Trump was praising both China and the WHO for months, up until the stock market crashed. Then he saw his chances for re-election start to dwindle and needed to pin the blame on somebody. It was only after the stock market dropped that he began to use the phrase "Chinese virus."
Here's a timeline of Trump's reverse in stance on the issue:
Jan 24th: "China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!"
Feb 10th: "Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away. I hope that's true. But we're doing great in our country. China, I spoke with President Xi, and they're working very, very hard. And I think it's going to all work out fine."
Feb 24th: "The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!"
--- stock market plummets, U.S. covid cases surge --
March 16th: "My administration is recommending that all Americans, including the young and healthy, work to engage in schooling from home when possible. Avoid gathering in groups of more than 10 people. Avoid discretionary travel. And avoid eating and drinking at bars, restaurants and public food courts. If everyone makes this change or these critical changes and sacrifices now, we will rally together as one nation and we will defeat the virus. And we're going to have a big celebration all together. With several weeks of focused action, we can turn the corner and turn it quickly."
March 17th: "This is a pandemic. ... I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic."
March 18th: (Trump begins referring to covid-19 as "the Chinese Virus.")
April 7th: "The WHO really blew it. For some reason, funded largely by the United States, yet very China-centric."
So no, I don't think Trump is right. Nor is pushing for China to pay anybody anything. They have been trying to aid other countries struggling with the virus by sending them equipment and doctors on their own, for a number of months already.
Topic: Is Trump right about blaming China for Covid19? - page 2. (Read 1089 times)
Should China pay war reparations to the world?
That seems like a very slippery slope.
i dont see it as 'silencing whistleblower'
that panicky doctor had a 50:50 chance of being right or crying wolf
I understand what you're saying, but I'd still disagree on this point.
Firstly, China crushes dissent, it's hardly a bastion of free speech.
Secondly, this is not the first time China has been threatened by a coronavirus. China has history here. The SARS outbreak - another coronavirus, very similar to CV19 - erupted in 2003 in China, and there was a huge cover-up.
Quote
The Government Crusade Against SARS
As the virus continued to spread, China’s political leadership came under growing domestic and international pressures (Pomfret, 2003d). Despite the prohibition against public discussion of the epidemic, 40.9 percent of the urban residents had already heard about the disease through unofficial means (Haiyan, 2003). As mentioned above, news of the disease reached residents in Guangzhou through mobile-phone text messages in early February, forcing the provincial government to hold a news conference admitting to the outbreak. Starting on February 11, the Western news media began to aggressively report on SARS in China and the government’s cover-up of the outbreak. On March 15, the WHO issued its first global warning about SARS. While China’s government-controlled media was prohibited from reporting on the warning, the news circulated via mobile phones, e-mail, and the Internet. On March 25, 3 days after the arrival of a team of WHO experts, the government for the first time acknowledged the spread of SARS outside of Guangdong. The State Council held its first meeting to discuss the SARS problem 2 days after the Wall Street Journal published an editorial calling for other countries to suspend all travel links with China until it implemented a transparent public health campaign. The same day, the WHO issued the first travel advisory in its 55-year history advising people not to visit Hong Kong and Guangdong, prompting Beijing to hold a news conference in which the health minister promised that China was safe and SARS was under control. Enraged by the minister’s false account, Dr. Jiang Yanyong, a retired surgeon at Beijing’s 301 military hospital, sent an e-mail to two TV stations, accusing the minister of lying. While neither station followed up on the e-mail, Time magazine picked up the story and posted it on its website on April 9, which triggered a political earthquake in Beijing.
