'China is evading responsibility on coronavirus pandemic': Former MI6 chief says WHO must also look into failings
Former ex-MI6 chief Sir John Sawers has alleged that China hid crucial coronavirus information from the West and is 'evading' blame for the pandemic. Sawers also accused Beijing of not being honest with the world when the virus initially surfaced in the region.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today program, Sawers noted the shortfalling of the World Health Organization (WHO) as it faced 'serious questions' for failing to scrutinize China's activities. He also spoke about US President Donald Trump’s decision to freeze all US funding to WHO and suggested the Republican should direct his fury at the country rather than the UN agency.
“There is deep anger in America at what they see as having been inflicted on us all by China, and China is evading a good deal of responsibility for the origin of the virus, for failing to deal with it initially. At the same time, we cannot find a way out of this without working with China... The world will not be the same after the virus as it was before,” Sawers told the radio.
Continuing further, he said, “Intelligence is about acquiring information which has been concealed from you by other states and other actors. There was a brief period in December and January when the Chinese were indeed concealing this from the West.”
Sawers also said that Beijing increasingly appeared 'completely at odds' with the West, however, he added that Trump’s decision to halt funding WHO was not a good decision. “It would be better to hold China responsible for those issues than the WHO... heads of UN agencies are wary of offending one of the major powers.
“But that doesn't excuse the head of the WHO for failing to stand up for the facts, the data, and making the right demands of China. I think the WHO has got serious questions to answer about its performance, but anger should be directed against China rather than the UN agencies,” he said.
The comments from the diplomat came after the ex-foreign secretary of Britain Lord Hague said the global public health crisis shows China cannot be relied on. He told the Policy Exchange think-tank: “Can any of us see China agreeing to and permitting an international investigation into what’s happened here? I think that’s very unlikely and there have been co-ordinated attempts by China, on social media, to spread ideas that it was somebody else’s fault, including the fault of the United States.”
He also stated that the West’s stand on China was “uncoordinated, incoherent and ineffective”.
“This crisis reinforces the case for two major pillars to be established for Western policy towards China. The first arises from the fact that China isn't going to play by our rules, and that means that we cannot possibly be strategically dependent on China in many respects, including on technology.
“But the other important pillar arises from the fact that we can't solve global problems without China. And global problems are some of our most pressing and obviously most existential. And indeed the, again, the COVID-19 crisis is an example of such a dramatic world crisis. So we can't be dependent on China, but we can't be without a framework of cooperation with China,” he added.
Alexander Downer, former foreign minister of Australia, has also agreed that the West's current approach “lacks leadership, lacks coherence” and called for a “better, more co-ordinated approach” to managing relations with the East Asian country.