Attempts to blame the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic on China are absolutely unacceptable, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry. As the head of the department, Sergey Lavrov, speaking on April 14 at a videoconference in front of journalists, this kind of reasoning is now heard from Western colleagues.
“When we hear the argument that China will have to pay everyone that this infection appears and supposedly someone out of time informed someone there, it goes beyond all limits and all decency,” Lavrov emphasized, adding that the Chinese the party is now trying to help other countries fight the coronavirus.
At the same time, the US leadership is convinced of the need for an investigation that will identify the culprits of the pandemic. This was stated in an interview with the German edition of Bild by the head of the State Department, Mike Pompeo. The minister added that Beijing allegedly did not provide the virus data on time.
- US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
- Reuters
- © Leah Millis
“We are sorry that this virus, this epidemic that began in the Chinese city of Wuhan, was not detected quickly enough. It’s very regrettable that the authorities and the Chinese Communist Party didn’t share these data on time, ”said Pompeo.
Answering the question whether China should be punished for the damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the head of the US diplomatic department said that the perpetrators would be held accountable “in due time”.
“I'm sure it will happen. But at the moment, it is vitally necessary to concentrate on the current task in order to purposefully restart the American and then the global economies. The time to look for the guilty is yet to come, ”added Pompeo.
This is not the first time Washington has accused Beijing of hiding information about the spread of coronavirus.
Earlier, Mike Pompeo stated that the Chinese leadership allegedly allowed hundreds of thousands of infected people to leave the outbreak, Wuhan. The head of the State Department spoke about this in March, speaking on the Fox News television channel. According to Pompeo, the PRC authorities lost time trying to block the dissemination of information about the coronavirus.
Misinformation virus
In addition, the US authorities accuse China, as well as Russia, of trying to extract some benefit from the situation with the coronavirus by spreading “misinformation”. This is stated in the message of the Pentagon, published on April 13. According to representatives of the US defense department, Russia, China and other countries are allegedly trying to use a pandemic to achieve their goals.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia Laura Cooper announced Moscow’s attempts to misinform Western society. As an example of such "misinformation," Cooper cited the prevailing opinion of RT and Sputnik that handwashing is not effective for the prevention of coronavirus.
- Pentagon
- AFP
- © Saul Loeb
The Pentagon was accused of a March issue of RT America’s Politicking program, in which Dr. Bob Arnot, a former chief medical correspondent for NBC and CBS News, said the focus on handwashing now contributes to an unsupported replication. myths.
“You can wash your hands at least all day, but if someone near you coughs, you will still get infected (coronavirus. - RT ),” he said.
The medic noted that self-isolation is the best strategy to avoid infection, while the ability of COVID-19 to spread through contact with surfaces has not yet been proven.
The Russian embassy in the United States has already commented on the allegations against the Russian media. The embassy called on the Pentagon "to direct all efforts to the fight against coronavirus infection" and wished all the sick US military to recover.
“It is absurd to blame Sputnik and RT for something. American troops do not watch or read them for sure. If they don’t wash their hands, then this is definitely not the fault of the Russian media, ”the Russian diplomatic mission emphasized, adding that journalists simply do their job by informing the audience.
At the same time, attacks on the media can be considered as a factor affecting the safety of the Russian press in America.
“Human rights organizations should pay attention to this,” the report said.
Selective attention
At the same time, the Pentagon prefers not to pay attention to the fact that various expert versions about the properties of coronavirus and the most effective methods of prevention today sound far not only on RT. For example, German virologist Hendrick Streck previously stated that coronavirus does not survive well on surfaces, even when it comes to personal things of an infected person. The researcher talked about this in a program on ZDF. Also, the opinion that handwashing is not a panacea for infection was previously expressed by German professor Klaus-Dieter Zastrow in an interview with Bild.
As political analyst Alexander Asafov said in a conversation with RT, the Pentagon is unlikely to carefully analyze the contents of the RT program, since today the US authorities reflexively refute any reports of the Russian media, even when it comes to certain facts.
- RT
“This approach leads to absurdity, but this is exactly the way of work that is used in the USA. This is a traditional approach to protecting "national interests", promoting American positions. Therefore, even if human rights activists respond to the call of the Russian embassy, this is unlikely to affect the tactics of the US authorities. In general, arguing with Washington is pointless, since its goal is not to clarify the truth, but to win geopolitical competition, ”Asafov said.