As the virus continued to spread, China’s political leadership came under growing domestic and international pressures (Pomfret, 2003d). Despite the prohibition against public discussion of the epidemic, 40.9 percent of the urban residents had already heard about the disease through unofficial means (Haiyan, 2003). As mentioned above, news of the disease reached residents in Guangzhou through mobile-phone text messages in early February, forcing the provincial government to hold a news conference admitting to the outbreak. Starting on February 11, the Western news media began to aggressively report on SARS in China and the government’s cover-up of the outbreak. On March 15, the WHO issued its first global warning about SARS. While China’s government-controlled media was prohibited from reporting on the warning, the news circulated via mobile phones, e-mail, and the Internet. On March 25, 3 days after the arrival of a team of WHO experts, the government for the first time acknowledged the spread of SARS outside of Guangdong. The State Council held its first meeting to discuss the SARS problem 2 days after the Wall Street Journal published an editorial calling for other countries to suspend all travel links with China until it implemented a transparent public health campaign. The same day, the WHO issued the first travel advisory in its 55-year history advising people not to visit Hong Kong and Guangdong, prompting Beijing to hold a news conference in which the health minister promised that China was safe and SARS was under control. Enraged by the minister’s false account, Dr. Jiang Yanyong, a retired surgeon at Beijing’s 301 military hospital, sent an e-mail to two TV stations, accusing the minister of lying. While neither station followed up on the e-mail, Time magazine picked up the story and posted it on its website on April 9, which triggered a political earthquake in Beijing.
I would contend that after their experience with SARS, China wanted to avoid another PR disaster and tried initially to silence whistleblowers such as Li Wenliang. He did explicitly refer to SARS in his warning:
Quote
On Dec 30, 2019, Li Wenliang sent a message to a group of fellow doctors warning them about a possible outbreak of an illness that resembled severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, where he worked. Meant to be a private message, he encouraged them to protect themselves from infection. Days later, he was summoned to the Public Security Bureau in Wuhan and made to sign a statement in which he was accused of making false statements that disturbed the public order.
Quite possibly what happened was that China's security decided to silence him and others in order to avoid another PR disaster, but when it came to the attention of authority figures who had a bit of medical knowledge that's when they implemented the lockdown.
China was much much better than the West in the way they brought in the swift severe lockdown, based partly on the political system in the country, and partly on their experience of SARS. But I would argue that they were already paranoid about anyone mentioning SARS happening again, and that is why they suppressed the whistleblowers.
Either way, the overall point is still that the West is to blame for its own failings and shouldn't point the finger of blame at a country that overall (despite the initial suppression of whistleblowers) responded much better to the threat.
I would add though that China was at fault for the initial suppression of the whistleblowers.
i dont see it as 'silencing whistleblower'
put it this way.
the bitcoin price could rise 1% today
and some panicky people will shout out FOMO BUY BUY BUY its gonna double in 2 months
no one right now knows this..
yet if i told them to shut up and calm the hell down because they sound like a noob trader..
(id be right to say this at this point obviously)
YET IF the price did double. they would proclaim they are psychic prophets of profit. and declare some conspiracy that they were told to shut up
before december 31st all cases were tied strongly to the wetmarket and the wetmarket alone.
it was not spreading across the city to the best of their knowledge. it was not spreading across the country.
they even asked hospitals around china to check. its exactly how the taiwan doctor knew about it because the hospital was transparent and investigating.
that panicky doctor had a 50:50 chance of being right or crying wolf
It seems like every CV-19 thread I come across where I want to make a post, franky1 has got there ahead of me and posted pretty much exactly what I was going to say 
I would add though that China was at fault for the initial suppression of the whistleblowers. But after that they acted swiftly and responsibly and used the powers that their system of government grants them to enforce rigid lockdown. There is a lot wrong with China, the human rights situation for example, but it's undeniable that their system is better than that of the west for dealing with a pandemic. We've had to temporarily renationalise half the economy just to enable it to function...
Anyway. The rest of the world knew exactly what was coming. Everyone knows that new viruses spread exponentially, this is basic maths. Every country knew that with no intervention, just a handful of cases can become thousands in no time at all. Every country knew that if they immediately implemented say 14 day quarantine on new arrivals, they could keep the virus out. And yet they didn't act. They looked at what the immediate economic damage of quarantining incomers would be, and gambled this against the chance that the virus would remain confined to China. The gamble failed, the virus spread, and even then, with cases confirmed in the UK, the US and elsewhere, they still did nothing. They waited and waited until the situation became severe and then they finally implemented lockdowns. Much too late. Economic damage in the UK/US and elsewhere is huge, avoidable deaths are huge - and yes they were avoidable based on government action or inaction - and this damage is entirely the responsibility of these governments and their failure to govern effectively. Not China's fault that the west is run by short-sighted fools with no grasp of maths.
