Adam Kredo of the Washington Free Beacon highlights the Trump administration’s response to Chinese claims about the coronavirus pandemic.
The Trump administration is aggressively working to counter China’s claims that it has overtaken the United States as a global health aid leader, with a senior administration official telling the Washington Free Beacon that Beijing’s newfound generosity is part of an effort to distract the world from its early cover-up of the coronavirus.
Western media outlets have praised China in recent weeks for pledging some $2 billion over the next two years in global health aid, fueling claims that the Communist regime is poised to overtake America as the world’s leading aid provider.
The White House is aggressively denying the claim, pointing to the fact that China still borrows more money from the United States and international donors than it has pledged to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
“China is trying to claim the mantle of leadership for the world while it’s also coming hat in hand to the U.S. taxpayer and other industrialized nations’ taxpayers,” a senior administration official told the Free Beacon, speaking only on background about the administration’s efforts to challenge China’s narrative.
The Communist Party has received an average of more than $2 billion each year from the World Bank, which is subsidized in part by the U.S. taxpayer. Additionally, officials say China’s $2 billion aid guarantee is just a small fraction of what the United States spends each year to combat health crises abroad.
China’s claims about the dramatic aid efforts it is undertaking to stop the spread of the coronavirus have won it plaudits from Western analysts and some in the media who have amplified Beijing’s rhetoric in a bid to portray the Trump administration as pulling back from the international stage.
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