On Monday morning, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) loudly condemned the Chinese Communist Party for its duplicity on the coronavirus pandemic. In an appearance on Fox News, he reminded Americans that intelligence sources are tracing the coronavirus back to the lab in Wuhan, and he noted that China’s government lied about the virus and enabled its spread around the world.
Ed Henry, co-anchor of America’s Newsroom, asked Cotton about an international investigation into the Wuhan lab.
“I don’t think an international investigation would hurt but I don’t hold out much promise for it,” the senator responded. “China has already destroyed a lot of the evidence here. They have disappeared people who were involved in the matter.”
He insisted that it ultimately doesn’t matter exactly where the virus originated. The Chinese Communist Party still enabled its spread.
“Even if the virus originated outside of those labs in China, if it was naturally occurring, maybe at another food market, let’s recall China’s treachery,” Cotton declared. “In late December or early January, they knew, despite the lies they told the world, that this virus was highly contagious and transmissible from humans to humans and very deadly. They locked down their own country yet they continued to allow air travel to other countries all around the world.”
“That was a deliberate evil act that unleashed this pandemic on the world,” Cotton declared. “That’s why China has to pay the consequences.”
Working with Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), Cotton has introduced a bill that would enable Americans to sue members of the Chinese Communist Party in American courts. He mentioned the bill during the interview, and also advocated for the return of American manufacturing from China.
As for Cotton’s claims about China’s government enabling the spread of the coronavirus, they are spot on. Not only did the Communist Party destroy evidence of the virus early on, but Chinese President Xi Jinping was involved in the efforts against the coronavirus as early as January 7.
Xi could have acted to shut down Wuhan as early as January 7, two weeks before the city was shut down. A University of Southampton study found that if strict quarantine measures had been introduced three weeks earlier, the coronavirus’s spread would have been reduced by 95 percent.
As the coronavirus spread across the globe, China’s Communist Party put out a video encouraging Italians to hug Chinese people to prove they weren’t racist — while China was lying about the true danger of the virus. Chinese companies also sent faulty medical gear and coronavirus antibody tests to European countries. As PJ Media’s Stephen Green reported, the Communist Party is also preventing U.S. companies from shipping their own medical gear back home, where it is sorely needed. Meanwhile, Xi attempts to blame the U.S. for the virus.
The British think tank the Henry Jackson Society said countries like the U.S. should sue China for trillions of dollars over its violations of international law.
Tyler O’Neil is the author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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