into vaccines and treatments for coronavirus, saying a common threat to humanity requires a concerted response. a0 countries and donors took part in the online summit, hosted by the eu. four and a half million italians have to work after two months in lockdown. people are also allowed to see relatives within their region as restrictions are eased. for the second consecutive day, the country's recorded its lowest death toll since the lockdown began. the british government's rolled out a contact—tracing phone app as part of its strategy to ease the lockdown. people on the isle of wight will put the app to the test. it's hoped it'll be used across england by the middle of the month.

now on bbc news, as the coronavirus continues to claim lives around the world, global questions invites its international audience to put their questions to a panel of experts on the impact the pandemic has had on china, its economy and its relationship with the rest of the world hello, i'm zeinab badawi. welcome to the latest in this special series of global questions from london. people and governments everywhere are trying to cope with the death and destruction unleashed by the coronavirus crisis. here in the uk, we're still in lockdown, and as economies take a hammering, people are asking how did we get into this dire situation in the first place, with many pointing the finger of blame at china. is that fair? that's the topic of this global questions — coronavirus crisis: focus on china.

well, we're now in the headquarters of the bbc here in central london, and because of lockdown, we have to bring you our audience members who'll be posing questions from all over the world, as well as our two panellists all via video link. so, let me tell you who's in the hot seat this week. we've got guests from washington and beijing. and from washington, stephen moore is a long—term adviser to donald trump and is now a member of the president's economic recovery task force set up in the wake of covid—19. he's a senior contributor to the conservative advocacy group freedom works and is a writer and regular tv commentator. and from beijing is victor gao. he's a former chinese diplomat and is now vice president of the centre for china and globalisation, which is one of the most influential think tanks in china.

he's also a regular commentator on the media. so, that's our panel, welcome to you both and to our questions. i'm going to give you a round of applause here. and remember, you, too, can join the conversation. it's #bbcglobalquestions. and now without further ado, let's go to our first question, and it is from new delhi in india. and fire away, please, your question? wildlife markets, neighbourhood wet markets and worldwide industrial farms have been breeding grounds for zoonotic diseases like the covid—19. is this time for us to reboot and rethink consumption habits? all right, victor gao, that's one to you, cos we've heard a lot of criticisms about the wet markets in china. isn't it time for the world to stop this? the traditional wet markets are very much part of the lifestyle of the people in many countries, including china. i would say many items traded in the wet markets are perfectly fine.

there are very restricted items, including exotic animals, which should be completely banned. and i think starting in january this year, the chinese government has tightened the ban on the trade, hunting, buying and selling and consumption of many wildlife. and i think this is absolutely the right thing to do. it should be introduced throughout china and gradually, i hope, such wet markets will be very much reduced. this is very important for public health, and whatever that will remain of the wet market need to improve the hygiene conditions, and people who visit these markets should abide by strict rules. good enough for you, stephen moore in washington? hi, everyone. yes, i agree with victor, i agree with everything that he just said. i think there's a real global health issue with the wet markets, and i think they need to be either highly regulated or preferably shut down because of the spread of disease globally.

let's go to sheffield in the united kingdom. conner marriot, your question please? yeah, my question is would the outbreak have been handled any differently had the chinese communist party valued human life? victor gao, quite a stern question for you there from sheffield. i thank you for your question. as a matter of fact, if you really look at the facts, ever since the outbreak of the epidemic, which now we call it a pandemic, the chinese government has spared no resources in fighting against the covid—19 and in saving as many lives as possible. as has been reported, several people above the age of 100 have been saved. lots of people in their 805 and in their 905 have been saved. the rule of thumb is that if we can save any life, whatever difficulties there may be and whatever hardships there may be,

we need to overcome all the medical difficulties to save lives. ok, let's... that is the reason why the death rate in the outbreak is very, very low compared with many other countries. saving lives is the most important thing in the fight against coronavirus. it's about 5000 dead in china, as opposed to around, say, 60,000 dead in the united states. 0k, stephen, how would you answer this question? well, i think china has acted irresponsibly from the start of the coronavirus. i think the fact they kept secret the severity of the coronavirus has cost many tens of thousands of lives. it has cost the us economy trillions of dollars of lost gdp, and i think the chinese government in beijing needs to be held accountable. well, victor gao, we have had that sentiment echoed on social media. we've had so many people saying would the coronavirus pandemic threaten and weaken democracies

and strengthen authoritarian regimes like china? when will the chinese be more transparent, we need more openness from china? why doesn't the government admit that they tried to hide covid—i9 in the beginning? what do you say to criticisms like that and what stephen moore has just said? i actually disagree with the allegations made by stephen. let me put it on the record. ever since the discovery of this very strange pneumonia, at the time it was called, on december 27, 2019, china moved into action, and as early as december 31, 2019, the chinese government contacted the who to report on this very strange phenomenon. and throughout the first week ofjanuary, china scrambled to do a massive amount of research to try to get to the bottom of this very strange virus.

