CHINA -USA- CHEER : WORLD

IN a shift, China and U.S. seek to cooperate : They're looking for ways to unite on pandemic, but it's an uneasy truce.

For weeks, President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo forcefully used the controversial terms ''Chinese virus'' and ''Wuhan-virus'' in public and they intended to hold Beijing responsible for the crippling coronavirus pandemic.

Lately, they have avoided using those phrases, and the administration has welcomed planeloads of  medical equipment from China. Mr. Trump has been effusive in describing a relationship with President Xi Jinping of China, with whom he spoke late last month.

''The relationship with China is a good one, and my relationship with him is really good,'' Mr. trump told reporters. The president added that he ''will always assume the best'' of China's leaders.

Asked whether American intelligence agencies had judged that China had falsified case and fatalities  numbers over the virus, Mr. Trump said ''I'm not an accountant from China.''

As the pandemic spreads, relations between the United States and China have whipsawed wildly. Washington and Beijing were at each other's throats for weeks over the outbreak., which began late last year in Wuhan and was initially covered up by the Communist Party officials.

But for now, the two sides have settled on a tentative, uneasy truce. they have agreed to hold their fire on public sniping over the virus and to look for ways to cooperate to slow the contagion.

Some American officials have recognised that the deteriorating state of relations - at the worst point since the Tinamen Square massacre in 1989 - was impeding global efforts to fight the pandemic.

Several of Mr. Trump's aides quietly reached out to Chinese officials through American businessmen with extensive ties in China, according to people familiar with the efforts.

National security officials and China hawks in the State Department are skeptical that the detente will last, but several top advisers to Mr. Trump have advocated restraint - notably Jared Kushner, Mr. trump's son-in-law; Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury Secretary; and Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council.

They argue that the two superpowers need to work together to suppress the virus and resuscitate the world economy and that Mr. Trump should not jeopardize a trade deal that the two nations reached last December.

The Honor and Serving of the latest global operational research on Superpowers and the State of the World, continues. The World Students Society thanks authors Edward Wong and Ana Swanson.