China calls itself 'victim' of disinformation, not an 'instigator' amid COVID-19 crisis

While pressure continues to mount on China over the discrepancy in its numbers of coronavirus cases and infections, its foreign ministry spokesperson has said that the mainland has not initiated any misinformation. During the daily press briefing, while answering a question about a report by the European Union that stated China was spreading disinformation, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang reportedly said on April 27 that China is not “instigator” of such information but a “victim” of disinformation. 

According to international reports, Beijing was even pressuring Brussels to block the report that alleged China of spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 disease after it originated in the mainland in late December. The report was finally released before the weekend after apparently shifting and changing some criticism directed towards the Chinese government. According to sources of an international media outlet, it was the European Union’s way to balance the act of accusing China amid coronavirus outbreak. 

China has repeatedly denied any meddling of facts with the data of coronavirus outbreak in the country but last week, the country’s government was again surrounded with questions. China changed the death toll of COVID-19 in Wuhan, resulting in nearly 50 per cent spike in people who died of virus-related complications. As of April 27, China has publically recorded 4,633 fatalities and total 82,830 cases. 

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UK removes China's 'unreliable' data

Meanwhile, Britain has removed the communist superpower from the list of countries to compare the spread of COVID-19 disease. British media reported that till April 23 China was included in the charts showcased at the daily coronavirus briefings at Downing Street. In a bid to compare UK’s response with other countries during the times of pandemic, the British lawmakers had statistics of all affected countries and territories. However, after several reports suggesting that China’s death toll is inaccurate and last week the mainland updated the number of died of coronavirus, the British government removed the mainland.

The founder of the group and chairman of the Commons foreign affairs select committee, Tom Tugendhat has said, “This data is used to judge the effectiveness of our own response, whether good or bad. It’s important we are comparing like with like, otherwise our responses could be distorted leading to more deaths in the UK.”

“Clearly No 10 believes the same as the rest of the world, that China’s data is unreliable and possibly false,” he was quoted saying.

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(With inputs from agencies)

(Image Source: AP)