Lieutenant Colonel Khalid Taimur Akram (Retd)
Executive Director, Center for Global & Strategic Studies (CGSS), Islamabad
As the world is struggling to contain the spread of the deadly novel (COVID-19) pandemic, China has emerged as an eager partner to provide required aid to halt the coronavirus outbreak. While Beijing’s global humanitarian efforts are admired by the World Health Organization (WHO), several Western media outlets want to exploit a pandemic to defame China. However, the Chinese leadership’s approach, such as lockdown, imposing restrictions on the movement of people, the construction of two huge hospitals in less than two weeks in Wuhan, and providing food on the doorsteps are now followed by every country as valuable counter-measures against coronavirus. After the successful eradication of fatal disease of coronavirus within China, the Chinese government along with the renowned Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Foundation is determined to fight against the outbreak globally.
China’s Aid to Europe
Beijing, having a constant watch on the global situation intends to increase its aid campaign to help the European governments in their tough time. As cases of COVID-19 continue to rise across Europe, the Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Foundation have increased efforts to provide support and supplies to impacted countries. During the last two weeks, China has sent several masks, gloves, ventilators consignment, and medical experts to support Italy, Spain, France, Greece, the Czech Republic, and other countries to deal with the outbreak. The foundations have donated more than 500,000 surgical masks, 100,000 test kits to the Italian Red Cross so far. Belgium, the first European partner of the Alibaba-led Electronic World Trade Platform, has been instrumental in facilitating the delivery of medical supplies amid the coronavirus outbreak. On 16th March 2020, a batch of 300,000 medical masks donated by the Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Foundation has arrived at Liege Airport and delivered to Sciensano, the Public Health Institute of Belgium. The foundations have also donated an initial batch of 500,000 masks to Spain as well. In the wake of coronavirus pandemic, these foundations have already delivered the ventilators, kits, masks to other European countries like France, Austria, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, and Portugal for frontline medical staff to combat COVID-19. Moreover, a shipment of medical supplies, including protective clothing and ventilators, donated by the Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Foundation has received by U.K. IN this context. The Jack Ma and Alibaba Foundation have announced that they will donate additional urgent equipment including 800 ventilators, 300,000 sets of protective gowns and 300,000 face shields to hospitals in Europe.
Besides extending medical aid, the Jack Ma Foundation has also launched an online platform for doctors and nurses around the world to exchange ideas and lessons on fighting the pandemic. The Chinese government has also sent medical equipment to Europe, the epicenter of COVID-19 with the highest number of deaths due to the disease.
Humanitarian Assistance to Africa
Aside from offering support to European countries, the Chinese Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Foundation have also donated medical supplies to the African nations. Alongside their collaborations with the Ethiopian Government and the country’s eWTP, the foundations have also worked meticulously with the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the United Nations World Food Programme and Ethiopian Airlines in the delivery of the donated items. The philanthropist foundations are committed to donating approximately, 100,000 medical masks, 20,000 test kits and 1,000 protective suits to each of the 54 nations of the African continent. More than 6 million donated supplies have arrived in Addis Ababa on 22nd March and additional batches are due to arrive over the coming few weeks.
China’s Philanthropist Aid to Asia
Asia, like other continents, is also challenged by this COVID-19 outbreak. The Chinese philanthropist Jack Ma and Alibaba Foundations are supporting the governments of Asian countries. The medical aid to Asian countries of Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Azerbaijan, Bhutan, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Vietnam, and Uzbekistan have already delivered to their respective governments. The prominent foundations have resolute to increase their coronavirus-relief efforts across Asia.
