Maybe if the rest of the media and the world are all over this, I can climb down from my soapbox.
I have some ideas for US China policies for Trump's second term that go beyond passing House Resolutions.
https://www.scribd.com/document/453024295/Banks-Resolution-COVID-19-Outbreak#from_embedhttps://www.foxnews.com/politics/bipartisan-house-resolution-condemns-chinese-government-over-handling-of-coronavirus-response.....................................................................
(Original Signature of Member)
116
TH
CONGRESS
H. RES.
ll
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Government
of the People’s Republic of China made multiple, serious mistakes in
the early stages of the COVID–19 outbreak that heightened the severity
and spread of the ongoing COVID–19 pandemic, which include the Chi-
nese Government’s intentional spread of misinformation to downplay
the risks of the virus, a refusal to cooperate with international health
authorities, internal censorship of doctors and journalists, and malicious
disregard for the health of ethnic minorities.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Mr. BANKS
submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the
Committee on
RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that
the Government of the People’s Republic of China made
multiple, serious mistakes in the early stages of the
COVID–19 outbreak that heightened the severity and
spread of the ongoing COVID–19 pandemic, which in-
clude the Chinese Government’s intentional spread of
misinformation to downplay the risks of the virus, a
refusal to cooperate with international health authorities,
internal censorship of doctors and journalists, and mali-
cious disregard for the health of ethnic minorities.
Whereas Chinese Government records suggest that the first
human became infected with COVID–19 on November
17, 2019, in China’s Hubei Province;
Whereas, on December 27, 2019, Zhang Jixian, a doctor
from the Hubei Provincial Hospital of Chinese and West-
ern Medicine alerted China’s health authorities that sev-
eral individuals exhibiting mysterious, flu-like symptoms,
were infected with a novel strain of coronavirus;
Whereas Dr. Yu Wenbin and a team of researchers from
Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden reported that
the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market greatly contrib-
uted to the spread of COVID–19 throughout the city of
Wuhan;
Whereas the Chinese Government waited five days after being
informed of cases of a dangerous new strain of
coronavirus concentrated around Wuhan’s open-air mar-
ket to shut down of the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Mar-
ket in Wuhan;
Whereas Zhou Xianwang, the mayor of Wuhan, stated that
5,000,000 of Wuhan’s 14,000,000 residents left the city
before the Chinese Government imposed a lockdown;
Whereas, on December 30, 2019, Ai Fen, director of Wuhan
Central Hospital’s emergency department, shared a diag-
nostic report on the then unknown COVID–19 virus with
a group of doctors through the social media application
WeChat;
Whereas, on December 30, 2019, Dr. Li Wenliang, warned
his medical school classmates of an outbreak of an un-
known SARS-like virus over WeChat;
Whereas, on December 31, 2019, Wuhan Central Hospital
authorities formally reprimanded Fei for ‘‘spreading ru-
mors’’ about the virus;
Whereas, on January 1, 2020, an official at the Hubei Pro-
vincial Health Commission ordered at least on private
genomics testing company to cease testing samples of a
SARS-like virus from Wuhan and to destroy all existing
samples of the virus;
Whereas, on January 3, 2020, Wuhan’s Public Security Bu-
reau detained, questioned and forced Dr. Li Wenliang
and seven other doctors to sign a letter confessing he had
made ‘‘false comments’’ that ‘‘severely disturbed the so-
cial order’’;
Whereas, on January 3, 2020, the leading public health au-
thority in China, the National Health Commission, di-
rected all Chinese research institutions to cease publicly
publishing any information related to a then unknown
SARS-like virus, and ordered them to destroy existing
samples of the virus or transfer them to approved testing
sites;
Whereas the Centers for Disease Control first asked permis-
sion to study COVID–19 within China on January 6,
2020, but was barred by the Chinese Government from
entering the country until mid-February;
Whereas Chinese authorities first publicly confirmed the ex-
istence of COVID–19 on January 9, 2020, 14 days after
the presence of a novel strain of coronavirus was inter-
nally confirmed;
Whereas China’s National Health Commission publicly denied
COVID–19 was person-to-person transmissible until Jan-
uary 15, 2020, despite having uncovered contrary evi-
dence in late December and being alerted of the trans-
