- "This proves the novel coronavirus had been spreading in the United States before January 11, and Trump and some American politicians and media are lying," People's Daily posted on Weibo.
- The articles are part of an ongoing back-and-forth between the US and China over where the coronavirus originated.
- Trump has claimed the virus came from a laboratory in Wuhan, while Chinese state media have promoted a conspiracy theory that it was brought to Wuhan by the US military.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories .
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China's state media is using Trump's comments about the US working on a coronavirus vaccine in January to refute claims of a cover-up
Chinese state media are using President Donald Trump's comments about American scientists working on a coronavirus vaccine since January 11 as proof it was spreading in the US earlier than officially stated.
President Donald Trump in the White House on April 24.
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China's state media has been making the most of President Donald Trump comment that US scientists have been looking for a coronavirus vaccine since the beginning of the year, saying it's proof the US has been lying about the origin and spread of the virus.
At a May 15 press briefing , Trump said scientists from the US National Institutes of Health began working on developing a coronavirus vaccine on January 11.
"Most people never even heard what was going on January 11," he said. "And we were out there trying to develop a vaccine, not even knowing what we were up against."
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Moderna vaccine
David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe/Getty Images
The timing was important, according to Chinese media, since it wasn't until January 12 that the World Health Organization announced China had shared a genetic sequence for the coronavirus, which would allow a vaccine to be created.
But according to the South China Morning Post , another group of researchers from Fudan University also uploaded genetic information onto an open database on January 10.
This clarification didn't stop a barrage of articles from China's government-controlled news outlets.
"This proves the novel coronavirus had been spreading in the United States before January 11, and Trump and some American politicians and media are lying," the People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, posted on its Weibo account on May 16.
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On the English-language version of People's Daily website, the article said Trump's comments had caused "an uproar worldwide" and signaled that "the Trump administration had been lying about China hiding information about the virus and casting doubts over the real timeline of the coronavirus epidemic in the US."
That same day, the Global Times, a newspaper affiliated with People's Daily, published an article claiming "netizens" were "demanding explanations from the US" about Trump's comments.
On May 17, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV posed questions about the debate on its Weibo page. "Trump's words immediately sparked questions from netizens at home and abroad, where did the virus come from?" a post read. "Did the United States know about the virus early?"
Xinhua, another state-run news department, progressed the narrative with an article stating the US now owed "the world" an explanation.
Chinese media have been using Trump's comments about a vaccine to deny claims of a coverup, while also promoting the idea the US cannot be trusted. The coronavirus' origins are still not known for sure.
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Researchers inside the P4 epidemiological laboratory in Wuhan, China, on February 23, 2017.
Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images
Trump and other US officials have suggested, without offering proof, that the coronavirus came from a laboratory in Wuhan. Chinese state media, meanwhile, have promoted a conspiracy theory that the virus was brought to Wuhan by the US military, according to the South China Morning Post .
Earlier in May, Business Insider reported that the US probably had the cases of the coronavirus in December 2019, but was too focused on what was going on in China to notice.
China now faces an investigation into the virus' source, although it will be far weaker than what was expected, after China outplayed critics at the World Health Assembly on Monday, according to Business Insider's Alex Ma.
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See Also:
- White House senior staff wore face masks with "Made in Taiwan" tags, signaling a diplomatic victory for the country over China
- Trump is trying to leverage control over WHO while criticizing China for doing the same
- China outplayed the world on the day it was meant to face a reckoning over its coronavirus response
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