China's contributions to global health considerable

For most of the 19th and much of the 20th century, China was called, "the sick man of Asia". But those days are over. As President Xi Jinping observed, "China has bid farewell to the problems that plagued its people for thousands of years, including hunger, shortages and poverty." In a matter of decades, China has successfully transformed itself from a closed and relatively backward country into a global economic and political power.

China's ascendency is generating some questions. One question centers on the country's role in global health. This is because China is making rapid progress in all four primary domains of global health - health aid, health security, health governance and health information exchange.

China's health aid was launched in 1963 when its first medical teams were dispatched to Algeria. Today, Beijing has medical teams in more than 40 African countries and dozens of others posted elsewhere around the global South. Employing a project approach, the largest share of China's health assistance is spent on medical teams and donated facilities. A small number of foreign critics allege that Beijing uses such aid to prop up "authoritarian regimes".