Xi Jinping "Achievements in Protecting People's Lives and Health Against COVID-19"

Chinese President Xi Jinping [Photo by Yonhap News]

Chinese President Xi Jinping met with the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and highlighted poverty eradication along with COVID-19 prevention policies as humanitarian achievements.

According to China Central Television (CCTV) on the 5th, President Xi met with ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing and stated, "China has adhered to the people-centered ideology and won the largest-scale poverty eradication campaign in human history."

He added, "In the face of COVID-19, we protected the lives and health of the people and carried out the largest-scale global humanitarian aid activities in history," emphasizing, "It has been proven that China is an active advocate, participant, and contributor to international humanitarian efforts."

He also expressed willingness to "make important contributions to promoting peace and development for humanity in cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross."

President Xi referred to expressions such as 'Injaaein' (仁者愛人, meaning a benevolent person loves others) and 'Gisobulyok mulsieoin' (己所不欲 勿施於人, meaning do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself), stating that "Chinese thought aligns with the spirit of the Red Cross movement."

President Xi has claimed that strong prevention policies protected the lives and health of the people and that timely policy easing formed herd immunity.

However, Western experts hold different views. Contrary to China's announcement that 83,150 people died of COVID-19 in hospitals from December 8 last year, when prevention measures were eased, to February 9 this year, analyses suggest that many more people died. Recently, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in the United States published a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open (JAMA Network Open) reporting that approximately 1.87 million excess deaths occurred among Chinese residents aged 30 and above between December last year and January this year.