China Touts ‘Health Silk Road’ Takeover Plan in Coronavirus-Stricken Iran

China’s ambassador to Iran published an op-ed on Monday promoting China’s “Health Silk Road,” – a new health care analog to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – in the state-run Iran newspaper, Radio Farda, the Persian affiliate of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), revealed.

Iran has become the second-worst hit country after China by the Wuhan coronavirus, according to figures organized by dissident groups amid widespread distrust of official government statistics. Over 28,200 people have died from the coronavirus in Iran, according to the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the country’s largest opposition group.

In contrast, Iran claims only 4,777 deaths officially. Local Iranian officials have cast doubt on this figure, however, noting that Tehran’s national numbers are smaller than the result of adding up local case counts in the nation’s various provinces.

The Health Silk Road “serves as a new approach for perfecting global public health governance,” according to an article published on March 25 by the People’s Daily, an official Chinese Communist Party (CCP) newspaper. “The joint construction of a Health Silk Road has expanded the space for cooperation on co-construction of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).”

China’s longer-established BRI has been a means for the country to establish and consolidate power across Asia, Europe, and Africa through infrastructure projects, which are economically predatory and debt-inducing for the host nation. Iran is already a key partner in China’s BRI.

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