With the raging coronary virus disease in 2019, the debate on the role of China in it is also very arrogant.According to the current disclosed, it is clear that some Chinese officials have made major mistakes in the end of December and early January.These people tried to cover up the news of the crown disease epidemic in Wuhan, and even suppressed the medical staff who tried to issue warnings.Even though Chinese leaders successfully resolved the entire crisis and took appropriate measures to prevent the next round of epidemic, they could not deny the existence of these errors.

The unclear thing is that why other countries feel that it will continue to mention China's initial mistakes, rather than seeking solutions, which is more in line with its own interests.For many governments, named humiliation China seems to be a strategy to divert the attention of the people to cover up the insufficient preparations for the country.

It is also worrying that criticisms for the World Health Organization are also increasing, especially US President Trump.He accused the organization of its responsibility for investigating the Chinese government, but did nothing.When the world's top priority should be a healthy and economic crisis caused by coronary virus, and to make comprehensive coordination response, this kind of blame for each other is not only unsuitable, but also a crisis.

At the global and national level, we urgently need to take all means to step up the development of safe and effective vaccines, and at the same time increase collective cooperation to deploy necessary diagnosis and treatment tools to control this sanitary crisis.Since no other global health institutions have the ability to deal with this epidemic, regardless of whether certain political leaders have opinions on this, WHO will always be the core of response measures.

I had dealt with WHO during the chairman of the Independent Review Committee of the British Anti -Microbiology Drug tolerance.At that time, the organization was similar to most large international bureaucratic organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the United Nations, and would not be particularly proactive or tended to jump out of the box.However, we should not take the attitude of bystanders, but we must strive to improve them and do our best to help WHO and the International Monetary Fund organizations, play an effective leadership role in the current global crisis response.

As I have pointed out before, the International Monetary Fund should expand the scope of the annual consultation of Article IV of its member states, and incorporate the relevant content of the national public health system into it.Because these contents will be a key decisive factor in the country's prevention, or at least deal with the current crisis capabilities.I even mentioned this concept to fund organization officials, but was told that such reports did not belong to their scope of authority because they lacked relevant professional knowledge.

This answer could only be reluctant to accept it at the time, and now it seems even more unreliable.If the International Monetary Fund lacks professional knowledge to evaluate the public health system, it should gain these knowledge.As the current crisis fully indicates that there is no effective separation between health and economy, the two policy areas are actually deeply related, so they should also be treated accordingly.

When considering international countermeasures for the current sanitation and economic emergencies, we can obviously compare it to the 2008 global financial crisis.Everyone knows that the crisis started with an unsustainable US real estate bubble, but due to the lack of domestic savings in the United States, the bubble was actually expanding under the injection of foreign savings.Therefore, when the bubble is eventually shattered, many other countries have suffered much more damage than the United States; just as the popularity of epidemic diseases has caused more severe blows to some countries than China.

Although the scars caused by that crisis were still clearly visible, few countries in the world tried to pick out the United States separately to take responsibility for this large -scale destructive real estate bubble.On the contrary, many countries are happy that the US economy has continued to grow in recent years, because a strong US economy can benefit other parts of the world.

Therefore, instead of implementing double standards and forgetting the big mistakes made by China, it is better to think about what lessons China can bring us.Specifically, we should focus on a better understanding of what kind of technology and diagnostic technology the use of China to make the number of deaths (on the surface data), as the low as other countries, and can still be inWithin a few weeks after the epidemic reached the apex, some economic operations were restored.

At the same time, for our own well -being, we should also consider what policies China will adopt to regain the annual growth rate of 6%, because the Chinese economy will inevitably play an important role in global recovery.If the post -growth model in China will make its leaders in recent years, in order to increase domestic consumption and the efforts of imports in other parts of the world, we will be improved by all of us.

(Author Jim O NEILL was the chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management Company and Minister of Finance of the United Kingdom.

English Title: Blaming China is a Dangerous Distraction

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2020