Chinese products forward global efforts to fight COVID-19 pandemic

Cellphone photo taken on March 19, 2020 shows experts from Shanghai-based United Imaging Healthcare Co., Ltd. posing for photo with local medical workers after installing a transportable CT scanner in Baghdad, Iraq. (Xinhua)

Five foreign military airplanes landed in Shanghai on a same day to pick up coronavirus prevention supplies; the world’s largest transport aircraft joined the international convoy to transport medical supplies from China; passenger flights around the world were dispatched to China for medical materials.

That is just a small part of the “air fleet” recently landing in China and then carrying batches of China-produced materials to respective destinations.

The short supply of medical materials remains an urgent task that needs to be addressed by global countries in the sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. To cope with the situation, China, while ensuring strict implementation of containment measures at home, is doing all it can to supply the world with medical materials, offering important “strategic” replenishment for the global efforts to fight the pandemic.

According to incomplete statistics, in March and April, China had exported 27.8 billion pieces of masks, 130 million protective suits, 73.41 million COVID-19 test kits, 12.57 million sets of infrared thermometers, 49,100 breathing machines, 124,000 patient monitors, 43.63 million pairs of protective goggles, and 854 million pairs of surgical gloves.

“China boasts the largest manufacturing industry on Earth, with a fast-growing capacity to build medical devices and a history of making the goods the world needs at record speed,” said a Canadian newspaper.

It’s still remembered that the head of a Suzhou-based company worked day and night and slept only two hours per day just to complete the order of 200 sets of disinfecting devices placed from Wuhan, as his employees were not able to return to work because of the traffic restrictions implemented to curb the spread of the virus during the epidemic. The man said the work was tiring but worthy : it can protect people and save their lives.

Life comes above everything. That is a simple value of the Chinese, and also the positive energy carried in the Chinese products. To fight the virus and race against death, China has overcome difficulties and made all-out efforts to promote work resumption of related enterprises in places where condition permitted. It also mobilized enterprises to engage in cross-industrial production. Carmakers, smart phone manufacturers, garment factories and even solar equipment producers shifted their production to masks.

A WTO report indicated that 80 countries have prohibited or limited the exportation of medical supplies such as masks and gloves since the outbreak. However, such ban has never been implemented in China, even when the country was at the hardest time fighting the disease.

Since April, the export of China’s anti-pandemic supplies has shown a conspicuous growing trend, with a daily volume of around 1 billion yuan ($140.1 million) earlier this month to the current 3 billion yuan. Behind the growing trend is the Chinese people’s profound understanding of a shared future for mankind, as well as the responsibility of Chinese enterprises in the global war against the virus. Many Chinese enterprises noted that they would produce what’s needed in the pandemic.

No hesitation is allowed in the urgent task of fighting the pandemic. After assisting Wuhan in February, China’s jumbo cargo aircraft Y-20 once again headed up to the sky for its first-ever overseas mission - sending medical supplies to Pakistan. Sending the badly-needed materials to the place in dire need demonstrated China's resolution and concrete action to assist the global efforts fighting the pandemic.

Besides, China is also doing its best to make purchase channels of anti-pandemic materials unimpeded. The Chinese government encouraged airline companies to transport cargos with passenger flights, increased the number of trips of the China-Europe freight service, and opened international seaways to ensure supplies of medical materials. Multiple cities have launched green channel for the transportation of medical supplies, striving to minimize the time for customs clearance.

At the critical moment of the global anti-pandemic war, medical supplies produced in China are being sent to foreign destinations everyday at the fastest speed. So far, these supplies have been exported to 194 countries and regions, offering huge support and strong guarantee for the global community to fight the disease.

Even the slightest mistake can not be tolerated in the pandemic where people’s lives are at stake. China is doing all it can do to ensure the quality of products with higher standards and stricter inspection. The so-called quality problems of Chinese anti-pandemic materials hyped by certain Westerners were caused by the differences between Chinese and foreign standards, between their habits, and even by misoperation.

Even so, China’s Ministry of Commerce, General Administration of Customs, State Administration for Market Regulation and National Medical Products Administration have twice rolled out policies in a month to enhance quality supervision on production, circulation and export of medical and non-medical anti-pandemic materials, to better ensure that Chinese products contribute to global efforts with high quality and in a safer and more effective manner. It indicated the high importance attached by these Chinese departments to people’s lives.

The global war against the pandemic tests the capability of both scientific research and material supply. In this war, “made in China” products are increasing the world’s reserve of medical supplies at a high efficiency, sparing no effort to secure a victory over the major infectious disease.