Gen. Jack Keane accuses China of 'criminal behavior,' says Xi 'doesn't care about loss of life' from pandemic

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Keane calls China a 'predator' and policy needs to be changed accordingly

Fox News senior strategic analyst Gen. Jack Keane shares his thoughts on the tensions between the U.S. and China.

Fox News senior strategic analyst Gen. Jack Keane joined "The Story" Friday to discuss the escalating tension between the United States and China, telling host Martha MacCallum the Communist country needs to be held accountable for the coronavirus pandemic.

"Strategically, this administration reset the table when they came in and they saw China not as a country that was a competitor, which is to be sure, and not as a country that is one that we should cooperate with, and on certain levels we should," Keane said.

"But they saw China as a predator economically, geopolitically and militarily. And the change in policy, and it's playing out before our eyes, is that at times we have to confront China and we have to do it with our allies. And that's a completely different policy from the past and that's all pre-pandemic."

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Keane described China's actions in the early part of the pandemic as "criminal behavior."

"Post-pandemic, there needs to be a comprehensive strategy in dealing with [what] China has done and holding them accountable, not just for the origin and lack of transparency on [the] origin and human-to-human spread, but actually growing a pandemic from an epidemic by permitting international flights out of the country," Keane said.

The retired general theorized that China allowed the virus to spread because Chinese President Xi Jinping wanted to neutralize the advantage other countries could have gained while China struggled with the outbreak.

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"He doesn't care about loss of life. He cares about the economic contraction that was experienced in his country. And he wanted the other countries to go through that same economic contraction as he was going through," Keane said. "And he was hoping that he would recover sooner than they did. That's what this is about. And he's got to be held accountable for that."