Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: Brother China has generously sent surgical masks and Personal Protective Equipments (PPEs) to Pakistan’s parliament, ministries and political parties of Pakistan amid the fears of a second wave of the Coronavirus.
On Monday, the Central Communist Party of China donated 54,000 protection masks to Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Ruling Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) Advisor for Communist Party of China Bayazeed Kansi handed over the masks to Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi here said an official statement.
The Foreign Minister thanked the Central Communist Party of China for donating these masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 pandemic.
The masks and PPEs were handed over to Prime Minister Imran Khan and Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani last week.
Earlier, the International Department of Communist Party of China (IDCPC) donated 500,400 masks and 2100 Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) to a number of political parties in Pakistan.
The other recipients include the Senate of Pakistan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, government of Balochistan and Pakistan’s Embassy in China. The announcement for donations was made during the second Conference CPEC Joint Consultation Mechanism (JCM) of political Parties held in Beijing on August 20, 2020.
The IDCPC had nominated Bayazeed Kasi, to take charge of the delivery of materials to the designated recipients. The donated items were airlifted to Pakistan via the National Disaster Management Authority’s special flight planned on September 10, 2020.
At the recently concluded Second Conference of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor Joint Consultation Mechanism, the CPC had announced the donation of medical supplies to Pakistan Political parties and institutions including 500,400 surgical masks – 278 cartons, each contains 1,800 masks – and 2100 PPEs.
Pakistan and China’s cooperation in fighting the coronavirus is only a small part of the historic brotherhood between all-weather friends. China has always supported Pakistan through thick and thin. Pakistan also tries to do its bit within its resources.
In early February, when Covid-19 was primarily affecting China and a number of East Asian countries, the Hunza region in Gilgit-Baltistan, donated 7,000 surgical masks to China through the Chinese embassy in Pakistan.
This was one of the many messages of solidarity from Pakistan to China that also included a Senate Resolution in support of China’s efforts, and an exchange between the Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
An even stronger message of amity was delivered a month later, through a high-profile visit by the Pakistani President Arif Ali Alvi to China in March 2020.
The Pakistani President was the second foreign leader – after the Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen in February – to fly to China during the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to the Joint Communique issued at the end of the visit, it was a singular expression of Pakistan’s solidarity with its “iron brother”, at a critical time for China in its fight against the coronavirus.
As part of its “face masks diplomacy”, China has cooperated with both the federal government in Islamabad – with PM Imran Khan publicly lauding China’s aid to his country – and provincial governments, in particular in Sindh and Punjab.
Among other initiatives, Sindh received 500,000 face masks, including 50,000 N-95 masks, donated to the provincial government by China, while China’s Kunming University of Science and Technology is working with Pakistani medical experts to convert a university campus into a 1,000-bed field hospital in Lahore, Punjab.
