When China was witnessing the peak of the coronavirus outbreak in the country, Italy had donated Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) to China. Now, when the tables are turned,China had sold the same donated PPEs to Italy, as per a report in The Spectator magazine.

China showed the world that it had donated PPE kits to Italy after it became the epicenter of the China-emerged virus. But, the media reports alleged that Beijing had actually sold, not donated, the PPE kits to Italy.

A senior Trump administration official, who was cited in The Spectator’s report, said that China “forced Italy to buy back the PPE supply that it gave to China during the initial coronavirus outbreak.”

“Before the virus hit Europe, Italy sent tons of PPE to China to help China protect its own population,” the administration official explained. “China then has sent Italian PPE back to Italy -- some of it, not even all of it ... and charged them for it,” he added.

China, the largest supplier of the essentials required to combat the virus, had sold testing kits that many of it turned out to be defective. Spain had to return 50,000 quick-testing kits to China after discovering that they were faulty.

China shuddered the blame and accused other nations of not reading the manual properly. Recently, the Netherlands returned the supplies saying that they didn’t meet the safety standards and China retorted saying ‘double-check the instructions’ on its masks.

“It’s so disingenuous for Chinese officials now to say we are the ones who are helping the Italians or we are the ones who are helping the developing world when, in fact, they are the ones who infected all of us,” the senior administration official said to The Spectator.

“Of course they should be helping. They have a special responsibility to help because they are the ones who began the spread of the coronavirus and did not give the information required to the rest of the world to plan accordingly,” he added.

He further accused China of misreporting on coronavirus due to which the whole world has to bear the brunt. As China downplayed the outbreak within its borders, nearly half a million people travelled to the US potentially carrying the virus, the official said.