James Morrow: Giuliani calls out China for letting people travel the world like ‘Death Ambassadors’

Former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani has lashed China for allowing Wuhan residents to travel overseas as the virus took hold saying more than a million Chinese went into the world “almost like ambassadors carrying the disease”, writes James Morrow.

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Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani has lashed out at China’s policy of letting travellers from Wuhan — Ground Zero for the coronavirus epidemic — travel around the world as the disease took hold, even as they were banned from travelling within China.

Speaking on local New York City talkback radio show The Cat’s Roundtable on Monday morning, Mr Giuliani said: “They sent over a million people around the world, 1.5 million,– almost like ambassadors carrying the disease”.

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani has lashed China’s travel policy as coronavirus took hold. Picture: AFP

Mr Giuliani, who was mayor of New York City on September 11, 2001 and is widely credited with successfully leading the city in the weeks after the terrorist attack, asked:

“What’s wrong with them? They have no conscience. It’s really a tragedy.

“This is directly caused by the Chinese Communist government, and by the choices they made,’’ he said.

“Almost all of this would have been avoided. The whole world is kind of shut down … because of them.”

Passengers from Wuhan are sorted by district after they arrive on a high-speed train in Beijing on Sunday after a 76-day lockdown that contained them to the province where the virus originated. Picture: AP

Chinese authorities imposed travel bans in Wuhan, where the coronavirus is believed to have originated, on January 23 though they allowed domestic and international travel from the rest of China.

Researchers note that in the traditionally busy travel period in the lead-up to Lunar New Year celebrations, millions of Chinese would have been on the road or in the air.

One analysis conducted by Southampton University’s WorldPop research unit noted that the top 10 global destinations for travellers from high-risk Chinese cities around Lunar New Year were Thailand, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, the United States, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and Australia.

People who had been locked down in Wuhan for 76 days arrive in Beijing on Sunday before travelling to other destinations across China. Picture: AP

As global outrage over China’s role in allowing the coronavirus to spread around the world grows, Germany’s largest newspaper Bild issued an “invoice” to Beijing for $255 billion — the cost of the damage, so far, to Germany’s economy.

A spokeswoman for the Chinese embassy in Germany said that it was “bad style to blame a country for a pandemic that is affecting the whole world”.