There has always been a blame-game going on between the two superpowers:
United States of America (USA) and China, about the origin and eventual spread
of Coronavirus, that killed about 2 million people worldwide and also led to
the mass lockdown witnessed this year globally.
Recently, Spokeswomen for Chinese Foreign Ministry, Hua Chunying asked Washington
to allow the investigation in its Fort Detrick Biolabby opening it. Possibly,
this was an attempt to push a conspiracy supposition against the United States.
The above statement was evidence of the fact that Hua was trying to
reinvigorate the claim she supported in May that the Maryland Facilities were
associated with the COVID-19.
Despite strong scientific facts and figures, according to which the
SARS-COV-2 surfaced naturally, the two governments have exchanged suppositions
claiming the spread of the virus from each other’s laboratories.
Reason Behind the Claim
This misinformation propaganda was in response to the claim fixated by
the US authorities targeting and planning to put up investigation officers to
re-ensure the spread of Coronavirus from Wuhan, China.
Though, the news has been confirmed that US officials are arriving and
conducting the investigation after undergoing the quarantining process of about
2 weeks.
Also, many experts believe this statement by the spokeswoman to be ‘a
counterbalancing narrative’. A professor at National Sun Yat-sen University in
Taiwan, Titus Chen is of this view.
Further, he added that when once again the global attention is towards
Wuhan, the government of China is trying to divert this attention by blaming
the US.
This misinformation campaign started when a Member of the Chinese
Foreign Ministry reciprocated after the US State Department promoted the
suggestion of conducting a probe in a virology lab in Wuhan, China.
The United States under the administration of Donald Trump has always
been known to associate the spread and origin of SARS-COV-2 by Chinese research
facilities, since early April last year. In support of this, it tries to put US
spy agencies to bring legit evidence.
Even the top-notch officials like Trump and Mike Pompeo refer the virus
as the ‘Chinese virus’, ‘Chinese plague’ and ‘Wuhan virus’.
This claim also helps in providing a clean chit to the Chinese
authorities as WHO probe has targeted Beijing’s handling of Coronavirus and new
outbreaks in Northern China. In all, it distracted and prevented Chinese people
to question the authorities.
Even according to Fang Kecheng, a communications professor at the
Chinese University of Hong Kong, the main purpose of the move is to provoke
nationalist feelings and draw commoners’ attention as the initial handling by
the Chinese authorities of the pandemic was not up to the mark.
Consequences of the Statement
Just a day after the release of the statement by Hua, a post was out
which stated that COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States in April 2020 with
New York being the epicentre and at Fort Detrick, the authorities were carrying
out experimentations with the pathogens.
The account which controlled this outflow of the post was of the
Communist Ruling Party. Owing to this post, the Fort Detrick Biolab was in the
trending list of Weibo, the Chinese social media site.
Conclusions Drawn by the US
The United States recently claimed that it got another evidence in this
apparent supposition of blaming China to be the origin of the Corona outbreak.
At the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the scholars became sick in the
later months more specifically the fall of 2019, with symptoms consistent with
SARS-COV-2 or seasonal flu. As soon as this proof was made official, it became
extremely controversial.
The reason for the same is that the evidence opposed the conventional
idea that none of the staff contracted the infectious agent or related agents.
Owing to this, Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State, urged the WHO probe team to
‘press the government of China’.
Also, China bearing a deficit of transparency about the information
concerning the origination and consequent spreading of the virus, in addition
to the excellent efforts in covering up the initial country’s response to the
outbreak, make it tough to find more facts backing this supposition.
Further, the ‘new information’ procured by the United States, has no
official reliable source. Also, even the Chinese authorities have rejected any
charges made against it.
However, since the first case of Corona in Wuhan witnessed in the later
months of 2019, China has been under constant scrutiny. However, the US under
Trump’s administration has been openly blaming Beijing authorities recently
after the mass spreading of SARS-COV-2 virus and the eventual surged casualtiesin
the US.
Written by - Khushboo Dhuliya
Edited by - Christeena George
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