II. China's Contribution to the Global Fight Against Covid-19

Public health emergencies are a universal challenge confronting humanity and require a joint response from all countries. After the onset of the epidemic, China shared the epidemic information with the WHO and the international community in a timely manner, and provided the genome sequence of the virus. It also invited WHO international expert missions to the country to conduct a joint study into the origins of SARS-CoV-2, shared without reservation its effective measures for prevention, control, diagnosis and treatment, and did all it could to provide massive supplies and extensive aid to the international community. The vision of a global community of shared future guided China's broad international cooperation. The country's significant contribution has given a strong impetus to the global fight against Covid-19.

1. Sharing Information Without Reservation

When Covid-19 struck, in the face of this unforeseen and unexpected public health emergency, China released information in a law-based, timely, open and transparent manner, kept the international community informed of the evolving situation in the country, and maintained close communication with the WHO, and the US and other relevant countries and regions.

On January 8, 2020, China identified the pathogen. On January 9, it briefed the WHO on its domestic epidemic situation and its progress in etiological identification. On January 12, China submitted to the WHO the genome sequence of the virus, which was published by the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data. It provided the international community with a scientific basis for the prevention and control of the pandemic, and for research into and development of vaccines and diagnostic reagents. From January 3, 2020, China began to update the WHO, relevant countries, and regional organizations on the epidemic situation on a regular basis.

While sparing no effort to contain the virus, China demonstrated a keen sense of responsibility for life, its own people, the international community, and posterity, by establishing a rigorous, professional and efficient information release system to enable timely and authoritative updates. China's information release was unprecedented in terms of scope, efficiency and intensity. China enacted robust information release mechanisms and provisions to prohibit withholding information, underreporting, or delay in reporting cases of infection.

On December 31, 2019, the Wuhan municipal government began to release epidemic information in accordance with the law and increased the frequency of communications step by step. Beginning on January 21, 2020, the National Health Commission (NHC) provided daily updates on its official website and its social media platform with nationwide case numbers from the previous day. From February 3, 2020, the NHC began to release information simultaneously on its English-language website.

China established a tiered news release system. By May 31, 2020, the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism and the Information Office of the State Council had held 161 press conferences, during which over 490 officials from more than 50 government departments answered over 1,400 questions from Chinese and foreign media. One hundred and three press conferences were held in Hubei and 1,050 in the other provinces over the same period.

The official Chinese and English websites of the NHC, together with its social media platform, established special sections to release daily updates, interpret policy measures, brief on domestic progress, share knowledge on the virus and its prevention, and dispel rumors.

China shared with the world its successful approach to fighting the pandemic. On the evening of February 24, 2020, the WHO-China Joint Mission on Covid-19 held a press conference in Beijing. Dr Bruce Aylward, team leader of the joint mission and senior advisor to WHO director-general, observed that the global community was not yet ready in mindset or with the materials to implement the measures that had been employed in China, which had proved to be successful in containing Covid-19.

On March 12, 2020, China and the WHO held a joint international briefing on China's experience in Covid-19 prevention and control, which received a positive response. The WHO spoke highly of China's rigorous containment measures on many occasions, saying that it had set a new benchmark for the world and calling on all affected countries to draw on China's experience.

In 2020, China conducted more than 70 Covid-19 prevention and control exchanges with international and regional organizations including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the European Union, the African Union, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Caribbean Community, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, as well as countries including the Republic of Korea, Japan, Russia, the United States, and Germany.

In the first half of 2020, China shared with more than 180 countries and over 10 international and regional organizations its diagnosis, treatment and control protocols in three foreign languages. It built an expert database for international cooperation, and on a frequent basis organized highly experienced public health and clinical experts to share their approaches to prevention and control as well as diagnosis and treatment. Sharing Covid-19 prevention and control knowledge, training videos, updated technical guides, and latest research results, China's online information center for Covid-19 prevention and control attracted a global audience of more than 200,000.

Concerning the study of the origins of SARS-CoV-2, China has been committed to a science-based, open and transparent approach, actively supported and engaged in the effort, while opposing political manipulation in any form. To date, China is the only country that has invited multiple WHO international expert missions to conduct joint studies on its territory, and is the only country that has organized its experts to share with the WHO its virus origins-tracing progress on multiple occasions.

China has shared the largest collection of data and research results and contributed the largest share to global SARS-CoV-2 origins-tracing efforts. Members of the WHO international expert missions have emphasized on many occasions that during their visits to China, they were able to access all the localities, interviewees and files they had planned to access, and that China's information openness and transparency far exceeded their expectations.

The international community widely acknowledges that the Chinese side has fully, timely and effectively fulfilled the obligations prescribed by the International Health Regulations (IHR) through prompt and extensive actions rarely seen anywhere in the world. In the US, some politicians, ignoring China's communications, manipulated origins tracing of the virus for political ends. This has not only delayed their country's pandemic response, but also severely undermined the global effort and exacerbated the spread of the virus.