china was as eager as any other country to come up with the exact nature of this coronavirus. ok, no cover up, stephen moore? well, i think that's propaganda frankly, and i think the world will hold china accountable. i know here in the united states, there's a lot of talk about reparations payments that china will have to make to the united states. i think many countries, including the us, will reconsider how reliable china is in the global supply chain. and again, it's almost worse now that china won't fess up to the damage that they've caused to the world economy. and i've heard many people say what victor has been saying, and it's false, they did not allow journalists to report what was going on, they did not allow doctors to report the severity of this illness. it's doubly concerning to me that china will not come clean and admit what they did. all right, thank you, clear disagreement there from both of you.

let's go to our next question, from sweden. yes, good afternoon, everybody. i'd like to ask would china accept an independent visit to wuhan, for example, from the who to conduct a full assessment of the origin of the virus, and if necessary, abide by their recommendations on health and safety in order to minimise the risk of a future pandemic. so, victor gao, this is something we've heard, that china did not and has not provided the original, original samples of the virus do the who, the world health organisation. why not? that is false. as a matter of fact, in january 2020, china already invited the who delegation, which actually included two experts from the united states. they visited beijing, they visited wuhan, they visited the patients at hospitals. the director—general of the who visited china and met with the chinese president, xi jinping, and china has never

stopped communicating with the who and all the member states of the who has the full knowledge and the full benefit of china's communication with the who. can ijust stop you there, though, forjust a minute, victor gao, the question was to conduct a full assessment of the origin of the virus. have you allowed the world health organisation team to do that and given them access to the original samples of the virus? listen to this, we know that the state of california is doing autopsies as we speak because they realised some of the deaths originally diagnosed as deaths caused by flu last season was actually caused by the coronavirus. and the state of new york is doing autopsies. i think we need to give the scientists the time and the freedom to continue their tests. and there are many, many indications that the coronavirus problem existed in the united states as early

as in january 2020, if not in december 2019. therefore we should avoid jumping to conclusions. let's give the scientists the time to do their research. this issue needs to be resolved by the scientific community, rather than politicising this and rather than shifting blame from one country to another. the united states need to do their ownjob in saving people rather than being divided and blaming china for the deaths and the infections of the coronavirus. the united states wasted the complete month of february and much of march without doing much to prepare for the coronavirus. this is the issue. i think if any investigations need to be done, this is the investigation that should be focused on. all right, stephen moore, a lot of accusations being levelled

at the united states from victor. you need to give him a full answer. look, i think we do need to find out the exact origins of this virus. i'm not sure that the world health organisation is the institution to do that. as you know, donald trump has pulled the united states out of the who and the funding. but i don't disagree with victor that we do need an investigation of what happened. china has to open up their information so we can prevent another pandemic of this and we can prevent a recurrence of the coronavirus. yes, but i mean victor gao also said there's a lot of pointing the finger of blame at china and he's saying that that's not very helpful. and your president has really been one of the main people doing that, you know, talking about the "chinese virus" and whether speculating it originated in some laboratory in wuhan. are those kind of comments really helpful?

we don't know right now whether china's sins were sins of omission or commission. that is to say there is an investigation in the united states as to whether china intentionally misled the world about the coronavirus. i actually don't believe that, i think it's just incompetence by the chinese government, but it has cost lives. notjust in the united states, but around the world. i'm actually disturbed to hear victor apologise for the chinese government. i think that makes the situation worse. they should fess up for what they did and they should come clean and how we can prevent this global pandemic from happening again. stephen moore, you say you don't go with the conspiracy theories, but can i ask you directly, as a member of president trump's economic recovery task force, some of his more extravagant claims, he's now saying that if he loses the election in november, he will blame china. do you support those kind of interventions by him or do

you think they're unwise? i think that we should not make accusations that we don't have evidence of. but i think it is certainly true that the united states economy was booming before coronavirus hit. and i think we're all frustrated, notjust in the us but europe, that this virus was allowed to infiltrate so many countries. we know for example that italy got the disease from chinese coming into italy. so, we just want to prevent this from happening again cos it's wrecked the world economy and it's set us back, hopefully for only six months, but potentially a year or two of lost living standards for people around the globe. all right, well, that leads us to our next question, and we go all the way to colombo, the capital of sri lanka, for our next question. ijust wanted to know now can china reassure the world that there won't be another catastrophe like this after the existing covid—19 crisis?

