CHINA announced last March 21 that it will be assisting 82 countries in Asia, Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, and Asia, as well as the World Health Organization (WHO), in the fight against COVID-19. The world awaits China’s sharing of its knowledge gained from the three months that it faced the deadly virus.
China will send hundreds of millions of test kits, masks, and protective clothing to various countries in the spirit, it said, of the “Community of Shared Future of Mankind.”
It is fortunate that China and the Philippines reestablished their close ties of a thousand years at this crucial moment in history. The Philippines has been one of the first to receive China’s assistance. Last March 21,100,000 COVID-19 test kits, 10,000 sets of personal protective equipment needed by health workers, and 10,000 N95 face masks arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) and turned over by Chinese Ambassador Huang Xilian to Secretary of Foreign Affairs Teodoro Locsin Jr.
The secretary cited the donation as “a model for what the rest of the world should be doing. Instead of blaming each other for what’s happening, we should all start working together to help each other,” he said.
Other nations around the world have received similar health aid in what some have called the “Health Silk Road.” Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic welcomed the Airbus that brought the aid. “Everything on this plane is free…We should thank them with all our hearts,” he said. Italy played China’s national anthem as 1,000 ventilators arrived.
China defeated COVID-19 in three months time, cutting the infection rate to zero from a high of 14,108 cases on February 12, 2020. It was success which the WHO described as “a new standard” in dealing with epidemics.
As its new infections dropped, China turned its attention to extending assistance to other nations. With the Philippines, it co-initiated a China-ASEAN foreign ministers meeting in Laos last February 20 to coordinate efforts in meeting the growing crisis.
Global cooperation is the silver lining in the ongoing crisis.
Collaboration among countries should continue and grow in the coming decades for there will surely be more worldwide threats like COVID-19 that mankind will face.
