THEY DESERVE A BACKLASH: China Faces Backlash Abroad and Raises Coronavirus Death Toll.

Widespread reporting has shown that the Chinese authorities initially mismanaged and concealed the extent of the epidemic before eventually swinging into action in late January to halt the spread of the virus. Beijing maintains that it has been transparent in its communications about the epidemic from the beginning. . . .

In the past week, officials in France, Britain and nearly two dozen African nations have rebuked Chinese government actions. China has been accused of hypocrisy, hubris and obfuscating the virus’s origins.

Japan has pledged to help companies move production out of China because of concerns about the country’s reliability. And President Emmanuel Macron of France questioned whether China’s heavy-handed methods were a model for democracies to follow.

No. It’s not even clear that they’ve worked for the Chinese, since we can’t trust their numbers.

Plus: “The European Union’s top foreign policy official, Josep Borrell, recently accused China of stoking a ‘battle of the narratives’ and stigmatizing Europeans. After member nations complained about substandard medical supplies bought from China, the bloc made a point of thanking Taiwan for its donation of masks, a gesture that would previously have been considered too risky for fear of offending Beijing.”