Dali city's recent expropriation of medical supplies bound for Chongqing has raised heated public discussion and criticism in China as experts said it is against the law.

On Thursday afternoon, Southwest China's Yunnan province circulated a notice of criticism to Dali government and its health bureau for its wrongdoings and asked them to return the goods to Chongqing immediately.

Facing the novel coronavirus epidemic since late January, almost all cities across the country are facing shortages of prevention and control materials, such as masks, protective suits and goggles.

On Feb 2, the health bureau of Dali issued an emergency notice requisition to a Chinese logistics company that was sending 589 boxes of masks from Ruili , Yunnan to neighboring Chongqing when the goods were crossing the Dali area.

Those medical supplies were purchased by Chongqing companies in overseas markets for Chongqing government to fight against the epidemic.

The notice said that during the 2019-nCoV outbreak, Dali has activated first-level public health emergency response and the city is short of epidemic prevention and control materials. According to related laws, Dali People's Government decided to requisition the masks sent to Chongqing.

The next day, the Chongqing Leading Group for Novel Coronavirus Prevention and Control, a government agency responsible for virus control, sent an official letter to the Dali health bureau asking them to return the masks but was rebuffed, according to the Beijing News.

"Dali's misconduct seriously affected the epidemic control work of Chongqing and hurt the feelings of its people," said the circular issued by the Yunnan Leading Group for Novel Coronavirus Prevention and Control.

"Other cities and departments in the province should learn from this lesson and bear the overall situation in mind. If such things happen again, the responsible people will be held accountable. "

Chongqing, a mega city of 30 million people in Southwest China, is facing severe challenges to control the epidemic as it has close transport ties to Wuhan in Central China's Hubei province, the epicenter of this outbreak.

So far, Chongqing had 389 confirmed novel coronavirus cases and Dali had eight as of midnight Wednesday.

Zhao Peng, deputy director of the Research Center for Government by Law at China University of Political Science and Law, said that governments do have the right to requisition goods to control the epidemic, according to the Law on Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Diseases and Emergency Response Law.

"But the county-level governments can only requisition the goods within their own administrative region. The expropriation of goods from other parts of the country needs to be operated by the State Council," he was quoted as saying by the Beijing News.

Goods being transported belong to cross-regional goods, so only the State Council has the right to requisition them, he added.