Chinese President Xi Jinping's keynote speech at the Extraordinary G20 Leaders' Summit, which stressed a coordinated response to the common threat of COVID-19, has charted a course for the global fight against the pandemic, experts have said.
Xi put forth four proposals at the G20 summit via video, calling on G20 members to be resolute in fighting an all-out global war against the COVID-19 outbreak, make a collective response for control and treatment at the international level, support international organizations in playing their active roles and enhance international macro-economic policy coordination.
"This was an inspiring speech, concise and succinct, a leadership speech and call to collective action at a time of great stress and peril for the citizens of the world," said Cambridge University professor Alan Barrell.
Xi's proposal of a G20 health ministers' meeting to improve information sharing, strengthen cooperation on drugs, vaccines and epidemic control, and cut off cross-border infections would be "a good start to a different approach to health issues," Barrell said.
Echoing Barrell's remarks, William Jones, Washington bureau chief of the U.S. publication Executive Intelligence Review, said Xi's call for a meeting of the G20 health ministers is "a step in the right direction," creating a forum for a detailed discussion of measures in dealing with the crisis.
Xi's proposal of a high-level meeting on international public health security will be "an urgent requirement in the post-COVID era in order to create a mechanism by which the world will next time have an early-warning system and a ready strategy to deal with any outbreak," he said.
Xi's speech inspires hope, said Rose Fumpa Makano, a Zambian peace and development expert at the Copperbelt University, adding that China has demonstrated its commitment to implementing measures aimed at enhancing global trade.
While commending the China-proposed notion of a community with a shared future for mankind, Mohamed Fayez Farahat, head of the Asian Studies Program at Cairo-based Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said, "the world is now facing a common threat against humanity, which shows the necessity for global cooperation to tackle COVID-19."
"China's means and methods were impressive," said Nicholas Platt, a former U.S. diplomat, expressing his appreciation for China's efforts "to reach out to other parts of the world and to share equipment and to share knowledge."
"We all must face this challenge together," Platt added.
