A valued partnered to the u. S. Government working closely with us to ensure the safety of americans and saudis it continues that the department of state is concerned about the alleged activities that led to dr out. In canada any accusations of wrongdoing it says should be addressed through established legal channels the lebanese president michel aoun has dismissed calls for an Internet International investigation and to choose days devastating chemical explosion in the country he says the blast which killed at least 157. 00 people and injured thousands more could have been caused either by negligence or a missile attack 154. 00 people were killed in thousands injured in the blast and its now devastated the lebanese capital work is continuing to clear up the City Residents say there is little help from the state saying a hoarder is in beirut. People here you know they would like to see International Investigators take courts because they have lost faith in the political establishment they even question the committee that was formed by the government saying how can ministers as well as head of security agencies people who hold power how can they be questioning others when they themselves should be questioned now the government doing its best to show that its serious that it wants a transparent investigation it has a rest of the head of the Customs Department the rest of the head of a reports but people in the street say these are the low level employees these people were appointed by Political PartiesPolitical Parties who are stronger than the states in other news at least 16 people have died after an india flight skidded off the runway while landing 190 people wrong for the boeing 737 when it crashed in carolus state airport Officials Say the pilot couldnt see the runway clearly because of heavy rain the jet split into 2 but it didnt catch fire. Dozens of passengers injured Elizabeth Branham has more from new delhi. And the actuation want to know International Commercial flight into india. Were hearing that around a 100. And. Now. Weve also got some more information about the plane. That the flight radar shows because it wasnt able to land the 1st copy tried and it was one had append that the. Clone skidded off the runway and found all the edge of the runway. That it fell into was about 35 seats like that. And grow into 2. The United States imposed sanctions on hong kongs chief executive says kerry lam is directly responsible for implementing a controversial Chinese National security law which it called a policy of suppression of a range of other officials including the territories use chief of also been targeted the relationship between the u. S. And china already strained has been steadily deteriorating over hong kongs autonomy the corona virus and 2 recent executive orders against the popular apps to talk and we chat. Because ruling party has secured a landslide win in parliamentary elections mending the power of the rajapaksa brothers the sri lanka peoples front is led by gotta buy and Mahinda Rajapaksa is his president and Prime Minister along with their allies that secured a 2 thirds majority giving the president the power to make sweeping changes to the constitution head to head is coming up next with mehdi hasan and then more news after that in about 25 minutes time i will see that do stay with aljazeera by for now. The. News. Hello im at the house and welcome to this special edition of head to head on how the Global Pandemic has put china in the crosshairs of some in the west due to the lockdown with departing from our usual fall out and going head to head with not one but 2 guests and without an audience. Just as a u. S. China trade deal was signed. A novel coronavirus. And the finger pointing began. Chinas cover up of the han virus allow the disease to spread all over the world the pandemic picked up old wounds for decades china raided our factories was short our jobs gutted our industries but has the coronavirus blame game provided a convenient deflection from his own governments failures. Amidst accusations of cozying up to china the us President Donald Trump the chinese premier for help to win this years u. S. Election thats just one of a number of stopping planes and with calls for a tougher stump speech cannot afford inaction in the long. Threat of china to the free world grows what it does the west we need to stand up to a rising china. My guest in the 2nd half of the show is former british diplomat and academic kerry brown who thinks that now more than ever the world needs cooperation rather than confrontation with china joining me in this 1st tough however is retired u. S. General Robert Spaulding he was trump senior director for National Security strategy and says he was fired for standing up to china the general is convinced that china is conducting a stealth war in pursuit of global domination and i think its the most consequential existential threat not just to america just to democracy the worlds ever seen hes been long calling for an awakening which he thinks covert 19 has finally spock it takes this coronavirus really to make people stand up and look at what kind of a regime. As in china but is it even possible to ties with and stand up to china or is making the Chinese Communist party the new and desperate resort of the worlds sole its going to mean super. General spaulding thank you for joining me on the head to head thank you great to be with you i think its fair to say youre not a fan of china youve suggested the Chinese Communist party which rules the country is a bigger threat to the west than ice is that alqaeda than Vladimir Putins russia youve accused them of using the pandemic to stop quote the 1st global war of the 21st century without a shot fired really you dont think thats even a little bit over the top well 1st of all id like to say that i really love china i love the Chinese People but you are right i do think the Chinese Communist party is the greatest threat to democracy and you know if you look at the actions that the leadership in beijing took. From shes own man he was in charge of the Coronavirus Crisis on the 7th of january between the 7th of january on the 23rd of january 5 1000000 people traveled out of many to International Destinations and this is where the virus spread in addition they were clamping down both internally and forcing the World Health Organization not to acknowledge human to human transmission and they were locking down p. P. And mass both within china and abroad using proxies so you can see theres a pattern of behavior there that clearly shows that they deliberately spread the virus they didnt lock down with in china to prevent the traveled international in spite of the fact they knew about human to human transmission general spaulding you said that the Global Pandemic which has taken nearly 150000 lives here in the us alone is quote 100 percent the responsibility of the Chinese Communist party they created which is you evidence for that pretty big claim in fact you and donald trump and others have even suggested at times that it was a Lab Experiment gone wrong maybe even a bio weapon again weighs you evidence for that given the u. S. Intelligence Community Says they do not believe it was manmade or genetically modified well ive always said quite clearly that i dont know about the origin of the virus and we are not going to know about it unless the Chinese Communist party allows us to get investigators there on the ground do have forensic investigation to find out what the origin i say forget about the origin of the virus thats not the issue the issue is they knew about human to human transmission but hit it and then their actions after the leadership in beijing knew what was going on thats what im talking about those actions unable to spread so i do want to come back to that point and examine some of the stuff youre saying but youve said i believe this particular strain was modified in a lab pompeo the u. S. Secretary statement bumpus says theres evidence it came from a Lab President trump says he has a high degree of confidence even though the u. S. Intelligence committee. He disagrees with you top Scientists Say theres no indication that it came from a lab it was engineered and youve even gone further youve said for example is it for a weapon is it so that you could create a vaccine that you were the sole recipient of the profits from your critics general might say this sounds pretty paranoid this is pretty tinfoil hat stuff well i always preface those arguments as thats my own personal opinion i dont have any facts and i dont claim to know how the virus was you dont have any i act how would you read the starts i and dramatic conclusion so the answer is we know that sure jungly was doing back related gain of function Coronavirus Research we know that she was writing reports about it she was hired to do that and we also know that our state department didnt inspection in 2018 and sent a note saying they were concerned about the safety. Protocols within the p 4 lab and on so when you look at it theres much more evidence to say that it probably related to her research then it is you know that it happened just accidentally and in a way to get 5 top scientists from the u. S. U. K. And australia wrote a paper in march in nature medicine saying we do not believe any type of Laboratory Based scenarios plausible the u. S. Intelligence community in april youll former colleagues said we see no reason to dissent from the Scientific Consensus let me ask you this about the Chinese Government you mentioned the timeline earlier about the cover up and the delay if the Chinese Communist party was trying to deliberately let covert 19 spread around the world its strange that on january 3rd they informed the w. H. O. About a strange new viral threat on january 11th they shared a genetic sequence with the world so that everyone else could start making a vaccine on january 23rd they looked down 45000000 of their own citizens in the biggest quarantine in Human History they travel out of a week before donald trump travel out of china this doesnt sound like a country thats trying to infect the rest of the world well then if you. Look at and you read that research what it says there are some patients in that research the assumptions they made say this has to be up by an inspection of the laboratory by an investigation where you question the researchers in question so they are not you know 100 percent convinced either so what about what about the chinese origin we dont know the dozen in terms of the time or is it that they were trying to spread it so taiwan sent a notice to World Health Organization saying they were concerned about human to human transmission no they didnt general general doesnt and you arent taiwan i read the taiwan notes that they simply asked a