China faces a "reckoning" in the United Kingdom for this global coronavirus pandemic, from spreading the disease to potentially lying about their number of cases, according to allies of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
"Of course, the only priority now is to deal with the crisis, but everybody knows that there has to be a reckoning when all this is over," a government source told the U.K.'s Daily Mail, adding China has risked becoming a "pariah state."
The outbreak in the U.K. has spread quickly of late, including to the prime minister himself, who is now in quarantine with mild symptoms, after reportedly admitting he had shaken hands with many healthcare workers.
The U.K. now has over 17,320 confirmed cases and more than 1,021 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
"Things will get worse before they get better," Johnson wrote to 30 million homes, per the report.
"The more we all follow the rules, the fewer lives will be lost.," the letter read, adding, it is with "great British spirit that we will beat coronavirus."
The numbers in China once were the highest in the world, but they have almost ceased of late. China has reported 81,439 cases and 3,300 deaths, but that puts them just third now in the world in both metrics. The coronavirus started in Wuhan, China.
The U.S. has already pressured U.K. to scrap its controversial Huawei telecommunications deal with China over forced technology transfer and this pandemic might ultimately force Johnson to question that agreement and much of its trade with China.
Officials are skeptical of China's misinformation on case counts and believe China is trying to bolster its stalled economy during the pandemic, all while failing to admit its "atrocious animal rights record," the Mail reported.
"For too long, nations have lamely kow-towed to China in the desperate hope of wining trade deals," former Tory Party leader Iain Duncan Smith wrote for the Mail on Sunday. "But once we get clear of this terrible pandemic, it is imperative that we all rethink that relationship and put it on a much more balanced and honest basis."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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