Not only the Pentagon, but also some American media outlets prefer to concentrate on the imaginary threat of Russian-Chinese "misinformation."
So, on April 13, the American newspaper The New York Times published a material entitled “Putin’s long-standing war with American science,” which describes the “long-term disinformation campaign in the field of healthcare encouraged by Russian President Vladimir Putin.” It is argued that such a strategy “leads to widespread disorientation of the population, harms reputable organizations and contributes to the spread of deadly diseases” in the United States.
The author of the article accuses the Russian authorities of disseminating false information through social networks and the media. The material painstakingly collected tweets and reactions of little-known Internet users, not only on the topic of coronavirus, but also on a number of outbreaks of various diseases that have occurred in the past. It is also said that Russian President Vladimir Putin, actively supporting the idea of vaccination for Russians, at the same time, allegedly seeks to sow skepticism about vaccination among Americans. At the same time, the author of the publication preferred not to remind readers of how Donald Trump, even before his presidency, himself made a public criticism of vaccinations.
In addition, the conductors of Russian interests in social networks and the media allegedly deliberately inspire distrust in the actions of American government institutions and departments among the American audience, they are confident in The New York Times.
The newspaper assigns RT a special role in this “disinformation campaign”.
“The Kremlin’s outright misinformation spans a surprisingly large audience. Videos published on YouTube by the Russian international television channel RT, averaged a million views per day, which, according to a U.S. intelligence report, is "the highest among all world news agencies," according to The New York Times.
Vladimir Vasiliev, the chief researcher at the Institute of the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences, did not even rule out the possibility that in the future the topic of “Russian misinformation” on the coronavirus could transform into new charges against Donald Trump.
“It should be noted that Trump previously stated that coronavirus is not so dangerous. Therefore, it is possible that soon the key game will be waged not against the Russian media, but against Trump. For example, he is accused of being “prompted” by the idea of the relative harmlessness of the virus from Moscow, ”the expert explained in a comment to RT.
For its part, the White House is trying to concentrate primarily on confronting China, Vasiliev added.
New McCarthyism
It should be noted that the American authorities are not limited to statements. The US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs is already investigating the circumstances of the coronavirus pandemic and the role that China and WHO could play in this. This was announced on Tuesday by committee chairman Ron Johnson in an interview with Politico.
“How did it all begin? Has the virus been transmitted from animal to human? Was it developed in a Chinese laboratory? Perhaps all this was done well-intentioned - in an attempt to develop various ways and methods of treating coronavirus, ”the senator said, noting that the investigation should also clarify the role of WHO in trying to hide the true scale of the disaster.
- Beijing subway, april 2020.
- Reuters
- © Tingshu Wang
Earlier, Donald Trump said that WHO is "oriented to China" and failed to timely warn the world community about the real threat of COVID-19.
At the same time, as CNN recalls, back in January, Chinese authorities warned that a new respiratory virus could be transmitted from person to person, thus confirming concerns about the possibility of a large-scale epidemic.
“In the United States, there is a growing sense that the administration may not cope with the situation, and the degree of confidence in the president is falling. In such circumstances, the search for an external enemy becomes an imperative for the White House to say that external forces are to blame for everything - Russia, but primarily China, ”said Vladimir Vasiliev.
According to the expert, regardless of what results will be obtained as a result of the investigation planned in the USA, Beijing will remain the main “culprit” of the pandemic for American politicians.
“In general, a full-scale Cold War is being prepared. Today, Sino-US relations are built on a long-term prospect of deterioration, like the Cold War between the US and the USSR, ”the expert said.
A similar point of view in the commentary by RT was expressed by Professor HSE Dmitry Evstafiev. In his opinion, the United States “is pathologically unable to admit its own mistakes,” and now they are looking for some external forces that can be blamed for the catastrophic situation that has developed in a number of states.
“Because in the US identity, the United States is sinless and makes no mistakes. And in general, America is such a perfect "shining city on a hill." Therefore, no one will reflect on their mistakes; instead, the United States is developing a domestic political struggle over which country the new McCarthyism will be directed against, ”the expert summed up.