by Sue Harris

China’s ability to cooperate is the key to its success in the field of healthcare among many other fields. On an individual basis, cooperation is the ability to empathize with other people and a knowledge of cause and effect in order to reach a common goal. It is the same with nations. In healthcare, how do you achieve longer life expectancy for everyone, lower infant mortality rates and fewer deaths due to communicable diseases? The healthcare system in China is not considered a business. Its goal is not profit. Healthcare is about saving lives and preventing illness.

The recent Covid pandemic is a good example of how China behaved cooperatively to stem the spread of this disease and developed the means to prevent and treat it. When cases of Covid-19 were identified in Wuhan, there was an immediate lockdown, and a quarantine was established. State-owned industries ensured a steady supply of food and fuel at normal prices, increased the supply of rice, flour, oil, meat, and salt, and cracked down on price gouging and hoarding. Several field hospitals were built quickly. There was guaranteed free treatment for Covid. 

On the community level, to combat pandemics and deliver healthcare, China relies on a united, well-organized population, long accustomed to cooperating in times of need. China still maintains an important base of urban and rural civil organizations developed in the 1950s. From the early stages of China’s Wuhan lockdown—where the Covid pandemic was first identified—members of these committees mobilized to conduct door-to-door temperature checks and deliver food and supplies, especially to elderly residents.¹    

In China, when cases of Covid started to appear, before a vaccine had been developed, the government and civic organizations took non-pharmaceutical actions that stopped the spread of the disease:     

1. Intercity travel restrictions
2. Early identification and isolation of cases
3. Contact Restrictions
4. Social Distancing

This limited the early spread of Covid and bought time for the rest of the world. Very few cases have been exported from China.²

The pharmaceutical system in China is designed for finding medicines that cure all human beings, and teaching others how to produce them, not for cornering the market with exclusive patents. Western capitalist countries, like the U.S., Canada and members of the European Union, bought up most of the world’s supply of Covid medication, well beyond what they needed, in order to sell them to other countries. They bought billions of doses and sold the first batch to other wealthy countries. They stopped at that point and told the rest of the world to wait until they got around to distributing the rest. High-income countries had ordered nearly 4.2 billion doses, while lower-middle and low-income countries ordered less than 700 million. The wealthy countries bought up most of the doses, and the poorer countries did not have enough.

China, however, has sent or donated millions of vaccine doses around the world—especially to the Global South. According to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, by mid-February, China had donated vaccines to 53 developing countries, including Somalia, Iraq, South Sudan and Palestine. It has also exported vaccines to 22 countries. In addition, it has launched cooperative research and development projects with more than ten countries. Also at the WHO’s request, China will contribute 10 million doses of vaccines to COVAX.

As of February 14, according to the Global Times, at least 40 countries had ordered or donated at least 561 million doses of Chinese vaccines; some of the main buyers include Peru (38 million), Mexico (35 million), Indonesia (122.8 million), Philippines (25 million doses with an additional 0.6 million donation), Turkey (50 million), Brazil (120 million) and Chile (60 million). Other buyers include Colombia, Uruguay, Myanmar, Malaysia, Thailand and Laos—and Morocco, Egypt, Seychelles, Zimbabwe, Senegal and Equatorial Guinea in Africa.

In Europe, Serbia received Chinese vaccines, making it the second-most vaccinated country in Europe, following the U.K. Hungary became the first EU member state to receive Chinese vaccines (which are not yet EU-approved for use). China’s vaccine success across the world shows the true meaning of global solidarity.

Chinese vaccines are more suited to countries of the Global South. They do not need to be stored in very cold freezers as the Western vaccines do. They are also cheaper. In addition, the cooperative research projects between China and other countries create global solidarity and increase independence and competence. To quote Dr. Alex Mohubetswane Meshilo of the South African Communist Party:

“The African continent as a collective, and the various African states, individually, must unshackle themselves from the legacy of colonialism [and] build a people based healthcare system, having due regard for the relevant African conditions.” 

There is a Chinese story about how a fisherman helped a village that didn’t have enough food. The village was near a river that had plenty of fish in it. Instead of catching the fish quickly and donating them to the village, he taught many of the villagers how to fish. That ensured that the village would have a perpetual supply of food. “Teach people to fish” is a common expression used in China.

China cooperates with other socialist countries, such as Cuba, a leader in the field of health, sharing information rather than hoarding it. In this way, everyone benefits. According to an article in Black Agenda Report by Danny Haiphong, China and Cuba’s medical internationalism is a shining example of global solidarity. It is this internationalism that may provide the key for human survival or even human progress in the future.

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¹Lee Siu Hin et al., Capitalism on a Ventilator: The Impact of COVID-19 in China & the U.S. (2020).

²Calvin Deutschbein, “China Pushes Back U.S. Empire of Lies,” Workers World, July 31, 2020, https://www.workers.org/2020/07/50348/.

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Sue Harris is a videographer and a psychotherapist. As a member of Peoples Video Network she went to Iraq to study the effects of sanctions on children, and then made the video The Children Are Dying. She later directed Poison Dust, a video about the effects of depleted uranium on the environment. With PVN, she videoed hundreds of demonstrations in support of the oppressed and put them on Youtube. She continues to write for Workers World newspaper. With colleagues, Dr. Harris published Interpersonal Psychoanalytic Theory for the 21st Century: Evolving Self, which won the American Legacy Book Award in 2025 for books on mental health. She continues to practice and write, maintaining her interest in movements for social change.