The suggestion was hammered home in a subsequent tweet by US President Donald Trump, referring to “the Chinese virus”, in the sort of pejorative language that has become prevalent among senior members of his administration.

The virus crisis is unfolding at a time of deep mistrust between global powers, amid rising protectionism and waning interest in multilateralism, presenting an arguably unprecedented challenge to global leaders.

“Global coordination either through the G7 or G20 is needed. If we lose control, the pandemic will risk a new round of global economic crises and social turmoil,” said an adviser to the Chinese government, who spoke under condition of anonymity. “So far there is no coordinated global action and we may not see one any time soon.”

China will be involved in any consultations of the Group of 20 (G20), of which it is a member, but there is scant confidence in the possibility of a multilateral response.

“I fear the crisis will be used to put up more barriers, more nationalism, more protectionism, more restrictions,” said one Western source.

“Not surprisingly no-one seems to want to involve China at the moment on future economic policy,” said a European trade official in Asia, adding that China’s efforts to enlist European countries in its Belt and Road Initiative had been seen as efforts to “divide” the bloc, making Brussels “cautious about economic policy discussions on China”.

China has been exporting medical equipment to beleaguered European nations including Italy, even as the European Union banned such exports from outside its 27 member states.

The growing use of export controls has been slammed in some quarters, with Simon Evenett, a trade law professor at the University of St Gallen in Switzerland describing them as “sicken thy neighbour” policies. Chad Bown at the Peterson Institute of International Economics, meanwhile, has argued that trade war tariffs are obstacles to national-level responses to the pandemic.

In a display of the division sown in Europe by China’s involvement in the recovery effort, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić dismissed “European solidarity” as “a fairy tale on paper”.

“The only country that can help us is China,” Vučić said.

At a press conference in Beijing on Tuesday, Lei Chaozi, a director of the science and technology department at the Ministry of Education, confirmed that China has begun supplying Italy, Britain and the Netherlands with coronavirus test kits and said “the country is very willing to enhance cooperation with other countries” in the preventive effort.

But there has been no comment from Beijing as to whether China is willing to work on an economic response with the G7, with which it has a prickly relationship.

“The G20 was created because the G7 needed China’s help to counter the financial crisis in 2008,” said Chen Long, a Beijing-based partner with the independent research agency Plenum. “The G7 alone will not save the world. China’s participation should be a part of a global rescue plan.”

“If we keep following the current trend, people will lose confidence in global governance, and just witness the world fall into the pit of chaos,” said Huo Jianguo, the former head of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s research institute, who encouraged the G20 to take the lead on an economic solution.

Warning that the world faces even more pressing challenges than the global financial crisis more than a decade ago, Wang Huiyao, president of a Beijing think-tank president and adviser to China’s cabinet, urged international cooperation.

“It is time for each country to offer their solutions, such as China’s new infrastructure projects and the [US] Federal Reserve’s interest rate cuts, to know what each country can do,” he said.