The first batch of the much-needed medical supplies donated by the Jack Ma Foundation and the Alibaba Foundation has arrived also in Pakistan on 26th March 2020. The shipment is part of the donation of medical supplies to 10 Asian countries announced on March 21. Collectively, the nations will receive a total of 1.8 million masks; kits for testing 210,000 people, 36,000 pieces of protective clothing, as well as essential medical equipment such as ventilators and forehead thermometers to battle with the coronavirus epidemic. On 28th March, around 2 tons of masks, test kits, ventilators, medical protective clothes have handed over to Pakistan’s officials at Khunjerab Pass. Meanwhile, a plane carrying 50,000 coronavirus testing kits has also arrived in Karachi on 27th March. This was the second bulk consignment sent by China’s Alibaba and Jack Ma Foundation within a few days. On 25th March, the foundations have sent 500,000 surgical masks and 50,000 N95 respirators to Pakistan. Moreover, to meet the increasing demand for protective gear, China will help to produce the protection suit in Pakistan. The efforts are presenting the picture that the Chinese government and leadership are committed to support Pakistan in combating COVID-19 as their top priority. The all-weather friend, China has also sent an eight-member team of doctors to work closely with local health officials. The Chinese government is also sending a walk-through testing machine to Pakistan to diagnose a large number of suspected people for the novel coronavirus. Another special plane of China carrying medical supplies including medical equipment has arrived from China in Pakistan on 2nd April to aid the country to counter coronavirus. Three planes with medical equipment have arrived within 2 days from China to Pakistan.
Western Media Blame Game
Instead of appreciating Chinese efforts to combat the virus outbreak, the western media is playing the blame game to defame China. The Chinese government has been falsely criticized by western media outlets for hiding the spread of the virus and even to cover up virus existence for weeks. Although the United Nations has stated that China has timely told about the COVID-19 pandemic and showed cautious and timely decisions to eradicate it. They have targeted the Chinese leadership and political system even though the World Health Organization has praised China’s handling of a very complex situation, which could have posed a much bigger threat to the world. China is now in growing tension with the U.S. after American officials accused China responsible for the virus. The US congress has blamed China for hiding suspected cases and death rates from the world.
The western media is propagating that several European governments have rejected Chinese-made equipment designed to combat the coronavirus outbreak. The evil mined news agencies have run the camping against China accusing that thousands of testing kits and medical masks are below standard or defective. Washington is also claiming that Beijing is moving quickly and adeptly to take advantage of the U.S. mistakes and filling the vacuum to position itself as the global leader in pandemic response. A steady stream of propaganda articles, tweets, and public messaging, in a wide variety of languages, are misinterpreting China’s achievements and the effectiveness of its model of domestic governance.
The western media is condemning China for pushing the world into this epidemic disaster to give favours to the global world and to construct its image positively. Even in an attempt to refute the narrative being put forward by China, the US President has recently taken to referring to coronavirus as “the Chinese virus”. The western media is also speculating about the shutdown of the ongoing Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). However, faced with the COVID-19 pandemic, the US attempt of blame-shifting will not help it to contain the disease at home or unite the international community.
Conclusion
Although, Western Europe and the U.S. are struggling under the weight of the crisis, with cases rising exponentially every day and higher death rates in Italy than anywhere else. China’s private and public sectors are filling the gaps with equipment where other states are failing. The Chinese leadership’s resolve and determination, notwithstanding the Western propaganda, have yielded results are evident from China’s success in virtually containing the outbreak. Despite the poor response of the West to medical emergencies and China’s successful prevention and control measures, some Western politicians and media outlets are trying to exploit the coronavirus outbreak to criticize China. The pandemic has hit at a time when US-China relations were already at a low ebb. Yet now that the situation in China appears to have stabilized, the country is positioning itself at the head of the global response to COVID-19, adopting a unique leadership position that may alter global power relations, despite the biggest shock to its industrial output and economy in recent history and its coverup in Wuhan at the beginning of the crisis. It’s unclear just how big an impact China will have on containing the global spread of the virus. While governments and private companies in China have ramped up their efforts to curtail the Coronavirus epidemic to save the world and save humanity who is in a crisis. To curb the exponentially spreading virus China is doing its best, it is the time to avoid politics, blame game to win the battle against the pandemic. The Chinese government along with Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Foundation is determined to fight against the outbreak globally and the western media should also reexamine their blame game strategy for no reason.