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Victim, Culprit and Wolf Warriors

Where there is a ‘wolf’, there is a ‘warrior’...

—Liu Xiaoming, China’s Ambassador to the UK on Twitter¹

In September 2020, the United Nations was marking the 75th anniversary of its founding after the end of the Second World War. There would be no pomp and circumstance and little, if any, reflection or talk about reform. The persistence of the global pandemic had kept world leaders away, with each choosing to send video statements as annual addresses to the General Assembly (UNGA). From the White House, US President Donald Trump would deliver a jaundiced yet scathingly blunt account of the state of the world and the future of American policy. ‘Seventy-five years after the end of World War II and the founding of the United Nations, we are once again engaged in a great global struggle. We have waged a fierce battle against the invisible enemy—the China virus,’ began Trump.²

The speech came as the total number of COVID-19 cases across the US inched close to 7 million, while the death toll tipped 200,000. All of this, of course, was taking place in the backdrop of a bitterly contested presidential campaign. In fact, the first debate between Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden was scheduled to take place the following week. Using the platform of the UNGA, Trump defended his administration’s handling of the pandemic. He then lashed out at the Chinese leadership for lying about the early outbreak, permitting international travel—which he claimed led to the spread of the virus—and abusing its influence at the WHO.

‘We must’, he said emphatically, ‘hold accountable the nation which unleashed this plague onto the world: China.’³ The Chinese side, of course, did not take any of this well. ‘Enough is enough,’ exclaimed China’s UN envoy Zhang Jun during a Security Council meeting on global governance. He demanded that the US recognise its position and ‘behave like a major power’.⁴ The Chinese Foreign Ministry also issued a lengthy statement in response, highlighting the ‘shady political motives’ of the US president in levelling ‘unfounded accusations’ and ‘smears’.⁵

This exchange was the culmination of months of ugly back and forth between Washington and Beijing over the outbreak, which itself had come amid brewing systemic competition between the two powers.⁶ The issue of the origin of the virus, Beijing’s early failures in Wuhan and subsequent success in containing the outbreak and the US’s mishandling of the pandemic were the key nodes of this narrative war. Through much of late January and February, the Chinese approach was rather defensive. It reacted sharply to any negative media coverage, demanded solidarity and projected the lockdown measures in Wuhan and Hubei as decisions that had bought the world time to cope with an impending crisis. But by late February and early March, it became amply clear that the Party was gravitating towards an offensive approach. This messaging from Beijing was multifaceted. It broadly entailed projecting the Chinese government’s success in containing the outbreak as a model for other states, arguing that the virus’ detection in Wuhan did not imply that it originated there, actively sowing disinformation, emphasising other countries’ failures in controlling the pandemic and portraying China’s actions as reflective of those of a responsible major power. All of this, of course, fed the larger strategic objective of securing and strengthening the regime by ensuring a favourable domestic narrative.

Early Skirmishes

The first signs of tension between the US and China were evident soon after the Chinese leadership locked down Wuhan. In late January, the Trump administration restricted the entry of foreigners travelling from China to the US.⁷ American nationals, on the other hand, were urged to leave China.⁸ The US, of course, was not the only country to restrict travel from China. Several others, including India, Indonesia, Australia, Canada and France, announced different types of travel restrictions.⁹ WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was critical of such moves, saying that there was no need for measures that ‘unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade’.¹⁰ Beijing latched on to that, with the Chinese Foreign Ministry ‘deplore(ing) and oppose(ing) those countries who went against WHO’s professional recommendations’.¹¹ But the ministry’s harshest criticism was reserved for the US, which in its view had ‘inappropriately overreacted’.¹² This behaviour, the spokesperson argued, did not befit its status as a major power. Of course, the irony of this criticism is that the Chinese government would eventually impose one of the harshest travel bans in late March. Nevertheless, in early February, it was scornful of travel bans and evacuation of citizens by other countries.

What further touched a raw nerve in Beijing was US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross’s remark about the outbreak potentially helping ‘accelerate the return of jobs to North America’ as businesses would have another risk factor to take into account.¹³ To be fair, Ross did preface his comments by saying that he did not ‘want to talk about a victory lap over a very unfortunate, very malignant disease’.¹⁴ Also, the larger point about firms recognising the need to build supply chain resilience did make perfect sense. Yet, the timing could not have been worse. A Global Times editorial called Ross’s comments an example of the US being ‘immoral’.¹⁵ Commentaries in the People’s Daily were less charitable. Shen Yi, who teaches International Relations at Fudan University, clubbed Ross’s comment along with remarks by his cabinet colleague Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about the CCP being the ‘central threat of our times’¹⁶ to say that such views amid the epidemic showed the ‘evil intentions’ of some US politicians.¹⁷ Another commentary in the paper argued that such remarks by American politicians showed that the US was attacking China from ‘an ideological and political standpoint’ and ‘taking advantage of China’s difficulties when it is in a key stage of epidemic prevention and control effort’.¹⁸ Xinhua said that all this had displayed was the US side’s ‘meanness and irresponsibility’.¹⁹