missibility of COVID–19 on January 1, 2020;
Whereas, on January 18, 2020, over 10,000 families attended
the city of Wuhan’s annual Lunar New Year Banquet,
which was organized and sponsored by the Wuhan city
government;
Whereas the People’s Daily, the largest newspaper in China,
first reported on the coronavirus on January 21, 2020,
nearly a month after the virus was internally confirmed;
Whereas, on February 7, 2020, one month after checking
into Wuhan Central Hospital, Dr. Li Wenliang died of a
severe case of COVID–19;
Whereas the COVID–19 outbreak has disproportionately
harmed China’s persecuted Uyghur Muslim minority as a
result of the following actions taken by the Chinese Gov-
ernment—
(1) the detention of over 1,000,000 Uyghur Muslims
and other ethnic minorities in ‘‘re-education camps’’,
whose crowded and unsanitary conditions makes the
camps hotspots for viral disease and leave prisoners at an
elevated risk of contracting COVID–19;
(2) as reported by Uyghur Human Rights Project,
and corroborated by video evidence and Radio Free Asia,
an unannounced and strictly enforced quarantine of mil-
lions of residents in its predominantly Uyghur Muslim
Xinjiang Province around January 24, 2020, resulted in
mass starvation and shortages of basic medical supplies;
(3) on February 25, 2020, Xinhua News Service re-
ported that China had ‘‘re-located’’ 30,000 Uyghur labor-
ers to temporarily shuttered factories in the Hotan pre-
fecture, exposing them to health risks the Chinese Gov-
ernment deemed unacceptable for the ethnically Han ma-
jority;
Whereas the Centers for Disease Control, being the premier
infectious disease research institution in the world, was
well situated at the beginning of the COVID–19 outbreak
to both assist China’s response and prepare the United
States to handle the virus should it spread internation-
ally;
Whereas China’s National Health Commission failed to in-
clude individuals who tested positive for COVID–19 but
remained asymptomatic in its daily tally of confirmed
COVID–19 cases, hampering American public health au-
thorities’ ability to accurately account for the health risks
of infection and spread rate of the virus;
Whereas Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Zhao Lijian,
claimed that COVID–19 originated in the United States
and that the United States army brought the virus to
Wuhan to wage biological warfare on China;
Whereas other Chinese Government officials including sci-
entists working on China’s COVID–19 response, China’s
Ambassador to South Africa and China’s Ambassador to
Australia have claimed that there is no evidence that
COVID–19 originated in China;
Whereas, on March 4, 2020, Xinhua News Agency, an official
mouthpiece of the Chinese Government, published an ar-
ticle threatening to cut off medical supply exports to the
United States and ‘‘plunge [the United States] into the
mighty sea of coronavirus’’;
Whereas, on March 17, 2020, China expelled American na-
tionals working at the Wall Street Journal, Washington
Post, and New York Times, reducing the spread of reli-
able information on the COVID–19 outbreak in China;
and
Whereas a study by the University of Southampton found
that if China had taken action 3 weeks earlier, the spread
of coronavirus would be reduced by 95 percent globally:
Now, therefore, be it
Resolved,
That the House of Representatives—
1
(1) calls on the Chinese Government to—
2
(A) publicly state that there’s no evidence
3
that COVID–19 originated anywhere else but
4
China;
5
(B) denounce the baseless conspiracy that
6
the United States Army placed COVID–19 in
7
Wuhan;
8
(C) revoke its expulsion of American jour-
9
nalists;
10
(D) end its detainment of Uyghur Muslims
11
and other persecuted ethnic minorities; and
12
(E) end all forced labor programs;
13
(2) condemns—
14
(A) the Chinese Government’s censorship
15
of doctors and journalists during the early days
16
of the outbreak and particularly its treatment
17
of the deceased Dr. Li Wenliang;
18
(B) the Chinese Government’s refusal to
19
allow scientists from the Centers of Disease
20
Control to assist its response to COVID–19 for
1
over a month after cooperation was offered,
2
needlessly endangering the lives of its own citi-
3
zens and hampering the United States’ early at-
4
tempts to learn more about COVID–19;
5
(C) China’s National Health Commissions’
6
duplicitous denial of the person-to-person trans-
7
missibility of COVID–19; and
8
(3) calls for the World Health Organization Di-
9
rector-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to
10
retract highly misleading statements of support for
11
the Chinese Government’s response to COVID–19,
12
especially his praise for the ‘‘commitment from [Chi-
13
na’s] top leadership, and the transparency they have
14
demonstrated’’.
15
