Is China to blame for the continued rise in the pandemic's death toll?

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in his recent speech at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, negated every aspect of China-US relations, maliciously attacked the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and China's political system, and attempted to drive a wedge between the CPC and the Chinese people. He also wantonly criticized China's domestic and foreign policies, spread the so-called "China threat", and called for an anti-China alliance to contain China's development.

Pompeo's baseless, fact-distorting speech misrepresents history and the reality. It is full of ideological prejudice and driven by a Cold-War mentality. His remarks have not only been condemned by the Chinese people, but also criticized and opposed by sensible people in the United States as well as the international community.

To debunk the lies fabricated by Pompeo, let the facts speak for themselves.

Rumor:

Mike Pompeo: The CCP fails in its promises to the world, leading to the continued rise in the pandemic's death toll.

Fact:

The Chinese government has taken the most comprehensive, strict and thorough prevention and control measures in the shortest time, containing the epidemic mainly in Wuhan. Data showed that very few cases were from China, and the transmission chain of the virus was effectively cut off. A Science magazine report estimated that the aforementioned measures reduced the number of infected people in China by more than 700,000.

-- When Wuhan was locked down on Jan. 23,2020, there was only one confirmed case in the United States. When the US on Feb. 2 closed its borders to all Chinese citizens and foreigners who had been to China over the past 14 days, it reported merely more than 10 confirmed cases. When the US declared a state of emergency on March 13, the country's COVID-19 tally was 1,896. When the Chinese government lifted the lockdown on Wuhan on April 8, the number of confirmed cases in the US reached 400,000. The country saw its tally rise from one to 1 million in less than 100 days. Currently, the number of confirmed cases in the US has exceeded 5.69 million with the death toll over 170,000.

-- From the onset of COVID-19, the largest emergency humanitarian operation in the history of the People's Republic of China has been carried out. The nation widely shared its experience in COVID-19 prevention and control, provided medical supplies and dispatched medical teams to where they were needed overseas. By early May, seven versions of the diagnosis and treatment guidelines and six versions of the prevention and control guidelines had been made public through an online knowledge center. A 2-billion-yuan special fund had been set up to fight COVID-19, and over 120 video conferences had been held with experts and officials from more than 160 countries and international organizations. Medical supplies had been provided to more than 150 countries and international organizations, and 29 Chinese medical teams had been sent to 27 countries. China set up a joint expert group with the EU, and established a prevention and control cooperation mechanism with the Republic of Korea. China sent a cash donation of 50 million US dollars to the World Health Organization, pledged to make COVID-19 vaccines global public goods, and provided the world with more than 70 billion face masks. In response to the G20 call for debt repayment moratorium for the poorest countries, China has agreed to suspend principal and interest repayments on the debts of 77 developing countries due from May 1 to the end of this year. The international community commended China's help and support which reflected the spirit of sharing weal and woe and helping each other, and further highlighted the importance of building a community with a shared future for mankind.

-- On May 1, the website of US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report by CDC Principal Deputy Chief Anne Schuchat and CDC COVID-19 response team, which showed that after the United States' first confirmed case was reported on Jan. 21, the pandemic seemed to be brought under control in February, but then intensified rapidly. Factors including a continued rise in imported cases, mass gatherings, the introduction of the virus into high-risk workplaces and densely populated areas, and limited testing that led to covert and asymptomatic transmissions, accelerated the spread of the virus in February and March.

-- New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo pointed to a research by Northeastern University showing that the first strain of the novel coronavirus entering his state was not from China. The New York Times quoted American experts who confirmed that most New York coronavirus cases did not come from Asia.

-- Statistics from several major Canadian provinces showed that the virus was introduced into Canada by American travelers. A study by France's Pasteur Institute found that the source of the virus strain transmitted locally was unknown. Russia reported no imported cases from China. Data from the Australian Government Department of Health showed that the proportion of imported cases from Northeast Asia was extremely small. Japan's National Institute of Infectious Diseases said the pandemic that spread in Japan after March did not originate in China.

-- As the New York Times pointed out in an article titled Why is the US exporting coronavirus, the United States, with the largest number of COVID-19 cases in the world, is continuing to deport thousands of immigrants, many infected with the coronavirus. In late April, the Guatemalan government reported that nearly a fifth of the country's coronavirus cases were linked to deportees from the United States. Seventy-one of 76 deportees tested positive for the coronavirus.