Donald Trump's call for China to allow US probe into COVID-19 outbreak gets no support from India

India on Thursday refrained from supporting American President Donald Trump’s demand for China to allow a United States team to conduct a probe into the origin of the Covid-19 outbreak in the communist country.

Even as External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and American Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, spoke to each other over the phone on Thursday, New Delhi did not lend its voice to the clamour raised by Trump Administration in Washington D.C. for Beijing to allow the US investigators to visit China and probe how the Covid-19 virus spread from Wuhan in Hubei province of the East Asian country.

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India maintained that it could “revisit” the “question” on US allegations against China on the spread of the coronavirus, when the pandemic would be contained.

The Covid-19 virus was previously unknown before the outbreak began at Wuhan in China in December 2019. The virus now caused a pandemic, with over 2.5 million people being infected around the world and over 175000 of them succumbing to it so far.

US recently accused China of a lack of transparency over the origin of the outbreak.

Also Read: Coronavirus India update: State-wise total number of confirmed cases, deaths

Trump, himself, of late warned Chinese Government of “dire consequences”, if it had been “knowingly responsible” for the outbreak or the failure to stop it from spreading around the world. He also said that his government had been trying to find out if the virus had been developed at and accidentally leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology located at the main city of Hubei province of China. He told journalists in Washington D.C. last Sunday that the US had asked China for allowing its team to go to the "ground zero" of the pandemic to conduct a probe.

China not only dismissed the allegations against it, but also rejected the proposal for allowing a US team to investigate into the origin of the pandemic.

“We are right now focused on dealing with the crisis. We can revisit this question once the pandemic is behind us,” a source in New Delhi said in response to a question on India’s position on American President’s demand for China to allow a probe by a US team.

Jaishankar and Pompeo, however, spoke over the phone on Thursday. “Spoke with Indian Minister of External Affairs @DrSJaishankar today on positive steps that the United States and #India are taking to contain and mitigate #Covid-19,” US Secretary of State later posted on Twitter.

They also discussed “bilateral and international cooperation to deal with the crisis, including “ensuring the availability of pharmaceutical and medical supplies”, according to the spokesperson of the US State Department, Morgan Ortagus.

“Nice to hear from @SecPompeo of #UnitedStates. Discussed our #coronavirus responses and the importance of international cooperation. Working closely on its implications and consequences,” Jaishankar, himself, tweeted after his talks with Pompeo.

India’s recent export of the Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) tablet to the US had triggered a controversy earlier this month. Trump on April 5 called Modi and requested him to relax the ban so that the US could procure the drug from India. He later subtly stepped up pressure on New Delhi and warned of “retaliation” if the US was not allowed to import the drug from India. Just hours after Trump talked tough on New Delhi’s ban on the export of the HCQ, the Modi Government announced that India would allow export of the drug to its neighbours in South Asia as well as some other worst Covid-19 affected countries. It later sent a consignment of the HCQ to the US. would be among the countries, which would be allowed to procure the drug from India.

India had also refrained from joining the United States in a campaign against the World Health Organization.

Trump had criticized the WHO for not recommending restrictions on travel from China to the US and other nations for several days after the Covid-19 outbreak had been reported in the communist country. He had also announced his government’s plan to suspend US funding to the WHO.

But India had indicated that it would not support the US move to put the WHO under the scanner at a time when the international organization should instead be allowed to do its job of coordinating the global effort to contain the pandemic.