Caught in this melee was the Wall Street Journal. An opinion piece published in the paper on 3 February drew an unprecedented response from the Chinese leadership. The piece by Walter Russell Mead, titled China Is the Real Sick Man of Asia, discussed the potential economic consequences of the COVID-19 outbreak in China. Beijing demanded an apology for what it said was a ‘racially discriminatory’ and ‘sensational’ headline. State media further stoked nationalistic sentiment. This, of course, ignored the substance of the piece along with the history of the phrase, which had been coined by Chinese scholar Yan Fu in 1895 to describe Qing Dynasty officials after the defeat in the war against Japan.²⁰ Eventually, on 19 February, Beijing expelled three Journal reporters, including deputy bureau chief Josh Chin—whose reportage had been critical in shedding light on the human rights abuses in Xinjiang. State media doubled down on its criticism of the Journal for refusing to apologise for the ‘racist slur’.²¹ It is noteworthy that the decision to expel these journalists came a day after the Trump administration imposed new rules treating five major Chinese state-run media entities in the US as foreign government functionaries.²² The media was clearly being caught in geopolitical crossfire. And there would be much more of this in the months that followed. For instance, in March, journalists of US citizenship working with The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post were asked to hand back their press cards within 10 days; they would no longer be allowed to work in China. These actions, Beijing said, were ‘necessary and reciprocal countermeasures ... in response to the unreasonable oppression the Chinese media organizations experience in the US’.²³

While American journalists in China were clearly dealt with the harshest of measures, media outlets around the world were also subjected to Beijing’s ire. This was particularly acute in Europe, given the rapid spread of infections across the continent. By mid-March, in fact, Europe had been identified as the new epicentre of the pandemic.²⁴ Beijing’s pushback against media coverage of its opacity and delayed action at this time was intelligently calibrated. It conflated criticism of the Chinese government with legitimate issues of racism targeting people of Chinese origin in different parts of the world.²⁵ At the same time, it emphasised the sacrifices that the Chinese government and people had made to contain the spread of the virus.

In early February, the Chinese embassy in Berlin termed Der Spiegel’s reportage ‘xenophobic’ and ‘racist’.²⁶ In order to do this, the embassy picked on the headline on the cover page, which read Coronavirus: Made in China. Beijing’s argument was that such coverage ‘causes panic, mutual blaming and even (racial) discrimination’.²⁷ In Paris, ambassador Lu Shaye said that press coverage had ‘mocked China’ and was ‘bordering on paranoia’.²⁸ Unfortunately, headlines like New Yellow Peril and Yellow Alert lent credence to such criticism.²⁹ In saying this, it is also important to note that the Chinese embassy in Paris was perhaps the most active in not just aggressively criticising the media but also pedalling conspiracies about the origins of the virus.³⁰ In Copenhagen, the Chinese embassy called for the Jyllands-Posten newspaper to apologise for a cartoon that replaced the stars on China’s national flag with images of the coronavirus.³¹ The image, it said, had crossed the ‘bottom line of civilized society’.³² China’s Ambassador to the European Union (EU) Zhang Ming, meanwhile, called on the bloc’s members to judge China’s handling of the outbreak in an ‘objective and cool-headed way’, arguing that it was ‘unfair to conclude that the Chinese government is not transparent’.³³ Beijing, he argued, had informed the WHO and international community as soon as it identified the virus.

In Australia, meanwhile, the Chinese embassy hit out against the use of the term ‘Chinese virus’ by newspapers such as the Herald Sun. The issue had already led to a petition by the Chinese Australian community, but this would become much more politicised in the weeks that followed. On the other hand, in Nepal, the Chinese embassy criticised the Kathmandu Post for publishing a syndicated column by former American diplomat Ivo Daalder. The article, titled China’s Secrecy Has Made Coronavirus Crisis Much Worse, blamed China’s authoritarian system for the spread of the outbreak. The accompanying illustration showed Mao Zedong wearing a mask. The embassy took umbrage to both the content and illustration, and threatened Anup Kaphle, the paper’s editor, with ‘further action’.³⁴

So, on the one hand, Chinese media and government criticised what they said was a rising tide of ‘sinophobia’.³⁵ On the other, they argued that such ‘a short-sighted, racist mind-set’ prevents the world from ‘recognizing the efforts and sacrifices of the Chinese government and people who have helped ensure the number of the novel coronavirus-related pneumonia cases in the rest of the world remain relatively small so far’.³⁶ This is where domestic propaganda about heroes, sacrifice, Xi’s leadership and the strength of the system meshed with the push to deflect international criticism. Xinhua argued that the Wuhan lockdown was ‘a necessary step to not only help curb the epidemic in China, but also win precious time for the international community to prevent its further spread’.³⁷ During his trip to Munich in mid-February, Foreign Minister Wang Yi was categorical that China was ‘making contribution and sacrifice for global public health’.³⁸ Chinese media covering Wang’s meeting with the WHO chief in Munich reported Tedros as saying that Beijing deserves appreciation for its efforts and sacrifices because ‘China protects not only its own people but also people from other countries in the world’.³⁹ Likewise, CGTN reported WHO representative Dr Gauden Galea calling for ‘respect’ for the ‘sacrifice of Wuhan and other cities’.⁴⁰ Global Times reported Galea’s interaction with users of Kuaishou, a leading Chinese short video platform, with the headline emphatically stating that China Sacrificed Itself to Win Time for the World to Respond to COVID19.⁴¹

In addition, online activity on global platforms such as Twitter and Facebook picked up steam around this time. Research by the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab shows the increase of new CCP-affiliated Twitter accounts from January to July 2020. Through this period, 31 new accounts were set up by Chinese embassies and consulates around the world, amplifying the Chinese government’s message.⁴² Meanwhile, an assessment by the Stanford Internet Observatory and Hoover Institution found that from mid-February to the end of March, the seven main English-language Chinese state media Facebook pages, with an average of 70.9 million followers, invested heavily in advertising to ‘proactively target users worldwide with boosted posts featuring their messages’.⁴³ These ads largely focussed on the Chinese government’s alleged transparency and how China’s actions had aided the world, while attacking the US president for his response to the pandemic.⁴⁴ Another report by ProPublica showed how Chinese government-linked accounts on Twitter, which had earlier targeted dissidents and the Hong Kong protests, were engaged in coordinated activity. This included them working in concert with official handles to spread disinformation⁴⁵ and highlighting the Chinese government’s apparent transparency and efficiency in dealing with the pandemic.⁴⁶ These handles also grew critical of the US as time went on, once again working in concert with official handles and media. For instance, a Global Times report in late February argued that the ‘US government has played a major—if not the chief—role in instigating such (anti-China) actions’ owing to its travel ban and failure to provide ‘any substantive assistance to China in its battle against the virus’.⁴⁷

