China will have to answer questions about COVID-19, says Trudeau

Countries around the world, including Canada, have questions about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and about China’s behaviour during the early days of the outbreak that need to be asked “in the coming months,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday.

Speaking at his daily briefing in Ottawa, Trudeau was responding to a question about recent comments made by Canada’s ambassador to China Dominic Barton.

The Globe and Mail newspaper reported Wednesday that Barton told a private session of the Canadian International Council last week that China’s conduct during the pandemic is damaging its own global “soft power.”

Earlier this month, The Associated Press reported that U.S. officials believe China covered up the extent of the coronavirus outbreak — and how contagious the disease is — to stock up on medical supplies needed to respond to it.

The revelation comes as the Trump administration has intensified its criticism of China, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying that that country was responsible for the spread of disease and must be held accountable.

“We’re seeing a global pandemic that requires a global coordinated response and how countries are behaving now towards each other, supporting each other, moving forward in a difficult time is being noticed by everyone,” Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa.

“And I think it’s totally normal that we’d be asking questions how different countries are behaving, including China.”

‘Keeping Canadians safe’

At the same time, Trudeau has avoided openly criticizing China, which has been a major source of personal protective equipment (PPE), including masks and gowns needed by frontline healthcare workers to fight the virus.

When asked whether his reluctance to criticize China more openly had anything to do with fears of losing access to Chinese supplies of protective equipment and medical supplies, Trudeau said his responsibility “first and foremost as prime minister is to look out for Canadians.”

“That’s why even though of course we will have very strong questions to ask of many different countries through how this pandemic began and propagated around the world, my focus focus needs to be on ensuring that we’re getting the support necessary for Canadians every step of the way, in terms of PPE, in terms of testing capacities, in terms of partnerships towards getting treatments and vaccines for this,” Trudeau said.

“My focus needs to be on keeping Canadians safe and that’s where it will stay.”

‘Propaganda warfare’

Chinese officials have accused the Trump administration of trying to deflect the blame for their failure to deal with the pandemic with conspiracy claims about the origins of the virus.

“The Trump administration continues to engage in unprecedented propaganda warfare while trying to impede global efforts in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic,” said a recent editorial in China’s Global Times, run by the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily.

The editorial was in response to claims by Pompeo that there was “a significant amount of evidence” that the new coronavirus emerged from a Chinese laboratory.

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Pompeo has also briefly contradicted U.S. intelligence agencies’ conclusion that the virus was not man-made.

A report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence earlier this month said there was “wide scientific consensus” that the disease was not man-made.

U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reporting and analysis have said for weeks that they do not believe Chinese scientists developed the coronavirus in a government biological weapons lab from which it then escaped.

Rather, they have said they believe it was either introduced through human contact with wildlife at a meat market in the central city of Wuhan, or could have escaped from one of two Wuhan government laboratories believed to be conducting civilian research into possible biological hazards.

With files from The Associated Press and Reuters