Covid-19, at the heart of the information war between Washington and Beijing

Audio 03:57

By: Sophie Malibeaux

The prospect of deconfinement of populations and economic recovery is reviving the information war between the United States and China. On the one hand, a president determined to be re-elected, on the other an autocrat eager to reaffirm his national and international hold. In this context, the Covid-19 is more than ever used for propaganda purposes.

Publicity

Long gone are the days when we wondered about Xi Jinping's ability to get through the crisis, while maintaining his autocratic power over China and his international ambitions. The fact is that China, the first affected, is also the first to leave, which gives it a head start over the main rival power that is the United States. Hence the exasperation of Donald Trump, embarked long before the emergence of the virus in a real commercial showdown with Beijing.

These elements of context perhaps explain the offensive nature of the declarations of the American presidency. So much so that President Trump today accuses China of being the source of the worst attack the United States has ever seen, worse than Pearl Harbor he said on Thursday, referring to the surprise attack by Japan which caused its country to go to war in 1941, worse than the attack on the twin towers of the World Trade Center which justified the American intervention in Afghanistan. This goes to show the martial tone of these declarations targeting Beijing.

American verbal escalation

Donald Trump invokes evidence to attribute the origin of the pandemic to the Wuhan high security laboratory. A thesis not corroborated by the American intelligence services and their Anglo-Saxon allies, but confirmed this week by the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who spoke of "enormous evidence" ... which he was careful not to reveal , and whose existence is in fact disputed by certain sources within the American services.

And then remember that if the US administration is busy accusing Beijing today, in fact it has been a long time since American far-right circles, online sites such as Breibart News, Infowars, or Zero hedge, have intoned this refrain , convinced that the Chernobyl effect would be produced, that is to say a shaking of the regime following this disaster. But at the end of three months, we realize that, unlike the USSR, Xi Jinping's China could, despite everything, succeed in achieving the end of the crisis.

Beijing's reply

China has a great game of screaming at lies . It really does not help to shed light on the start of the epidemic. Obviously when Mike Pompeo declares "   we have to be able to go there  ", the Chinese retort "and you let us inspect your labs?" At first, China therefore forcefully returned the ball, accusing the United States of having brought the virus to Wuhan during the military games in October.

Then Chinese communication calmed down a bit, it must be said that the Americans are not alone in blaming the Chinese for their lack of transparency. Beijing is also slow to respond to inquiries from the World Health Organization . The Chinese position is all the more difficult to hold since we know very well that the information on the first clusters of pneumonia of suspicious origin in the Hubei region did not come from Beijing but from WHO services. . The WHO epidemic intelligence system got hold of this information on December 31st. At the same time as Taiwan. Where did they get their information from? The day before, Chinese doctors were raising the alarm, risking their lives and their freedom. But Beijing then had nothing to declare, until the WHO called on these first cases of infection.

So when Chinese officials criticize the American president for thinking only about his re-election, this is undoubtedly not false, but it is a bit short.

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