Despite this acrimony, there were also signs of attempts at cooperation in dealing with the outbreak. For instance, on 5 February, the Chinese Foreign Ministry named 21 foreign governments that had provided aid and supplies. In doing so, however, it also underscored that China ‘mainly relies on its own strength to tackle the challenge’.⁴⁸ During his visit to Munich later in the month, Wang Yi acknowledged that heads of more than 160 countries and international organisations had shown support to China through telegrams or letters, and the governments and peoples of several countries had donated supplies.⁴⁹ Specifically with regard to the US, at the same press conference on 3 February where she criticised the Trump administration’s travel ban, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying also said that since 3 January, the Chinese side had notified the US side of the epidemic and China’s control measures altogether 30 times.⁵⁰ A day earlier, speaking on CBS News, Trump’s national security adviser Robert O’Brien had acknowledged that China had been ‘more transparent, certainly than in past crises’.⁵¹ He also added that the US had offered to send its medical and public health professionals to help China. On 4 February, Hua said that Beijing had ‘noted that the US repeatedly expressed readiness to offer China assistance’, adding that she hoped ‘such assistance will materialize at an early date’.⁵² A day later, she acknowledged that ‘a batch of supplies from the US’ had arrived in Wuhan.⁵³

On 7 February, Trump spoke to Xi Jinping about the outbreak and the trade deal that the two sides had inked on 15 January 2020. In a series of tweets after the conversation, Trump expressed confidence in Xi’s leadership, saying ‘he will be successful’ in combating the virus.⁵⁴ The Chinese Foreign Ministry’s readout of the call said that Xi informed Trump about the containment efforts that were underway in China, underscoring that Beijing had acted with ‘openness, transparency and a sense of responsibility’.⁵⁵ The following day, Pompeo announced that the US had ‘facilitated the transportation of nearly 17.8 tons of donated medical supplies to the Chinese people’, which was a ‘testament to the generosity of the American people’.⁵⁶ He also pledged US$ 100 million ‘in existing funds’ to assist China and other countries impacted by the virus.⁵⁷ The details of how this money would be used were rather sketchy. At the same time, the White House was also proposing cuts to the US foreign aid budget, which would result in significantly reduced support for the WHO.⁵⁸ For Beijing, all of this at best highlighted a lack of will in the US to engage in multilateral cooperation, and at worst, revealed its ‘dark mentality and dangerous practices’.⁵⁹ So, while there was clearly an incentive for and some willingness on both sides to cooperate in connection with the impending global public health crisis, it appeared that low levels of political trust, poor strategic communication and the deteriorating structural dynamics of the relationship hindered such efforts.

Take the case of the decision to allow American public health experts into China. On 29 January, the WHO had announced that the Chinese government had agreed to allow an international team of experts to enter the country ‘to better understand disease transmission and to better understand clinical severity’.⁶⁰ But in the days that followed, Beijing appeared to be dragging its feet, with US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar reiterating in early February that the Chinese leadership was prevaricating on offers of help.⁶¹ Meanwhile, on its social media accounts in China, Global Times pedalled the theory that the US wanted its officials to visit the country to collect intelligence on Chinese bioweapons.⁶² Amid the wrangling over details, from 16 to 24 February, a few American health experts did enter China and travelled to Wuhan, but only as part of a joint multinational team under the aegis of the WHO. A New York Times investigation later in the year would reveal the intense diplomatic tussle and pressure that Beijing had used to constrain the WHO’s actions.⁶³ The report claimed that according to two people who were part of the WHO mission, along with ‘diplomats and others’, the agency had ‘agreed not to examine China’s early response or begin investigating the animal source.... It could not even secure a visit to Wuhan’. The WHO team did eventually travel to Wuhan amid concerns about the credibility of its work, but ‘they stayed for about a day and visited two hospitals. They did not go to the market’. There was also intense Chinese scrutiny over each word of the final report that the team would publish towards the end of February.⁶⁴ In the end, the document praised China for having launched the most ‘ambitious, agile and aggressive disease containment effort in history’.⁶⁵ It called for countries to draw lessons from the Chinese approach, adding that in places where outbreaks had already been reported an ‘all-of-government and all-of-society approach’ was needed.⁶⁶ There were two more claims in the report. First, it suggested that the first diagnosis of a COVID-19 case in China was of a patient in Wuhan on 30 December 2019. Second, while it said that the source of the virus remained unknown, there was an assertion that COVID-19 was a zoonotic virus, and work on identifying its zoonotic origins was already underway in China.

Transitioning to Offence

Ever since late January, the debate over the virus’ origin had gradually developed into a bit of a fault line between the US and China, with conspiracy theories flying thick and fast. On social media in China, the propaganda apparatus had since January subtly stoked theories that claimed the virus had originated in the US.⁶⁷ Another possibility that was prominently covered by state media was the likelihood of the virus originating in Europe, most probably in Italy. Meanwhile, alt-right platforms and local media outlets in the US fed theories that suggested the outbreak could likely have been the product of bioweapons research being carried out at Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).⁶⁸ Such views were given greater credence by politicians such as Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton.⁶⁹ The institute is located next to the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, which Chinese authorities believed was the likely epicentre of the outbreak in the city. The architects of these conspiracy theories latched on to a 24 January Lancet study, which said that the first patient who had been diagnosed with COVID-19 in Wuhan had not visited the Huanan Seafood Market.⁷⁰ While this might have been the case, it certainly was not evidence of foul play. By mid-February, reports talked about a woman named Huang Yanling, a former graduate of the WIV, claiming to be the first COVID-19 patient.⁷¹ This was a more direct claim, which prompted the institute to issue a statement, denouncing it as ‘fake information’.⁷² In the same week, China’s Ministry of Science and Technology released new bio-safety rules for laboratories across the country, an announcement that provided fresh fodder for conspiracies.⁷³ At the same time, there emerged signs of Beijing’s coordinated pushback against these narratives.

