National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan appeared on CNN, and host Dana Bash grilled him about how the U.S. was going to get China to open up and allow independent investigators into the country to find the origins of the coronavirus.
“President Biden has rallied democratic partners to say there must be access to China, to be able to get the data necessary to understand what happened here,” Sullivan said. “We are not at this point going to issue threats or ultimatums. What we’re going to do is continue to rally support in the international community. And if it turns out that China refuses to live up to its international obligations, we will have to consider our responses at that point.”
China has absolutely no reason to cooperate in any independent investigation. That’s because there isn’t going to be a cost to them if they refuse. Sullivan gave similar comments on Fox News Sunday.
NRO:
In similar comments to Fox News, Sullivan said China faced the threat of “isolation in the international community” if it refuses to cooperate with a probe into the pandemic’s origins.
The Biden administration’s insistence on working with the WHO comes after the organization faced criticism for apparent deference to China during the early days of the outbreak. Former CDC director Robert Redfield said the organization was “highly compromised” during its initial efforts.
“Clearly, they were incapable of compelling China to adhere to the treaty agreements that they have on global health, because they didn’t do that,” former CDC Director Robert Redfield told Fox News last week. “Clearly, they allowed China to define the group of scientists that could come and investigate.”
They not only chose which scientists could come, they decided what they could investigate and what they couldn’t. And Sullivan seemed so proud of his boss that he was able to get the dreaded “strong statement” from G-7 partners on Chinese cooperation in finding the origins of the coronavirus.
I’ll bet China is shaking in its boots about that “statement.”
“It is that diplomatic spadework – rallying the nations of the world, imposing political and diplomatic pressure on China, that is a core part of the effort we are undertaking to ultimately face China with a stark choice: Either they will allow, in a responsible way, investigators in to do the real work of figuring out where this came from, or they will face isolation in the international community,” he continued.
The notion that EU nations will threaten China with isolation is absurd. How do you “isolate” a nation with a $20 trillion economy? You’ve got to hope they don’t end up isolating you. Just ask Australia.
As usual, the Europeans will step aside and tell America, “After you, guys. We’ll be right behind you.” They played that game on Iran sanctions and on any international problem where they should have taken a strong stand since the end of the cold war.
“Pressure” on China will be a mirage. Meanwhile, the Chinese Communists will continue their drive for regional domination.
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