WASHINGTON – Foreign Minister Antony Blinken has alerted Beijing to the poor handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, citing the lack of transparency after hearing of the first cases of the virus, a “big problem.”
In response to a question on NBC News’ Today, Blinken accuses China of failing to meet its international obligations to provide information on the origins of the outbreak in Wuhan at the end of 2019, which China’s communist government be accused.
“There is no doubt that COVID-19 in particular has been hit for the first time, but even today, China is far from providing the necessary information to the international community to ensure that experts have access to China. Said Blinken. .
“All the lack of transparency, the lack of presence is a big problem,” he continued.
The remarks are the latest salvo between China and the Biden government, which according to Beijing critics would be soft after the hard line drawn by the Trump administration.
During his confirmation hearings in the Senate, Blinken supports the statement of his predecessor Mike Pompeo that the Chinese government’s treatment of Uighur Muslims amounts to ‘genocide’.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry reprimanded Blinken in a statement last week, accusing him of “interfering in his domestic affairs and undermining his interests”.
In his “Today” interview, Blinken also reprimanded the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin over the fact that the protesters were protesting against the recent arrest of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
The head of the State Department said he was “deeply upset by the violent repression” and revealed that the US was reviewing possible responses to the Kremlin’s mass arrest of protesters.
“The Russian government is making a big mistake if it believes this is about us,” Blinken said after Moscow warned Washington against imposing new sanctions.
“It’s about them. It’s about the government. “It is about the frustration of the Russian people with corruption, with autocracy, and I think they should look inwards, not outwards,” he said.
In a call with Putin last week, Biden reprimanded his “malicious actions” and asked him to release Navalny, White House spokesman Jen Psaki said.
“The president could not have been clearer in his conversation with President Putin,” Blinken said.