Small Wars Journal

China Spins Tale That the U.S. Army Started the Coronavirus Epidemic

Sat, 03/14/2020 - 4:11am

China Spins Tale That the U.S. Army Started the Coronavirus Epidemic by Steven Lee Meyers – New York Times

BEIJING - China is pushing a new theory about the origins of the coronavirus: It is an American disease that might have been introduced by members of the United States Army who visited Wuhan in October.

There is not a shred of evidence to support that, but the notion received an official endorsement from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whose spokesman accused American officials of not coming clean about what they know about the disease.

The intentional spreading of an unfounded conspiracy theory — which recirculated on China’s tightly controlled internet on Friday — punctuated a downward spiral in relations between the two countries that has been fueled by the basest instincts of officials on both sides.

The insinuation came in a series of posts on Twitter by Zhao Lijian, a ministry spokesman who has made good use of the platform, which is blocked in China, to push a newly aggressive, and hawkish, diplomatic strategy. It is most likely intended to deflect attention from China’s own missteps in the early weeks of the epidemic by sowing confusion or, at least, uncertainty at home and abroad…

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