China fears 'armed confrontation' with US after increasing backlash over coronavirus outbreak, says report
With the global reaction against China becoming more intense over the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in Wuhan, which has killed more than 250,000 people globally, an internal report in the Asian power has come up with a warning. It has said that Beijing faces a growing wave of hostility in the wake of the outbreak that could see its relations with the US turning into a confrontation.
The Donald Trump administration, which signed the first phase of a trade deal with Beijing in January, has accused China of doing very little after the pandemic started and alleged the deadly virus originated from a biohazard lab in Wuhan and not a wet market. This claim has become a major reason over which the world’s two largest economies have locked horns.
According to an exclusive report by Reuters, the internal document was presented in early April by China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) to Beijing’s top leaders, including President Xi Jinping and it concluded that the anti-China sentiment prevailing across the globe now is at its peak since the 1989 massacre at Tiananmen Square. Three decades ago, the US and many western governments put sanctions on China including banning or restricting arms sales and the transfer of technology after its dubious human rights records came to the fore.
The hostility is so high that Beijing needs to prepare itself for the worst-case scenario of an armed confrontation with the US, leading the anti-China sentiment, people who are familiar with the report said on the condition of anonymity. The report was drawn up by the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), a think-tank affiliated with the MSS, Reuters added.
China’s foreign ministry spokesperson’s office, however, said that it doesn’t have relevant information when asked questions by Reuters on the report. The MSS has no public contact details and couldn’t be reached for a reaction, the Reuters report said. It added that the CICIR also did not respond.
“Reuters couldn’t determine to what extent the stark assessment described in the paper reflects positions held by China’s state leaders, and to what extent, if at all, it would influence policy. But the presentation of the report shows how seriously Beijing takes the threat of a building backlash that could threaten what China sees as its strategic investments overseas and its view of its security standing,” the revealing report said.
The relations between the US and China are already witnessing a low with frictions rising in the sectors of trade, technology, and disputes centering around Hong Kong, Taiwan, and contested territories. Trump has said time and again that he has a fair relationship with Xi but facing a steep challenge posed by the pandemic in the run-up to his re-election bid, he has gone into an all-out attack against China and his administration is thinking of taking retaliatory actions against Beijing.
The Chinese report concluded that the US sees China’s rise as a threat -- in terms of economy and national security -- and also to the western democracies. The report also said the US was trying to undercut China’s ruling Communist Party by undermining people’s confidence.
Morgan Ortagus, spokesperson, State Department, told Reuters that China had a “special responsibility” to inform their people and the world of the threat posed by COVID-19 since they learned about it before anybody else.
“Beijing’s efforts to silence scientists, journalists, and citizens and spread disinformation exacerbated the dangers of this health crisis,” she said.
China's 'Novikov Telegram'
Reuters further added that one of the sources with knowledge about the internal report said it was considered by some in China’s intelligence community as the country’s version of the “Novikov Telegram” -- a 1946 dispatch made by the then Soviet ambassador to Washington, Nikolai Novikov, that focused on the dangers of the US economic and military ambitions in the wake of the Second World War.
It was in response to US diplomat George Keenan’s “Long Telegram” sent from Moscow that said the erstwhile USSR did not see the possibility of coexisting peacefully with the West, necessitating containment as the best long-term strategy.