US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday warned China ‘not to spread disinformation’ on the novel coronavirus after an official in Beijing promoted a conspiracy theory on US involvement.
Pompeo raised “strong objections” to Chinese efforts “to shift blame for COVID-19 to the United States” in a phone call with Yang Jiechi, a top foreign policy official in Beijing, according to the State Department.
The call comes after the State Department on Friday summoned the Chinese ambassador, Cui Tiankai, to denounce the promotion of the conspiracy theory — which has gained wide attention on social media.
Last week, the United States on Friday summoned China’s ambassador after a senior official in Beijing tweeted the “ridiculous” suggestion that the US military started the COVID-19 pandemic.
Taking to Twitter, Zhao said that both Mandarin and English that gained wide traction on Chinese social media, a day earlier suggested that “patient zero” in the global pandemic may have come from the United States — not the Chinese metropolis of Wuhan, where cases were first reported in late 2019.
“It might be the US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! The US owes us an explanation,” Zhao further posted.
Pompeo himself has sought to link China to the global pandemic, repeatedly referring to SARS-CoV-2 as the “Wuhan virus” despite advice from health professionals that such geographic labels can be stigmatizing.
While COVID-19 — the disease caused by the virus — has largely come under control in China, it has killed more than 7,000 people around the world and severely disrupted daily life in Western countries.
The death toll due to the COVID-19 outbreak in China has increased to 3,226, authorities said on Tuesday, while the number of confirmed cases in the Asian country has risen to 80,881.
The number of infections in the US climbed to nearly 4,000 with more than 65 people dying of the disease.
Last week, Trump announced a national state of emergency, freeing up $50 billion in federal funds for the battle against the coronavirus pandemic as he vowed to “vastly” ramp up testing capacity.
The novel Coronavirus outbreak has caused alarm as it has crossed global fatalities in the 2002-03 SARS epidemic.
(With inputs from agency)