‘Strong trade with China won’t stop COVID-19 probe’: Cormann

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann has told Sky News a “strong trading relationship” with China won’t stop the government from forging ahead with an “unremarkable” independent inquiry into COVID-19 – justifying the government’s stance it would benefit the world. “Of course we want to continue to have a strong relationship with China, including a strong trading relationship, but that doesn’t mean we’re not going to argue for what we think is right,” he said. “It’s an entirely unremarkable position that we believe there should be, at the right time, an independent review into what happened and how we all responded to it so that we can ensure it doesn’t happen again and that our response in the future, if it does happen again, is better than what it was this time around. “Look at how many people have died around the world, how many people have lost their jobs.” COVID-19 has killed more than 230,000 people and infected more than three million people since it broke out in Wuhan, China in late 2019. “I don’t think that anyone wants to see what happened repeated anytime soon – certainly not us," he said. “I’m very confident the people of China would not want to see this repeated either.” Image: Getty Via news.com.au — Australia’s #1 news site https://www.news.com.au