Coronavirus: Singapore PM calls for end to US-China blame game, wants to see leadership from Trump administration
- Lee Hsien Loong, speaking in an interview with CNN, said that the back and forth between the US and China was ‘not going to help us solve the problem sooner’
- The Singaporean PM suggested that countries may turn elsewhere if American leadership was not forthcoming
Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Sunday it would be a pity if the United States failed to put to use its immense expertise, soft power and resources to lead global efforts to overcome the “grave challenge to mankind” posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Speaking in a live interview with CNN, the Southeast Asian city state’s leader also decried the US-China blame game that has erupted in recent weeks over the outbreak, saying it was “not going to help us solve the problem sooner”.
The comments by the Singaporean leader come as US President Donald Trump’s administration remains mired in criticism over its fractured response to the crisis, with few countries looking to the American leader or his top officials for guidance on dealing with the pandemic.
Instead, the fastidious approaches wielded by the likes of Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea in testing and tracking down infected people are being seen as instructive for the rest of the world.
China, which is slowly recovering after bearing the early brunt of the outbreak, has meanwhile started to assert a leadership role by doling out donations of medical supplies to dozens of its trading partners.