Politically, it was a dangerous situation for both men.
With the escalation of its trade war with China, the Trump administration virtually eliminated a public health partnership with Beijing that had started after the SARS disaster and aimed to help prevent potential pandemics. Upon withdrawing, say current and former agency officials, Washington isolated itself from the potential for intelligence on the virus and lost the chance to work with China against it.
Under the partnership, teams of American doctors were deployed in China and, over time, helped to train more than 2,500 Chinese public health professionals. More than 15 also traveled to the United States for training.
“Our interns,” the Americans called them.
One of the American doctors worked within the Chinese CDC, establishing ties with interns destined for posts across the country and socializing with Chinese doctors.
“You are in a position to get extremely important information,” said Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, a former director of the agency who helped establish the deal, “mainly about a new threatening disease.”
In a 10-year review of the partnership, doctors on both sides argued that it helped prevent potential pandemics, such as bird flu, which first appeared in southern Guangdong province. China allowed U.S. epidemiologists to join the response and sent scientists to the United States for training, a partnership that continued into 2017, when a new virulent strain spread to other countries and killed more than 600 people.
“We work shoulder to shoulder with the CDC of China,” recalled Dr. Tom Frieden, head of the US agency under President Barack Obama. With more spread and the wrong mutation, Dr. Frieden added: “It could have been a pandemic”.
Another American program in the country – called Predict – sought to detect dangerous pathogens in animals, especially coronaviruses, before they could spread to humans. One of the laboratories he worked with was in Wuhan.