Washington: US President Donald Trump has warned that a “complete decoupling” from China remains a policy option for Washington after surmising that Beijing may have spread the coronavirus intentionally to economically damage the US and other countries.
Trump’s charges against Beijing came even as top US lawmakers, officials, and policy mavens are concluding that an expansionist and assertive China feels confident enough to make territorial grabs in the region, including incursions into India, to distract from its role in spreading the coronavirus pandemic among other travails.
“The world could not have received a clearer reminder that the PRC is dead-set on brutalizing people within their own borders, challenging and remaking the international order anew in their image - to include literally redrawing world maps,” Senate majority leader and Trump ally Mitch McConnell said at a foreign policy debate, outlining China’s aggression in the region against India, Japan, and Taiwan among others.
China’s persistent aggression against India came up for discussion and scrutiny in Congress, the State Department, and in the media even as Trump attempted to roll back the impression conveyed by his former NSA John Bolton that he was soft on China in order to get trade deals that will help him win a re-election.
“The US certainly does maintain a policy option, under various conditions, of a complete decoupling from China,” Trump tweeted after telling the Wall Street Journal, “There’s a chance it (coronavirus spread) was intentional,” driven by economic motivation.”
Chinese belligerence came in for a more expansive scrutiny in Congress where Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell directly blamed Beijing for instigating the violent border clashes.
The State Department too read from the same page with a prominent official detailing China’s repeated incursions into India. “This activity is similar to activity we’ve seen in the past on border disputes … I think it was 2015 when Xi Jinping traveled to India the first time. The PLA invaded this contested area deeper and longer, with more people than ever before historically. Then we saw the Doklam issue down near Bhutan, where we saw similar concerns. Again, whether that was a negotiating tactic or just a punch in the nose to demonstrate their superiority, I don’t know,” David Stilwell, the State Department official heading the East Asian and Pacific Affairs bureau said in a briefing on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s meeting in Hawaii with Chinese mandarin Yang Jiechi.
