A Different Tune: Xi Offers Trump Help After China ‘Shutting Down The Borders’ To Foreigners

Well this is surprising given the past week’s war of words between Washington and Beijing centered on the White House’s lambasting the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s ‘propaganda and disinformation’ over the coronavirus pandemic, which it should be noted Trump and Pompeo still insist on calling “the Chinese virus”, per Reuters:

Chinese President Xi Jinping told U.S. President Donald Trump during a phone call on Friday that he would have China’s support in fighting the coronavirus, as the United States faces the prospect of becoming the next global epicentre of the pandemic.

It seems everyone’s now singing a different tune from a mere few days ago.

On the one hand Reuters confirms China’s ‘controversial’ and even supposedly “racist” policy of drastically cutting flights to the mainland while also barring foreigners’ entry — and on the other with the United States now soaring past China in confirmed cases, surpassing 86,000 by Friday morning, Trump appears ready to momentarily play nice with Xi, perhaps now more willing to gain something from China’s experience in fighting the virus.

“China has been through much & has developed a strong understanding of the virus,” Trump said. “We are working closely together. Much respect!”

Just finished a very good conversation with President Xi of China. Discussed in great detail the CoronaVirus that is ravaging large parts of our Planet. China has been through much & has developed a strong understanding of the Virus. We are working closely together. Much respect!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 27, 2020

As we detailed yesterday Beijing now claims it has its domestic outbreak under control and that the new cases are ONLY from foreigners, and in a stunning piece of total and utter hypocrisy, they have decided to… Suspend entry of all foreigners’ entry to China.

The foreign ministry can now present local containment and declining numbers while touting its own version of a ‘foreign virus’ narrative: Shanghai now has 125 patients who arrived from overseas, including 46 from Britain and 27 from the United States, Reuters reports based on Chinese numbers.

Apparently ‘draconian measures’ to lock down borders and keep foreigners out is no longer a unique form of “OrangeManBad White House racism”. Here’s the break down of China’s new measures:

In effect from Sunday, China has ordered its airlines to fly only one route to any country, on just one flight each week. Foreign airlines must comply with similar curbs on flights to China, although many had already halted services.

About 90% of current international flights into China will be suspended, cutting arrivals to 5,000 passengers a day, from 25,000, the civil aviation regulator said late on Thursday.

From Saturday, China will temporarily suspend entry for foreigners with valid visas and residence permits, in an interim measure, the foreign ministry added.

It was only two months ago, as deaths from China’s virus were rapidly escalating and spreading across the nation, that Beijing expressed outrage at the measures enacted by the global community to limit the spread of the deadly virus, saying they went way beyond standards accepted worldwide.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had said in biting criticisms issued the first week of February that Beijing “does not agree with the approach adopted by individual countries to create tension or even panic” by closing borders, trade, and flights to and from China. He pointed out at the time that the WHO “did not approve of travel or trade restrictions on China.”

Remember too the very public charge of hypocrisy! aimed at the US during that crucial time when the outbreak was clearly fast spreading far outside mainland China:

“Just as the WHO recommended against travel restrictions, the U.S. rushed to go in the opposite way. Certainly not a gesture of goodwill,” another Chinese official angrily denounced at the time. 

And now we are still awaiting the grand denunciations from leftist pundits of China’s supposed xenophobic move to ban outsiders from entry. We won’t hold our breath.