday.