CHINA AND THE US SHOULD COPERATE IN COMBATING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC – ZHAO LIJAN
China and the US are better off cooperating to end the pandemic for the sake of reviving the economy and rebooting industrial production, spokesman of the Chinese foreign ministry, Zhao Lijian said on Friday.
Zhao said this at a media briefing while responding to U.S. President, Donald Trump’s warning that bilateral ties might be cut over Beijing’s alleged responsibility for unleashing the coronavirus.
“The stable development of U.S.-Chinese relations is in fundamental interest of people from both countries and is also favourable for global peace and stability.
“China and the United States should now strengthen cooperation in combating the COVID-19 epidemic in order to defeat the coronavirus as soon as possible, cure patients, resume production, and develop the economy,” the spokesman said.
Trump has repeatedly claimed, although with no evidence provided, that the virus that caused deaths, lockdowns, and economic standstill all around the world had in fact been developed and synthesized in a lab in Wuhan, a Chinese city in the Hubei province from where the first cases of an abnormal respiratory disease originated from, last December.
On Thursday, Trump disclosed in an interview with Fox News that the US might cut all ties with China in light of Beijing’s coronavirus-related policies. “I’m very disappointed in China. I will tell you that right now,” Trump said.
The United States has registered almost 86,000 deaths linked to COVID-19 the highest toll of any nation, with a third of all known global infections.
Asked how the United States might choose to retaliate against what he has dubbed the “Plague from China”, Trump said: “We could cut off the whole relationship”.
The US and China are the world’s two largest economies, doing hundreds of billions of dollars of mutually beneficial trade every year.
New figures showed a further three million job losses, taking the newly unemployed to 36.5 million more than 10 per cent of the US population.
Over a third of them will have trouble paying their bills, a survey has revealed.
China has however denied the accusations, reiterating that its policies were transparent throughout the outbreak.
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