question about why patients were being treated isolation they said nothing about human to human transmission what about the 6 doctors that they brought in for questioning and told them you are spreading rumors why are you why are you talking about this but im not disputing generally the chinese going you very badly im agreeing with you the Chinese Government is authoritarian government that doesnt like transparency and clearly you know lock people up and try to shut things down but heres what i dont get general spaulding on the one hand youre arguing that the c. C. P. Infected the world they are responsible for all the deaths they unleashed a dangerous virus almost all on the other hand youre one of a group of americans who thinks the virus isnt so bad the lockdowns also necessary in the corona virus is quote not so much more deadly than the common flu youll woods full spy the way completely inaccurate you cant have it both ways china is evil for unleashing a deadly pandemic a by the way the pandemic 8 so bad anyways well because if you look at the models that were used and the amount of deaths that they were calling for and have been calling for. The amount of desert we should have seen in the United States based on the infection rate and Everything Else should have been in the millions thats what they were saying and yet what they were saying he was not on any anything like that and it would have been in the millions we had some lockdowns which you oppose and donald trump clearly opposes well and you look at whats happened here in spite of the lockdowns what if we had weve had the lowest fatality rates of any of the countries out there except im a leaf i want to know you know because you know if you want to and i was the 5th full 6 times will tell if you are in the world according to Johns Hopkins you know thats not true no cunt virtually no country did a good job but ill tell you one that did one that 70 miles off the coast of china is taiwan taiwan had the best. I dont really know one of ours do you disagree with general lets just agree i agree with you taiwan did a great job vietnam which shares a border with china did a great job south korea not far from china did a great job japan not far from china did a great job its funny that all these countries needed to china did good jobs in a country far away from china is blaming china for its record death toll isnt this whole blame china thing a political strategy by the Republican Party in fact a 57 page memo was circulated im sure youre aware among Republican Party politicians in april advising them to explicitly aggressively attack china for the pandemic as part of their reelection strategy while blaming democrats for being and i quote soft on china you seem to be just tell it to a Republican Party line this is politics this is not signs so i have nothing to do with the Republican Party i call things the way i see it the reason the country isnt that you mention i believe fared well during the coronavirus is because they did not believe what the Chinese Communist party was saying and they enacted measures that was not called for by the World Health Organization by the way i have been highly critical of our own c. D. C. For following the World Health Organization and not following the c. D. C. Of to what taiwan if it wished i think had it correct it. Interesting that you say that these countries you mention didnt believe china and yet today were told china combi trusted china kompany believe china is about actor you say that donald trump says the Republican Senate and yet donald trump who you work for and i believe whose reelection you support spend the 1st few months of this crisis heaping praise on the Chinese Government literally believing every word they told him he said they were working hard working very hard working really hard they were leading a Successful Operation he said doing a very good job on the coronavirus he said he appreciated the efforts and transparency he said i want to thank president xi who we also regularly refers to as a good friend and yet now you say chinas to blame maybe you should tell donald trump what im not sure what were talking about here do we want to talk about the president s Communication Style or the message he puts out or are we going to talk about the Policies Institute i want to know about his message to be honest i dont buy this idea that theres a difference between message and policy i cant speak for the president i dont know but you support him you praise him you like would have had a great you look good you could imagine him vice did you notice the fact that her greets heap praise on Bernie Sanders ive read your book ive checked out your tweets you said in june on twitter i like president s whose best friends are leaders of the c. C. P. Donald trump says and i quote we love each other in reference to xi jinping he says we will be friends no matter what Donald Trumps words how are you ok with that i dont get it ok so i was in the National SecurityCouncil Working as an advisor to the chairman of the joint chiefs in the Obama Administration i saw how the Obama Administration conducted policy with regard to china and the chinese respects party into how the above is duration has conducted policy i know its not your question but what im telling you its a relevant what im looking at what are the policy implications generally in culpeper gradually did the critics in y