Improving Global Information System for Pandemic Response

CHINA’S State Council Information Office released a white paper titled “Fighting COVID- 19: China in Action” in early June.

- ZHANG JINGWEN

The white paper chronicles China’s all-hands-on-deck response to the public health emergency, showing what makes a responsible major country in the face of a crisis. The country deserves credit for its efficiency in messaging the epidemic dynamics to its people as well as its timeliness and transparency in terms of information sharing with the international community because what it has done greatly helped both the domestic and global fights against the virus.

The hard truth laid bare in this pandemictells people that humanity needs to form an effective, cooperative, and transparent system for global public health governance. Countries should strengthen cooperation in building a community with a shared future for humankind and optimize the system for epidemic information sharing to safeguard the lives of the planet’s human population.

Building Consensus and Trust

Virus respects no national borders. No country will be spared if an epidemic strikes, nor will any country win the fight alone.

As Chinese President Xi Jinping said when addressing the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference in 2015, “No country can have its own security ensured without the security of other countries or of the wider world.” The future and destiny of different countries and nations are closely connected and inter-dependent. In face of a global emergency, the most important imperative is to reach consensus for concerted response efforts. If countries across the world fail to build such a consensus, act on the principle of mutual trust or share epidemic information, the response will be chaotic and blind.