September 2019- May 2020

MIAMI, Florida — Joe Biden hammered President Trump for his approach to China, criticizing the former businessman for failing to understand the nuances of the Sino-U.S. relationship. 

“I’ve spent a lot of time with Xi Jinping, more time with the leader of China than any other world leader has since, before we left office. I haven’t seen him since then,” the former vice president said at a Miami fundraiser Sunday evening. 

“The way [Trump] has not only mischaracterized and mishandled that relationship — he’s not a good guy, but you’ve got to know who he is and what the problems are and what you have to deal with. He’s coming at it the whole wrong way,” he continued.

At an event in Iowa that same month, Biden argued that China wasn’t a competitor to the United States. 

“China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man,” Biden said at the time. “They’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what? They’re not competition for us.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/biden-trump-mischaracterizes-our-relationship-with-china

December 30

Dr Li warns other physicians. Dr. Li Wenliang, a 34 year-old ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital, warns other physicians about the virus on WeChat, and advises them to wear protective gear. (Dr. Li will be forced to sign a “confession” renouncing his statement, and will then die. A colleague, Dr Ai Fen, director of emergency at Wuhan Central Hospital, will later denounce authorities publicly on March 10 and disappear by March 16.)

• Shi never thought such a virus could spread in Wuhan, central China. “Shi, a virologist who is often called China’s ‘bat woman’ by her colleagues because of her virus-hunting expeditions in bat caves over the past 16 years, walked out of the conference she was attending in Shanghai and hopped on the next train back to Wuhan. ‘I wondered if [the municipal health authority] got it wrong,’ she says. ‘I had never expected this kind of thing to happen in Wuhan, in central China.’”

December 31

Chinese authorities notify WHO. Chinese government officials inform the World Health Organization (WHO) of the coronavirus, and say that the disease is associated with the Wuhan Hunan Wholesale Seafood Market. The warning discounts human-to-human transmission. [Note: This December 31 warning will become the basis for China’s subsequent insistence that it was “transparent” from the beginning.]

January 3

Dr Li is forced to sign a confession that he made false statements. Dr. Li Wenliang, who had warned fellow physicians at the Wuhan Central Hospital about the virus, is brought before the Public Security Bureau and forced to sign a letter that accused him of “making false statements” that “severely disturbed the social order.”

January 12

Health center publishing genome sequence is shut down. The Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center is suddenly shut down. No reason is offered. The coronavirus genome sequencing team has no place to work.

January 14

Hong Kong journalists arrested in Wuhan. Hong Kong reporters trying to video the situation at Wuhan Central Hospital are arrested and taken away by police.

Chinese officials are aware of the pandemic, documents show. The Associated Press will later report that on January 14, “top Chinese officials secretly determined they likely were facing a pandemic from a new coronavirus.” Beijing will keep the determination secret until January 20.

WHO repeats Chinese party line that there’s no evidence of human-to-human transmission. World Health Organization sends out message – without questioning the credibility of the source, that “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China.”

• WHO ignores Taiwan’s December 31 warning.

January 15

Virus spreads to US by carrier from Wuhan. Chinese government’s failure to respond promptly permits Wuhan virus carriers to travel worldwide. First virus carrier arrives in United States from Wuhan and undergoes treatment in Washington state, which becomes site of the greatest concentration of Wuhan Virus deaths in the US.

Stage 2: From hiding leader to heroic leader

The “repression and coverup” theme of Stage 1 continues throughout China’s official virus propaganda effort. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership now shows that the health crisis threatens Party legitimacy and control. Xi Jinping emerges in a planned, dramatic fashion to hand down the Party line.