Global Times quoted Chen Quanjiao, a research fellow from the WIV, cautioning the public of conspiracies started from overseas.⁷⁴ A few days later, another report in the Chinese press talked about the possibility of the virus originating in the US.⁷⁵ On 27 February, addressing a press conference, epidemiologist Zhong Nanshan argued that ‘the infection was first spotted in China, but the virus may not have originated in China’.⁷⁶ While he did caveat the remark by adding that ‘we cannot say that (the) virus comes from abroad’, media outlets like Global Times argued that ‘COVID-19 might have multiple birthplaces co-existing around the globe’.⁷⁷ Official Chinese government handles on Twitter and Facebook along with coordinated amplifiers boosted this message further.⁷⁸ On Chinese social media platforms, already there was bewilderment at the Trump administration’s bumbling response to the outbreak, which state media was cashing in on.⁷⁹ As March began, Beijing’s messaging would grow far more aggressive, proclaiming China’s success against the epidemic, contrasting it with the struggles of Western countries and actively spreading conspiracy theories.⁸⁰ Reports also indicated that Chinese operatives helped push messages that sowed confusion with regard to lockdowns in the US.⁸¹ Xiao Qiang, from the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Information, was spot on in describing this as a ‘counteroffensive’ by Beijing, which was coming as the domestic situation seemed to be stabilising.⁸² In contrast, the epidemic was still in its early stages in other parts of the world, especially the US. And already there was much criticism of the Trump administration’s mismanagement.⁸³

One aspect of Beijing’s pushback in this context was with regard to the name of the virus. Even after the WHO formally named the novel coronavirus as COVID-19 on 11 February, terms like ‘Wuhan virus’ and ‘China virus’ were used in the press. In fact, even Chinese media outlets had used the term ‘Wuhan virus’ without much controversy in the past. But on 4 March, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian called on everyone to say no to the ‘information virus’ and ‘political virus’, which was being spread through the use of these terms by ‘people with ulterior motives’.⁸⁴

Zhao, who had been promoted in August 2019 to the post of the Deputy Director of the ministry’s Information Department, had recently been given charge of the bully pulpit. His movement up the bureaucratic ladder was largely attributed to aggressive public diplomacy on social media during the time he served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Pakistan. In an interview with Buzzfeed, Zhao revealed that his style of diplomacy was a response to the ‘negative narratives’ about China on social media. ‘This is a time for Chinese diplomats to tell the true picture,’ he argued.⁸⁵ For many, Zhao personified the stylistic and substantive shifts that had taken place in Chinese diplomacy—from passive, staid and formulaic to proactive, confrontational and brash. This approach came to be described as Wolf Warrior diplomacy. The name, first referenced in a BBC documentary, was drawn from the title of a series of Chinese action movies, which cashed in on the tide of nationalism and pride in China’s rise by showcasing the fictional exploits of Chinese special operations forces. ‘The phrase “wolf warrior” suggests a stiff-jawed, macho confidence, and a readiness to exchange blows,’ explains David Bandurski.⁸⁶ Yet, this was not a sudden phenomenon. In a deeper sense, it was the product of a philosophical transition from Deng Xiaoping’s tao guang yang hui, which entailed keeping a low profile on controversial issues, to a policy of fen fa you wei, which called for active efforts in shaping the environment in order to achieve strategic objectives.

Throughout Xi’s tenure, Chinese diplomats had gradually begun to take a far more active role in shaping the global narrative on key issues. At the Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs in June 2018, Xi had laid out the contours of his vision for major country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics. He demanded loyalty from the diplomatic corps, while calling on them to boost strategic confidence and break new ground through their actions.⁸⁷ Since then, not only did several Chinese diplomats set up accounts on Twitter,⁸⁸ but Chinese public diplomacy in general became far more aggressive. What this meant practically was that Chinese diplomats would take far more proactive steps, such as engaging in acrimonious social media exchanges, denouncing critical media coverage, highlighting hurt sentiments, demanding apologies, pushing back against public events and free speech in other countries, engaging with mainstream media in host countries and seeking out public and elite engagement to shape the discourse on key issues. Bandurski locates this shift in approach to Xi’s personalisation of power and governance. He describes the Chinese leader as an ‘alpha male, the leader of the pack, determined to inspire a fighting spirit in the Party’s ranks’.⁸⁹ In fact, drawing from Xi’s call in September 2019 for Party officials to ‘be both commanders and combatants’,⁹⁰ in December that year, Reuters reported that Foreign Minister Wang Yi had expressly instructed China’s diplomats to show more ‘fighting spirit’.⁹¹ In this context, Zhao’s career progression provided a template for diplomats to understand what the central leadership desires from them.

