Top two economies urged to collaborate amid pandemic

Progress toward shortening the period of suffering induced by the coronavirus could be made if China and the United States were to collaborate in ramping up pandemic control efforts and creating more favorable conditions for the reopening of economies, a former senior US diplomat said.

Washington and Beijing should start with expediting visas for health experts, removing tariff barriers on lifesaving medical equipment as well as refraining from export bans on the equipment, said Ryan Hass, who was director for the Chinese mainland, Taiwan and Mongolia affairs at the National Security Council between 2013 and 2017.

"If it was possible to set aside politics and look at the COVID-19 problem through a narrow interest-based lens, there would be a clear rationale for both countries to collaborate to save lives, stop the spread of the virus, and hasten a global economic recovery," Hass, a foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution, said in a report published on Tuesday.