African COVID-19 Aid Re-Emerges as a Top Chinese Foreign Policy Priority

Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa posing with the 12-member Chinese COVID-19 medical team at the Presidential Palace in Harare. Photo via @ChinaDaily.

China’s once again ramping up its COVID-19 donation diplomacy efforts in Africa. After dialing down their efforts for a couple of weeks, the pace of announcements of new medical team deployments, PPE donations and charitable contributions from Chinese private sector stakeholders have all gone up considerably this week.

One indication that this issue is now a higher priority for Beijing was evident yesterday at the typically choreographed regular foreign ministry press briefing when the first question from a Chinese reporter was about the Chinese medical teams who recently returned from Ethiopia and Djibouti.

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by Eric Olander

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