Pandemic fails to put brakes on progress

Editor's note: The pandemic has posed challenges to many aspects of social development and people's lives. In a series of reports titled "Fighting the Pandemic: 2020 in Review", we look at achievements made in different fields. This is the third part of the series.

The pandemic failed to slow China's diplomatic efforts during a challenging year.

Instead, the world's second-largest economy found new ways to ensure the success of its diplomacy.

Officials and experts said the nation quickly adapted its foreign policy to meet the changing situation, worked with its partners in different ways and proposed fresh initiatives to help keep global governance afloat and boost unity.

With global vision and a strong sense of responsibility as leader of a major country, President Xi Jinping engaged in intensive head-of-state diplomacy, including "cloud diplomacy", conducted through online platforms, and put forward fresh proposals by China to tackle global challenges.

Throughout the year, Xi had more than 80 phone calls with foreign leaders and heads of international organizations, and attended 22 important diplomatic events online.

"This helped build global consensus on COVID-19 and pointed the way forward for China's foreign policy," State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi told a seminar on diplomacy on Dec 11.

Describing this year as "a watershed in human history" and "a groundbreaking year for China's external relations", Wang said the country's diplomatic missions, under Xi's leadership, have fought the coronavirus and the "political virus" at the same time, and made new contributions to safeguarding national interests and global stability.

According to Vice-Foreign Minister Le Yucheng, since the start of the outbreak, China has provided assistance to more than 150 countries and sent 36 medical teams to 34 nations in need during Beijing's "largest global humanitarian campaign" since the founding of the People's Republic of China.

As the largest manufacturer of medical supplies, China has provided more than 200 billion face masks, 2 billion protective suits and 800 million testing kits to countries around the world.

Meanwhile, the 7-year-old Belt and Road Initiative, initiated by China, made new advances in the past year. As of last month, 138 countries had signed cooperative documents on jointly building the initiative.

On Nov 5, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters China and its BRI partners have jointly launched more than 2,000 projects generating tens of thousands of jobs, and the initiative has "become an international public good that is popular across the world, as well as the biggest platform for cooperation. "

Zhang Yuyan, director of the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, warned that the pandemic is still spreading rapidly worldwide, with various risks accumulating and the threat of a major global economic recession rising.

"Faced with the complex and dire epidemic prevention and control situation in the world and the remarkable challenges to economic development, no country can survive this ordeal alone," Zhang said.