U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, in an article for the Nikkei, accused China of being non-transparent during the start of the coronavirus pandemic and wondered how many lives could have been saved if Beijing “acted with at least a fraction of the openness and international cooperation that Japan demonstrates” on the issue of water discharge from the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant.
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“There is a stark contrast and lesson to be learned when comparing Japan’s thoroughness in dealing with nuclear water and China’s approach to human health challenges that are in its own backyard, including bird flu, SARS and COVID-19,” he said.
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According to Emanuel, “It is impossible not to wonder how great the human health situation would be and how many lives could be saved if China showed even a fraction of the openness and international cooperation with which Japan has been dealing with the Fukushima issue.”
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“In the same cases, China’s actions were marked by a lack of transparency, accountability, or timely information to the international community. This not only prevented effective real-time response, but also led to the loss of countless lives,” he added.
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According to the WHO as of August 30, 2023, there have been more than 770.06 million confirmed cases and nearly 6.96 million deaths worldwide. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, at a briefing in Geneva on May 5, said that the true death toll is at least 20 million.
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The United States previously publicly announced an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, after which the Wuhan Institute in China became the focus of close attention of the American government.
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Subsequently, the States accused this research institution of refusing to cooperate with the investigation and provide the requested documentation. The US intelligence community has made it clear that it is developing two versions of the origin of the coronavirus – a leak from a Chinese laboratory and a natural infection of a person from an animal.
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WHO in March 2021 published the full report of an international group of experts of the organization on a visit to Wuhan to establish the origin of the coronavirus, in which they called it a leak from the laboratory “highly unlikely”. The report also stated that a new type of coronavirus was most likely transmitted to humans from bats through another animal. Another version of the origin of the coronavirus – direct transmission to humans from an animal – experts added to the list of hypotheses “from possible to probable”. The WHO mission also called a “possible” version of the transmission of the virus through chilled foods.