A day after Zhao’s warning, on 5 March, Pompeo used the term the ‘Wuhan virus’.⁹² That was followed by Trump announcing the suspension of air travel from Europe in a televised speech, during which he stated that the outbreak of this ‘foreign virus’ had ‘started in China and is now spreading throughout the world’.⁹³ He then went on to seemingly endorse the term ‘China virus’ on Twitter⁹⁴ before tweeting about the ‘Chinese virus’ on 17 March.⁹⁵ Beijing responded to this by terming it an ‘act of stigmatization’, which the international community must reject.⁹⁶ The Chinese Foreign Ministry added, ‘Shifting the blame to China will not help combat the epidemic in the US. The US should get its domestic issues handled first.’⁹⁷ China’s ambassador to the UK Liu Xiaoming argued in the Financial Times that ‘those who seek to stigmatise China owe the Chinese people an apology’.⁹⁸ The Chinese embassy in India also issued a statement, saying that ‘the use of “China” and “Wuhan” naming the virus by some media must be corrected, and the international community should focus on China’s swift response to the epidemic rather than stereotyping the Chinese people’.⁹⁹

The sparring over nomenclature was playing out along with a far more ugly exchange. On 12 March, Zhao tweeted about the possibility of COVID-19 infections in the US in 2019, and speculated that US military personnel who participated in the Military World Games in Wuhan in November 2019 could have been the source of the outbreak in China.¹⁰⁰ This, in effect, was an act of giving credence to conspiracy stories that the government had permitted to circulate on social media in China since January. The US government responded by summoning Chinese ambassador Cui Tiankai.

On the same day that Zhao made his outlandish claim, US national security advisor Robert O’Brien said that China’s ‘cover-up’ of the outbreak in Wuhan had ‘probably cost the world community two months to respond’.¹⁰¹ Beijing hit back, talking about the Chinese government’s ‘signature speed, scale and efficiency’ and the ‘Chinese people’s huge sacrifice that stemmed the outward spread of COVID-19’.¹⁰² In late March, Chinese media outlets also prominently featured remarks by Dr Giuseppe Remuzzi, Director of the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Italy, to NPR about medical practitioners in Lombardy noting a ‘very strange pneumonia’ among elderly patients in November–December 2019.¹⁰³ These arguments eventually spilled over into the G7 forum, where Pompeo attacked China’s ‘disinformation campaign’ and insisted on using the term ‘Wuhan virus’. Given that dealing with the pandemic was the primary concern for America’s partners, there were no takers for Pompeo’s push, which eventually resulted in the failure of the group to issue a joint statement.¹⁰⁴ Nevertheless, the Chinese side lashed out at Pompeo’s ‘hypocrisy and malign intentions’, which it said sought to ‘deflect attention at home and shift the blame to the innocent’.¹⁰⁵

Regardless of this, towards the end of March and early April, for a fleeting moment, it appeared as though tensions between the two sides would abate. By then, the US had surpassed China in terms of the total number of COVID-19 infections. On 23 March, Cui would disavow Zhao’s conspiracy theory in an interview with Axios, saying that identifying the origins was ‘a job for the scientists to do, not for diplomats, not for journalists to speculate’.¹⁰⁶ This was a key development, indicating that there were misgivings within the Party-state apparatus about such narrative tactics. There was clearly a debate that was underway within the bureaucracy. This would be reflected in veteran diplomat Fu Ying’s People’s Daily piece, which called on China’s narrative contestation to be based on ‘abundant facts’ rather than ‘hollow concepts and declarations’.¹⁰⁷ This debate, however, would largely be settled by late May when Wang Yi told the press that China’s diplomats ‘have principles and guts’ and ‘will push back against any deliberate insult to resolutely defend our national honor and dignity’, to ‘refute all groundless slander with facts’.¹⁰⁸ In late March, nevertheless, Cui’s disavowal of Zhao’s conspiracies suggested that there was a window for Sino-US cooperation.

On 25 March, Trump was reported as saying that he would no longer use terms like ‘Chinese virus’.¹⁰⁹ The following day, an Extraordinary G20 Leaders’ Summit yielded a joint statement that avoided anything controversial and committed all sides to working together to deal with the pandemic’s fallout.¹¹⁰ A day later, Trump and Xi spoke, promising to deepen cooperation. Talking to the press after the call, Trump described his relationship with the Chinese leader as ‘really good’,¹¹¹ adding that ‘China has been through much and has developed a strong understanding of the virus.... We are working closely together’.¹¹² He even went as far as dismissing US intelligence assessments about the Chinese government concealing the extent of the outbreak in the country and under-reporting both total cases and deaths.¹¹³ Meanwhile, his administration welcomed shipments of protective gear from China. For its part, the Chinese side reiterated that it had ‘wasted no time in releasing such information as the genetic sequence of the virus’ and would continue sharing its experience on COVID-19 prevention, containment and treatment ‘without reservation’.¹¹⁴ Xinhua’s readout of the Trump–Xi call also said that the US president promised to make ‘personal efforts to ensure that the United States and China can ward off distractions and concentrate on cooperation’.¹¹⁵ This bonhomie would not last.