January 23

World Health Organization holds off declaring public emergency. “On [January 23], after delaying for an extra day of deliberation, the World Health Organization decided not to declare the outbreak of pneumonia caused by a new coronavirus to be a PHEIC – a public health emergency of international concern,” the Washington Post says in a guest analysis.  Key points:

• Surprising decision. “The WHO’s decision has surprised many global health experts, particularly after the urgency of and severity of China’s internal response.” [This leads to questions about whether WHO was awaiting instructions from Beijing, given Xi’s new line.]
• ‘Role of politics’ in WHO process. “The WHO announcement raises critical questions about how the organization makes its decisions – and, in particular, the role of politics in that process.”
• ‘Unavoidably political.’ “In theory, the WHO is supposed to be a nonpolitical body. . . . Politics is always involved. The decision to declare a PHIEC is unavoidably political, even if framed otherwise.”
• ‘WHO is a political organization.’ “Like it or not, the WHO is a political organization as well as a scientific one.”

In Xi Jinping’s first public dramatic action, authorities implement Wuhan quarantine. Xi orders a quarantine of Wuhan, a city of 11 million, and 12 other cities in Hubei province, “encompassing a population bigger than that of New York, London, Paris and Moscow combined.”

January 31

• Presidential candidate Joe Biden: ‘hysterical xenophobia’ and ‘fear mongering.’ At a campaign rally, former vice president Joe Biden denounces Trump for the travel restrictions. Biden is quoted as saying at a campaign rally, “This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia, hysterical xenophobia, to uh, and fear mongering.”
• Chinese foreign ministry: US disregards WHO by restricting travel.  The Chinese foreign ministry tweets, “In disregard of WHO recommendation against travel restrictions, the US went the opposite way. Where is its empathy?”
• Speaker Pelosi rakes Trump’s travel restrictions as ‘dangerous’ and ‘bigoted.’ In a news release, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi denounces Trump’s extended travel restrictions as “outrageous, un-American,’ a threat to ‘our security, our values, and the rule of law,’ ‘callous,’ ‘cruel,’ ‘dangerous,’ ‘bigoted,’ hateful, and more. Pelosi’s key points:
  • “The Trump Administration’s expansion of its outrageous, un-American travel ban threatens our security, our values and the rule of law.””
  • “The sweeping rule, barring more than 350 million individuals from predominantly African nations from traveling to the United States, is discrimination disguised as policy.”

January-February

US sells virus protective gear to China in January & February. “US exports of surgical masks, ventilators and other personal protective gear to China skyrocketed in January and February, when the coronavirus was wreaking havoc in the country where it began and as U.S. intelligence agencies warned it would soon spread,” USA Today will report in April. Points:

• China buys up US masks & ventilators. “American companies sold more than $17.5 million worth of face masks, more than $13.6 million in surgical garments and more than $27.2 million in ventilators to China during the first two months of the year, far exceeding that of any other similar period in the past decade, according to the most recent foreign trade data available from the US Census Bureau,” the report says.

Stage 3: Repression of facts & reinforcement of Xi

February 1

Biden reiterates ‘hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering’ allegation. Presidential candidate Joseph Biden reiterates on Twitter what he said at a campaign rally the day before: “We are in the midst of a crisis with the coronavirus. We need to lead the way with science — not Donald Trump’s record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering. He is the worst possible person to lead our country through a global health emergency.”

February 5

New York Times runs op-ed saying it’s safe to travel to China. The New York Times publishes an op-ed by a travel writer who objects to the notion that it is unsafe to travel to China. The piece is headlined, “Who says it’s not safe to travel to China?” (Subsequently, the op-ed does not appear on the writer’s website that contains her list of published works.)

Chinese government urges US and others to abide by WHO policies. The US and other countries should follow WHO guidelines and not impose their own measures, China’s consul general in New York tells reporters. “‘We understand all the measures taken by the US and many other countries. But I think still we should follow the guidance from the WHO and not to issue measures stricter than that or overreact,’ Huang said, referring the World Health Organisation’s opposition to restrictions on travel and trade, despite having declared the outbreak a global emergency,” according to the South China Morning Post.

February 13

WHO leader Tedros defends his praise for Chinese regime and Xi Jinping, and questions his critics.

• “The head of the World Health Organisation defended his earlier praise of China’s response to the deadly coronavirus epidemic on Wednesday, questioning critics who disputed President Xi Jinping’s leadership,” the South China Morning Post reported.

