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SINGAPORE — On Sunday (Feb 2), Chinese singer Hu Haiquan drew attention for reportedly sending 160,000 face masks in two batches from Singapore to China.

While the demand for face masks has gone up all over the world, China has said that it urgently needed them to tackle the spread of the Wuhan virus.

Most netizens were curious as to how or where the singer acquired all the masks. Some admired him for his philanthropy but others were outraged that he had taken so many masks away from Singaporeans.

The singer, who forms half of soft-rock duo Yu Quan, was spotted at Changi Airport on Sunday (Feb 2) delivering the second batch of about 40 boxes containing 80,000 masks bound for China. He posted about it on Weibo using the Haiquan Fund account, a venture capital fund he formed in 2003.

His actions are controversial because there were recently long queues for the masks and price hikes by a couple of retailers in Singapore.

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Haiquan Fund’s post on Weibo thanked about 10 families bound for China who volunteered to check in some of the masks. The flight was believed to be the last one to China by the unidentified airline.

Photo: Chinese singer Hu Haiquan and the boxes of masks/Haiquan Fund via Phoenix Weibo