The Truce Crumbles

Through this brief moment of calm, it appeared that Beijing was hoping for the best while preparing for the worst. Writing in The New York Times in early April, Cui Tiankai empathised with New Yorkers facing the brunt of the virus, while appealing for both countries to put aside ‘unpleasant talk’ and ‘finger-pointing’ and work towards ‘solidarity, collaboration and mutual support’.¹¹⁶ In addition, 100 Chinese academics and scholars issued an open letter to the American people, calling for ending the politicisation of the pandemic. They argued that China was ‘a victim of the virus, but also a success story overcoming it’ and was ‘willing to work with people of other countries to stop the spread of the pandemic’.¹¹⁷ Former American diplomats and China studies scholars published an open letter of their own soon after, calling for both sides to cooperate. But they added that ‘China has much to answer for in its response to the coronavirus: its initial coverup, its continuing lack of transparency, its failure to cooperate fully with U.S. and international medical authorities, and its blatant propaganda campaign to shift the blame for the crisis to the United States’.¹¹⁸ It was not just the elite in America that felt this way. A Harris Poll survey in late March found that 52 percent of Americans agreed with Trump’s characterisation of COVID-19 as ‘the China Virus’ and 55 percent felt that the Chinese government was to blame for the virus spreading to the US.¹¹⁹ Cashing in on this sentiment, Republican lawmakers were calling for a probe into the actions of the Chinese government and the WHO.¹²⁰ This sense of mistrust would, therefore, continue to find its way in official discourse. For instance, even during the temporary truce, there was a tussle between Chinese and American officials over the issue of disinformation. The Chinese government rejected the American intelligence community’s conclusion that it had concealed the extent of the outbreak at home. It also accused the US of seeking to shift the blame for its own handling of the pandemic.¹²¹ Pompeo, meanwhile, lashed out at China, Russia and Iran for spreading disinformation. The Chinese Foreign Ministry responded by saying that this was typical of Pompeo’s ‘lying’ and ‘cheating’ style.¹²²

The State Council, meanwhile, published a lengthy timeline, putting together its version of the events that led up to the lockdown of Wuhan. A Xinhua commentary drawing on the timeline argued,

Facts speak louder than words. China has been open, transparent and responsible in all its efforts. News about the leadership’s meetings on epidemic control and prevention were released in a timely manner. Chinese leaders frequently spoke over phone with heads of other countries, promoting cooperation on epidemic prevention and control.¹²³

Of course, this failed to address key questions that have been discussed in earlier chapters. None of that, however, excuses the denial, lack of planning and eventual mishandling of the pandemic by others. Despite Beijing’s opacity through early January, the lockdown of Wuhan provided clear warning for states to act early. In fact, the Trump administration had set up a task force to deal with the pandemic soon after the Wuhan lockdown. Yet, failures at the highest level and poor messaging—such as Trump calling the virus a ‘hoax’¹²⁴ and not even as perilous as the flu,¹²⁵ or not strongly backing the use of masks and social distancing—were critical contributors to the surge in cases in America. From Beijing’s point of view, Washington’s failures juxtaposed against its success in containing the outbreak was narrative gold.

As Wuhan reopened in early April, states across the US experienced a rapid rise in COVID-19 cases. Trump predicted the possibility of a ‘lot of death’,¹²⁶ and attacked the WHO for being ‘China-centric’, announcing a hold on financing for the organisation.¹²⁷ Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers demanded that China pay for its opacity, which they said had caused the pandemic.¹²⁸ Different pieces of legislation and lawsuits to this effect were being discussed. Around this time, Taiwanese officials issued a statement arguing that Taipei had informed the WHO about the potential threat of human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus as early as 31 December 2019, but that the agency had ignored it. The Taiwanese leadership also criticised the agency for excluding Taiwan in the midst of a global crisis, which would impinge on the lives of ordinary Taiwanese. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom responded to this criticism, complaining about ‘racist comments’ and ‘death threats’.¹²⁹ Taiwanese officials dismissed these charges, with President Tsai ing-wen saying, ‘We know better than anyone else what it feels like to be discriminated against and isolated.’¹³⁰ Interestingly, researchers at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute found ‘coordinated anti-Taiwan trolling’ on Twitter on this issue, hinting at a Chinese state-backed disinformation operation.¹³¹ All of this added more fuel to the Trump administration’s criticism of China and the WHO. The State Department said it was ‘deeply disturbed’ that the WHO had chosen ‘politics over public health’.¹³²

Chinese officials and media initially responded to these changing circumstances with a mix of caution and criticism. China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi met with Pompeo in mid-April. The meeting evidently failed in providing a breakthrough, given the vitriolic backlash that Chinese media would unleash against Pompeo, in particular, in the weeks and months that followed. At one level, the messaging from Beijing emphasised the material support that China was providing in terms of health supplies and called for the US to return to business as usual.¹³³ At another, the foreign ministry was doubling down in its support for the WHO, while arguing that the US government was politicising the pandemic to deflect blame for its failures.¹³⁴ Hu Xijin, the boisterous editor of the Global Times, was far more direct, arguing that recent tensions between China and the US underscored Washington’s desire to contain China’s rise. ‘What the US really wants to do is weaken China so that it completely loses its strategic competitiveness against the US. The US won’t stop until China is brought to its knees and crippled,’ he wrote in an editorial in mid-April.¹³⁵ This sense of deepening structural competition would further amplify as Sino-US sparring over the South China Sea, Taiwan and Hong Kong grew even more acrimonious subsequently.

But in mid-April, it was the issue of the origin of the virus that was sparking heated exchanges. Making a comeback in the American news cycle was the theory that the virus could have originated at the WIV. CNN reported that the US government was looking into the possibility that the novel coronavirus had indeed spread from a Chinese laboratory rather than a market.¹³⁶ The Wall Street Journal reported that General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had confirmed that the possibility that an accident at a lab might have resulted in the release of the virus and was being studied by US intelligence agencies.¹³⁷ The theory was further supported by a Washington Post report, which said that US embassy officials had warned of inadequate safety standards at the lab twice in 2018.¹³⁸ Mike Pompeo, meanwhile, demanded that the Chinese leadership ‘open up’. Speaking to Fox News, he stoked the theory that the virus had escaped the WIV. ‘We know that this virus originated in Wuhan, China. We know that there is the Wuhan Institute of Virology just a handful of miles away from where the wet market was. There’s still lots to learn,’ he said.¹³⁹ He also argued that the CCP’s lack of transparency in dealing with the pandemic would give countries food for thought when it comes to doing business with China, particularly in using Chinese telecommunications firms for their 5G networks.

