New Delhi: One of Germany’s largest newspapers, Bild, has made out an unusual invoice. The daily has billed China for the money it “owed” Berlin in ‘coronavirus damages’.
In an article titled ‘What China owes us’, that was published Wednesday, the newspaper slapped China with a bill of 150 billion euros, which is $165 billion, for damages inflicted on Germany due to the Covid-19 outbreak that began in Wuhan.
It listed a 27 billion euro charge for losses in German tourism, around 7.2 billion euros for losses to the country’s film industry, 50 billion euros for small businesses and a million euros per hour in costs lost to Lufthansa — a German airline.
Responding to the article, the Chinese Embassy in Berlin said it “stirs up nationalism, prejudice, xenophobia, and hostility to China”.
In a reply to the Chinese embassy’s claims, Bild’s editor-in- chief Julian Reichelt addressed President Xi Jinping in a three-minute-long video and said the latter was endangering the world.
“You, your government and your scientists had to know long ago that coronavirus is highly infectious, but you left the world in the dark about it. Your top experts didn’t respond when Western researchers asked to know what was going on in Wuhan. You were too proud and too nationalistic to tell the truth, which you felt was a national disgrace,” said Reichelt.
He also spoke about China’s “surveillance systems” and its “denial of freedom”.
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China should pay for ‘damage done’
The German newspaper isn’t the only one to have blamed China for the pandemic that has now infected more than 2.4 million people across and claimed over one lakh lives globally.
The US has been at the forefront of countries holding China responsible for the pandemic.
In an interview on 13 April, Reichelt had asked US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo if China should be held accountable for the global pandemic. To this, Pompeo said it was important to understand how and where the virus began, to ensure that something like this never happens again.
When asked if China should pay for the “damage done”, Pompeo replied saying there will be time for recriminations but the current focus was on reducing the risk of the virus.
“For the moment, I think it’s absolutely essential that we focus on the task ahead of us, getting systems in place such that we can reopen the American economy, and ultimately the global economy as well. There’ll be a time for recriminations,” said Pompeo.
At a press conference last week, US President Donald Trump had also said that America was looking into reports on how the novel coronavirus “escaped” from a lab in Wuhan.
“We’re looking at it, a lot of people are looking at it. It seems to make sense. A lot of strange things are happening, but there is a lot of investigation going on and we are going to find out,” Trump said. “All I can say is wherever it came from, came from China in whatever form, 184 countries now are suffering because of it.”
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