victor gao, again you're in the hot seat, what's your answer to our question from sri lanka? i think this is a very good question. but let me remind all of us that coronavirus is the common enemy of mankind. it does not attack one country versus another, for example. china is the first victim of this coronavirus attack. china's economy in the first quarter of 2020 contracted for the first time in the last 41 years by 6.8%. the chinese economy was literally closed down in the latter part ofjanuary, the whole month of february and march. so, you can see that chinese people endured a lot and made great sacrifices. i think stephen mentioned the competence issue. if you look at different countries and how they dealt with the attacks by the coronavirus, china proved to be the very,

very competent government in rallying people behind it, imposing all kinds of lockdowns and quarantines and managed to contain the spread of coronavirus. and in the process, china has gained a lot of experiences. china has cooperated with more than 100 countries in the world, as well as the who, in sharing their experiences, in supplying ppes like crazy. china's shipped altogether 1.8 billion protective masks to the united states alone. stephen moore, that is a point, isn't it? on social media, we've had some people saying shouldn't we applaud the contribution china has made since the pandemic has broken out? somebody else saying, you know, china has worked very effectively in keeping its death rates down. so, actually, china should be applauded, shouldn't it? well, look, just like in the way china reports its economic numbers, we just don't believe china's

numbers when it comes to the number of deaths. just like we don't believe the economic growth numbers they put out. the most important thing is how do we prevent this pandemic from happening again. we've got a $100 trillion global economy. we should certainly be spending money and resources to make sure all countries — china, united states, european nations — to make sure we're capable of dealing with these viruses and preventing them so that we don't see the trillions, it could be tens of trillions of dollars of global output that has been sacrificed and many lives not just lost from the virus, but from the economic deprivation that's happening because of the lockdown of so many economies around the world. ok, let's go now to bulgaria for the next question. what do you want to ask our two panellists? hello. my question is the following — is china supporting any countries that are currently at risk

due to coronavirus? all right, victor gao, what are you doing? absolutely, as i've just now mentioned, china has been supporting more than 100 countries in the world in supplying ppe, ventilators, masks, all kinds of protective gears, but also in sending out special medical teams composed of ten, 12, 16 doctors and experts. and this has been very, very useful. and i think such cooperation is absolutely necessary. we need to rally behind who, and this is particularly the reason why i say president donald trump needs to rescind his decision and continue to support who. who is the most crucial link right now in the international effort against coronavirus. all right, stephen moore, let's first of all get your response on the fact that china clearly

is doing a great deal, helping 100 countries says victor gao. and then you shouldn't sever your ties with the who? well, look, the most important thing obviously for right now is finding a treatment for coronavirus and finding a vaccine. the united states, as usual, is leading the way in both of those regards, and it looks like we're making great, great progress in having a treatment, which would change everything and save potentially hundreds and thousands of lives throughout the world. the world health organisation has also proven itself to be incredibly incompetent throughout the coronavirus. it's shown to be kind of an apologist for china, and the united states will not re—enter and fund the who until there are major, major reforms. all right, well, the who, of course, refutes that kind of view

from washington and says that it also only has the mandate with which it's invested by all the member countries. but i want to ask you, stephen, we're getting questions from social media along this theme. jb singer asks, "are there going to be any kind of sanctions against china for having hidden the outbreak and delaying to warn the world about it, which has taken so many lives and caused this global, economic crisis?" victor gao, i know you don't agree with that question, but nevertheless we've had a lot of people voicing that opinion. can we sue china as a country, will there be any sanctions against china for causing this? seems to be a very reccurrent theme. stephen, is that the kind of thing the united states might want to pursue, compensation and suing action? oh, there certainly will be. as i said earlier, there will be sanctions, there will be requests for reparation payments from china to countries, certainly the united states, but i think the europeans are also talking about this. it's important. we've lost a lot of lives, and we've lost a lot of our global

output as a result of this. so, there will be... and there's some talk about, you know, china owns about $1 trillion of us bonds. if china refuses to pay, there may be some nonpayment of those bonds as a form of compensation. all right, so reparations, you've said, compensation of some kind, suing china and a quick response from you, victor, say it to him directly. yes, stephen, i listened to what you had to say, but i disagree. for china, the first country to blow the whistle on coronavirus to be punished, for example? this will create all the disincentives, because in the future, if any country suffers a coronavirus attack, this country will have no incentive to scramble, to take action, to do the research, to come up

