As the Chinese ambassador calls for cooperation, the U.S. state department is responding with its first requests.
On April 7, the U.S. State Department told Beijing to put its words into action and requested they do three things.
- Share virus data
- Let international teams investigate how the outbreak began in China
- Allow Chinese citizens freedom of speech
The U.S. spokesperson added, “true cooperation requires transparency and real actions, not just rhetoric.”
A netizen from Hongkong responded saying: “I don’t think (the) CCP (Chinese Communist Party) will tell the truth willingly because they have been spreading hate and lies for the past 70 years.”
Another wrote: “None of us Chinese will believe the data published by the CCP.”
Cooperation
President Donald Trump picked reporter Youyou Wang to ask a question at the White House briefing on Monday.
Wang first noted how the CCP had provided medical supplies to the United States.
He said that there were “multiple flights coming from China full of medical supplies” last week, where companies such as Huawei and Alibaba have been donating some “1.5 million N95 masks … medical gloves,” and “much more medical supplies” to the United States.
“Sounds like a statement more than a question,” Trump interjected.
Wang continued, saying that overnight, the Chinese ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times “calling for cooperation with the United States.” In the opinion article, Cui said the CCP had provided medical aid to the United States and other countries during the CCP virus pandemic.
“So are you personally working directly with China on medical supplies and also fighting with the virus?” the reporter asked Trump. “Are you cooperating with China?” she later repeated.
The president did not address the situation with the CCP virus directly but responded that the United States and China have just kickstarted a “phase one” trade deal that the two countries reached in January.
Epoch Times reporter Mimi Nguyen-Ly contributed to this report
