China’s President Xi Jinping on Friday sent “condolences” to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and offered China’s cooperation in dealing with the on-going COVID-19 crisis.
"Chinese President Xi Jinping sends condolences to Indian PM Modi over India’s COVID-19 situation. Mr. Xi said China is willing to enhance cooperation with India on fighting COVID-19 and provide support and assistance to India,” the Communist Party-run Global Times reported.
Mr. Xi’s message, the first such communication between the two leaders following the pandemic and last year’s border crisis, followed a message on Thursday from Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to his counterpart S. Jaishankar.
Mr. Wang said the “the Chinese side firmly supports the Indian government and people in fighting the pandemic.” “Anti-pandemic materials produced in China are entering India at a faster pace to help India fight the epidemic,” the Foreign Minister added. "The Chinese side will continue to do its utmost to provide support and help according to the needs of India. We hope and believe that under the leadership of the Indian government, the Indian people will surely prevail over the epidemic at an early date.”
A large number of orders for oxygen concentrators, ventilators and other medical supplies are in the process of being sourced from China. A first batch of 800 oxygen concentrators was flown in from Hong Kong earlier this week and China’s Ambassador to India, Sun Weidong, said on Thursday, China had, since April, "supplied more than 5000 ventilators, 21,569 oxygen generators, over 21.48 million masks & around 3,800 tons of medicines to India” according to Chinese customs data. These were acquired on a commercial basis.