After receiving emails from the Chinese consulate asking him to pass a resolution praising China for its fight against the coronavirus, which originated in China, Wisconsin Senate President Roger Roth (R-Appleton) wrote a resolution slamming China for lying about the coronavirus.
“When [Roth] received the first one dated Feb. 26, he saw it was from a hotmail account and disregarded it as a prank,” the Wisconsin Examiner reported. “Then on March 10, 2020, he received a follow up, and Roth says he had his staff start digging, reaching out through government channels. They were able to confirm that the email requests were legitimate — and they were told Chinese diplomats routinely use private email accounts because they are faster.”
The Chinese sent Roth a draft of the resolution that they wanted him to use which was full of communist propaganda and said, “there is no need to overreact.”
The main section of the communist propaganda resolution stated:
Whereas China’s action has been critical to the global fight against the epidemic, and China has adopted unprecedented and rigorous measures for disease control and prevention, including locking down Wuhan, a metropolis of 11 million people, house-to-house temperature checks, postponing the return to work after the Lunar New Year break of hundreds of millions of travelers, construction of hospitals of more than two thousand beds on green fields within days, bringing in medical teams from across the country to Hubei Province. These measures have been effective in curbing the virus from spreading to other parts of China and the world. As a result, the daily number of newly confirmed cases in China has dropped sharply to double digits, over 60,000 (to be updated) people have been cured and discharged from hospital, and the case fatality rate has remained lower than SARS, EBOLA and MERS; and
Whereas China has been transparent and quick in sharing key information of the virus with the WHO and the international community, thus creating a window of opportunity for other countries to make timely response
“Then I got mad, because that’s when [COVID-19] cases started cropping up here and you saw the problem exacerbated as we started to learn the truth,” Roth told the Wisconsin Examiner. “I just sent them back a one-word response. I said ‘nuts.’”
“Then a couple of days later I said that we are going to introduce a resolution, it’s just not the one that the Chinese government wants,” Roth continued. “We’re going to introduce one that speaks the truth to the lies that I believe are being told around the world, so that’s how we ended up with the resolution as it was introduced.”
Roth put together the following resolution, in response to the request from the Chinese consulate, condemning China for its actions during the pandemic and for other acts of tyranny [emphasis original]:
Relating to: acknowledging that the Communist Party of China deliberately and
intentionally misled the world on the Wuhan Coronavirus and standing in
solidarity with the Chinese people to condemn the actions of the Communist
Party of China.
Whereas, the State of Wisconsin is currently in a state of emergency due to the
rising spread of the Coronavirus that originated in the Wuhan Province of China, as
the number of infected individuals in Wisconsin rose to over 700 and also consisted
of 8 deaths as of March 26, 2020; and
Whereas, the Chinese people are a great people, and heirs to one of the greatest
civilizations in human history, held hostage by a brutal and oppressive regime these
past 70 years; and
Whereas, the Communist Party of China has engaged in a continued pattern
of human and natural rights abuses perpetrated by the country’s communist
administration, including the Communist Party’s treatment of Tibet, the internment
and “reeducation” of 1.5 million Muslim Uyghurs in concentration camps, the
enactment of a one-child policy responsible for aborting hundreds of millions of
children, the majority of them female, a record of organ harvesting and forced
sterilization, crackdown on the Tiananmen protests, and restrictions on individual
expression and religious practice; and
Whereas, the Communist Party of China has repeatedly demonstrated a lack
of interest in respecting international norms, including a history of currency
manipulation, intellectual property theft, and restricting Chinese market access,
while receiving the condemnation of numerous American Presidents and Legislators
from both political parties for these practices; and
Whereas, the Communist Party of China, led by President Xi Jinping, has
moved to consolidate power, scrapping term limits to create a de facto life term for
the President of China and continually squashing democratic-based initiatives in
and outside of mainland China; and
Whereas, the Chinese government is currently engaging in a barrage of
misinformation throughout all corners of the globe, attempting to pass off the
responsibility of their negligent and reckless response to the virus; and
Whereas, the Chinese government has imprisoned their own citizens who
dared disseminate accurate information on the Coronavirus, destroyed early
samples of the virus, refused to release timely and accurate information on the virus,
and continued to allow infected individuals to leave the Wuhan Province after
reasonable evidence of person-to-person contamination was present; and
Whereas, reports have indicated that had the Chinese Government acted in a
more efficient, transparent, and responsible way, cases worldwide of the virus may
have been limited by 95 percent; and
Whereas, on February 5, 2020, the first confirmed case of Coronavirus was
identified in Wisconsin; and
Whereas, on February 26, 2020, and again on March 10, 2020, the Chinese
Consulate reached out to the Wisconsin Senate President requesting that the Senate
pass a resolution — written by the Chinese Consulate — including propaganda
and falsehoods such as:
“China has been transparent and quick in sharing key information of the virus with the WHO and the international community, thus creating a window of opportunity for other countries to make timely response”
Whereas, the Wisconsin State Senate deems it necessary and prudent to
combat the spread of misinformation propagated by the Communist Party of China
and the need to push back on the claims that the virus originated anywhere but
China; now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the senate, That the Wisconsin Senate acknowledges that the
Communist Party of China has deliberately and intentionally misled the world,
suppressed vital information on the statistics and spread of the Wuhan Coronavirus
both domestically and abroad, allowed millions of individuals to travel outside of the
province and country despite clear warnings that the virus could be transmitted
person-to-person, and engaged in active suppression and persecution of individuals
looking to truthfully discuss information related to the Coronavirus, which has led
to a global pandemic the likes of which has not been seen for generations; and, be it
further
Resolved, That the Wisconsin Senate hereby stands in solidarity with the
Chinese people, condemning the actions of the Communist Party of China in the
strongest possible terms, and acknowledges that millions, both in China and around
the world, are at risk of illness and death due to the negligence and hostile actions
of the Chinese Communist Party.