China Reiterates Its COVID Aid Offer : India Notes Positive Tenor
A view of the beds inside a DRDO’s COVID dedicated hospital
As India struggles with the devastating effects of the second COVID wave, China Friday reiterated its offer of support to India saying it was ready to assist in keeping with India’s needs. In a sign that the government is not closing the door entirely on help from China, official sources noted that the tenor of the remarks by the Chinese foreign ministry had been positive.
Significantly, as China said it was in touch with India on the issue, government sources here didn’t rule out the possibility of contacting private Chinese companies for medical supplies including oxygen. With the government confident of sourcing oxygen mainly from Singapore, Gulf and Europe, China wasn’t the first choice for securing medical supplies.
The Chinese state media has run riot in the past few days over the COVID situation in India, even accusing the Indian government of playing geopolitical games in the middle of the pandemic and claiming US and other western countries were not helping India. The Chinese foreign ministry though has been quite restrained while talking about the issue and offering assistance to meet what it called India’s “temporary shortage” of supplies.