Soon after, Trump would confirm that the US was indeed investigating the virus’ possible links to the WIV. The broader relationship between the two sides was clearly beginning to sink. A Pew survey in April showed that nearly two-thirds of Americans had an unfavourable view of China.¹⁴⁰ Courts in the US had registered at least five cases seeking compensation from China for losses incurred as a result of the pandemic. One of these, filed in Florida, sought US$ 6 trillion in reparations.¹⁴¹ With the presidential elections six months away, it appeared that the Trump administration had determined that being tough on China was sound politics. Consequently, Pompeo’s attacks on the virus’ origin and Beijing’s lack of transparency grew sharper and shriller. He claimed that the US government needed to ‘hold accountable the parties responsible for the deaths’ in the country.¹⁴² He accused the Chinese government of destroying early samples of the virus and not reporting the extent of human-to-human transmission to the WHO.¹⁴³ National security adviser Robert O’Brien, meanwhile, called the WHO a ‘propaganda tool for the Chinese’.¹⁴⁴ There were, of course, grains of truth in this criticism as The New York Times’ investigation revealed.¹⁴⁵

The Chinese side would push back saying that ‘smearing’ China would not help Washington contain the outbreak.¹⁴⁶ Chinese media also highlighted voices within the US criticising the Trump administration. The Chinese Foreign Ministry dismissed the lawsuits that had been filed, saying that they had ‘no factual or legal basis’.¹⁴⁷ The Global Times termed them as examples of ‘hooliganism’, adding that ‘the Trump administration was attempting to create a new China hot spot by both overtly and covertly supporting such lawsuits, in order to shift the fury of Americans over their federal government’s inability to contain the spread of COVID-19’.¹⁴⁸ Commentaries and reports in the People’s Daily dismissed all charges that were levelled by American officials, such as arguments linking the virus to WIV, China’s lack of transparency and the demand for compensation, as theories by Western governments to mask their failures.¹⁴⁹ China’s ambassador to the US hit out at American politicians for not paying attention to the views of scientists. ‘What are these people up to? Why are they doing all this when our priority is to save lives? Why, at a time when we need science so badly, are there so many rumours swirling around?’ Cui asked.¹⁵⁰ But that did not stop Chinese outlets from continuing with their disinformation campaign, with Global Times reviving the narrative that a US lab could have been the source of the virus.¹⁵¹

A Rivalry Originates

A major shift in discourse was clearly underway. Trump, after saying that Beijing wanted him to lose the November election,¹⁵² compared the COVID-19 pandemic to the Pearl Harbour and 2001 World Trade Center attacks. ‘It could have been stopped in China. It should have been stopped right at the source, and it wasn’t,’ he said.¹⁵³ He then told the press that he had seen evidence that suggested that the virus originated in a lab in Wuhan.¹⁵⁴ This came after the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a statement clarifying that ‘the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified’.¹⁵⁵ Anthony Fauci, who once had been front and centre in the administration’s efforts to contain the virus, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley both concurred with the assessment of the virus not being manmade.¹⁵⁶ Irrespective of this, Pompeo claimed that the administration had ‘enormous evidence’ that the virus came from the lab in Wuhan.¹⁵⁷ A Wall Street Journal editorial¹⁵⁸ demanded that if such evidence were available, the administration should make it public. The Chinese Foreign Ministry agreed, demanding that the US put out the evidence in public domain. Pompeo would subsequently water down the claim about the evidence regarding the WIV.¹⁵⁹

Chinese government officials and those at WIV pushed back against the Trump administration’s claims.¹⁶⁰ Chinese diplomats sought to sway public opinion in host nations. For instance, writing in the Hindustan Times, China’s Ambassador to India, Sun Weidong, argued against acts like ‘complaining, finger-pointing or scapegoating’ and called for rejecting ‘ideological biases and attempts at labeling the virus, politicizing the response, and stigmatizing any specific country’.¹⁶¹ The embassy also became much more active on social media, repeatedly emphasising the government’s position on issues like the origins of the virus, China’s engagement at the WHO and the one-China policy, while pushing back against critical media coverage.¹⁶² This was not just the case in India. For instance, in a piece in the Jerusalem Post, the Chinese embassy in Israel called on ‘Jewish friends ... to defeat the coronavirus’ along with the ‘political virus’ spread by Pompeo.¹⁶³ Commentaries in Party-state media, meanwhile, became much more shrill. Many of these specifically targeted Pompeo. People’s Daily editorials repeatedly attacked him. The Global Times termed the US Secretary of State ‘an enemy to world peace’.¹⁶⁴ Xinhua accused Pompeo of speaking ‘nonsense’ and telling ‘lies’, while proclaiming the US the ‘disruptor-in-chief in the global fight against the pandemic’.¹⁶⁵ State broadcaster CCTV’s nightly bulletins repeatedly dished out personal attacks. Anchors called him ‘evil’, describing him as ‘the public enemy of mankind’, who was intent on ‘spitting poison’ and spreading a ‘political virus’.¹⁶⁶ The Washington Post’s Anna Fifield reported that TV screens in Beijing’s subway also featured photos of Pompeo with ‘liar’ stamped in big red letters across his face.¹⁶⁷ CGTN put out an animation video, titled Pompeo’s Credibility Test, which was a creative, gamified adaptation of Chinese narrative using new media tools to appeal to a wider, younger audience.¹⁶⁸ At the same time, the US State Department’s Global Engagement Center and researchers at Graphika Inc. and Bellingcat pointed to coordinated social media campaigns, propagating Beijing’s narrative.¹⁶⁹ This research would eventually be corroborated by Twitter in June, as it announced that it had taken down around 174,000 accounts that were identified as fake and operated by the Chinese government to push its narratives.¹⁷⁰ YouTube and Facebook would take similar actions in subsequent months.¹⁷¹

