The coronavirus outbreak has led many to start scrutinizing the United States’ relationship with China in ways it had not been done before and leading others to call for action against the communist nation, including former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a candidate for U.S. Senate in Alabama.
During an interview that aired on Huntsville, AL radio’s WVNN, Sessions explained how China’s actions in attempting to conceal the pandemic stopped preventive measures from taking places. He pointed to a British study that showed that if China had been more upfront and acted three weeks earlier, the number of cases would have been reduced by 95%.
“Not only did they not tell them, they lied about it,” he said. “They imprisoned the people who tried to tell the truth — Chinese people who tried to tell the truth. This is stunning evidence of the ruthlessness, the cold-bloodedness of the Chinese communist government. They’re atheistic, totalitarian communists. That’s who they are. They don’t believe in truth. It is a subordinate thing to them. It’s not like dealing with Canada or Mexico or the United Kingdom. It is a different thing.”
“We need a complete reset of our relationship,” he continued. “We need to cease to be dependent on China — not just drugs, but a lot of our high-tech stuff, a lot of our rare-earth minerals. There’s a whole bunch of things we simply cannot be dependent on China with. China has a long-term plan — 2049, they’ve made it public. It’s amazing, really — that they want to be the dominant world power in the next 29 years. And they have a ruthless plan to get there. And we’ve been far, far, far too blase about this. It’s become a greater concern for me over the years.”
Sessions also noted how the international community, including the United Nations and the World Health Organization, have been reluctant to criticize Mainland China.
“Their lies about this virus are revealing,” Sessions added. The U.N. has been way too soft on China. The World Health Organization is way too soft on China.”
According to the Alabama Republican, policymakers should view this as the time to take measures to decouple the United States from China in ways to make it less dependent.
“This is a wake-up call,” he said. “The American people now see the cold-bloodedness of this regime. So does Congress. Maybe, and I think the world to some extent. So now we have this opportunity to say, ‘You’re not going to continue to enrich yourself off this trade surplus with the United States. We are going to stand up to you. We are going to place tariffs on you if you don’t follow the rules, and the president has already done a lot of that.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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