- Similar to the Belt and Road Initiative, the Health Silk Road is not precisely defined, covering a wide scope of activities, including bilateral and multilateral health policy meetings and networks, capacity building and talent training, mechanisms to control and prevent cross-border infectious diseases, health aid, traditional medicine, and healthcare industry.
- The Health Silk Road is tied to the domestic program of Health China 2030 and builds on existing practices of China’s health diplomacy.
- COVID-19 highlights the need for public health infrastructure for many countries, especially developing countries. The Health Silk Road provides the policy frame for China to strengthen and reform its foreign medical aid system, increase its influence in regional and global health governance, direct BRI investment to basic public health investment, and enlarge China’s role in the supplies of medical products and services.
- Southeast Asia will be an important region where China promotes the HSR. Concrete health cooperation projects will be negotiated bilaterally. Multilaterally (ASEAN) and at the sub-regional level (Mekong region and East ASEAN area), China will engage for the purposes of policy consensus and coordination. Economically, different Southeast Asian countries will have different kinds of investment and trade relationship with China, depending on their level of economic development.
Download PDF here (Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Oct 2020)