While bilateral tensions escalated, the debate over the virus’ origin was moving away from accusations and innuendos towards the need for a scientific investigation. The WHO said that it was in talks with the Chinese government for a probe to find the zoonotic source of the virus. Beijing was carrying out its own investigation and had been stalling on sharing information with regard to its progress.¹⁷² It said that it would work with the WHO, but ‘opposes nations such as the US politicising the issue ... and pushing for an international investigation with a presumption of guilt’.¹⁷³ This came amid reports that the White House was ramping up diplomacy to enlist allies in its campaign to hold China accountable.¹⁷⁴ There were reports that the Five Eyes states—the US, UK, Australia, Canada and Japan—were working on a dossier with evidence of China’s culpability. These, however, were soon watered down, with the dossier apparently containing little more than media reportage. Meanwhile, Scott Morrison’s Australian government had been pushing for an international investigation into the virus’ origin, and reports suggested that it viewed the Trump administration’s rhetoric as counterproductive in this context.¹⁷⁵ Canberra’s push for a probe, nevertheless, was opening a new faultline in its already tense relationship with Beijing. The Morrison government was lobbying European and other powers while calling for a strengthened WHO, with its inspectors having the authority to enter a country and respond to a health crisis like weapons inspectors.¹⁷⁶ Chinese officials bristled at these suggestions. In late April, China’s Ambassador to Australia, Cheng Jingye, described calls for such an investigation as ‘politically motivated’.¹⁷⁷ He also hinted that the Australian government’s policies in this regard could hinder tourism and education exchanges, along with trade in products like wine and beef, which China imported in large quantities. Beijing soon came through on some of its threats. In the first half of May, the Chinese side banned beef imports from four of Australia’s largest meat processors for violations of quarantine requirements.¹⁷⁸ A few days before this, Beijing had threatened an 80 percent tariff on Australian barley shipments. Those would follow in time. The Global Times was blunt about the intent behind such measures, stating that Australian officials cannot ‘continue to escalate tensions with China while hoping bilateral trade will remain intact’.¹⁷⁹

European powers like France and Britain, meanwhile, remained far more guarded in their approach, prioritising pandemic control over an investigation. In the end, the EU would take the lead in tabling the motion for investigation at the World Health Assembly (WHA), while the Australian government would tone down its rhetoric and get behind it.¹⁸⁰

Apart from the issue of the investigation into the origins of the virus, another axis of friction, ahead of the WHA meeting on 19 May, was the inclusion of Taiwan as an observer. The US had been canvassing for Taiwan to be invited to the meeting. Taiwan had participated in the WHA as an observer from 2009 to 2016, but was excluded after the Democratic Progressive Party’s Tsai ing-wen won the presidential election in 2016. Beijing justified this by arguing that Tsai’s refusal to accept the one-China principle had eroded the political foundation for Taiwan’s participation in the WHO.¹⁸¹ This was one of the many instruments that Beijing had used since 2016 to undermine Tsai’s administration.¹⁸² Her re-election in January 2020, therefore, had only toughened the PRC’s approach.

In early May, the US, Japan, Germany, France, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand issued a joint demarche to the WHO pushing for Taiwan’s inclusion in the WHA.¹⁸³ The US State Department, in fact, even launched a #TweetforTaiwan campaign, which interestingly was very well supported by Indian social media users.¹⁸⁴ The Indian government, however, did not throw its weight behind the move. Beijing, meanwhile, criticised Taiwanese officials’ ‘political manipulation of the COVID-19 pandemic’,¹⁸⁵ and demanded that other states ‘stop making wrong statements’ and respect the one-China principle.¹⁸⁶ Beijing framed any support for Taiwan’s participation in the WHA as a repudiation of the one-China principle.¹⁸⁷ This raised the cost of action by states, unwilling to press China in the midst of a global catastrophe and unprecedented domestic challenges. In the end, given the way the numbers were expected to work out, even before the WHA meeting, it became amply clear that the issue was a non-starter. Acknowledging this, Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu told reporters that ‘after careful deliberation, we have accepted the suggestion from our allies and like-minded nations to wait until the resumed session before further promoting our bid’.¹⁸⁸

At the WHA meeting on 19 May, 15 countries wrote to Director General Tedros about considering Taiwan’s participation.¹⁸⁹ The US did not sign on to that request. On the other hand, after stalling initially, Beijing came around to co-sponsor the final resolution on an international probe led by the WHO into the ‘zoonotic source of the virus and the route of introduction to the human population’.¹⁹⁰ The mandate was very specific, which lowered the political cost for Beijing, making it acceptable. The Chinese Foreign Ministry celebrated the passage of the resolution, saying that it had ‘thwarted the attempt of a few countries to politicize the origin tracing and the evaluation of COVID-19 response, and secured an impartial and objective resolution’.¹⁹¹ This indeed was a win for Beijing. In the months that followed, it would continue to frustrate the probe process. It would first insist that the investigation begin in Europe and then ensure that only Chinese scientists would carry out the probe in China, with outside experts only reviewing their work remotely.¹⁹² The Chinese leadership’s confidence in its ability to manoeuvre the process to serve its interests was evident in May itself, given that Xi Jinping had chosen to address the WHA session. In his speech, he pledged US$ 2 billion to support the global fight against the virus and projected this commitment as part of China’s arrival on the global stage as a major power.¹⁹³

Washington concurred. In the same week as the WHA session, the White House published a document outlining the US’s Strategic Approach to the People’s Republic of China. It said that the US was now acknowledging and accepting that ‘the relationship with the PRC as the CCP has always framed it internally (was) one of great power competition’.¹⁹⁴