(LUO JIE / CHINA DAILY)

Acommentary carried by the May 3 edition of the People’s Daily slammed some US politicians for politicizing the COVID-19 pandemic, stigmatizing China, and pursuing recrimination and retribution through frivolous litigations.

Such acts posed an open challenge to international rules and laws, said the commentary under the byline of Zhong Sheng.

The pandemic outbreak is a public health emergency of international concern, also “a force majeure” in law, the article noted.

Facts have shown that China’s efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic are not the cause of the explosive virus outbreak in the United States, said the article.

Being the first country to report the pandemic does not make China the origin of the novel coronavirus, the commentary underscored, highlighting that the origin of the virus, a serious scientific matter, should only be the subject of study for scientists and medical experts.

“The conclusion should not be drawn on the basis of the lunatic imagination of some US politicians,” said the article.

Citing the views of Tom Ginsburg, a professor of international law at the University of Chicago, the article noted that talk of filing lawsuits against China is a political move by Republican leaders who face an election in November.

The commentary also raised the following questions:

The 1918 flu pandemic that started from the US resulted in a huge humanitarian disaster across the world. Has the United States been held accountable?

AIDS was first reported in the US and then swept across the world. Should the US compensate 75 million HIV carriers and 35 million AIDS-related dead victims?

The 2008 financial turmoil triggered by Wall Street turned into a global financial crisis, and when will the US repay the trillions of US dollars lost globally?

People should have the right to ask why the CT images of patients in the outbreak of Electronic-Cigarette-Associated Acute Lipoid Pneumonia in August last year in the US are so similar to those caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

What had happened in Fort Detrick in Maryland?

Patients without travel records to China died of COVID-19 in the US as early as Feb 6. What time on Earth did the US discover the novel coronavirus for the first time?

Certain US politicians should not play dumb in the face of such questions. They must give answers to these questions, the article stressed.

US’ human rights problems exposed

A commentary carried by the May 4 edition of the People’s Daily slammed some US politicians for smearing China’s fight against the COVID-19 epidemic with false accusations of so-called “human rights abuse”.

The United States’ move aims to cover up its own fault for not putting people’s lives first and the failure to contain the epidemic in the US, said the commentary under the byline of Zhong Sheng.

Sparing no effort to save lives is deeply ingrained in the Chinese psyche, which has been fully demonstrated in China’s all-out efforts to battle the novel coronavirus, it said.

However, seven US senators recently sent a letter to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, maliciously slandering China for “engaging in its most egregious human rights abuse” during the epidemic.

The groundless criticism was not echoed by others. John Ross, former director of Economic and Business Policy of London, said that China has “a real understanding of human rights” and “the key human right is to stay alive”.

The right to life is among the most basic human rights enshrined in the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” of the United Nations.

The so-called “human rights abuse” fabricated by some ill-intentioned US politicians constitutes an affront to Chinese people’s anti-virus fight, the article said.

Noting that the Chinese government places people’s lives and health as the top priority, the article gave a clear illustration of how the country went all out to save every COVID-19 patient, regardless of the cost.

It also pointed out that China has taken solid actions to assist other countries and regions in beating the coronavirus and made great contributions to international human rights endeavors.

Starting Jan 3, China began to inform the World Health Organization and countries including the US of the pneumonia outbreak of unknown cause and response measures on a regular basis. The US, however, squandered two months’ time that could have been used to prepare for the response measures, the article said.

To curb the spread of the virus, Chinese people had voluntarily stayed at home and governments at all levels in China had taken resolute and effective measures in the anti-virus fight. In contrast, after the numbers of confirmed cases and fatalities surged in the US, departments of the US government were bickering over appropriations for coronavirus containment.

No wonder American media reports called the US government’s response to the crisis “disastrous”, the article said.

A self-proclaimed “global human rights defender”, the US is, in fact, notorious in its own human rights record.

As COVID-19 continues to take a heavy toll globally, the US announced that it would halt funding to the WHO, a move denounced by medical journal The Lancet as “a crime against humanity”, the article said, adding that the US sanctions against Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and other countries have severely impeded the epidemic control efforts in these countries.

“What kind of ‘human rights’ is this?” the article asked.

Without life or health, human rights cannot be, it said, urging certain US politicians to stop chanting empty slogans and start caring for the lives of US citizens.

Bannon hampers global pandemic fight

By Chen Chen

Xinhua 

Steve Bannon has long been a proven far-right fringe extremist. Yet, the ideologue’s recent China-smearing remarks suggest that few around the world can fathom just how cold-blooded, brazen and ignorant he can be.

During an appearance on US television network CNBC’s Squawk Box on April 30, Bannon accused China of not caring about the novel coronavirus spreading across the rest of the world.

It is crystal clear that the alt-right extremist seeks to sow discord between China and the international community and sell his outdated Cold War zero-sum game theories, but he will surely fail because his words lack logic, facts, and even humanity.

Bannon is absurd in his logic. He tried to make others believe that China’s fight against the disease and that of the world can be separated entirely. The truth is that in this age of globalization, no one can pull through this unprecedented public health challenge alone, and an ultimate victory is only possible when all countries fight as one. That is how China has handled this pandemic from the very beginning.

The former White House chief strategist also built his arguments on fiction instead of facts.

Since the outbreak, China has made enormous efforts and sacrifices in a timely, responsible and transparent manner. Domestically, it boldly locked down the city of Wuhan with more than 10 million residents, and implemented rigorous social-distancing measures nationwide, many of which have been put into place by other countries.

Internationally, the Chinese government has been constantly sharing critical information with the World Health Organization and countries worldwide, and sending urgently needed medical supplies and dispatching teams of experts to those in need.

Those strong measures have effectively helped contain the spread of the virus in other parts of the nation and the wider world at the earliest time possible, and therefore bought the world time to prepare.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has praised China’s contributions to the global fight against COVID-19, saying the Chinese are making efforts for humanity. What is more, the WHO estimates that the decisive, effective and timely measures taken by the Chinese government prevented the infection of tens of thousands of people.

During the program, Bannon also attempted to use the pandemic as an excuse to hold China accountable. However, the COVID-19 outbreak is a natural disaster as is shown by a sea of evidence, and China is also a victim like everyone else. Therefore, China will never succumb to blackmail of all kinds under any circumstances.

Bannon is known for his fanatical right-wing oratory. Whenever he opens his mouth, he just talks on and on in his particular aggressive way. But when he speaks, you cannot feel a human heart beating, but a ruthless geopolitical, calculating machine humming. His latest CNBC baloney follows the same inhuman style.

At the moment when the COVID-19 infections have surpassed 3.5 million globally with the death toll topping 240,000, Bannon, instead of urging Washington to do a better job to battle the virus with the rest of the world, seeks to manipulate this global public health crisis as an opportunity to mislead the public with his divisive and hate-based nationalist agenda.

The ongoing fight against the pandemic has already been extremely difficult. The international community should guard against such ultra-extremist plots, and make sure that people like Bannon do not make it harder.