Trump maintains solidarity voice but holds out that CCP is lying. Asked on Fox Business News if he thinks the Chinese leadership is being truthful about the outbreak, Trump replies:

• “Well, you never know. I think they want to put the best face on it. So you know, I mean, if somebody — if you were running it, you’d probably — you wouldn’t want to run out to the world and go crazy and start saying whatever it is because you don’t want to create a panic.”
• “But, no, I think they’ve handled it professionally and I think they’re extremely capable and I think President Xi is extremely capable and I hope that it’s going to be resolved.”

February 24

World Health Organization issues instructions not to say “Wuhan” or “Chinese Virus.” After praising Xi Jinping for his “transparency,” the World Health Organization (WHO) launches international propaganda directives of its own. The Geneva-based organization instructs health care professionals worldwide NOT to say “Wuhan Virus” or “Chinese Virus.”

• WHO instructs medical professionals to engage “social influencers such as religious leaders” and “respected celebrities” to amplify messages that reduce stigma, including not to say Wuhan Virus or Corona Virus.
• WHO urges medical professionals to take “a number of initiatives to address stigma and stereotyping,” saying that “It is key to link up to these activities to create a movement. . . .”

The World Health Organization’s first instruction to medical professionals about how to handle the China Virus.

Speaker Pelosi tells people, ‘Come to Chinatown.’ House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urges people into the streets of San Francisco, taking no precautions, and calling on people to “Come to Chinatown, here we are — we’re, again, careful, safe — and come join us.” KPIX-TV (CBS) in San Francisco broadcasts the video.

Stage 4: Whipping up nationalism & blaming foreigners

February 27

Propaganda line begins that the virus might not have originated in China. Zhong Nanshan, a pulmonologist allowed to speak to reporters in China, holds a news conference and alleges, “the coronavirus first appeared in China but may not have originated in China.”

• South China Morning Post reports, “a new study published by a team of Chinese scientists last week said the virus might have been imported from somewhere else.”

February 28

Global recognition of CCP propaganda campaign. Leading international news organizations are almost uniform in their assessment of the CCP’s self-serving propaganda campaign. New York Times headline: “China Spins Coronavirus Crisis, Hailing Itself as a Global Leader.”

March 10

Xi visits Wuhan. Trying to show Communist China as a safe space from the pandemic, Xi Jinping visits the city of Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, to announce that the virus is “basically curbed” across all of Hubei.

WHO officially declares a world pandemic. The World Health Organization officially declares the virus to be a global pandemic and blames countries for not having taken action already:

• WHO director Tedros: “In the past two weeks the number of cases outside China has increased thirteenfold and the number of affected countries has tripled.”
• Tedros: “In the days and weeks ahead, we expect to see the number of cases, the number of deaths and the number of affected countries to climb even higher.”

Stage 5: China blames US, and US fights back

March 11

Study shows that if CCP acted sooner, it would have contained virus by 95%. A University of Southampton (UK) study is released showing that if Chinese authorities had acted earlier, they could have prevented the pandemic. According to the report, “if interventions in the country could have been conducted one week, two weeks, or three weeks earlier, cases could have been reduced by 66 percent, 86 percent and 95 percent respectively – significantly limiting the geographical spread of the disease.”

March 14

Trump is racist for criticizing Chinese government, CCP outlet says. English-language CCP outlet says Trump’s criticism is racist, accuses the US of not being “transparent” about its response to the virus, and praises Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman for accusing the US military of originating the virus.

March 18

ABC News & other journalists object to Trump naming the virus by its origin. At a White House press conference, Cecilia Vega of ABC News hints that President Trump is racist by using the term “China Virus.” She asks Trump why he uses the term.

• “Because it comes from China,” Trump replies. “It’s not racist at all. No, not at all. It comes from China, that’s why. It comes from China. I want to be accurate.”