The west should admit to their own failings instead of trying to point the finger at someone else and say "not our fault. they started it".
I would add though that China was at fault for the initial suppression of the whistleblowers. But after that they acted swiftly and responsibly and used the powers that their system of government grants them to enforce rigid lockdown. There is a lot wrong with China, the human rights situation for example, but it's undeniable that their system is better than that of the west for dealing with a pandemic. We've had to temporarily renationalise half the economy just to enable it to function...
Anyway. The rest of the world knew exactly what was coming. Everyone knows that new viruses spread exponentially, this is basic maths. Every country knew that with no intervention, just a handful of cases can become thousands in no time at all. Every country knew that if they immediately implemented say 14 day quarantine on new arrivals, they could keep the virus out. And yet they didn't act. They looked at what the immediate economic damage of quarantining incomers would be, and gambled this against the chance that the virus would remain confined to China. The gamble failed, the virus spread, and even then, with cases confirmed in the UK, the US and elsewhere, they still did nothing. They waited and waited until the situation became severe and then they finally implemented lockdowns. Much too late. Economic damage in the UK/US and elsewhere is huge, avoidable deaths are huge - and yes they were avoidable based on government action or inaction - and this damage is entirely the responsibility of these governments and their failure to govern effectively. Not China's fault that the west is run by short-sighted fools with no grasp of maths.
The west should admit to their own failings instead of trying to point the finger at someone else and say "not our fault. they started it".
china got its first case on december 18th. thinking it was an isolated case, as no one else in hospital with symptoms.
the symptoms were not exactly like other flu's and the patient wasnt getting better. they ran more tests.
during the lead upto christmas. other patients started turning up with similar symptoms.
china were not sure if this was some isolated contagion/poison limited to just the wetmarket as they were realising there was a connection with the patients.
they sent samples off to the chinese CDC on december 27th and when getting results they passed it onto WHO on the 30th of december.
in the days of 27th-30th the wuhan hospital also asked other experts in other hospitals if they were getting any cases. at that point they were not.
one doctor from taiwan got panicked by being asked if his taiwan hospital had any cases of a new pneumonia causing flu. and he contacted WHO on the 30th and didnt like the response. so started shouting out to public that something was going on. he (taiwan doctor) started panic even though he personally had no patients with the virus and when the wuhan hospital had no proof that it was a serious infection due to limited cases
on december 31st WHO made an announcement that china was experiencing a new virus. but at this point they still did not know how infectious as there were only ~28 patients all with wuhan wetmarket ties.
but when it started to spread to secondary people that never went to the wet market in first few days of january. china made the announcement in the first week january. when they only had 44 patients.
..this alone tells me they done all reasonably possible. checking and testing and not jumping to conclusions until they had evidence. there was no month long cover up. but instead was precautionary checks to not cause false alarm. for all they knew at christmas it could have been a poison/terror attack.
..
china responded by locking down in january. and making temporary hospitals by february to cope with any large case load if they couldnt get it under control...
..
yet
america/UK both knew about it in the first week of january. but america actually arranged repatriation flights from third week of january all the way through february and march. the passengers on the flights didnt get isolated in a specially closed off hotel and monitored daily. but instead told to go home and try to stay home
america brought in 50k people in repatriation flights in january alone
america then didnt act until march
to me. it was america that didnt do anything to halt it at the border
if america wants to finger point the details of the 3 weeks from december 18th-january 7th..
america better answer thir own actions january 7th-march13th where america were too relaxed
the symptoms were not exactly like other flu's and the patient wasnt getting better. they ran more tests.
during the lead upto christmas. other patients started turning up with similar symptoms.
china were not sure if this was some isolated contagion/poison limited to just the wetmarket as they were realising there was a connection with the patients.
they sent samples off to the chinese CDC on december 27th and when getting results they passed it onto WHO on the 30th of december.
