The editor of a Chinese state-run newspaper has hit out at Donald Trump after he threatened China for causing "great damage" to the United States due to the coronavirus.
The virus is believed to have originated in a wet market in Wuhan in December 2019 and the US President has been critical of China through the COVID-19 pandemic.
So far in the US there have been over 2.9 million infections and 130,000 deaths, and experts have questioned whether the Trump government's response will cause him to lose the presidency in the 2020 election.
Over the last week, Trump has hit out at China in speeches and tweets.
"China has caused great damage to the United States and the rest of the world!" he tweeted on Monday.
"As I watch the pandemic spread its ugly face all across the world, including the tremendous damage it has done to the USA, I become more and more angry at China. People can see it, and I can feel it!"
But the editor of China Daily, a newspaper owned by China's Communist Party, has hit out at Trump.
"On the one hand, Trump wants to dupe Americans by saying everything under control," Chen Weihua tweeted.
"On the other hand, he is blaming China, WHO and others like madman. All these are aimed to deflect from his blunder, the biggest in the world so far. No one is even close."
Weihua called Trump a "loser" in a follow-up tweet and said the United State's high death toll is Trump's fault.
"The whole world knows how incompetent and anti-science you are in pandemic response. No one would believe you at all. In fact, the more you talk like this to distract people, the bigger the failure you are."
Beijing's state-run tabloid The Global Times has also said the "blame-game" used by Trump is a distraction from the severity of the coronavirus outbreak in the US and the Black Lives Matter movement, Express UK reported.
"More Americans have slammed the US president for inciting hatred and racism, and US officials, who turn a blind eye to the deep-seated issues in American society, including racial injustice, economic woes and the coronavirus pandemic, began shifting the blame to the former US president, extremists, and China for inflaming the social unrests."
An editorial run by the paper claimed the US "no longer inspires other countries but coerces them in almost all aspects".