2. Assisting in the Global Fight Against Covid-19 with All Resources Available

As a developing country with more than 1.4 billion people, China has done all in its power to provide assistance to the international community, even as it faced the tremendous pressure of pandemic control itself. At the beginning of the pandemic, China provided two batches of monetary support totaling US$50 million to the WHO and actively helped its Covid-19 Solidarity Response Fund to raise funds in China.

In 2020, China organized 38 medical expert teams and sent them to 34 countries to assist in pandemic control. They visited 405 medical facilities, held 907 technical support sessions and 540 meetings, gave 306 interviews to domestic and international media, and held 461 training sessions for over 1.65 million trainees.

Since 2020, China has sent more than 3,000 medical workers in 176 teams on foreign aid missions to 57 countries. They have held more than 900 training and health education sessions of various types for over 67,000 local trainees, published over 6,000 notices and guides on epidemic prevention and self-protection in multiple languages, and treated 28,500 overseas Covid-19 patients. Heads of state or government from 11 countries have conferred medals on the medical teams, and over 2,300 members have received awards and commendations from the governments of recipient countries, and Chinese embassies and consulates abroad.

The sudden onslaught of Covid-19 triggered a dramatic surge in China's demand for anti-epidemic materials and imposed strain on the supply of personal protective equipment. China acted immediately to expand the production of medical supplies. Many Chinese companies answered the call of the government. Workers gave up their holidays for the Chinese New Year and worked overtime to produce large quantities of medical supplies, including masks, protective suits, and testing kits, to support the fight against Covid-19. By the end of February 2020, China's daily mask production had reached 116 million. In particular, in nine days from February 21 to 29, its daily production of masks shot from 43 million to over 100 million. This laid the groundwork for China to provide supplies and aid to the global fight against the pandemic.

Though the domestic supply of materials for epidemic prevention and control remained tight and China was still struggling to meet surging demand, the country tried every possible means to provide support and convenience for other countries in purchasing such materials. To make arrangements for orderly exports of protective materials, it smoothed the channels for supply-demand docking, organized logistics, transport, and the supply of goods, and accelerated customs clearance. From January 2020 to May 2022, China supplied over 4.6 billion protective suits, 18 billion testing kits, and 430 billion masks to 15 international organizations and 153 countries, including the US, thus alleviating the global shortage of supplies needed to combat Covid-19.

Vaccines are a powerful weapon against Covid-19, as well as a scarce public good. China was the first country to commit to making Covid-19 vaccines a global public good, to support the waiver of intellectual property rights on Covid-19 vaccines, and to work with other developing countries to produce Covid-19 vaccines. To bridge the vaccination gap, China joined the Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility and provided vaccines to other developing countries.

Since the end of 2020, China has provided over 2.3 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines to more than 120 countries and international organizations. The Chinese government has delivered on its commitment to the world, and China has provided more vaccines to the international community than any other country. One out of every two Covid-19 vaccines used around the world was made in China. The first batches of vaccines received by many countries, especially developing ones, were from China, which also supplied most of their vaccines.

China has spearheaded initiatives to expand international cooperation in combating Covid-19 and strengthen global health governance. It has firmly supported the WHO in playing the leading role in this global response and called on the international community to give it more political and financial support. China has made consistent efforts to reinforce communication with the WHO, conducted exchanges and cooperation with other countries on research into virus origins tracing, medicines, vaccines, and detecting, shared scientific research data and information, and joined in collaboration to study prevention, control and treatment strategies.

From April 2020 to October 2022, through sound and effective Covid-19 prevention and control measures, China succeeded in containing more than 100 outbreaks caused by different variants of the virus. By doing so, it protected the health of over 100 million people, safeguarded public health security, and provided resolute support for the global fight against the pandemic.

The Covid-19 pandemic exposed deficiencies and loopholes in the global health governance system. China calls for the building of a community of health for all and promotes the establishment of sound mechanisms for international cooperation, including a long-term financing mechanism for global public health security, a monitoring, early warning, and joint response mechanism for threats, and a mechanism for reserving and allocating resources. China supports strengthening and leveraging the roles of the United Nations and the WHO, and improving global health governance capacity.

China has sent delegations to the WHO and taken an active part in its review of issues regarding the prevention of, preparedness for, and response to public health emergencies of international concern, the implementation and amendment of the IHR, and negotiations on a pandemic treaty. Top-level Chinese experts have been members of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response and the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens that were established under the auspices of the WHO. By providing expertise and engaging in discussions, they contributed Chinese perspectives, solutions and strengths to building an efficient and sustainable global public health system for the benefit of all humanity and fortifying defenses for the lives and health of all.

Committed to its people-centered development philosophy, China has devoted itself to improving medical services, channeling more resources to the medical and education sectors, and ensuring that social and economic development benefits all the people. The average life expectancy of the Chinese people has steadily increased, from 77.3 in 2019 to 77.93 in 2020, 78.2 in 2021, 78.3 in 2022, and 78.6 in 2023. Thanks to China's sound and proactive strategy for Covid-19 prevention and control, the health status of the Chinese people did not stagnate or regress, but instead continued to improve.