March 18

Cycle of internal censorship. The Chinese government’s cycle of internal censorship is described by what Time calls “comment appended to the profile of a whistleblower doctor” that “quickly went viral” in China. The comment said,

• “The doctor risks her job to take interview, the reporter risks being charged with fabricating rumors to write the article, the media risks being shut down to publish the article, and people on WeChat risk having their accounts blocked to share the article. Today we need this ridiculous level of tacit cooperation just for a word of truth.”
• The Time reporter adds, “Of course, truth in China is whatever the Party deems it to be.”

Stage 6: Heroic victim vs Racist aggressor

March 19

People’s Daily responds harshly to US expulsion of Chinese ‘journalists.’ The CCP’s most authoritative daily attacks the White House and State Department, but not Trump or Pompeo as individuals.  With a byline under a pen name of a fictitious foreign policy writer, the People’s Daily accuses “these Americans” of “acting innocent and posing as ‘victims,’” and calling the expulsion of Chinese journalists as “totally groundless” and “nothing but political oppression.”

Chinese propaganda blames US for the world’s financial losses. Official CCP-controlled propaganda outlets blame the United States for the world’s financial losses. Global Times says that US economic recovery “will come at the expense of China and even the broader global community because of the US’ financial hegemony.”

Stage 7: CCP faces unprecedented challenge from US

March 20

White House mounts an unprecedented global challenge to CCP disinformation & propaganda. For the first time in history, the White House ramps up an integrated, global counterattack against CCP propaganda. The National Security Council is reported to have drawn up a policy document, “NSC Top Lines: [People’s Republic of China] Propaganda and Disinformation on the Wuhan Virus Pandemic,” that the State Department cables to American embassies worldwide. The cable is apparently leaked from a State Department source. Quotations from the leaked cable:

• CCP officials are responsible. “Chinese Communist Party officials in Wuhan and Beijing had a special responsibility to inform the Chinese people and the world of the threat, since they were the first to learn of it.”
• CCP officials covered up the virus and repressed those who raised alarm. “Instead, the… government hid news of the virus from its own people for weeks, while suppressing information and punishing doctors and journalists who raised the alarm. The Party cared more about its reputation than its own people’s suffering.”

Chinese ambassador jumps into US electoral politics. An outspoken Chinese ambassador jumps into the American electoral political debate, showing how Beijing’s themes have merged with those of President Trump’s top political opponents. “Chinese ambassador joins Hillary Clinton in accusing Trump of using ‘racist rhetoric’ to distract from coronavirus response,” Newsweek reports. Highlights:

• Chinese ambassador agrees with Hillary Clinton. Former secretary of state Hillary “Clinton accused Trump [on March 18] of ignoring several international health warnings and helping to allow the spread of the COVID-19 illness into the US, Clinton argued, and [China’s ambassador to South Africa] Lin [Songtian] appeared to agree, that the US president is attempting to distract Americans from his administration’s poor response by using divisive labels and honing in on a debate over whether ‘China virus” is a racist description‘,” according to Newsweek.

March 22

CCP organs urges people to echo Paul Krugman’s ‘Trump pandemic’ in New York Times. Becoming more militant in tone, CCP organs are not accusing President Trump personally of being responsible for the virus. Global Times urges CCP followers to use the term “Trump Pandemic,” which it credits to Paul Krugman’s column in the March 19 New York Times. The CCP also credits:

• Comedian Rosie O’Donnell, with 11 million twitter followers, who “has used the term and others, including ‘Trump Plague,”
• “Joe Lockhart a former White House press secretary under Bill Clinton, who said on Twitter Saturday: ‘Trump Pandemic – as long as we’re renaming things.’”
• “Many on Twitter have also been using other hashtags such as ‘Trump Virus’ and ‘Trump Lies and People Die’ in tweets criticizing the US President’s bungled anti-epidemic efforts.”

