NEW YORK, April 26 (Xinhua) -- As the ruling party in the United States, the Republicans should win voter support by focusing on fighting the vicious coronavirus. However, it chose to paint China as an enemy to divert public attention.
A leaked memo, which was sent by the National Republican Senatorial Committee to GOP campaigns, provides answers as to why the White House has been so devoted to attacking China and why the coronavirus situation in the United States has deteriorated.
"Don't defend Trump, other than the China Travel Ban -- attack China," the 57-page strategy document, exposed by Politico on Friday, has advised, urging Republican candidates to address the COVID-19 pandemic by aggressively attacking China.
The memo includes advice on everything from how to tie Democratic candidates to the Chinese government to how to deal with accusations of racism.
The United States is suffering heavily from the coronavirus pandemic, with over 930,000 confirmed cases and more than 54,000 deaths so far, both figures the highest in the world. In this time of life and death, the GOP memo has breached the bottom line of human ethics with a thick book of blatantly fabricated charges and accusations against China. It also turns a blind eye to the suffering of the American people.
The ruling party of the world's sole superpower shouldn't behave like this.
One of the three main lines of assault listed in the memo is that China caused the virus "by covering it up," which has been debunked by a clear timeline of when and how China has informed the World Health Organization and the world. The White House wasted some two months' time by doing nothing valuable in fighting the pandemic. It belittled the virus at first, and fell into chaos later.
Many Chinese and U.S. senior officials and experts have repeatedly expressed the idea that the two countries should cooperate instead of fight. Several issues facing the world, including the novel coronavirus pandemic, will not be solved without cooperation among major countries, especially China and the United States.
The memo will unlikely result in what the GOP expects. More and more Americans will eventually wake up to the truth. As one Twitter user wrote: If the 57-page memo is about measures against COVID-19, the 50,000 may not have died.
Mainstream U.S. media such as The Boston Globe have largely been critical of Washington's clumsy response to the virus, saying the White House "unfit" for handling the crisis.
Other major press outlets including New York Times and Washington Post, have published their own investigations and found similar results: the White House responded too late and too slow, and missed a number of critical turning points against the virus.
U.S. citizens have begun to lose patience. A recent Pew poll found that nearly two-thirds of Americans say Washington responded too late to the coronavirus outbreak.
Polls have shown that an increasing number of senate seats the Republicans are defending have become competitive, and in some states they face the risk of losing seats to the Democrats.
During the past few months, the White House has strictly adhered to the memo's script, and the Republicans have failed to gain public support as a result. It's high time the Republicans devise a new strategy to win over the public, one that doesn't involve foolishly pointing the finger at China. The American people just don't buy it. Enditem
