- The US drastically reduced its CDC personnel in Beijing shortly before the outbreak, hampering its disease prevention apparatus, and its officials seem ill-informed
- China shared the coronavirus genome sequence early on and has extended help to many countries, including US allies
Less than a day after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused China of constantly denying information to curb the pandemic, Washington's diplomatic offensive against Beijing took a big hit. Reuters revealed on March 26 that the Trump administration had cut its staff presence at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Beijing by more than two-thirds over the past two years.
The CDC is the United States' leading disease fighting agency and has a history of research collaboration with Beijing on contagious disease outbreaks.
The decision to reduce the number of US epidemiologists and other health professionals in Beijing weakens the US case against China, which includes President Donald Trump's claim that China denied US experts early information on the coronavirus outbreak.
A key component of Beijing's counter-narrative is that the US has been stigmatising its efforts against the pandemic and is sidestepping global collaboration on Covid-19.
Last week's developments also help widen the discord between Trump and the CDC, which plays a key role in Washington's international coordination on Covid-19.
At a Senate hearing last month, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security was criticised for citing figures that differed from the CDC's while the department's acting deputy secretary raised eyebrows after taking to Twitter to complain about not being able to access Johns Hopkins University's coronavirus tracking dashboard.
Meanwhile, CDC director Robert Redfield, testifying before the House of Representatives, agreed with a congresswoman who suggested that it was "wrong and inappropriate" for Trump to refer to the coronavirus as the "Chinese virus".
Public sentiment has also turned sharply, with 82 per cent of Americans saying they trust the CDC to give them accurate information on the pandemic compared to 44 per cent who said they trusted the US president. The wider the internal discord in the US, the greater Beijing's leverage in the China-US disinformation spat.
There is a larger dynamic at play here for Washington. By attempting to win global condemnation of China's alleged mishandling of the coronavirus outbreak, Washington risks compromising key strategic alliances.
A case in point is last week's G7 foreign ministers meeting. The bloc, comprising seven leading industrialised democracies, failed to agree on a joint statement after the US State Department insisted on using the term "Wuhan virus".
"What the State Department has suggested is a red line," a European diplomat said. "You cannot agree with this branding of this virus and trying to communicate this."
The Trump administration is correct to assume that certain G7 members may acknowledge China's lack of transparency during the pandemic. But the US is wrong to believe that all members would be willing to concede to that criticism at the expense of stronger international cooperation in tackling Covid-19.
A sizeable reduction in the presence of CDC experts in Beijing makes it difficult for Washington to internationalise its disinformation binary with China.
First, Beijing has concrete information-sharing reference points, including sharing with the world the genome sequence of the new coronavirus in January to further virus testing capabilities. Washington lacks similar precedents, given its removal of key CDC officials that were tasked with the tracking, investigation and containment of diseases.
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Second, unlike the US, China has not dismantled key outbreak relief infrastructure. During the US government shutdown in 2018-19, the operations of the National Science Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development were affected. The latter has played a role in helping China monitor and respond to past outbreaks.
Meanwhile, Beijing seems to be following a two-track strategy to benefit off Trump's hostile rhetoric and attract the favour of more US allies. China has extended assistance to some 89 countries, including long-standing US allies France and United Kingdom, in dealing with Covid-19. Assisting these countries creates room for reciprocal diplomacy.
China is also actively mobilising its influence on key multilateral forums " such as the G20 " by emphasising collective Covid-19 response capabilities and global economic recovery.
Washington's desire to reconfigure the Sino-US relationship is now a divisive endeavour among its allies, especially as the US has now registered the highest number of Covid-19 cases globally.
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There is a loss of support within the US government, and beyond it, for the instruments used to effect this Sino-US reconfiguration, such as limiting America's disease management footprint in China.
"The US and China are engaged now in a demonisation contest," states a former State Department adviser on Asia. "That inevitably hinders badly needed cooperation."
Hannan Hussain is a security analyst at the London School of Economics - South Asia Centre, and author. He is also an international affairs commentator for The Diplomat magazine
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