Source: Russia Today    Published: 2020-04-08

RT Host: Let's bring in Wang Wen, who's Executive Dean of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. Great to have you on, Wang. Donald Trump wanted to cut funding to the WHO, let's start with that. What kind of impact could that have on the organization and the work they do at such a crucial time?

Wang Wen: Yeah, you know, in China a lot of media, they are reporting what Trump said everyday, what American media talking about and what’s criticism from the western media. Thousands of the citizens leave messages after these news and some of them will criticize back. They say all of those are ridiculous, extreme and radical, I mean, those western media’s criticism to China. So as you reported right now, the good news is that Wuhan reopened. This is a very good news. Wuhan locked down for two and half months and Wuhan contributed a lot. So I think, as a Chinese scholar we have to thank Wuhan people's effort.

I want to share with you is that even though we heard a lot of criticism from the western media, and from American media, but I have to say two points. One is that China is not the original source of the virus. China is the first country to suffer the virus outbreak, it is first point. Second is no matter the criticism all China brain cannot solve the problems, cannot help us to against the coronavirus, cannot promote the relationship between China and your country, and cannot promote to ask for China’s help in the future. Just my initial point.

Host: Did you think that there's any justification for Donald Trump criticizing the WHO, I mean, he says that it was too China-centric. It seems to me that he's suggesting that they are kind of too trusting of the information coming out of China. And he also was pretty critical the fact that they suggested keeping borders open even at the end of January. Then, of course, he ignore that advice and shut down some of the US borders with other countries. Is there any justification for that criticism?

Wang Wen: Yeah. But if you compare conditions between China and the United States in the past two or three months, you can see they are very different. In early January China firstly found the virus was very strange and was a very new virus. In early January China briefed to the international community, including the United States. And twenty days later China locked down Wuhan city, and declared the national emergency. Then in the end of February, China basically controlled the spreading of the virus.

But how about the United States? In the end of January the first case has been found in the United States, but White House did nothing except save the stock market until the middle March. I'm just very worried about the American people because the White House did too little. And in terms of my knowing in New York, if we can know, New York was similar to that of Wuhan two months ago and even more serious than Wuhan two months ago. But in New York, a lot of people didn't wear the masks. This is very dangerous.

Wang Wen is Executive Dean of Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China (RDCY).