The editor-in-chief of a Chinese state-run newspaper has launched an astonishing attack on Donald Trump, accusing the US president of 'publicly lying about China'.
Hu Xijin, the outspoken head of Communist propaganda outlet the Global Times, branded the American public as being 'easily fooled' because, as he said, Trump had managed to 'boost himself in the US and shirk his responsibility for failing to fight the epidemic'.
Hu's explosive criticism comes after Trump claimed to have seen evidence that the virus started in a virology laboratory in Wuhan and threatened new tariffs on China.
Beijing insists the WHO has found no evidence that the novel coronavirus was man-made.
Hu Xijin, 60, has been one of the frontmen of China's media propaganda campaigns to the West. The editor (pictured in 2019) sharpened his rhetoric against Trump in an op-ed today
Trump (pictured on April 30) yesterday made the explosive charge that the coronavirus - which has killed more than 233,000 worldwide and wreaked havoc on the global economy - might have been created in a Chinese lab. He also threatened to impose new tariffs on China
Hu, 60, has been one of the frontmen of China's media propaganda campaigns to the West.
His newspaper dishes out critiques towards the Trump administration nearly every day amid the global outbreak.
Hu himself is an avid user of Twitter, one of the many Western social media platforms banned in China due to their uncensored nature.
The editor sharpened his rhetoric against Trump in his latest op-ed published today.
He first hailed Beijing for making 'right decisions' in its handling of the outbreak and then expressed his 'surprise' at Washington's 'failure'.
He wrote: 'Isn't the US a democratic society? How come American lives are so much "cheaper" than Chinese lives?
'China would not accept high death tolls from the epidemic, but in the US 1,000 to 2,000 people die every day. US President Donald Trump really doesn't seem to be taking people's lives seriously – all for the sake of an election.'
The US has become the country worst-hit by the deadly disease, with over 63,000 deaths
More than one million American people have tested positive as the disease sweeps the country
Coronaviruses are so named because their structure has jagged edges which look like a royal crown – corona is crown in Latin (Pictured, an illustration of the COVID-19 virus released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
The US has become the country worst-hit by the deadly disease. More than 63,000 Americans have died, and over one million are now infected.
China has reported just 4,633 deaths and 82,874 confirmed cases. These figures, however, have sparked wide-spread doubts, with critics and politicians accusing the Communist party of fudging numbers to conceal its real losses.
Hu admitted that 'some Chinese experts made some misjudgments at the early stage of the outbreak' before quickly pointing his finger at Trump, saying that the US President 'had repeatedly downplayed the risk of the outbreak and brushed aside warnings'.
He continued: 'Then there is the fact that Trump can boost himself in the US and shirk his responsibility for failing to fight the epidemic by publicly lying about China.
'Why is the American public so easily fooled?'
Despite bragging about his great relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping during the pandemic, Donald Trump yesterday threatened more sanctions against Beijing. The two leaders are pictured shaking hands during a meeting at the G20 Summit in Osaka in 2019
Hu concluded his column by urging the Chinese public to stay alert to prevent another outbreak – but not without highlighting America's 'poor' performance.
He said: 'Although the US has done very poorly in its fight against the epidemic, [the epidemic's] endurance is unmatched.
'If the outbreak goes on like this for a few years, and the US keeps losing a lot of people, that country will probably still be able to adapt to the situation.
'But imagine if something similar happened in China; could Chinese society accept it?'
Beijing and Washington have been locking horns in a tit-for-tat diplomatic dispute over the COVID-19 pandemic.
The US accuses China of covering up the outbreak, hiding its real origin and taking advantage of the crisis to push its territorial ambitions.
China accuses the US of carrying out 'smear campaigns' and avoiding its responsibilities in containing the disease. A spokesperson has also suggested that the virus might have been brought to Wuhan by US troops.
Trump insisted that he had seen evidence that the virus originated in an institute in Wuhan. Shi Zhengli (pictured in 2017), a lead researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, said she 'guaranteed with her own life' that the outbreak was not related to her workplace
The Wuhan Institute of Virology (pictured) is affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences
Trump yesterday made the explosive charge that the coronavirus - which has killed more than 233,000 worldwide and wreaked havoc on the global economy - might have been created in a Chinese lab.
He insisted that he had seen evidence that the virus originated in an institute in Wuhan. He also warned that he could impose tariffs of $1trillion on China in retribution for the pandemic.
Trump suggested the federal government was exploring ways to punish China for triggering the outbreak by imposing tariffs, but he stopped short of saying he would refuse to pay back US debts.
CCTV released a report in 2018 showing scientists in the Wuhan Institute of Virology studying 'a novel coronavirus from bats'. Shi Zhengli, a lead researcher from the institute, said the pathogen was different from the strain of coronavirus that has triggered the pandemic
Researchers at the Wuhan lab identified and separated the strain of novel coronavirus, SADS-CoV, from Chinese rufous horseshoe bats, which are native to East and South Asia
Trump's announcement came hours after US intelligence agencies concluded that the new coronavirus was 'not man-made or genetically modified'.
The agencies said they were still examining whether the origins of the pandemic had anything to do with infected animals or an accident at the Chinese lab.
Geng Shuang, a spokesperson at the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, yesterday denied the allegation that the virus came from the Wuhan lab. He called the claim 'rumour' at the daily press briefing.
'There is not any evidence to show that the novel coronavirus was artificially modified. The claim that the virus was synthesised by the Wuhan Institute of Virology is baseless and spun out of thin air,' Geng said.
He highlighted once more that the origin of the virus was a 'scientific problem' before urging American politicians to 'stop shifting their responsibilities on China and diverting the world's attention'.
'[US politicians' should spend their time and energy on controlling their own country's epidemic,' he concluded.
Why did China build a virus lab in Wuhan?
A worker is seen inside the P4 laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan on February 23, 2017
Chinese officials decided to build the Wuhan Institute of Virology after the country was ravaged by an outbreak of SARS in 2002 and 2003.
SARS, another kind of coronavirus, killed 775 people and infected more than 8,000 globally in an epidemic that lasted about eight months.
It took the Chinese 15 years to fully complete the project, which cost a total of 300million yuan (£34million). The French helped design the building.
Its crown jewel is a four-storey lab with the highest biosafety level of P4.
It's the most advanced laboratory of its type in China.
Construction of the lab was finished in 2015 and it officially opened on January 5, 2018, after passing various safety inspections.
Describing the significance of the P4 lab, China Youth Online billed it as the 'aircraft carrier of China's virology'. The state-run newspaper said it 'is capable of researching the deadliest pathogens'.
One researcher, Zhou Peng, told state news agency Xinhua in 2018: 'We are proud to say that we are already at the forefront in the field of studying the immunity mechanism of bats, which carry viruses for a long time.
'Bats carry viruses but are not infected [by them]. [They] provide hope for mankind to study how to fight viruses.'
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