Trump launches direct attack on Xi as fight over Covid-19 gets ugly

Washington: President Donald Trump escalated his rhetoric against China, suggesting that the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, is behind a “disinformation and propaganda attack on the United States and Europe”.

“It all comes from the top,” Trump said in a series of tweets on Wednesday night. He added that China was “desperate” to have former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, win the presidential race.




While Trump has often blamed China for failing to prevent a pandemic now ravaging the global economy, he has been careful to maintain that his relationship with Xi remains strong. China’s foreign ministry has regularly fired back with similar charges, saying the Trump administration was looking to obscure the facts around the virus to deflect from its own shortcomings.

Trump and other Republicans have been ratcheting up efforts to paint China as the villain, as the US economy drifts into recession and the president's handling of the crisis jeopardizes the party's grip on the executive branch.

China has denied Trump’s claims that it was trying to damage his chances at re-election in November. The feud has revived the worst-case scenarios about US-China ties, edging them closer to confrontation than at any point since the two sides established relations four decades ago.



From supply chains and visas to cyberspace and Taiwan, the world's two largest economies are escalating disputes across several fronts that had quieted after they signed a “phase one” trade deal in January.

On Thursday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian sidestepped a question on Trump's tweets while attacking Secretary of State Michael Pompeo for his comments about Taiwan and Hong Kong.

“Who's been doing everything possible to ensure people's lives and health and to promote international anti-virus cooperation?” he said. “The answer is clear as day. The world is a fair judge.”