Over the past few days, China has sent planeloads of masks, teams of doctors and even ventilators around the world to help battle the crisis. Chinese billionaire Jack Ma donated one million masks and hundreds of thousands of testing kits to the U.S., with the first load arriving in Seattle on Monday.
“We are doing instead of talking. We are the friends not enemy. Could the American do the same to Chinese?” China’s ambassador to South Africa, Lin Songtian, tweeted on Monday.
A shipment of 300,000 masks, sent by Chinese charities founded by Ma and his Alibaba empire, arrived in Belgium this week. Chinese state news agency Xinhua published a photograph of one of the containers draped with the slogan “Unity makes strength” in French, Flemish and Chinese.
Though the saying serves as the national motto of both Haiti and Bulgaria, it would appear the Chinese were taking a swipe at a lack of solidarity on display in Europe in recent weeks.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member