Jim O'Neill, the chair of U.K. think tank Chatham House, on Wednesday commended the "fast, aggressive" Chinese response to the coronavirus outbreak, suggesting western countries should follow suit.

"Thank God this didn't start in somewhere like India, because there's absolutely no way that the quality of Indian governance could move to react in the way that the Chinese have done," O'Neill, the former Goldman Sachs chief economist, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Wednesday.

"That's the good side of the Chinese model, and I think you could probably say the same about Brazil too," he added.

His comments drew ire from Indian officials. Indian High Commission Minister Vishwesh Negi told CNBC Wednesday that O'Neill's comments were "ill-informed and irresponsible."

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi convened a government meeting at the weekend and directed officials to identify suitable locations for quarantine facilities and make provisions for critical care. At present, India has only 73 confirmed cases, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

The country has suspended all existing visas except for diplomatic and official UN and international organization visits until April 15 and requires all incoming travelers, including Indian nationals, arriving from or having recently traveled to China, Italy, Iran, Korea, France, Spain and Germany to enter a minimum 14-day quarantine.

In total, the Indian government has evacuated 766 people, including 723 Indian nationals, through three special Indian Air Force flights out of China, all of whom were placed into a quarantine facility set up by the Indian army. On Tuesday, and Indian Air Force military transport aircraft returned 58 Indian nationals from Iran.

"The next sortie by the Indian Air Force aircraft to evacuate Indian national is expected in couple of days. An Indian medical team is already stationed in Qom, Iran to assist the local authorities in screening COVID-19 cases," Negi told CNBC.

"The above points illustrate to a significant degree India's pro-active efforts in mitigating the spread of COVID-19 which resultantly has put the actual number of cases within India to a minimal given the size of the population."