China, in an effort to save its own reputation following the global outbreak of the coronavirus, has been selling medical equipment to other countries. But it has recently come under fire for not selling enough equipment to certain countries, as well as selling faulty equipment in massive numbers.
First, Breitbart reports that China has sold only 1,000 ventilators to the United States since the outbreak began, with those ventilators going to New York state. Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) praised China for the donation despite the small number, saying that “we finally got some good news today,” and that “this is a big deal.”
Globally, China has sent out approximately 3.86 billion masks to other countries, as well as 37.5 million pieces of other protective clothing, an additional 15,000 ventilators, and 2.84 million testing kits.
But multiple countries around the world, particularly in Europe, have reported that much of the medical equipment sent by China has proven defective. The Netherlands issued a recall of over 600,000 masks out of a shipment of 1.3 million, since those masks “did not meet quality standards.” In Spain, thousands of test kits were rejected after they proved to be unreliable.
In both cases, Chinese spokespeople fired back and shifted the blame onto the recipient countries, claiming that they had told the Netherlands that “the masks are non-surgical,” and argued that Spain’s claims “did not reflect the full facts.”