March 24

Gallup poll shows 60 percent of Americans support how Trump is handling crisis. A Gallup poll shows that 60 percent of Americans support how President Trump is handling the virus pandemic. This is much higher than his overall approval rating of 49 percent, which is reported to be at the high point of his presidency. “Two aspects of Trump’s latest approval rating suggest a presidential approval rally effect,” Gallup reports. “His rating shows a fairly sudden increase, and that increase is seen among both independents and Democrats — both highly unusual for Trump in particular.”

March 25

CNN’s Chris Cuomo attacks Trump, says virus ‘could have come from anywhere.’ CNN host Chris Cuomo excoriates President Trump for saying “China Virus” and repeats the line that the virus might not have originated in China. He says on his evening show, “it could have come from anywhere.”

World Health Organization chief now praises Trump. After seeing reporters question the President of the United States about Chinese influence, WHO Director General Tedros praises Donald Trump during a Geneva news briefing. Tedros lauds Trump for “taking responsibility” by leading the US response to the pandemic through a “whole of government” approach. 

March 29

New York Times shows how CCP system is to blame. China’s “fail safe” system that was supposedly developed after the SARS outbreak of 2002 was a total fail when the Wuhan Virus broke in 2019. The New York Times does a fine review, but uses “Beijing” as a metaphor for “Xi Jinping” and his centralized “Chinese Communist Party leadership.” The following points in quotation marks are from NYT writer Steven Lee Myers:

Taiwan takes WHO to task; WHO responds. After a top World Health Organization official pretended not to understand a reporter’s questions about Taiwan and then broke communication, Taiwan complained to the UN organization, causing WHO to respond.

April 7

Trump hits at actions against ‘China-centric’ WHO. President Trump hints that the US will take action against the United Nations’ “China-centric” World Health Organization (WHO). “The W.H.O. really blew it,” Trump tweeted. “For some reason, funded largely by the United States yet very China centric. We will be giving that a good look. Fortunately I rejected their advice on keeping our borders open to China early on. Why did they give us such a faulty recommendation?”

Trump grinds down on WHO. The president clamps down on WHO, saying it failed every step of the way since the Wuhan Virus outbreak, and even accusing WHO of knowing about the threat all along. 

April 10

China is copying Russian tactics to push disinformation on social media. “China pushes viral messages to shape coronavirus narrative” worldwide, the Wall Street Journal reports. “Beijing’s recent surge in Facebook and Twitter posts echo tactics used by Russia, researchers say,” the Journal says in a sub headline. “China has been buying up ads on U.S. social-media sites and adopting online tactics reminiscent of Russian disinformation campaigns in an apparent attempt to shape the story internationally about the coronavirus response, according to researchers analyzing the activity,” according to the report. Highlights:

• Much of the Chinese government’s international social media activity is aimed at American citizens and carries personal attacks on President Donald Trump during the campaign.
• “The efforts include ad purchases on Facebook Inc. promoting the English-language arms of Chinese state-media outlets, as well as posts there and on Twitter Inc.’s platform that in some cases disparage U.S. efforts to fight the global pandemic, the researchers say.”

April 21

Sweden is first European country to shut down Confucius Institutes. Citing security concerns, Sweden becomes the first European country to close down all Chinese government-funded Confucius Institutes.

April 22

Chinese ‘agents’ spread fake lockdown messages to sow panic in US. “American officials were alarmed by fake text messages and social media posts that said President Trump was locking down the country,” the New York Times reports. Highlights:

• Similar to earlier Russian ops. “Experts see a convergence with Russian tactics.”
• Text message campaign began in mid-March. “The alarming messages came fast and furious in mid-March, popping up on the cellphone screens and social media feeds of millions of Americans grappling with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.”

Chinese state TV uses comedian Trevor Noah to promote ‘America virus’ on TikTok. Comedian Trevor Noah stars in a 30-second China Global Television Network video saying that the virus should be called the America Virus. In the American-style video, subtitled in Chinese and distributed virally on TikTok.

