US mum so far on India-China spat
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Tuesday squarely blamed China for the origins of the coronavirus pandemic while pledging the American economy would come back stronger than before, even as he stayed mum on the bloody India-China border spat.
At a White House Rose Garden event where he signed an executive order direct some modest police reforms, Trump rejected calls to defund or disband the police, talked up the US economy, referred twice to the coronavirus coming from China, but did not allude to the border clash between India and China despite having previously offered to mediate between the two sides.
The State Department too did not react to the growing tensions (till the time of writing this) even as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo flew out to Hawaii to meet top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi, a state councilor and member of the Communist Party’s powerful politburo, to discuss their own frayed ties.
The meeting comes amid reports that China is warming up to the idea of a Trump second term.
“Donald Trump has argued frequently of late that China is rooting for Joe Biden come November’s US. presidential election. In Beijing, however, officials have come around to support four more years of Trump,” a Bloomberg report said ahead of the Hawaii meeting, quoting a former Chinese trade negotiator as saying, “If Biden is elected, I think this could be more dangerous for China, because he will work with allies to target China, whereas Trump is destroying US. alliances.”
Trump had repeatedly praised China’s leader Xi JinPing and talked up his personal friendship before the coronavirus pandemic soured him on Beijing. On Tuesday he again referred to the virus coming out of China and affecting more than 200 countries, saying, "We will soon be in a stronger position than we were before. The plague came in from China."
But there was reference to the border clash, as the US President took no questions after signing the executive order. He was also silence on the matter on his Twitter feed, where he is usually voluble about such things.
The US President typically receives a daily intelligence briefing first thing on the morning on urgent domestic and global issues, particularly international tensions.
