Public health Archives - Friends of Socialist China

Ma Haide – a bridge of friendship between China and Lebanon

Marking the 90th anniversary of the successful conclusion of the Long March, we recently republished an article from China Today introducing the contributions made at that time by two young Americans, Edgar Snow and George Hatem (Ma Haide).

The below article, which was originally published in The Beiruter, introduces Hatem’s connection to his ancestral home country of Lebanon, with the help of exclusive interviews with his family, unpublished letters, rare photographs and original reporting, and outlines how this connection still helps to form a bridge of friendship between the Chinese and Lebanese peoples.

It recounts how, in an October 1983 letter to family members, Hatem thanks his relatives for the olives they had sent from Lebanon. He asks about Hammana, his family’s hometown. He worries about the civil war then consuming his ancestral homeland. And he sends warm wishes to every member of the family.

“Thousands of kilometers away, the physician revered across China as Ma Haide, the man who helped transform the country’s fight against leprosy and sexually transmitted diseases, and [one of] the first foreigner[s] to become a citizen of the People’s Republic of China, was writing not as a revolutionary or a national hero, but as George, a relative who had never stopped thinking about home.”

Like thousands of Lebanese emigrants at the turn of the twentieth century, Ma Haide’s father, Nahoum Salameh Hatem, left Mount Lebanon in search of opportunity in the United States. Although raised in America, George spent summers in Hammana with relatives, forging a connection to Lebanon that distance would never erase.

After studying at the University of North Carolina, the American University of Beirut (AUB) and the University of Geneva, the newly graduated physician boarded a ship to Shanghai in 1933 with two fellow American doctors. The plan was simple: gain experience, practice medicine and eventually return to the United States.

He never did. Arriving in Shanghai, he opened a dermatology and venereal disease practice. Beyond the city’s modern façade, he soon discovered a different China. Patients suffered from illnesses driven as much by poverty, overcrowding and exploitation as by disease itself, leading him to question not only how to treat illness, but the conditions that created it.

He also met people who would shape his future. Through American journalist Agnes Smedley, he was introduced to Soong Ching-ling, widow of Sun Yat-sen, the founder of modern China, and later to Zhou Enlai, who would become the first premier of the People’s Republic of China.

In 1936, Hatem left Shanghai for the communist base area of Yan’an together with American journalist Edgar Snow, convinced he was going not where life would be easiest, but where a doctor was needed most.

Unlike the many foreigners who passed briefly through Yan’an, Hatem chose to stay. In 1937 he became a member of the Communist Party of China. According to family accounts, Mao Zedong waived the usual probationary period, telling colleagues that Ma Haide had already proven his commitment through his work rather than words. And in 1950, he was one of the first foreigners to become a citizen of the newly-founded People’s Republic of China.

He would serve as Chairman Mao’s personal physician while helping establish medical services for the Red Army, training healthcare workers and building the foundations of a modern military health system and then leading the country’s post-liberation fight to eliminate leprosy. He later described his time in Yan’an as “the happiest, most meaningful and most extraordinary years” of his life.

After decades apart, he finally met his father again in 1962, in the Syrian capital, Damascus, it not being possible for him to visit Lebanon as a Chinese citizen at that time. He was finally able to visit the country in 1974.

The article adds: “His connection to Lebanon did not end with those visits. Decades after his death, it continues to bring China back to the mountain village where his family’s story began.

“‘I was working when two young women approached me speaking English,’ [his cousin Joseph] Rached said. ‘“Is your mother Mary Hatem? Is this Dr. Hatem’s family home?” I said yes. Then they told me, “The Chinese ambassador wants to meet you.”’

“According to Rached, that visit marked the beginning of a tradition that continues today. Every Chinese ambassador appointed to Lebanon has visited the Hatem family in Hammana to pay tribute to Ma Haide… The Chinese Embassy later erected a bronze statue honoring Hatem in the village where his family’s story began, a lasting symbol of the bond between China and Hammana.”

The antibiotics crisis and the case for socialism

Ara Darzi – surgeon, Labour peer and author of the 2024 review of the NHS – has written in the Financial Times that the West has handed China “the keys to the medicine cabinet”, warning of the “peacetime weaponisation” of pharmaceutical supply chains. China supplies around 94 percent of the key raw materials for amoxicillin and nearly half of global antibiotic ingredient exports.

The following article by Carlos Martinez takes the sinophobic framing apart. China has never withheld medicine from anyone, while the United States is currently obstructing medical supplies to Cuba, Iran and Venezuela, and held up ventilator and PPE shipments during a pandemic. However, what Darzi concedes along the way is of interest.

