Coronavirus: former US officials implore Washington and Beijing to work together on pandemic
- Statement urges setting aside frictions: ‘The focus should be on finding the resolve to work together to contain and defeat the virus’
- Appeal follows weeks of recriminations between officials in US and China over origins of the virus and the two countries’ handling of the outbreak
A coalition of almost 100 former high-ranking US officials and scholars have called on Washington and Beijing to put competition and acrimony on hold while working together to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.
“No effort against the coronavirus – whether to save American lives at home or combat the disease abroad – will be successful without some degree of cooperation between the United States and China,” the signers, including former cabinet secretaries, past US ambassadors to China and ex-senators, said in a statement released on Friday.
The appeal followed weeks of recriminations between officials in Washington and Beijing over the origins of the virus and the two governments’ handling of their countries’ outbreaks.
US President Donald Trump has accused the Chinese government of costing the rest of the world time to prepare by initially playing down the severity of the contagion, and this week endorsed accusations that China had under-reported its case figures.
While China had “much to answer for in its response to the coronavirus”, the 93 signatories of Friday’s statement said that a global review of the outbreak’s origins, as well as the conditions and institutional failures that allowed its spread, should come at a later date.