Factcheck: Did China cover up COVID-19 for trade deal reasons?

FURTHER INFORMATION

The YouTube video claims that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) government wilfully delayed notifying global authorities about the prevalence of Covid-19 in Wuhan in order to gain advantage in a trade deal with the US. There are existing concerns, expressed by both the US and UK Government, about China’s reporting of the virus. However there is no evidence to suggest the virus was deliberately used to gain advantage in a trade deal.

The Associated Press state that PRC foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said in a conference on 9 April 2020 that: “Allegations of a cover-up or lack of transparency in China are groundless,” and denies that PRC authorities have suppressed information in response to the Covid-19 outbreak. 

On 16 April 2020, the President of the United States of America Donald Trump claimed that China was under-reporting the number of deaths in China to Covid-19, and has also withdrawn US funding to the World Health Organisation. 

The BBC reported that, on 29 March 2020, Michael Gove MP, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, stated that “some of the reporting from China was not clear about the scale, the nature, the infectiousness of the virus”.

SOURCE

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian in Al Jazeera, ‘China failed to warn public of coronavirus threat for days: AP’

Michael Gove MP and President Donald Trump in BBC News, ‘Coronavirus: Why China’s claims of success raise eyebrows’

Origins of Claim

FULL TEXT OF CLAIM

Q: (Patrick Bet-David) and A: (Danielle Dimartino Booth)

Q: How much of this do you think it’s Coronavirus and you know whatever is going on between US and China? How much of this is China saying screw you US, you are playing this hard ball with me? I’m gonna come and bully you in a whole another way that you won’t even pay attention it. How much credibility do you give to that? 5 percent? 1 percent?

A: I’m not gonna answer that question but I am gonna answer the question in a different way. Because I am Christian at heart and I like to think that nobody would want to kill people. I will say this much and if you are listening write it down. In late November, word had already got off of the Mainland [of China] that there was a virus in Wuhan. On January 15 [2020], a trade deal was signed. Phase 1: December 15^th [2019]. Excuse me. I had a whole month off. Six weeks later, the trade truce was signed with an out clause. A very clever out clause. That the Chinese made sure was in there. That it said: if there was any kind of act of God, pandemic, then they didn’t have to make good on what they had committed to buy from the United States. Within days, they announced the first Coronavirus. So, did the Chinese know damn well that this thing was running around the world for six weeks? Before they shut down Wuhan? Yes, they did. Is that criminal? Yes, it is. Does it deserve to go in front of a world tribunal? Yes, it does. Because, we know that it was the unfettered travel that made this thing that made this a global phenomenon. Six weeks they knew. They wanted that out clause. Then they under reported what happened in Wuhan. Which a toddler could tell you, based on what happened in Wuhan. And in Germany and France. And now in the UK, with Boris Johnson in the ICU. There’s no way in a city the size of New York, 11 million people, that there were so few cases. With similar density to New York. So, the World Health Organization should be held accountable for not holding China accountable to providing good valid data so that the rest of the world could prepare for fewer people to die. And that’s what you are talking about. To me, these are equivalent to acts of war on the part of China. And then, equally, whether you are talking about NPR or Fox News, most major media outlets on both sides of the aisle, came out and reassured the United States, that it was just the flu. Within 24 hours of South Korea’s first case being reported, the United States first case was reported. And what we did was dither, we sat on it for six weeks and tried to re-assure the public that nothing was happening. Someone should be held accountable for that. Because someone in the United States intelligence community has to have known what was truly going on in Wuhan. We don’t have the CIA for nothing. And yet we told Americans for 6 weeks while South Korea was testing everybody and shutting the country down: that it was just gonna be the flu. So there are a lot of responsible bodies, right now, that have taken us to the point that we are at. Inside the country and in China. And they need to be held accountable. So you don’t even have to get on the discussion whether this was a manufactured virus. And set upon the world. You don’t even have to go that far. If we find that in future investigations, then that needs to be prosecuted. But if we just ascertain what is known, and a known hushed up secret. That the Chinese knew for six weeks about the virus before saying anything on the global stage, to get a trade deal signed? Somebody, needs to look into that. Because, countless lives have been lost as a result.

Q: The damages are in the tens of trillions of dollars. We are not talking about small here if that is the case.

A: No we’re not, and we’re talking about people losing their family members. About people losing their, suicides in their future. Economic hardship. All of this could have been mitigated, if China was honest, and if the World Health Organisation made China accountable.

Q: Because at first, they said it’s not anything to worry about. When WHO first came, when WHO came out and said, we don’t need to stop. Let me ask you, who do you trust the least: Iran, Russia or China?

A: China. China’s got more economic power.

Q: Because of that? Or because they don’t have a free press? And because we can’t really know what’s going on?

A: That’s just a kicker. You don’t really know what is going on in Iran, either. There you had global satellite images in Iran going mass graves. Iran under reported the same. And you can’t tell me in the cold of winter, that Russia has as many cases as it is reporting. At last check, China is 17% of global GDP, they can throw more money around than anybody else. And, you mentioned two of their allies, by the way. And the largest land continuous border is between Russia and China.