May 2

Loss of US intelligence networks in China has harmed understanding of regime. The US intelligence community is having a hard time establishing how the pandemic originated, thanks in large part to its severe loss of human agent networks inside China, Fox News reports. Highlights:

• Catastrophic US intelligence networks lost to China, 2010-2013. “Reports emerged in 2017 that China had dealt a huge blow to the CIA’s infrastructure within its borders. From 2010 through to around 2013, according to The New York Times, more than a dozen carefully curated assets in China were jailed or killed — with one even brazenly shot outside a government building as a perceived warning to others.”

May 3

Pompeo: Chinese regime purposely withheld information, leading to pandemic. The virus escaped from a Chinese government laboratory in Wuhan, and the Chinese Communist Party is to blame for covering it up and unleashing the global pandemic, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo states. Here are the highlights of his interview with ABC’s Martha Raddatz:

• Pompeo: ‘This is classic communist disinformation effort.’ “We can confirm that the Chinese Communist Party did all that it could to make sure that the world didn’t learn in a timely fashion about what was taking place. There’s lots of evidence of that. Some of it you can see in public, right? We’ve seen announcements. We’ve seen the fact that they kicked journalists out. We saw the fact that those who were trying to report on this – medical professionals inside of China – were silenced. They shut down reporting. All the kind of things that authoritarian regimes do. It’s the way the Communist Party has operated. This is classic communist disinformation effort.”

May 4th

US’s top spy agency confirmed on the record for the first time yesterday that the US intelligence committee is investigating whether COVID-19 was the result of an accident at a Wuhan laboratory.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence acting director Richard Grenell said the virus was not created in a laboratory.

May 5

Communist Party appears to set up narrative for scientific ‘backlash’ against US. The CCP’s narrative continues to build in a way that intervenes in the 2020 American presidential election. In an editorial titled “US messes up manipulation of virus origin,” Global Times again attacks the Trump Administration, and especially Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, for cynically holding China accountable out of pure partisan political calculation.

Bringing Taiwan into WHO is a desperate diversionary move, CCP outlet says. “Trying desperately to distract public attention from its botched coronavirus response, Washington is excessively provoking China on the Taiwan question by helping the island’s separatist authority to attend the World Health Assembly (WHA). But analysts said the attempt could backfire and Washington’s tricks to pick a diplomatic fight could irresponsibly paralyze WHO in the pandemic,” the Global Times says.

May 8

Der Spiegel: Xi Jinping asked WHO director to suppress information. Chinese Communist Party chief Xi Jinping pressured WHO Director General Tedros in January to cover up the seriousness of the virus outbreak, Der Spiegel reports. Germany’s BND intelligence service said that Beijing “urged” the WHO leadership to “delay a global warning” about the emerging epidemic on January 21. The report said that the BND indicated that Xi and Tedros spoke personally on the phone on that date. Highlights:

• Xi asked Tedros to “hold back information about a human-to-human transmission and to delay a pandemic warning.”
• BND estimated that the Chinese government’s coverup cost the world four to six weeks’ worth of time in preparing to fight the pandemic.

FBI arrests University of Arkansas professor as part of Chinese ring. The FBI arrests University of Arkansas Professor Simon Ang, who received $5 million in grants from NASA and other federal agencies, for failing to report secret income he received from China. Ang, who is director of the High Density Electronics Center at the University of Arkansas department of electrical engineering, appears to be part of a Chinese technology theft spy ring. Ang said in an email that he was a member of China’s Thousand Talent Scholars program.

May 23rd

Xi makes high-stakes power play in move to subdue Hong Kong

By David Lague 

HONG KONG (Reuters) – For Chinese leader Xi Jinping it is a high-stakes power play. His move to impose tough national security laws on Hong Kong risks reigniting pro-democracy protests that plunged the city into chaos last year, increasing tensions in an already fraught relationship with the United States and undermining Hong Kong’s status as a global financial hub.

Florida’s scientist was fired for refusing to ‘manipulate’ COVID-19 data

Alessandro Marazzi Sassoon, Florida Today

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – The scientist who created Florida’s COVID-19 data portal wasn’t just removed from her position on May 5, she was fired on Monday by the Department of Health, she said, for refusing to manipulate data.