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China, ASEAN to fight virus together
China and ASEAN have agreed to cooperate in a joint response to the coronavirus outbreak following the ASEAN-China foreign ministerial meeting in Vientiane on Thursday, the first international engagement China has pursued since the outbreak of the epidemic at the beginning of the year
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span>China and ASEAN have agreed to cooperate in a joint response to the coronavirus outbreak following the ASEAN-China foreign ministerial meeting in Vientiane on Thursday, the first international engagement China has pursued since the outbreak of the epidemic at the beginning of the year.
Speaking to the media in Jakarta on Friday, Chinese Ambassador to ASEAN Deng Xijun said during the meeting that China and ASEAN member states had emphasized the importance of cooperation in regional public health and epidemic prevention.
“Both sides have agreed to convene a special leader's summit for higher level planning and guidance, which shows that the epidemic has not affected ASEAN-China relations. Instead, we will work together to fight against the epidemic,” the ambassador said.
In a statement after the meeting, ASEAN and China said they were committed to working together to share information and enhance the capacity of their health systems to control the virus.
Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi said exchange of information between China and ASEAN was an essential part of the close coordination needed between countries in the region to prevent, control and minimize the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak.
She proposed setting up a hotline between ASEAN countries and China to exchange up-to-date information, as well as establishing an ASEAN-China ad-hoc health ministers joint task force, which would focus on data and information exchange, as well as vaccine research collaboration.
"The COVID-19 outbreak has become a global challenge that does not recognize national borders, and we have no choice but to collaborate," Retno said at the meeting, according to a statement received on Thursday.
According to the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE), as of Friday, there were more than 76,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 2,247 people killed — mostly in China’s Hubei province and the city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak.
The virus had also infected 1,073 people in 26 other countries, with 11 deaths recorded outside mainland China, as of Friday. Within ASEAN, Singapore has the most confirmed cases with 84, but no casualties have been recorded so far. Meanwhile in the Philippines, one patient has died out of three confirmed cases.
Indonesia, meanwhile, has no recorded cases, despite hosting millions of Chinese visitors every year. Four Indonesian crew members of the Diamond Princess cruise ship have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and received treatment in Japan, while one Indonesian maid in Singapore has recovered from the virus.
Deng said the meeting boosted cooperation on regional public health following China’s proposal to set up a China-ASEAN public health emergency response mechanism and a China-ASEAN center of epidemic prevention.
During Thursday's meeting, clinical experts from China and ASEAN also held a video conference to exchange perspectives on how to deal with and manage the virus, he added.
“Both China and ASEAN are committed to taking measures toward regional and economic social development, maintaining trade, investment activities and providing support to businesses, especially the small, micro and medium-sized enterprises affected by the epidemic,” he said.
Various studies have projected that economies in the region would be impacted by China’s economic slowdown, mostly by the sharp decline in Chinese outbound travel and tourism.
A recent study from the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO) said China faced an economic slowdown driven by a fear of mass contagion that could potentially shave 0.5 percentage points off its gross domestic product growth rate, resulting in a 0.2 percentage point decrease in the economic growth of the ASEAN+3 region.
Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam plan to roll out stimulus packages to strengthen their economies amid the risks of a slowdown.
“We are also aware that neighboring countries, especially ASEAN countries, are taking measures to recover and help affected businesses,” Deng said, adding that the impact of the outbreak would be “temporary and short term”.
Once the epidemic was over, he said, China’s manufacturing would recover, “so we hope people-to-people relations and normal trade and investment will resume as early as possible.”
