“Everyone with a discerning eye can see that there is a clear logic behind these actions,” read a post on Friday on Taoran Notes, a WeChat account affiliated with the official Economic Daily newspaper, which was closely followed through more than a dozen rounds of US-China trade talks for the inside line from China’s negotiating team.
“Some people in the United States insist that ‘the election situation is greater than the epidemic situation’, and the political interests of the minority are placed above the lives of the majority. Essentially, this is a disregard for life.”
A few days later, the Global Times – a tabloid newspaper published by the People's Daily, the Communist Party's mouthpiece – published an English language-only article saying “sources close to the Chinese government” and “a former Chinese trade official” were “calling for new negotiations and a tit-for-tat approach on spiralling trade issues”.
