Coronavirus: China gets defensive during high-level EU event on fundraising and vaccine development

The European Union’s effort to raise new funds for developing and distributing Covid-19 vaccines has met with a cold shoulder from China, despite the bloc’s success in almost reaching its US$8 billion fundraising target.

Not only was China the country that sent the lowest-level official to the online event on Monday, it also made no new financial pledges, nor promised to make any successful vaccine a common public good, as several participating countries have called for.

Instead, Chinese ambassador to the EU Zhang Ming asked the world to stop the “blame games” over the coronavirus. He also outlined existing Chinese efforts, such as commercial sale of protective equipment and masks, to needy countries.

“China is a responsible member of the international community, despite daunting tasks of outbreak response at home,” Zhang said. “China is doing its best to help those countries in need.”

“China also supports other countries in getting commercial access to medical supplies,” he said, adding that Chinese companies have supplied 24 billion face masks, 120 million protective suits and 24,000 ventilators in the last two months.