China: Anthony Fauci’s Leadership on Coronavirus ‘Brought Much Bitterness’ to America

fauci china
Alex Wong, STR/AFP via Getty Images
Frances Martel

The Chinese government newspaper Global Times marked medical personality Anthony Fauci’s announcement that he would depart his roles in federal government at the end of this year with two articles on Tuesday accusing Fauci of bringing the country “much bitterness” through “missteps” running the nation’s response to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.

Fauci currently serves as leftist President Joe Biden’s top medical adviser, a role that he also played under predecessor Donald Trump. He has served as the head of America’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984. In that role, Fauci led America’s response to a variety of medical emergencies, most prominently the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s and the ongoing Chinese coronavirus pandemic.

President Trump catapulted Fauci into national celebrity by providing him a daily television platform during the early days of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic in 2020, which Fauci later used to make regular appearances in interviews with a wide variety of friendly news programs in America. Fauci also parlayed the fame provided to him under the Trump administration into modeling several high-profile magazine covers.

Fauci, 81, announced in a statement on Monday that he would step down from his current federal roles but emphasized in his statement, “I am not retiring.”

The Global Times framed Fauci in its farewell as both a “failure” and a victim of his own nationality, declaring that America “could no longer create heroes” due to the chaos of having a democratic system that does not silence political disagreements. The Global Times regularly proclaims the superiority of Chinese communist totalitarianism in bringing “harmony” to the public by punishing, often violently, dissent.

“Looking back at the controversies in the US in the past two years over this leading immunologist, it’s clear that Fauci, who is nonpartisan, had been caught in the political whirlpool of the partisan struggle in the US,” the state propaganda outlet proclaimed, concluding that Fauci had “no other choice” but to resign from his government posts.

“However,” the newspaper’s analysis continued, “it seems that his leadership in Washington’s prevention and control of the [Chinese coronavirus] epidemic has brought much bitterness to his country.”

The Global Times condemned Fauci for alleged “missteps” such as saying “that people did not need to wear masks and fail[ing] to recognize that asymptomatic people could also spread the virus,” omitting that the Chinese Communist Party had falsely informed the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) in January 2020 that the Chinese coronavirus was not contagious at all.

“Among various reasons, his vast underestimation of the possible disaster that could be caused by the virus has led to more [Chinese coronavirus] deaths in the US than in any other country,” the propaganda outlet declared. While true based on numbers documented by respective state governments, many experts and studies have questioned the death and infection tolls in nations such as China that openly admitted to not counting large numbers of Chinese coronavirus cases in 2020.
“Fauci is a microcosm of how Washington combats the epidemic – he, the virus, and the fight have all been politicized,” the newspaper continued. “Fauci is a part of the American system, so his tragedy is also a tragedy of the system.”

The article cited an anonymous alleged “international relations” expert to declare “that the American system could no longer create heroes due to the country’s unhealthy political, social, and cultural environment,” making it impossible for Fauci to succeed.

In a separate article on Tuesday, the Global Times appeared to partially defend Fauci, preemptively urging the public not to “scapegoat” him for “U.S. system failure” during the pandemic.

“Fauci has found and would continue finding himself to be caught in what he called ‘political divisiveness’ in the US since the Trump administration and in the foreseeable future, even after his retirement from the government service,” the Global Times claimed, “as some far-right Republicans have said they would investigate Fauci if they win control of the Congress in the fall and there had been speculation that he would retire to avoid that possibility.”

The Chinese government outlet appeared to be referring to Republicans calling for an investigation into Fauci telling Congress that his government agency had not funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which documentation surfacing following his claim refuted.

The article nonetheless condemned Fauci for allegedly not attacking President Trump enough while serving as his top medical adviser.

“Fauci has also failed to defend his bottom line of being a scientist to step up to protest the anti-science sentiments that have proliferated as a result of deep national divisions infecting politics that have continued to worsen since the Trump administration,” the state outlet asserted, citing a regime-approved Chinese “expert.”

The Global Times‘ criticism of Fauci as he departs his top offices contrasts significantly with the glowing coverage the public health expert had previously received in Chinese state media. In mid-2020, for example, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, the People’s Daily, published an effusive article lamenting that the luminary Fauci was “frustrated” by having to work with Trump – whose presidency was largely defined by policies meant to contain the global influence of communist China.

“His expertise and scientific background are beyond question, but he has been frustrated because his advice is constantly ignored,” the People’s Daily claimed, referring to Fauci. “He has a clear understanding of the preventive measures needed and how to treat coronavirus patients, but his advice has not been implemented in its true spirit.”

“Although he is sincere and loyal to the American people, unfortunately, his expert opinion has been cast aside, and the Trump administration has politicized the pandemic,” the Communist Party publication concluded.

A year later, the People’s Daily highlighted Fauci’s praise for Chinese scientists, particularly those conducting research on coronaviruses. Fauci was reportedly defending Chinese researchers at the time in response to growing concerns that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), a laboratory in the origin city of the virus known to have been engaging in coronavirus research at the time, may have played a role in starting the pandemic. A State Department fact sheet dated January 2021 read in part, “several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both [Chinese coronavirus] and seasonal illnesses.”

Fauci defended the scientists as highly professional at the time in his estimation. As head of the NIAID, Fauci collaborated and held exchanges generally for decades with Chinese counterparts and is known to have maintained a friendly personal relationship with the former head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Gao Fu. Emails published by the Washington Post last year indicated that Fauci and Gao often exchanged questions and concerns throughout the early days of the pandemic.

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.

 

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.