Growing Demands for China to Be Held Responsible for Coronavirus

Donald Trump has claimed China could have stopped the coronavirus before it swept around the globe causing a worldwide shutdown. “We are not happy with China,” he said. “We believe it could have been stopped at the source.

“It could have been stopped quickly and it wouldn’t have spread all over the world.”

The US president now says his administration was conducting “serious investigations” into what happened. When the outbreak first occurred in Wuhan at the end of last year.

Late December last year, the majority of people around the globe did not know that there was a pandemic in Wuhan, China. In January 2020, people did not think that the pandemic would spread. Then, WHO announced the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. Now, the virus infected over 2.7 million people with nearly over 200,000 deaths.

The Worlds economy has fallen into recessions at a level not seen since the Financial Crisis in 2008. The IMF expects that the global economy could likely fall to the level of the Great Depression in 1929.

Germany lost billions from Coronavirus

Responding to a question about reports in Germany that a lawsuit worth billions could be lodged against China, Trump said: “We have ways of doing things a lot easier than that.

“Germany’s looking at things, and we’re looking at things, and we’re talking about a lot more money than Germany’s talking about. “We haven’t determined the final amount yet. It’s very substantial.

“If you look at the world, I mean, this is worldwide damage. This is damage to the U.S., but this is damage to the world.” “Nobody except one country can be held accountable for what happened,” Trump said on Monday.

“Nobody’s blaming anybody here. We’re looking at a group of people that should’ve stopped it at the source.”

He added that the US will always remember those who were “sacrificed for a reason of incompetence or something else other than incompetence”.

He said China “could’ve protected the whole world – not just us – the whole world”.

The president has been continually critical of China as the battle against covid-19 has dragged on. He has also emphasized his order to close the US borders to China in an attempt to halt the outbreak.

Some health experts have said the move afforded the White House time to prepare for the fight ahead. But the liberal media has accused the Trump administration of wasting the opportunity.

It was not just the Americans that have criticized the Chinese government on how they handled the visus. Henry Jackson Society, a British think tank, said that the negligence of the Chinese government has cost the G7 at least $4 trillion.  Germany had tallied up a total of $160 billion in losses in an article “What China already owes us.”

China threatening Australia with Boycotts

Meanwhile, China is warning Australia that it could face economic consequences if it doesn’t back off from an investigation into Beijing’s handling of the coronavirus.

Chinese Ambassador to Australia Cheng Jingye said a probe could encourage Chinese citizens to boycott Australian products. Furthermore for Chinese tourists to avoid travel to the country.

“Maybe the ordinary people will say ‘Why should we drink Australian wine? Eat Australian beef?” Cheng said in the interview published on The Australian Financial Review.

China is the largest market for Australian wine and beef, according to the South China Morning Post.

Australian officials last week called for members of the World Health Organization to support a review into the origins of the virus. The call mirrors similar criticisms of Beijing from the United States.

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said Cheng’s threats will not deter a push for transparency, calling the remarks “economic coercion.”

“Australia has made a principled call for an independent review of the COVID-19 outbreak, an unprecedented global crisis with severe health, economic and social impacts,” she said, according to Sky News. “We reject any suggestion that economic coercion is an appropriate response to a call for such an assessment, when what we need is global cooperation.”

Source: Sky News, The Sun, SCMP