German tabloid sends $162-billion bill to China as 'Covid-19 damages'

A German tabloid formulated a bill of $162 billion that China owes to Berlin due to the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. However, this has not gone down well with China as it sees this as a xenophobic approach, as per media reports.

German newspaper Bild has estimated damages of over $1,938 per capita if Germany's GDP falls by 4.2 per cent. The tabloid put out an explainer under the headline 'What China Owes Us'.

Reacting to Bild’s controversial piece, the Chinese embassy said it "stirs up xenophobia and nationalism" and that it is "pretty bad style to blame a country for a pandemic that is affecting the whole world and then to present an explicit account of alleged Chinese debts to Germany."

Blid's editor, Julian Reichelt had also chastized Chines President Xi Jinping and held him responsible for mishandling the pandemic because of which it got spilled all over the world. Reichelt has also called out the President on the issue of surveillance of its citizens and rights, according to the India Today report.

The remarks came after Fox News and the US President Donald Trump also came down heavily on China alleging that it mishandled the crisis.

Trump had said China should face the consequences if it was "knowingly responsible" for the spread of the pandemic.

"It could have been stopped in China before it started and it wasn't, and the whole world is suffering because of it," Trump had told reporters.

Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel had said the more transparent China is regarding the story of the origin of the virus, "the better it is for everyone in the world in order to learn from it.”

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