CHINA / SOCIETY
China moves to help overseas Chinese students in need
Published: Apr 02, 2020 01:00 PM

Photo: Xinhua


By mobilizing resources in the public health, civil aviation and diplomatic sectors, China is taking concrete measures to provide support to overseas Chinese students at a time when many of them are facing difficulties abroad due to the COVID-19 pandemic, officials said on Thursday.

To provide Chinese students much-needed sanitary supplies, Chinese embassies have deployed 500,000 "health packages," including 11 million masks and 500,000 disinfectant products, said Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu at a press conference on Thursday in Beijing. 

The Chinese Embassy in the UK has prepared more than 200,000 "health packages," aimed at providing one package to each of the Chinese students there, Ma said.

A press release seen on Thursday on the website of  the Chinese Consulate General in Los Angeles said "health packages" that include masks and some medicine has arrived in Los Angeles, and Consul-General Zhang Ping was quoted as saying  the consulate general has delivered 65,000 of them to local Chinese student unions and to people in need. 

Jing Wen, a Chinese student in the Netherlands, told the Global Times on Thursday the Chinese Embassy there also delivered the health packages to her and other Chinese students through the Chinese student unions at local universities, and she said the packages include some traditional Chinese medicine which has proved to be effective in strengthening resistance to the virus, as well as hand sanitizers.

China is implementing corresponding measures in a gradual and orderly manner as some overseas Chinese students in hard-hit countries urgently need to return home, Ma said. 

In March, China arranged nine chartered flights to countries hit hard by COVID-19, including Iran and Italy, to bring back 1,457 Chinese citizens, including overseas Chinese students, Ma said, noting that a chartered flight to the UK to bring back Chinese students left at 9:30 am Thursday Beijing time.

The flight, which left Shanghai Pudong International Airport, is expected to arrive in the UK Thursday evening and bring 180 Chinese students back home, Lü Erxue, deputy head of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, told the Global Times at a press conference on Thursday.

China's civil aviation authorities are also arranging a fourth flight to Italy to bring 180 Chinese from Milan back to Wenzhou. Out of the nine temporary flights in March, six were to Iran and three to Italy, Lü said.

Of the 1.6 million overseas Chinese students, 1.42 million are still abroad, with most of them choosing to stay put, Ma said.

As of Tuesday, among the 36 overseas Chinese students confirmed to have contracted COVID-19, 11 have been discharged from the hospital, said Vice Minister of Education Tian Xuejun at the same press conference.


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