US trying to shirk responsibility, smearing our anti-virus effort: China on Trump's attack on WHO

Just hours after US President shot a letter to the World Health Organization accusing it of praising China's efforts to contain the virus, the Chinese foreign ministry said the "open letter is full of hints, 'perhaps', and 'maybes', and tries to use specious methods to mislead the public."

Also Read: Trump threatens to permanently pull funding from WHO

"The US tries to use China as an issue to shirk responsibility and bargain over its international obligations to the WHO. This is a miscalculation and the US has picked the wrong target," China's foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said.

The United States has become the epicenter of the virus with over 90,000 deaths and over 1.4 million infections. US President had earlier accused the WHO of having a "China bias" even as he had stopped funding to the UN health body.

In the letter, Trump told the WHO that it was "curiously insistent" on praising China for its alleged "transparency" while adding that "notwithstanding that China has been anything but transparent".

China's foreign ministry said the Trump administration was trying to "achieve the goals of smearing China’s anti-virus efforts, and shirk responsibility for the United States' own insufficient response."

Trump called the WHO a  "puppet of China" as he sent the letter to chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus threatening to permanently freeze funding to the WHO.

The US president in the letter said that WHO has "failed to publicly call on China to allow for an independent investigation into the origins of the virus, despite the recent endorsement for doing so by its own emergency committee."

"The only way forward for the WHO is if it can actually demonstrate independence from China," the US President said, while concluding that "my administration has already started discussions with you on how to reform the organization, but action is needed quickly, we do not have time to waste."