Covid, the sinologist Masini: “From the USA ultimatum to China”

An “ultimatum” from the United States by Joe Biden to China. A move that goes “against dialogue”. Thus sound the terms of the statement released yesterday by the White House according to the sinologist Federico Masini. Biden has ordered intelligence to deliver “within 90 days” of a report with a request to investigate to reach “a definitive conclusion” on the origins of the coronavirus. Beijing accuses the US of wanting to “politicize” research. It is “the last episode of the muscle war in progress between China and the United States that we see every day” and that “we hope it will remain only such” with the “battleground” which “is not that of Covid, but that of semiconductors, electronic control and artificial intelligence on a planetary level, “Federico Masini, Italian director of the Confucius Institute at the Sapienza University of Rome, told Adnkronos. “The US with the Biden administration has decided to attack China and to convince all of their allies, the Europeans first of all to fight China – he says – China is becoming or perhaps has already become the enemy of the US, this is the reality “. With Biden’s goal that “is to disavow China”. According to Masini, “the only purpose” of the Biden Administration’s moves in the last hours, after the work of the World Health Organization and the mission in Wuhan, is “to irritate the Chinese, because there is no possibility of obtaining any results” and because “no sovereign state would probably be able to respond differently from China, rightly or wrongly”. ‘maneuvers to disconcert or embarrass international public opinion’ “WHO made a document and promised to request to the Chinese the possibility of making further investigations – he says – All this done in a different way perhaps would have led to clearer outcomes in a longer perspective, while constructed in this way is only a provocation. The “90 days”. For Masini, “they seem like an ultimatum” and “cannot be interpreted” otherwise, “a sovereign state that asks another sovereign state in 90 days to account for what happened to us two and a half years ago after already a WHO investigation “. The US” is soliciting reactions from the Chinese side “and Biden, observes the sinologist, wants” to show that China no longer works, but China works more or less as it did a year ago, two years ago, three years ago, ten years ago “. “But before the United States was fine and now it is no longer good”, he continues, precisely because the “real battleground” between the US and China is much different than Covid and “all the rest are just maneuvers to disconcert or embarrass international public opinion “. ” crazy to think about war, advice on the political system risk adverse effects, dialogue is the only option ” From the tensions in the Taiwan Strait to the difficult search for the origins of Covid for Masini, these are” operations that can only exacerbate the climate “, while we should focus on” dialogue “. “Since no one hopes to see a war break out – he says – it is only a question of finding forms of dialogue, there are no other possible choices”. Also because, he observes, “it is very complicated to be able to imagine that the Western world or the United States give advice on how to manage the political system of other countries”. It is “a very delicate matter on which any maneuver could backfire and have effects contrary “, he insists, inviting us to look at” reality “,” starting from reality “which requires the continuous and constant search for” diplomatic channels “between different worlds to” keep “dialogue alive in the name of peace. “We cannot think – he concludes – that someone wants to wage war on the Chinese as it would be madness to think of waging war on Russia, or on the United States”.