China to supply almost a billion masks to US; mouthpiece waves contract in Trump's face

Even as the US-China relations are at an all-time low due to a range of issues including the COVID-19's origin in China and its spread in the rest of the world, and with the US being the worst affected, Chinese mouthpiece Global Times has confirmed that the US state of California has ordered 420 million face masks from Chinese firm BYD [a new-energy vehicle manufacturer from China]. This new order is in addition to a previous order to BYD of 500 million masks. The claim made by Global Times seemingly comes as a swipe on the US government which on one hand is critical of China and on other hand orders mask from Chinese firms.

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The US-China conflict

The US administration has been explicitly firing harsh criticisms on the Chinese Communist Regime over a range of issues, be it China's discreet way of handling the pandemic; or the imposition of 'draconian' National Security Law in Hong Kong threatening the autonomy of Hong Kong; China's expansionist policies in the Indo-Pacific waters by strong-arming smaller nations in the South China Sea and claiming sovereignty over the water body; or China's aggression on the India-China border dispute in Eastern Ladakh.

The claim by Chinese Mouthpiece about the order of the masks comes as a surprise when the US Government has been at loggerheads with China; to add to it, the trade relations between the two countries have hit rock bottom. Besides, President Donald Trump and the US Secretary of the State Michael Pompeo have been openly speaking about expanding their business and trade collaborations with India.

Pompeo in his virtual keynote address to the annual 'India Ideas Summit' of the US India Business Council (USIBC), held on Wednesday, described India as one of the few trusted like-minded countries playing the role of a strategic partner and a key pillar of President Trump's foreign policy. In his virtual address, Pompeo said he was happy to report that India is a "rising" US Defense and security partner in the Indo-Pacific and globally.

Pompeo even said that President Trump has invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the next G7 meeting which is the Group of Seven (G-7), an international intergovernmental economic organisation consisting of seven major developed countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. G7 countries are some of the largest IMF-advanced economies in the world.

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