Coronavirus crisis calls for unity not blame, former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright says

ABC Radio National / By Nick Wiggins and Taryn Priadko for Late Night Live

Posted 21mminutes ago

Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright speaks in a close up photo.

Madeleine Albright says she's troubled by the "blame placing" in the US, and would handle the pandemic very differently.(Getty: Michael Ngan)

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Former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright is urging countries to not become divided in the fight against coronavirus, and cooperate during the rebuilding that will follow.

She's praised Australia's efforts to contain the pandemic, but says she's only beginning to see similar cooperation between federal and state governments in the US.

"What I've been troubled by is the politicisation of it, and not taking responsibility and blame placing," she tells ABC RN's Late Night Live.

"But I really have to say hats off to Australia — you guys have handled this very well. We unfortunately did not make decisions early enough, according to what I've read."

Donald Trump talks while gesturing with his hand in the White House briefing room, behind him is a US flag.

Ms Albright says the White House can't solve problems like coronavirus alone.(Getty: Tasos Katopodis)

Ms Albright, who served in the senior role in the Clinton administration following four years as the US ambassador to the United Nations, says the "tough situation" requires cooperation, including with China.

"We cannot just decide that it's the end of the world. There are ways that we have to change the way we operate [and] understand the interconnectedness," she says.

"We're blaming the Chinese for what happened. But the bottom line is we depend on the masks that they make. If they are the ones that invent the vaccine, will we say no?"

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In the wake of the United States' own bungled response, President Donald Trump has taken aim at China, pulled funding from the World Health Organisation, and vowed to suspend immigration to the country.

Australia has also been drawn into the fray. Beijing has accused Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton of being a US mouthpiece in a "propaganda war" with China.

Ms Albright — who has described Mr Trump as "the least democratic President … in modern history" — says if she were in charge of the State Department now her advice for the White House would be very different.

"I think, frankly, I would be doing almost the opposite of what's going on," she says.

She says she would be explaining that every country — even one as big as the US — needs partners.

"You can't solve these problems alone. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that climate change affects everybody, or nuclear proliferation, or pandemics, and that therefore diplomacy is the language where we try to develop partnerships and work together."

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'I do not see darkness, I see opportunities'

When Ms Albright thinks about the impact the virus will continue to have, she puts herself in her parents' shoes.

Her family — including her diplomat father — fled Czechoslovakia in 1939 after it was occupied by the Nazis. She wasn't yet two years old.

"They couldn't control the bombs coming down on them, they could control their mood and the way they felt and what they were going to do about it," she says.

"I think at the moment, we the ordinary people don't have control over the virus. We do over our mood. I think that's the very important part.

"I do not see a darkness. I do see opportunities to do things differently."

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Ms Albright says she's trying to use the isolation — when she's not teaching via Zoom, or promoting her latest memoir Hell and Other Destinations — to think beyond the awfulness, to the future.

"I think is very, very important for us to use to understand the importance of resiliency or optimism or hope, and working together and trying to sort out what the next steps are going to be and who are going to be the people that are going to help us get there," she says.

She says she loves teaching because of what she learns from her students, people who she says will be living in a very different 21st century.

"When we come out of this, I think we are going to be living in a very different environment, technology will play a very different role, how countries relate to each other [will be different]," she says.

In her time as secretary of state, Ms Albright would use the brooches she wore as a "tool".

The official secretary of state portrait of Madeleine Albright.

Ms Albright says at times she used her brooches as a diplomatic "tool".(United States Department Of State)

She recalls once telling ambassadors who were wondering what the day would hold, "read my pins!"

On good days she wore flowers and butterflies, on bad days: carnivorous animals and spiders.

The game, as Ms Albright describes it in her memoir, started after she was compared to a serpent while dealing with Saddam Hussein, and began wearing a snake brooch.

So what do her pins say now?

"It's a big V. I'm wearing a V for victory against the virus."