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"China was not forthcoming… that's why we weren't getting all the information, that you had a CDC kit testing not go out right," U.S.  House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said during an interview with Fox News.

It's old news for the U.S. to blame China for America's problems.

For some time, many in the U.S. have relished the opportunity to politicize COVID-19. The Washington Post accused China of carrying out political retribution by using the epidemic as cover. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross saw the disease as an opportunity to "accelerate the return of jobs to North America." His colleague, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, used a diplomatic trip in late January to brand China as the "central threat of our times," just as the country was mobilizing to contain the outbreak.

There's a saying: "You reap what you sow." I wonder how they are feeling right now.

As COVID-19 starts spreading in the U.S., the same impulse to see everything as a political opportunity is coming back to haunt the country's response efforts. Despite the 8.3-billion-dollar emergency funding bill passed through Congress, the country's two political parties are engaged in a fist fight, accusing each other of bungling the response to the disease. President Donald Trump said the outbreak is the Democrats' "new hoax" and accused them of "fearmongering." Speaker of House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused the administration of manufacturing "needless chaos" and "hampering the government's response."

Truth be told, hashtag 2020election alone is a powerful enough incentive for both sides to politicize, well, everything.

Vox, a U.S. news and opinion website, published an article clearly stating "Trump's view of the coronavirus as a political rather than health-based issue." Trump's "Make America Great Again" was an economically centered platform. The country's economic development under his administration would either be his strength or his Achilles heel in his re-election campaign. And the record-setting drops of the market aren't exactly welcoming news to a president who has been constantly prodding for more growth. Fear would exacerbate the situation. Picking a partisan fight and accusing the Democrats as fearmongering is a fitting political strategy to divert people's attention away from the virus and shift the blame.

Also, the year hasn't been easy for Democrats in their quest to defeat Trump in the upcoming election. Impeachment handed him his highest approval rating since his inauguration in 2017, reaching 94 percent amongst Republicans, according to a Gallup poll. Support for his removal went from 52 percent in favor in October 2019 to 52 percent against at the end of the process. As Washington Post columnist Marc A. Thiessen wrote: "For Democrats, this is the very definition of failure." By the way, the election-count debacle in Iowa wasn't confidence-inciting either.

The Trump administration's response to the virus is really handing an opening to the Democrats on a silver platter. The Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf, during his COVID-19 hearing on Capitol Hill, demonstrated a shocking lack of preparedness that even Republican Senator John Kennedy was visibly irritated. Trump's own talk about "the tests are all perfect" doesn't juxtapose well with statements about a shortage of test kits coming from populous states like New York and California.

Since last week, Secretary Pompeo started using "Wuhan virus" in his public remarks, against the World Health Organization's explicit opposition to such a designation. Making the name stick would redirect public dissatisfaction toward China, thereby taking the heat from the country's internal political brawl and botched response to the disease. The problem is, for the past several years, partisan fights and politicization have become the norm for the U.S. No fig leaf will cover it up now.

Script writer: Huang Jiyuan

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