Obama's NSC adviser Susan Rice takes China's line on virus

Analysis by FPI / April 2, 2020

In an interview with MSNBC on Tuesday, Obama era national security adviser Susan Rice essentially parroted Chinese propaganda on the coronavirus.

In criticizing Trump administration officials for calling it the "China virus" or "Wuhan virus," Rice said: "It doesn't serve us well, it doesn't serve the objective of squelching the virus globally, to brand in nationalistic, or xenophobic, or racist terms. We all have to work together..."

Washington Examiner columnist Tom Rogan noted that Rice "completely ignored China's global campaign of lies to blame the coronavirus on American soldiers. Instead, she re-emphasized China's favored rhetoric on how to address the pandemic: 'It's a global challenge that is going to require all of us to do our parts ...' "

Rice said in the MSNBC interview that the Trump administration's description of the coronavirus as the "Wuhan virus" is unacceptable and undermines global cooperation. Viruses can arise anywhere, Rice said, adding that "Wuhan virus" is "race-baiting" and "shameful."

Rogan wrote: "This was news to me. I was under the impression that Wuhan is not a race, but rather a Chinese industrial city where the virus first infected humans."

Why is the former national security adviser "so determined to use a national crisis to preach a defense of the nation which enabled it to become global, and simultaneously launch a tirade against the U.S. government?" Rogan asked.

"The answer, unfortunately, is a familiar one. As with her New York Times op-ed last summer, Rice sees Xi's China as far less of a problem than Trump's America. It's quite sad. Actually, coming from such a senior former American official, it's tragic," Rogan wrote.

Rice's implication "is that the need for cooperation means it is wrong to criticize China in any regard over the virus, even though the Chinese Communist Party's deception led to its catastrophic mishandling of the virus in the outbreak's earliest stages," Rogan wrote. "You know, when the virus might just have been stopped from becoming a global pandemic."

In her comments to MSNBC, Rogan wrote, "Rice just reminded Xi Jinping why he misses her presence in the president's ear."

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