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Southeast Asian nations, China to discuss collective response to virus outbreak
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Patrons have drinks at a restaurant in the tourist market of Luang Prabang in Laos on Feb. 7. With elephant parks unvisited, curios at markets unsold and tuk-tuks standing idle; the Mekong is absorbing billions of dollars in losses from a collapse in Chinese tourism since the outbreak of the deadly COVID-19 novel coronavirus. (AFP/Aidan Jones)
T
op diplomats from Southeast Asia are to meet their Chinese counterparts on Thursday in search of a collective response to the novel coronavirus outbreak, a senior foreign policy official from Indonesia confirmed, as the region starts to reel from the effects of the epidemic.
ASEAN foreign ministers are to convene in an upcoming emergency ministerial meeting in Vientiane to explore possible cooperation with China to mitigate the impact of the virus, which has infected upward of 50,000 people and killed nearly 2,000 – predominantly in China’s Hubei province and mostly in the central city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak.
“[The meeting] will discuss further cooperation on the coronavirus [response] and also [to prepare for when] similar diseases occur in the future,” Indonesia’s top ASEAN official, Jose Tavares, told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.
On Saturday, ASEAN chair Vietnam issued a statement on the group’s collective response to the coronavirus, expressing “solidarity and heartfelt support” for China in addressing the outbreak.
It also highlighted proactive measures taken by the region’s health sector in collaboration with ASEAN+3 partner countries China, Japan and South Korea to check the spread of the coronavirus disease, COVID-19.
“While affirming our consistent policies of keeping our economies and borders open, [we] emphasize the need to coordinate and standardize measures to ensure proper health inspections at borders and entry points of ASEAN member states,” the ASEAN statement reads.
The move follows national efforts in Southeast Asia to mitigate the virus, which has spilled over to most countries in ASEAN, leading member states to impose some form of travel restriction to and from mainland China despite a relaxed visa policy that encourages free movement within the region.
