China and Covid: working towards a global community of health for all
While China has declared its vaccines to be a global public good, imperialist corporations continue to put profit ahead of health.
The following highlights are taken from the speech delivered by Comrade Kong Xiangwen, counsellor at the Chinese embassy in London, to our party’s meeting on ‘Covid and Internationalism’ on 9 October. The meeting was part of the celebration of our ninth party congress.
The year of 2021 is very special in China’s history. We celebrated the centenary of the Communist Party of China this past July.
On that occasion, President Xi Jinping declared: “Through the continued efforts of the whole party and the entire nation, we have realised the first centenary goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.
“This means that we have brought about a historic resolution to the problem of absolute poverty in China, and we are now marching in confident strides toward the second centenary goal of building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects.”
This is a significant achievement as compared with a century ago, when China was still a semi-colonial, semi-feudal country. Over the last 100 years, our party has made great strides in leading the Chinese people in the pursuit of national rejuvenation through successes in revolution, reconstruction, and reform, and won the trust and support of the Chinese people.
Nowadays, almost all Chinese people agree that without the CPC, there would be no new China and no national rejuvenation. This sentiment has become even stronger since the Covid pandemic. The Chinese people have won the people’s war against the pandemic and China become the first nation to recover after the pandemic.
The Chinese people are proud of their lives under the leadership of the party. Independent surveys conducted by Harvard University and other academic institutions reveal the overwhelming support of the Chinese people for the party. In this context, I would like to recommend to you a recently released major publication by the CPC titled The CPC: Its Mission and Contributions, which explains the ideals and philosophy behind the party and its success stories …
People across the world long for peace and development more than ever before, their call for equity and justice is growing stronger. They call for cooperation rather than conflict.
China answers the questions of our time with a proposal for building a community of a shared future for mankind. We advocate for win-win cooperation, not zero-sum games, equity and justice, not bullying or hegemony, respect for diversity instead of seeking one’s own supremacy. Pursuing a community of a shared future for mankind is not only something that sprang from the genes of a Marxist worldview, it is also the right choice to make in our increasingly interdependent and interconnected world …
Under the ‘global community of health for all’, China was the first country to announce that it will treat its Covid vaccines as a global public good. President Xi Jinping recently pledged at the United Nations that China will strive to provide a total of two billion doses to the world by the end of this year. In addition to donating $100m to Covax, China will donate 100 million doses of vaccines to other developing countries in the course of this year.
President Xi’s proposal for a ‘global development initiative’ responds to worldwide aspirations for balanced, coordinated and inclusive growth, incorporating such key components as people-centred development, benefits for all, innovation-driven development, harmony between nature and man, and results-oriented actions. Under this initiative, we will promote international cooperation on poverty alleviation, food security, Covid-19 response and vaccines, development financing, climate change and green development, industrialisation, digital economy and connectivity, among other things.
We are aware that our approach to global challenges differs from that of certain other countries who would divide the world into allies and competitors, ‘democracies’ and ‘non-democracies’. The recently announced trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States and the leaders’ ‘summit for democracy’ later this year are two examples of this cold war mentality, which contravenes the aspirations of the world for peace and prosperity …
CPGB-ML are our comrades. In China, the word ‘comrades’ means ‘people sharing common aspirations’, understanding and supporting each other. We appreciate the valuable support of CPGB-ML to the Communist Party of China.
We would like to express our special thanks to the CPGB-ML for upholding justice by signing the joint statement in response to the politicisation of Covid-19 origin tracing, by revealing and rebutting the lies surrounding the so-called Xinjiang ‘genocide’ or human rights abuse.
We will work closely with CPGB-ML to advance the common cause of Marxism and Leninism, to build a community of shared future for mankind, and to develop China-UK relations in a way that better benefits our two peoples.
