Diplomat criticizes US evacuation

A China envoy in New York said Chinese diplomats will "be the last to leave, not the first" in evacuation of nationals, when commenting on the US' sending back its diplomats and other citizens from Wuhan, where the novel coronavirus outbreak was first detected.

"I personally don't quite get it. It's not the practice of Chinese diplomats," said Huang Ping, China's consul general in New York, at a recent news conference, "I myself did a few evacuations, and at a difficult time the diplomats of China would be sent in, rather than being pulled out," he said, "because you might have people there who need you."

"Diplomats will be the last to leave, not the first," Huang said. "That's our practice."

A plane chartered by the US State Department left Wuhan on Jan 29 carrying 201 US nationals, including all diplomats from the US Consulate in Wuhan and their families. Some of the passengers paid their way out.

According to official material, Huang worked as department chief for consular affairs at China's foreign ministry from 2010 to 2015. According to the ministry, the department is responsible for a full range of consular affairs, including providing consular protection and assistance, developing policies and regulations and issuing early warnings and information on consular protection and assistance.

In past decades China has conducted several evacuations of Chinese nationals successfully, including operations from Libya in 2011 and from Yemen in 2015.

As far as the measures for curbing the novel coronavirus taken by various countries, Huang stressed all those can be understood but "should have a scientific basis" and those countries should not "overreact".

"Since the outbreak, many countries have taken measures in prevention and control, but I think the guidance from the World Health Organization is very important," Huang said, quoting WHO's advice against restricting travel or business.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Monday there was no need for measures that "unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade" in trying to halt the virus' spread.

"We call on all countries to implement decisions that are evidence-based and consistent," he told the WHO executive board in Geneva, reiterating his message from last week when he declared an international emergency.

Huang praised the United Nations' agency's guidance, saying, "We should follow the guidance of the WHO and not overreact."

The WHO's latest data shows the novel coronavirus, officially named 2019-nCoV, has infected more than 24,000 people globally, 99 percent of whom are in China. According to the US Center for Disease Control, 12 cases are confirmed in the country and four suspected cases are under investigation in New York City.