China to donate $500 million to WHO, stepping into gap left by U.S. (www.washingtonpost.com)

submitted 1 week ago by yogthos@lemmy.ml to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml

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[-] Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 1 week ago

Once again, China demonstrating that it gives a fuck about humanity. Wish we could see that in the west.

[-] gnutrino@programming.dev 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Wish we could see that in the west.

I mean, where do you think the rest of the WHO's funding comes from.

$500m over 5 years isn't even that much for the world's second biggest economy, that barely breaks them into the top 10 funders. Certainly welcome given Trump's withdrawal but back when the US was lead by marginally sane people, it was providing twice that amount every year.

[+] Thalion@lemmy.ca -6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Yeah it's good that they're doing it but they're definitely not doing it because they give a fuck about humanity. They're doing it because they're smart enough to see how easily they can move into the world role that the US is willfully abandoning

[-] Joncash2@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 week ago

This is the problems with western thinking. Everything has to do with the west. Everything China does apparently is because of the west, or in this case USA. This has nothing to do with the west or USA. It also doesn't really have all that much to do with humanity either. As many have noted, China cares about China. Since they care about China, it's in their best interest to fund something like the WHO in order to prevent diseases spreading as that can obviously effect China. Diseases don't care about borders.

It's the same reason China cares about green tech. Sure it helps humanity, but it's mostly to save China for the future Chinese. If the side effect is the world gets cleaner, all the better. Of course the west twists it as China is developing green tech to have a monopoly on green tech. Hey, if you can do better, do it. Otherwise you're literally burning down the world because China does it better.