with the genome sequencing and report it to the who and report it to the world because it will destroy all the incentives to do the right thing. china did the right thing. all right, let's go to mumbai in india now for our next question. what do you want to ask our two panellists, please? thank you. my question is — considering the anti—china sentiment that is widespread, can china as the largest producer and the us as its largest consumer imagine a world without china as the manufacturing leader? stephen moore, america needs china economically, doesn't it? sure, look, globalisation has been a great thing. it's liberated many, many hundreds of millions of people around the world. the china—us relationship in terms of trade has been mutually beneficial, no question about it. although we do believe that obviously china has stolen our technologies.

we've had this big debate about china not playing by the rules, and we have a big problem with the ability for the united states to export goods to china. they have had tariffs that are much higher than ours and they steal our intellectual property. we actually believe the trade deal that was made in beijing and in the united states back in november and december, both china and the united states benefited from that. i would like to see a continued and strong trade relationship between our two countries. in the interest of time, i'll go to our next question from uganda in africa. what's your question? why has africa been targeted in china and how does this affect

the china relationship? will compensate in debt relief? that one's for you, victor gao. there's been a lot of complaints from african governments about this, the way africans have been thrown out into the streets in some parts of china, what's your response? first of all, china always treats african countries and african people as brothers and sisters. personally, ideal with many african friends. i treat them as brothers and sisters. now, african people in china working, studying or living here are generally very well ta ken care of. however, in the middle of the coronavirus, we need to mention that everyone needs to be treated equal, everyone needs to abide by the rules, especially lockdown rules, quarantine rules, etc. because sometimes you do not know whether you're carrying the virus. sometimes you may be asymptomatic, you are infected but nobody knows, your doctor sometimes do not know and you need to be tested.

sometimes again and again. but you can't throw people out in the streets, can you? you can't throw people out in the streets? africans, americans, chinese, japanese, koreans, vietnamese, whoever are in china, they need to be treated equally in times of our fight against the coronavirus. ourfinal question now, and unfortunately we've lost our guest in washington, that's a problem with the lines during lockdown. the question is from uzbekistan. will china be the next superpower after the covid—19 crisis? thank you very much. china is already the largest economy with purchasing power parity and the second largest if we use the official exchange rate.

in china, we do not like the label of superpower, because in chinese, superpower actually carries the connotation of lecturing other countries, putting yourself above other countries and refusing to deal with other countries as equals. china always deals with big countries and small countries as equal. and i would say, by that definition, china does not want to be a superpower and china does not want to challenge the leadership of the united states. and china can live very perfectly well with the united states. thank you both forjoining us from washington and beijing. i hope that you found this particular edition of coronavirus crisis: china insightful and bringing you the persepctives of both the united states and china. if you want to submit a question and be part of the programme, you can go to global questions at bbc.co.uk. we bring you the trend lines behind headlines, so for me, until the next time, goodbye. thank you.

hello there. a cool and dry start for most of the uk on tuesday morning and towards the south—west, milder, wet and also windy. heavy rain in the south—west of england, and here and the south—west of wales, easterly winds could gust 50 or 55 wales, easterly winds could gust 50 or55 mph wales, easterly winds could gust 50 or 55 mph until mid—morning. then the winds ease down in all areas, the winds ease down in all areas, the rain heads along the south coast towards sussex northwards into south wales and then becomes lighter and more patchy in the afternoon. away from here, likely to be dry with lots of sunshine around but the air isa lots of sunshine around but the air is a bit cooler. probably the

highest temperatures will be in western scotland and north—west england, but underneath the rain in the south—west, only around 12. drier, warmer and brighter here with sunshine on wednesday and the chance ofa sunshine on wednesday and the chance of a shower flirting with the far south—west. otherwise, dry with lots of sunshine and cooler and more cloudy in shetland and orkney. otherwise in the sunshine and lighter winds, temperatures up to around 20 or 21 celsius.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. i'm mike embley. world leaders have a whipround on webcam, pledging $8 billion to find a covid—19 vaccine. the divide deepens in us—china relations as president trump continues to blame beijing for the outbreak. loved ones meet for the first time in weeks as italy tentatively lifts its social restrictions. tributes are paid to dave greenfield of the stranglers who's died from covid—19 at the age of 71.