'Crossed the line': China demands apology over newspaper's coronavirus cartoon

An unlikely diplomatic row has flared up after a Danish newspaper published a cartoon which has angered China.

The image, published by daily publication Jyllands-Posten in its Monday edition, depicts the Chinese flag – however the yellow stars in the top left corner are replaced with coronavirus particles.

The deadly virus originated in China and has put the world on alert, but China’s embassy in Denmark has taken umbrage with the cartoon and demanded an apology.

The embassy issued a statement saying the paper and Danish artist responsible, Niels Bo Bojesen, should apologise to the Chinese people for publishing the image, which was captioned “Coronavirus”.

“Without any sympathy and empathy, it has crossed the bottom line of civilised society and the ethical boundary of free speech and offends human conscience,” the embassy said on Tuesday.

Chinese officials called for the paper and the cartoonist to “reproach themselves for their mistake and publicly apologise to the Chinese people”.

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Danish officials and the newspaper are not heeding the demand to apologise from China, which has taken an increasingly aggressive posture in diplomatic tiffs over the years.

Editor-in-chief Jacob Nybroe said the paper had not intended to make fun of the situation in China but refused to apologise, local newswire Ritzau reported.

“We cannot apologise for something we don't think is wrong. We have no intention of being demeaning or to mock, nor do we think that the drawing does,” he said. He described the disagreement as one borne out of different forms of cultural understanding.

The coronavirus death toll in China has hit 106 and there are now more than 4,500 confirmed cases of infection on the mainland.

Danish prime minister stands by country’s ‘free speech’

Even the Prime Minister of Denmark Mette Frederiksen has weighed in on the situation, saying “we have freedom of expression in Denmark, also to draw”.

“I have nothing else to say about it other than that we have a very, very strong tradition in Denmark, not only for free speech, but also for satirical drawings, and that will continue in the future as well. It is a well-known Danish position, and we won’t change that,” she told reporters.

In 2005, the same newspaper published satirical drawings of the Prophet Mohammad that caused outrage across the Muslim world.

Australian authorities are bracing for more infections to be confirmed in Australia and are working to trace all human contact made by infected patients since they entered the country from China.

On Tuesday Japan, Vietnam and Germany confirmed patients had contracted the virus despite not travelling to China.

Five people are being treated in Australian hospitals for the coronavirus. Four of those cases – including one woman and three men – are in NSW and the fifth, another man, is in Melbourne.

Four adult patients in Western Australia were cleared of the virus after undergoing tests on Tuesday evening.

Meanwhile Australian officials are still working on a plan to help hundreds of citizens stranded in China get back home. Roughly 400 Australian citizens have registered for evacuation from the Hubei city of Wuhan in central China where the deadly virus first infected humans.

With Reuters

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