Photo: VCG

As COVID-19 continues to spread across the world, countries, especially major and large ones, should respect scientific facts and cooperate with each other to combat the global health crisis rather than cause divisions, said Chinese experts during a recent online conference.

To win the battle over this invisible enemy, people around the world need to realize that cooperation is the basis that consensuses can be nurtured and built on. Only when countries work together with open minds to build a community with a shared future for humanity, can our basic interests be met, said Liu Yuanchun, vice president of the Renmin University of China (RUC), during a conference themed International Public Opinion and Great Power Relations in the Context of COVID-19. The conference was organized by National Academy of Development and Strategy, RUC.

European countries and the US have different attitudes toward China amid the COVID-19 pandemic. European countries are more concerned over China's aid amid pandemic potentially hurting EU solidarity, while the US is more concerned over a power shift with China, according to Wang Yiwei, professor at the School of International Relations at the Renmin University of China.

"In terms of developing vaccines, the US somehow wants to work together with EU, while against China's efforts, and, EU always holds an open and innovative attitude," said Wang.

The Chinese and American approaches and their resulting outcomes in the fight against COVID-19 have shown drastic systematic differences, according to Xiao Geng, professor at the Peking University HSBC Business School.

Recently, there is rising talk of US decoupling from China, but the two major economies are closely intertwined, and the cost of decoupling will be very high, Xiao said. Instead of decoupling, China should continue to innovate and implement opening-up policy and collaborate with countries that are willing to cooperate with China, Xiao said.

Countries must attach great importance to tackling the COVID-19 pandemic, which is an un-traditional public health threat against our international community. The crisis must be taken as an opportunity to promote cooperation among all countries; at this junction, confronting one another will only cause pain, said Wang Fan, vice president of the China Foreign Affairs University.