Latin America seeks Chinese medical aid to fight coronavirus

As Latin America struggles to prepare its underfunded public health systems for a surge in Covid-19 cases, many are looking to China for aid. From the Southern Cone to Central America, governments have either received or are expecting a wide range of donations, from testing kits to ventilators, revealing a new face of Chinese diplomacy and soft power: “facemask diplomacy.”

Direct cooperation between governmental, regional, and local health institutions is listed in a joint action plan published in 2018 by China and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (ECLAC), the western hemispheric regional bloc that excludes the U.S. and Canada.

ECLAC-China documents also consider universal access to health to underpin cooperative efforts toward achieving broader economic, social, and cultural rights.

While the region benefits from aid and expertise, for China, it presents an opportunity to steer the narrative about its role in the coronavirus pandemic: from its origin to its solution.

Maurício Santoro, a professor of international relations at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, says the move enables China to highlight the stark difference between its current position and that of powerful western democracies, now struggling with fast-growing death tolls.

“It’s the confirmation of a trend we’ve been seeing for many years, the decline of Europe and the U.S. in face of the rise of Asia and the Pacific,” he said.

For Enrique Dussel, coordinator of the China-Latin America Academic Network (RED ALC-China), China is in the “best position” possible to support requests from Latin American countries “in terms of transmitting experiences in general and with human and financial resources.”

As western leaders face intense criticism for weak governance and poor preparation for the crisis, and fights within the European Union expose deep cracks in an already troubled bloc, Chinese...