China rolls out ambitious international COVID-19 cooperation programmes

By YanDan Zheng (KaftanPost, Guangzhou China)

The Chinese government has unveiled ambitious programmes of international assistance and cooperation centred around the COVID-19 pandemic.

In what is a bouquet of financial, developmental, and scientific charm offensive, the Communist party-led government of President Xi Jinping seems set to launch pandemic diplomacy and soft power projection globally at a time when other international powers have receded into panicky nationalism or ideological navel-gazing.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the seventy-third World Health Assembly video conference, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced:

Within two years, China will provide us $2 billion in international assistance to support the epidemic affected countries, especially developing countries, in their fight against the epidemic and in their economic and social recovery and development.

China will cooperate with the United Nations to establish a global humanitarian emergency warehouse and hub in China, strive to ensure the supply chain of anti-epidemic materials, and establish a green channel for transportation and customs clearance.

China will establish cooperation mechanisms among 30 Chinese and African counterpart hospitals and accelerate the construction of the headquarters of the African Center for Disease Control and prevention.

After the R & D of China’s new crown vaccine is completed and put into use, it will make China’s contribution as a global public product to realize the accessibility and affordability of vaccines in developing countries.

China will work with members of the G20 to implement the debt repayment initiative for the poorest countries and is willing to work with the international community to increase support for countries with particularly severe epidemics and pressures and help them overcome current difficulties.

The Covid-19 pandemic, which first emerged in Wuhan last December, has placed China under more scrutiny as critics call for an investigation into how the virus was able to spread across the world.

It has now infected more than 4.7 million people and killed 315,000. In China alone, almost 5,000 persons have died from over 80,000 positive cases.

Xi Jinping recently said his country would support a “comprehensive review” of the Covid-19 pandemic after the outbreak has been brought under control.

Speaking by video conference at the opening of the World Health Assembly, Xi stressed that such an investigation must be conducted in an “objective and impartial manner” and said Beijing would donate $2bn to the United Nations to help the global response to the outbreak. “All along we have acted with openness, transparency and responsibility,” he said.

The world’s second-biggest economy contracted 6.8% according to official data released in April. This was the first time China’s economy shrunk in the first three months of the year since it started recording quarterly figures in 1992.

Last year, the Asian nation saw healthy economic growth of 6.4% in the first quarter, a period when it was locked in a trade war with the US.

In the last two decades, China has seen average economic growth of around 9% a year, although experts have regularly questioned the accuracy of its economic data.

However, China has turned its factories back on after bringing the coronavirus outbreak largely under control within its borders.

Industrial production surged last month more than twice as fast as most economists expected, according to official data released on Friday by the country’s National Bureau of Statistics.

But retail sales fell even more sharply than anticipated, while orders for future exports from China have stalled.