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An explosive report claims that Chinese President Xi Jinping personally asked the director-general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom, to “delay a global warning” on the COVID-19 threat during a conversation in January.
German Der Spiegel published the accusations this weekend, citing information from the country’s Federal Intelligence Service, known as ‘Bundesnachrichtendienst’ (BND).
According to the BND: “On January 21, China’s leader Xi Jinping asked WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to withhold information about a person-to-person transmission and delay a pandemic warning.”
“The BND estimates that China’s information policy lost four to six weeks to combat the virus worldwide.”
The WHO issued a statement shortly after the impact statements were released, calling them “unfounded and false.”
An explosive report in Der Spiegel claims that Chinese President Xi Jinping (right) personally asked World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom (left) to ‘delay a global warning’ about the COVID threat -19 in January. The couple is pictured together in Beijing on January 28 of this year. The WHO has denied the accusation.
‘Dr. Tedros and President Xi did not speak on January 21 and never did on the phone. Such inaccurate reports distract and detract from the efforts of WHO and the world to end the COVID-19 pandemic, ” the statement read.
He continued: ‘China confirmed human-to-human transmission of the new coronavirus on January 20 [prior to the alleged phone conversation].
‘The WHO publicly stated on January 22 that “the data collected … suggests that person-to-person transmission is taking place in Wuhan.”
If the claims were true, they would reinforce President Trump’s claim that the WHO is “focused on China.”
In April, the Trump Administration alleged that the WHO was becoming a ‘Chinese propaganda’ tool, and the President decided to stop funding the organization.
Last week, the president launched a new attack on the organization during a virtual Fox News town hall meeting.
“The World Health Organization has been a disaster, everything they said was wrong and they are focused on China,” he said at the event, held last Monday.
“Dr. Tedros and President Xi did not speak on January 21 and have never spoken on the phone,” the WHO said in a statement.
Donald Trump doubled down on his attacks on the World Health Organization last Monday
‘All they do is agree with China, whatever China wants to do. So our country, perhaps foolishly in hindsight, has been paying $ 450 million a year to the World Health Organization, and China has been paying $ 38 million a year, but before they were more political than all of our leaders.
“What they did, what World Health did, was that they lost all the calls and we are not going to bear it.”
Relations between Washington and the WHO have deteriorated throughout the crisis after Trump consistently accused the body of siding with China, saying it has been in Xi Jinping’s hands to cover up the outbreak.
Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has hailed China as an example of how to handle an emergency despite widespread skepticism about the official number of deaths from coronavirus in the country.
The president lashed out at the UN agency for blindly regurgitating false information being pumped by Beijing, saying he “has lost all calls.”
Earlier this week, Trump also said there was enough evidence to show that President Xi Jinping’s regime misled the global community.
‘Well, I don’t think there is any doubt about it. We wanted to enter, they did not want us to enter. Things are coming out that are quite convincing. I don’t think there is any doubt, “the president said Sunday.
“Personally, I think they made a horrible mistake and didn’t want to admit it,” he added.
His comments came when a Department of Homeland Security report shared on Sunday revealed that US officials believe China “intentionally concealed the severity” of the pandemic in early January and amassed medical supplies.
The four-page report dated May 1 that was obtained by the Associated Press notes that China publicly downplayed the virus, but increased imports and decreased exports of medical supplies.
The document accuses China of covering its tracks by “denying export restrictions and obfuscating and delaying the provision of its trade data.”
It gives weight to a leaked dossier compiled by the Five Eyes intelligence alliance that describes how Beijing made whistleblowers ‘disappear’, destroyed early virus samples and erased any mention of the disease in the early stages on the Internet.
