In the last half a century at least, humankind has not faced a calamity like the coronavirus, which originated in Wuhan, China. As if the enormity of the human and economic cost is not staggering enough, the possibility, howsoever remote, of it being more than a mere case of ‘cover-up’ or ‘negligence’, poses an existential crisis for humanity.
Normally, a country would have gone the extra mile to collaborate – transparently and proactively – with international experts for getting to the root of the problem and devising solutions. But not the ‘Middle Kingdom’, which believes in its own ‘natural superiority’. China hid the contagion for weeks, allowing it to spread unabated across the world. Next, they tried to pin the blame on the US. And now, Beijing is trying to bully or sweet talk the world into absolving it of any wrongdoing.