Germany has sparked outrage in China after a major newspaper put together a £130bn invoice that Beijing “owes” Berlin following the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
Germany has followed France, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United
States (US) in directing its coronavirus anger at China, where the virus
originated. Recent attacks come amid findings that Beijing appeared to cover up
the true scale of the crisis, as the source of the outbreak remains a mystery.
On Saturday, President Donald Trump warned that China should
face consequences if it was “knowingly responsible” for unleashing the
coronavirus pandemic.
President
Trump told reporters: “It could have been stopped in China before it started
and it wasn’t, and the whole world is suffering because of it.
“If it
was a mistake, a mistake is a mistake. But if they were knowingly responsible,
then there should be consequences.”
He said the Chinese were “embarrassed” and the
question was whether what happened with the coronavirus was “a mistake that got
out of control, or was it done deliberately?”
President Trump and his senior aides have repeatedly accused
China of lacking transparency.
This week
the city of Wuhan, where the outbreak started, revised its number of fatalities
by with a sudden 50% jump in the figure.
The UK
has joined US intelligence officials in investigating claims that the virus
originated in a Wuhan virus lab and not a wet market.
A
bombshell op-ed this week in Germany’s largest tabloid newspaper, Bild, joined
this outrage by drawing up an itemised invoice for €149bn (£130b).
The list includes
a €27 billion charge for lost tourism revenue, up to €7.2 billion for
the German film industry, a million euros an hour for German airline Lufthansa
and €50 billion for German small businesses.
Bild calculated that
this amounts to €1,784 (£1,550) per person if Germany’s GDP falls by 4.2
percent, under the title “What China owes us.”
China responded by
claiming the invoice “stirs up xenophobia and nationalism”.
Source: express.co.uk