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Dems, media warned new narrative aids China’s conspiracy US military started COVID-19

March 13, 2020 | | Print Article

Warnings arose amid the coronavirus crisis that the liberal media is aiding China in its push of a conspiracy theory blaming the U.S. for the outbreak of the disease.

As the left’s talking heads suddenly cry “racism” whenever COVID-19 is linked to Wuhan where it was first detected, the Chinese government appears to be spinning the narrative that the U.S. military brought coronavirus to the city in China’s Hubei province.

A spokesman for China’s foreign ministry promoted the conspiracy theory Thursday as the country continues to push back on criticism of its actions to mitigate the epidemic and on widespread reporting that the outbreak originated in Wuhan.

“It might be US Army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan,” Zhao Lijian, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman, said in a tweet.

“What are the names of the hospitals? It might be US Army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!” Zhao added, along with a video of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield’s congressional testimony.

Redfield noted on Wednesday that because of a lack of testing, some Americans may have actually died from coronavirus though it appeared they died from the flu. He never suggested that the virus had originated in the U.S. but his vague response to a question, which was highlighted in Zhao’s tweet to his 284,000 followers, added fuel to the conspiracy theory that has been circulating in China.

The Chinese government spokesman later tweeted a link to an article posted on a website promoting conspiracy theories which claimed coronavirus originated in the U.S. while the reality is that the virus was allowed to spread unchecked for weeks in Wuhan amid the government’s attempts of cover-up.

Another foreign ministry spokesman in Beijing was asked about Zhao’s tweets and whether they represented the official view by the Chinese government.

“I think you may want to ask certain senior U.S. officials — did they speak on behalf of the U.S. government when they attacked and smeared China recently?” Geng Shuang said Friday, according to Bloomberg, adding: “What I said represents the Chinese government’s attitude.”

Meanwhile, the Chinese government’s pushback of references to the illness as the “Chinese virus” or the “Wuhan virus” has been abetted by the liberal media in the U.S. which referred to COVID-19 as the “Wuhan virus,” the “Wuhan coronavirus,” or the “Chinese coronavirus” for weeks before deciding the descriptions are racist dog whistles being used by Republicans.

New York Democratic Rep. Grace Meng, the vice chairwoman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. said the terms reinforce the “disparaging and negative stereotypes of Asian Americans.”

CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta was among many of the liberal media who blasted President Trump’s Oval Office address on the coronavirus outbreak this week because of his use of the term “foreign virus.”

“Now, why the president would go as far to describe it as a foreign virus, that is something we’ll also be asking questions about,” he said, adding that Trump is “going to come across to a lot of Americans as smacking of xenophobia.”

CNN anchor Chris Cuomo accused the president and the GOP of “looking for someone to blame.”

The Media Research Center compiled a montage of the many CNN anchors and reporters who repeatedly referred to COVID-19 as the “Wuhan coronavirus” and “China’s coronavirus.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has been targeted by Democrats and other liberals who have slammed him for a tweet referring to COVID-19 as the “Chinese coronavirus.” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi demanded the California Republican “delete this tweet and apologize immediately” while his Democrat colleagues called his choice of terms “dangerous” and “xenophobic.”

McCarthy slammed Democrats for trying to score “political points” and noted how they and the media referred to the virus as the “Chinese coronavirus” for weeks.

“The division that Democrats are sowing is exactly what the authoritarian regime of China wants. Don’t fall for it,”McCarthy added in another tweet linking to a Washington Post article on the conspiracy theory.

The Sacramento Bee slammed the congressman in an editorial titled, “Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s coronavirus tweet echoes anti-Chinese racism. He must apologize.”

Rep. Elise Stefanik warned “US elected officials & journalists” in a tweet to not “legitimize Chinese Communist talking points.”

“In Congress, I have focused on the threat of disinformation from foreign adversaries, I reiterate the significance of the threat of propaganda from the Chinese Communist Party,” the New York Republican tweeted, along with Zhao’s tweet.

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Frieda Powers
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