SINGAPORE — Stressing that Singapore is confident that China can deal decisively with the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam said the city-state “should be very supportive” and help what the Asian giant is doing with the situation. 

“It is the right thing to do. It’s the spirit of humanity. If we help China deal with this, I think the problem becomes smaller for everyone else,” Mr Shanmugam told reporters on Sunday (Feb 2) during a visit to Changi Airport, where he interacted with Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers there. 

Echoing a point made by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong the previous day, Mr Shanmugam reiterated the Singapore government’s confidence in how China is dealing with the outbreak. China “has a large number of tools and resources, and the entire focus of the nation… has been brought to bear on this issue”, Mr Shanmugam added. 

On Saturday, China had singled out the United States for criticism, after travel restrictions imposed by a raft of countries.

The US joined several countries — including Russia, Japan, Pakistan, Italy and Singapore — in denying entry to any foreign national who has traveled within China in the last 14 days. Along with the US, Australia and Vietnam were among the latest to do so.

Singapore’s travel restrictions came into effect from 11.59pm on Saturday, while the ICA has also stopped issuing all forms of new visas to those with People’s Republic of China (PRC) passports.

Mr Shanmugam, who is also the Law Minister, reiterated that the Republic’s restrictions were introduced based on medical evidence, as well as its situation, size and limited resources — and had nothing to do with nationality.  

“The restrictions are not, strictly speaking, nationality-based. It is geographical, in the sense that if you’ve been in China, whoever you are, then the restrictions kick in,” said Mr Shanmugam, noting that Singapore has turned away 15 persons, with “only one-third of them (being) People’s Republic of China passport holders”.

The ICA said on its website that among those turned away, five had Chinese passports and another five had Indian passports. Of the remaining, two persons were from the US and there was one each from Spain, Britain and Malaysia.