in the days of 27th-30th the wuhan hospital also asked other experts in other hospitals if they were getting any cases. at that point they were not.
one doctor from taiwan got panicked by being asked if his taiwan hospital had any cases of a new pneumonia causing flu. and he contacted WHO on the 30th and didnt like the response. so started shouting out to public that something was going on. he (taiwan doctor) started panic even though he personally had no patients with the virus and when the wuhan hospital had no proof that it was a serious infection due to limited cases
on december 31st WHO made an announcement that china was experiencing a new virus. but at this point they still did not know how infectious as there were only ~28 patients all with wuhan wetmarket ties.
but when it started to spread to secondary people that never went to the wet market in first few days of january. china made the announcement in the first week january. when they only had 44 patients.
..this alone tells me they done all reasonably possible. checking and testing and not jumping to conclusions until they had evidence. there was no month long cover up. but instead was precautionary checks to not cause false alarm. for all they knew at christmas it could have been a poison/terror attack.
..
china responded by locking down in january. and making temporary hospitals by february to cope with any large case load if they couldnt get it under control...
..
yet
america/UK both knew about it in the first week of january. but america actually arranged repatriation flights from third week of january all the way through february and march. the passengers on the flights didnt get isolated in a specially closed off hotel and monitored daily. but instead told to go home and try to stay home
america brought in 50k people in repatriation flights in january alone
america then didnt act until march
to me. it was america that didnt do anything to halt it at the border
if america wants to finger point the details of the 3 weeks from december 18th-january 7th..
america better answer thir own actions january 7th-march13th where america were too relaxed
My only hope is that this doesn't turn into some warfare and gets solved peacefully. Please, 2020, give us at least this much.. 
I think we've been too overwhelmed with so much contradictory information we can't tell whether it was the right choice for him to blame China or not. To me it looks like he intended to blame China ever since the pandemic began. I follow some websites and forums, news and conspiracy combined and I've been seeing this "China is to blame!" and "fuck China!" everywhere since about Wednesday almost as if someone is pushing this narrative - including in the conspiracy sites, which I have been following for years and used to be unbiased..
I'm not saying China isn't to blame. It's just that this is such a big mess it's probably going to take a while until the legit truth gets sorted out. There are too many theories, studies and so on that prove different perspectives, not even two of them pushing an identical idea besides the fact that most of them say the virus must be man-made or released from the lab.
On the other hand, it is now official that China has lied ever since the pandemic began.. but so did most other countries deceive their citizens when they said it's not a big deal (including mine, Romania)..
As long as the investigations are legit and not a reason to "make China pay for the damage", as long as there is no kind of warfare planned in case China 100% proves to be the one to blame, then it's fair somehow I guess. But I really wonder what "China has to pay" means, because there are lots of people infuriated about the situation with the virus already and hopefully it does not go wrong.
But is anything certain anymore?
I think we've been too overwhelmed with so much contradictory information we can't tell whether it was the right choice for him to blame China or not. To me it looks like he intended to blame China ever since the pandemic began. I follow some websites and forums, news and conspiracy combined and I've been seeing this "China is to blame!" and "fuck China!" everywhere since about Wednesday almost as if someone is pushing this narrative - including in the conspiracy sites, which I have been following for years and used to be unbiased..
I'm not saying China isn't to blame. It's just that this is such a big mess it's probably going to take a while until the legit truth gets sorted out. There are too many theories, studies and so on that prove different perspectives, not even two of them pushing an identical idea besides the fact that most of them say the virus must be man-made or released from the lab.
On the other hand, it is now official that China has lied ever since the pandemic began.. but so did most other countries deceive their citizens when they said it's not a big deal (including mine, Romania)..
As long as the investigations are legit and not a reason to "make China pay for the damage", as long as there is no kind of warfare planned in case China 100% proves to be the one to blame, then it's fair somehow I guess. But I really wonder what "China has to pay" means, because there are lots of people infuriated about the situation with the virus already and hopefully it does not go wrong.
But is anything certain anymore?
Could the Chinesse government have avoided the global pandemic? Should China pay war reparations to the world?
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