The world must look to China, pay attention and follow its principles in order to halt the global spread of the coronavirus, the official Communist China Daily said in an editorial on Tuesday.

Despite the fact coronavirus was first discovered last year in the city of Wuhan, where officials tried for six weeks to conceal the deadly outbreak, China is increasingly trying to recast itself as a global leader on the treatment of the pandemic.

To that end it is issuing guidance and instruction for other countries to follow, with the full support of the United Nations and World Health Organization functionaries, although not everyone is buying the propaganda push:

Sen. @MarcoRubio is standing up against the communist Chinese regime. https://t.co/RtvEKRW9CA — Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) March 17, 2020

The China Daily editorial said Singapore, Japan and South Korea had all “based their responses on the experience and lessons drawn from China’s successful battle with the virus”, and China was now “proactively sharing” its best practices.

At the same time the Communist regime is disappointed not all countries are paying attention, increasing the possibility that the epidemic will get worse, the newspaper said:

Despite the unmistakable seriousness of the situation, some countries have tried to play down the risks, and the measures they have taken are not only insufficient to control the pandemic at home, but also not enough to prevent themselves from being the source of virus transmission to other countries.

Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi told U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday attempts by U.S. politicians to denigrate China’s efforts to curb the Wuhan virus would not succeed, and could lead to retaliation.

His appeal drew a sharp response from Pompeo who conveyed “strong objections” to Yang over what the State Department described as “PRC efforts to shift blame for COVID-19 to the United States,” as Breitbart News reported.

Over the past few weeks, Chinese officials and state-managed social media accounts began floating theories that the coronavirus began in the United States and was brought to Wuhan by U.S. Army soldiers visiting for the Military World Games in October.

Thursday’s allegations from the Chinese Foreign Ministry that the Wuhan coronavirus originated in America and was spread to China by the U.S. military was not a fluke or an example of a rogue spokesman running his mouth. https://t.co/1Jt5KSCYpo — Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) March 14, 2020

On Monday a major Chinese Communist Party paper, the Global Times, stated again – without evidence – the virus might have been developed in the U.S. Army laboratory in Fort Detrick, Maryland, before being secretly released to harm an innocent and entirely helpless mainland Chinese populace.