Darzi’s own diagnosis is that antibiotics are a permanent market failure: a drug whose value rises the less it is used cannot recoup its research costs, so Novartis, AstraZeneca and Sanofi have all quit the field, and the company that brought a new antibiotic to market in 2018 was bankrupt within a year. As former British Chief Medical Officer Sally Davies put it, a medicine that cures you in a week is a worse business proposition than one you must take for life. Meanwhile some 4.71 million deaths were associated with antibacterial resistance in 2021, with the heaviest burden falling on South and Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa – precisely where the market is least likely to step in.

Darzi’s conclusion is that antibiotics should be treated not as a commodity but as critical infrastructure, planned and publicly supported. The article agrees, and observes that when China applies exactly that logic – to antibiotics, solar panels, batteries, electric vehicles, high-speed rail or semiconductors – it is denounced as overcapacity and distortion, and met with tariffs. Darzi has written a very persuasive argument for socialism, and appears not to have noticed.

China stands with Africa in fight against Ebola

Chinese Vice Premier Liu Guozhong attended the High-Level Meeting of African Heads of State and Government and Partners on the Ebola Disease Outbreak on June 16 via video link. Liu, who is also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, was invited by the African Union.

Liu told the meeting that China stands ready to provide more medical support to Africa within the framework of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) and calls for the international community to enhance solidarity and cooperation to increase support for African countries, regarding the renewed outbreak of Ebola on the continent.

Noting that China and Africa have always been a community with a shared future, Liu said China has already provided emergency humanitarian assistance to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the African Union (AU), and dispatched medical expert teams to the DRC. Meanwhile, nearly 1,000 Chinese medical professionals who are working in African countries stand side by side with local people in combating the disease.

At the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s June 17 press conference, spokesperson Lin Jian briefed the media on China’s participation in the meeting, saying that China will implement the Partnership Action for Health under the framework of FOCAC, and provide assistance “to the best of our capability” in combating the outbreak.

Burundian President and current Chairperson of the AU Evariste Ndayishimiye chaired the meeting and heads of state and government from more than 10 African countries, including South Africa, Equatorial Guinea and Zimbabwe, attended.

Also on June 17, the Chinese government announced that it had decided to provide additional emergency humanitarian assistance on top of its previous anti-outbreak support for Africa. The assistance includes continued aid to the DRC, a batch of anti-outbreak supplies for Uganda, and sustained support for Africa CDC (Centres for Disease Control and Prevention) to fulfil its mandate, helping Africa to contain the outbreak at an early date, according to Tang Ying, spokesperson for the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA).

As of mid-June 2026, the current Ebola outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo virus, has so far seen 780 confirmed cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and 19 in Uganda.

Chinese medical team helps Zimbabwe complete country’s first neuromodulation surgeries

A Chinese medical team has helped Zimbabwe carry out its first Deep Brain Stimulation and first Spinal Cord Stimulation surgeries – major neuromodulation procedures used to treat Parkinson’s, drug-resistant epilepsy, post-stroke rehabilitation and chronic pain. The Zimbabwean side led the operations, with Chinese surgeons providing technical support. The technology, developed by Tsinghua University and commercialised by Beijing PINS Medical, meets internationally advanced standards but is significantly cheaper than the US equivalents, making it genuinely deployable in African health systems.

The lead Zimbabwean neurosurgeon, Dr Nathaniel Zimani, captured its significance: “If China wasn’t there, we may get this technology 20 years from now. Because of this collaboration, we’ve advanced such medical technologies by 20 years in our country… It’s teaching us how to fish, than giving us fish.”

The work is being carried out with the help of the 23rd Chinese medical team sent to Zimbabwe since 1985, representing four decades of continuous medical cooperation, now part of the China-Zimbabwe “all-weather community with a shared future”, under which China has pledged to support Zimbabwe’s development and to oppose external interference and illegal sanctions.

It is worth setting this beside the West’s engagement with Zimbabwe over the decades. Britain ruled the country – then Rhodesia – through nearly a century of brutal settler-colonialism, dispossessing the Black majority and fighting a vicious war to prevent independence. When Zimbabwe finally won its liberation in 1980, and in the early 2000s reclaimed its land, the West responded with an illegal sanctions regime that inflicted enormous suffering. Two models of engagement, side by side: one built on plunder, white supremacy, colonialism and neocolonialism; the other on solidarity, development and knowledge transfer.

Chinese medical internationalism in Nicaragua

The Chinese naval hospital ship Silk Road Ark visited Nicaragua’s Corinto Port from November 10-14 to provide medical care to the local population.

In the vessel’s first visit to the western hemisphere, a crew of more than 400 doctors, nurses and auxiliary personnel treated patients free of charge and shared experiences with Nicaraguan medical professionals.

