China tries to reshape what is left of globalization through a “Silk Road of Health”. Italy was a starting point.
by Marco Respinti
Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH) is probably the most important organization in the world exposing one of the most brutal aspects of the Chinese regime, i.e. organ harvesting on prisoners of conscience. It has now issued a new devastating report on the CCP’s lies, violations of human rights and hegemonic ideological aims. Italy is especially at stake here, as a case study of global interest. The report by DAFOH is appearing in several languages.
Entitled Unmasking the COVID-19 Pandemic, the report includes a number of data on the systematic manipulation of truth and medical records by the CCP. A timeline of the unfolding of COVID-19 is used to highlight how China is responsible for the spread of the pandemic. It downplayed the threat in its dealings with the World Health Organization (WHO), refused to allow inspections on the ground by WHO experts as well as personnel of the US Center for Disease Control, and continued spreading fake news.
China also put the world in further danger by “creating a global shortage of face masks and then choosing how and when to distribute aid,” to drive “a wedge between European countries following a trajectory of divide and conquer, or ‘divide et impera,’ by first ruining partnerships between countries and then appearing as the savior who delivered face masks to overwhelmed regions.” The CCP exploited the coronavirus crisis to extend Beijing control on foreign countries, in a revised version of the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) project, whose aim is to reshape what is left of globalization by imposing on them its “Chinese characteristics.”
Fake charity and high-tech control
Out of its nine chapters and 41 pages, particularly important is chapter 3, “Facemask diplomacy—a hidden agenda.” It notes that, “Between 1st March 2020 and 4th April 2020, China exported more than 3.86 billion face masks, 2.8 million COVID-19 testing kits and over 2.4 million infrared thermometers.” Much of these “has been sold, rather than donated, and the tagline of ‘Made in China’ has begun to have deadly connotations.”
But as soon as these large shipments arrived in many countries (including Italy), it “began the outcry of sub-standard, faulty and even unlicensed PPE being rejected by countries all around Europe. The much-published efforts of support were in fact rather than helping actually putting medical professionals’ lives in danger, by creating a false sense of safety.” The DAFOH’s report describes this maneuver as an attempt “by the Chinese Communist Party to leverage a human tragedy,”: “putting profit before people, at a time of a medical tragedy, [is] troubling.”
Chapter 4, “Concerns About the Chinese Red Cross Society,” is similarly chilling. It defines the Chinese Red Cross Society (CRCS) as “[a] state-controlled arm of the Chinese Communist Party.” As the report explains, “in February, 2020 the CRCS came under fire and intense scrutiny, at home and abroad, for its inability to distribute aid to the institutions most in need, and has been accused of stockpiling and mishandling urgently needed medical supplies in warehouses. In Wuhan, at the epicenter of China’s COVID-19 outbreak leaked videos of CRCS officials providing local government officials with PPE at a time when hospitals urgently needed these, caused outcry on Chinese social media.”
There is more. The DAFOH’s report depicts CRCS as nothing less than a tool in the hands of the CCP, used to further the regime’s drive toward foreign control. In fact, “[r]eports emerged that in conjunction with CRCS’ much publicised help, Huawei was attempting to set up cloud based 5G networks directly with hospitals in Wuhan,” which “immediately caused concern about security.” Summing up, “[a]ttempts by the CRCS, to capitalize on the vulnerability created by the CCP induced pandemic to push the CCP’s agenda […] indicate that the motives of the help provided by the CRCS are not simply humanitarian.”
Hegemonic plans
The CRCS seems in fact to be just the latest pawn of a great hegemonical plan. In January 2017, the CCP Secretary General and President of the Peoples’ Republic of China, Mr. Xi Jinping, signed a memorandum of understanding with the WHO about building a so-called “Silk Road of Health,” which would “improve public health” in countries along China’s BRI. Now, BRI and Xi Jinping’ thought, i.e. his neo-post-communist pursuit to reshape the world, are integral parts of the Chinese Constitution. And Coronavirus may now serve as an unexpected, but aptly driven vessel for both.
“While the COVID-19 epidemic has spread out of China along the routes of” BRI, DAFOH’s report observes, “those same corridors, ports and logistics hubs are now being used to provide medical support to partner countries in need as Beijing attempts to position itself as a global leader in healthcare—a move which Chinese President Xi Jinping calls the ‘Silk Road of Health.’”
So, “[t]he Silk Road of Health presents a framework through which Beijing may choose to revamp its BRI.” Of course, the pandemic has struck a major blow also to the Chinese economy, and the BRI project has suffered as well, but a new opportunity seems now in sight. “The Silk Road of Health,” Unmasking the COVID-19 Pandemic states, “may be a convenient new banner for a signature foreign policy that China will simply not abandon even under significant strain.”
Italian PM Giuseppe Conte and Xi Jinping
Here is where Italy enters the picture. The “Silk Road of Health” idea emerged openly in a phone conversation on March 16, while Italy was in the middle of its coronavirus outbreak, between Mr. Xi Jinping and Italian Prime Minister, Mr. Giuseppe Conte. Italy is one of the European signatories of BRI memorandums with China. That was the time when the Chinese regime “sent its state-run Red Cross Society of China to Italy […], under the guise of providing humanitarian aid.” In fact, at that time Beijing had already “downplayed the deadly menace of COVID-19” and thereby created the conditions “which allowed the virus to enter and then spread in Italy, bringing a calamity, on a scale, that has not been experienced for generations, directly to the Italian people.”
Now, as stated in the report—and “well documented,” DAFOH writes—the CRDC is a partner in “China’s pursuit of establishing itself as Italy’s 5G partner through the state affiliated company Huawei.” The humanitarian move was intended “to lure the Italian people into more economic and diplomatic collaboration and into the expansion of China’s 5G surveillance network.”
This is why, on May 7, DAFOH’s Italian branch sent a letter to the Italian government and the Italian parliament urging them to immediately take action against Chinese interferences. Since the alarm was raised, a few weeks ago, on the astonishing and systematic Chinese cover-up of the pandemics, resulting in thousands and thousands of deaths and damages all of the world, the Italian government’s enthusiastic support of China’s rhetoric has become more low profile than it was before. Whether these developments would have long-term effect on Italy’s pro-China policies remains to be seen.