US President Donald Trump speaks during a Coronavirus Task Force press briefing at the White House in Washington, DC, on Sunday. Photo: AFP

Blame games frequently played by US conservative politicians like White House trade adviser Peter Navarro have showed that anti-intellectualism is still prevalent among some Americans, said Chinese analysts, noting that if the Trump administration only knows how to blame others but fails to solve their own problems, sooner or later, Americans will realize they are unable to lead. 

Navarro told Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures" that US President Donald Trump "built the most powerful and beautiful economy in the world in three years," but, the Communist Party of China "took it down in 60 days."

Navarro made the claim three days after House Republicans launched a "China Task Force" to coordinate a strategy against the geopolitical threat from Beijing — coming amid global scrutiny over China's handling of the coronavirus outbreak.

The nonsense blame games played by US conservative politicians just proved that the anti-intellectualism they are selling is still popular among some people with very obstinate Sinophobic sentiments, Chinese observers said.

At the very beginning of the outbreak in China's Wuhan, many US politicians and officials, including Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, even believed the outbreak was an opportunity for the US to bring jobs back from China. After that, Trump said the COVID-19 was not a big deal and could disappear "like a miracle." Now, Navarro said it was China who destroyed the US economy in 60 days, so everyone with common sense can see how ridiculous US officials were in handling the pandemic and who is responsible for the decline in the US economy, Chinese experts said.

Diao Daming, a US studies expert at Renmin University in Beijing, told the Global Times on Monday that people with common sense can see that these blame games can't save lives, and have nothing to do with epidemic prevention. Sooner or later, these tricks and the officials who played them will lose popularity if the outbreak in the US goes out of control.

"If Navarro was not a White House adviser, no one would take him seriously, as his knowledge and logic is even worse than very ordinary people," said Lü Xiang, a research fellow on US studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing.  

The "China Task Force" group will set priorities, gather information and coordinate approaches to the threat coming from China, including dealing with legislation, The Washington Post reported.

The group is also expected to look at China's influence in the US, its efforts to take over international organizations, supply chains and more, along with China's role in the anti-pandemic. 

Some US officials like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have pointed to the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab as the possible source of the outbreak, but no hard evidence has been provided, and Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease expert, and US intelligence agencies have also dismissed such conspiracy theories.

Lü said these US politicians are getting more and more "crazy," and it is hard to predict what they would do and say in the future toward China to save their horrible reputation in handling the outbreak. "At present, "USA" could probably also stand for 'unpredictable states of America.'"