During that time, Chinese doctors worked together with Nicaraguan specialists to see 1,125 patients from the Chinandega area. They treated patients needing specialised medical support – from pediatrics to gynecology, obstetrics to internal medicine, orthopedics to urology. They carried out examinations on patients’ eyes, ears, noses, throats, hearts, kidneys, gastrointestinal tracts, and tested for infectious diseases. The team also performed ultrasounds, surgeries, and treated patients using traditional Chinese medicine.

In addition, specialists from China and Nicaragua held a meeting to share experiences on topics such as robotic surgery, chronic kidney disease, congenital heart disease, maternal and fetal health, and breast cancer.

This ship is part of “Harmony Mission 2025,” a Chinese humanitarian initiative to provide free medical care and strengthen international ties. So far, it has previously visited Fiji and Tonga, providing 3,330 consultations and performing 426 surgeries in Fiji, and treating more than 5,000 people in Tonga.

Speaking at the opening ceremonies, the Chinese Ambassador to Nicaragua, Qu Yuhui, expressed hopes that this Peace Ship will serve as a vehicle for the seeds of friendship between the navies of both countries to take deep root and foster a spirit of peace and cooperation, which will be passed down from generation to generation in furthering relations between China and Nicaragua.

At the closing ceremony prior to the ship’s departure, Laureano Ortega Murillo, Presidential Advisor for the Promotion of Investment, Trade and International Cooperation, said:

“We have come on a visit, delegated by our Co-Presidents, Commander Daniel, Comrade Rosario, to bid farewell to this Hospital Ship of the People’s Republic of China, of the People’s Liberation Army, to bid farewell to this laudable work of solidarity carried out by the Chinese people and Government with the peoples of the world.

“We are extremely grateful and we will continue to advance in this relationship of brotherhood, cemented in the relationship between our parties, the Sandinista National Liberation Front and the Communist Party of China. So, on behalf of our people and our Government, our gratitude, our love, our affection to the people and Government of the People’s Republic of China. Long live China and long live Nicaragua!”

The following articles were originally published by Sovereign Media and El 19 Digital. The latter was published in Spanish and was machine translated.

China strikes diabetes

The following article by Bhabani Shankar Nayak highlights China’s groundbreaking advances in tackling one of the world’s most devastating illnesses. According to the International Diabetes Federation, 589 million adults currently live with diabetes, a figure projected to reach 853 million by 2050. The disease causes 3.4 million deaths annually and costs over USD 1 trillion in healthcare spending. For Western pharmaceutical corporations, the author argues, this represents a lucrative “business of sickness,” that is focused not on curing diabetes but on managing it – for a profit.

Bhabani writes that China may now be disrupting this model. Scientists at Tianjin First Central Hospital have developed a stem-cell therapy using patients’ own fat cells to generate insulin-producing islet cells. Implanted under the abdomen, these cells restore natural insulin regulation. Clinical trials show extraordinary results: Type-1 patients stopped insulin within 75 days, and Type-2 patients within eleven weeks. The European Medical Journal hailed this as a “milestone,” while China’s National Medical Products Administration is fast-tracking further trials to make the therapy widely available within three years.

This development comes hot on the heels of a recent innovation by Shanghai doctors restoring normal insulin production using pancreatic cells derived from the patient’s own stem cells.

Bhabani stresses that China’s successes in medical science are rooted in the country’s policy-driven investment in public health and medical research, exemplified by the “Shanghai Integration Model” that integrates public initiatives with research-based medicine. Unlike profit-driven Western systems, China’s approach is grounded in the principle of health over profit, producing breakthroughs not only in diabetes but also in AIDS and obesity treatment.

Contrasting China’s people-centred development with Western capitalism, Bhabani concludes that while “imperialism—led by the United States—invests in war,” China invests in life-saving science. Its model, he argues, offers an alternative based on collective welfare, innovation, and human dignity.

In a world shaped by competing models of development, China’s approach stands as a powerful alternative rooted in collective welfare, scientific progress, and the dignity of life.

Bhabani Shankar Nayak is a Professor of Business Management at London Metropolitan University. He is the author or editor of numerous books and articles on China and other issues related to development in the Global South. This article was first published in Countercurrents.

The International Diabetes Federation (IDF)’s Diabetes Atlas reports that 589 million adults (aged 20–79) are currently living with diabetes—equivalent to 1 in 9 adults worldwide. This number is projected to rise to 853 million by 2050. The report also states that diabetes was responsible for 3.4 million deaths in 2024, equating to one death every nine seconds. Additionally, diabetes accounted for at least USD 1 trillion in health expenditures, representing a 338% increase over the past 17 years. The report further predicts that diabetes-related health spending will continue to rise, exceeding USD 1.054 trillion by 2045.

