James HeimowitzandDorinda Elliott

Opinion | The US and China should fight the coronavirus together now, and quarrel later

There will be time to dwell on how much China’s initial cover-up and the US government’s slow response to Covid-19 cost the world. But first, the US and China must work together to fight the crisis

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Workers produce masks at a 3M factory in Shanghai. The US is in need of medical equipment and supplies that China can help provide. Photo: Xinhua

James HeimowitzandDorinda Elliott

Published: 1:00am, 28 Mar 2020Updated: 9:29am, 28 Mar 2020

President Donald Trump’s practice of calling Covid-19 a “Chinese virus” has resulted in race-baiting and fear in the United States. At the same time, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman’s suggestions that the US military might be responsible for the epidemic have stoked anti-US sentiment across China. Thank goodness presidents Trump and Xi Jinping have started talking in the last few days, at long last. But the hard feelings between the two countries still endure.

Now is not the time for counterproductive finger-pointing. Instead, the US and China should be working together to fight this crisis. The enemy is the coronavirus – not any nation or people.

Unfortunately, for a few years now, tensions between Washington and Beijing have been ratcheting up, and trust between the two countries has plummeted. As a result, American businesses are trying to decouple their supply chains from China, while China is developing its own parallel internet infrastructure. Chinese scientists in the US are being investigated, while American journalists are being thrown out of China.

Now that we are facing a global pandemic, this dangerous new paradigm of disconnection is leading us to the brink of disaster. As the world’s two largest economies, the US and China must work together to find scientific and humanitarian solutions to tackle the pandemic and devise financial strategies – utilising their combined economic firepower in tandem – to save the global economy.

Dividing the world into two separate scientific, economic and technological spheres – particularly at a time when the US and Chinese economies are struggling to recover – could be disastrous for all.

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