Diabetes is a silent epidemic, causing death and suffering on an unimaginable scale. However, for pharmaceutical corporations, insurance companies, and private healthcare providers, it represents a highly profitable business opportunity. The commercialization of illness lies at the heart of capitalism, particularly in the healthcare models practiced by many large corporations based in the United States and Europe. The pharmaceutical industry manages diabetes through ongoing treatment but rarely invests in a cure—treating the disease as though it were incurable.

Tu Youyou, Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong and the struggle against malaria

April 25 is marked each year as World Malaria Day. Marking this occasion, the US publication Struggle/La Lucha carried a brief article by Stephen Millies revisiting the inspiring story of Chinese woman scientist Tu Youyou, who, starting in 1967, led more than 500 researchers to develop a malaria treatment. The project was begun to assist Vietnam in its war against US aggression, but it has gone on to save millions of lives all over the world, especially in the Global South.

Mosquitoes were infecting Vietnamese soldiers marching down what the corporate media called the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Older remedies like chloroquine were not as effective as they once were. The Vietnamese communist leader Ho Chi Minh asked the People’s Republic of China for help. Ho’s comrade, Mao Zedong, responded by setting up Project 523 to find a new and better cure. A plant called sweet wormwood, mentioned in a 1,600-year-old Chinese medical text, became the focus of attention. Tu Youyou helped develop an extraction method that led to the discovery of the anti-malaria drug Artemisinin in 1972. Tu Youyou was finally awarded a Nobel Prize for her work in 2015.

Millies comments: “Helping Vietnam was the solidarity given by the other socialist countries, including the then-existing Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Part of that solidarity was the work of Tu Youyou and her fellow scientists in finding new cures for malaria.”

Meanwhile, on the same day, a Ugandan health official said China is a key partner in helping the East African country eliminate the deadly disease by 2030.

Jimmy Opigo, head of the National Malaria Control Division at the Ministry of Health, told Xinhua in a recent interview that Uganda is eager to learn from a country whose relentless efforts have reduced annual malaria infections from about 30 million in the 1940s to zero in 2017. In 2021, the World Health Organisation (WHO) officially declared China malaria-free, making it the 40th country in the world to have eliminated malaria.

Opigo said that over the years, China has supported Uganda in fighting the disease, which kills between 70,000 and 100,000 people in the East African country annually, with pregnant women and children most affected. He added that, drawing from China’s experience, quick case detection, investigation and a surveillance system are critical in fighting the disease

“We appreciate the long-standing bilateral relationship between Uganda and China, which has been in several fields, including trade, technology, manufacturing, agriculture, and medicine, and we are now developing one in malaria elimination,” Opigo said. “Uganda is working with China for the elimination of malaria.”

The following articles were originally published by Struggle/La Lucha and the Xinhua News Agency.

Tu Youyou, Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong and the struggle against malaria

Caused by a parasite which is spread by infected mosquitoes, malaria has killed billions during thousands of years of human history. Just in the last century, an estimated 150 to 300 million people died from the disease.

While smallpox, cholera, polio and the plague have been beaten back, malaria and tuberculosis continue to kill hundreds of thousands of people annually. In 2023, an estimated 597,000 people died from malaria. Ninety-five percent were Africans.

Chinese medical teams have been working in Mozambique for nearly 50 years

Two events on April 14 served to underline the continuing close bonds between China and the countries of southern Africa, forged during the liberation struggle against imperialism, colonialism and white racist minority rule.

Reporting from the capital Maputo, the Xinhua News Agency wrote that the 25th contingent of the Chinese medical team in Mozambique organised a large-scale free clinic at Matola Provincial Hospital, as part of a series of activities commemorating the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Mozambique.

The event offered consultations in gynecology, obstetrics, cardiology, urology, pain management, general surgery, orthopedics, spinal surgery, and acupuncture. Medical stations were also set up for blood pressure, glucose, and oxygen saturation checks, as well as for the distribution of basic medicines.

Luisa Panguene, national director of medical assistance at the Ministry of Health, expressed gratitude to the Chinese medical team for promoting health, well-being, and hope for Mozambican citizens.

“On behalf of the Mozambican people, I would like to thank the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese medical mission for their continued support and for the solidarity they have shown throughout these 50 years of brotherhood.”

Ma Litai, leader of the Chinese medical team, said: “We have come here with Chinese expertise, equipment, and medicine to serve the people of Mozambique. Chinese medical teams have been working in Mozambique for nearly 50 years, and we will continue to serve the health needs of the Mozambican people.”

Friendship between China and Mozambique dates to the beginning of the armed liberation struggle against Portuguese colonialism, launched by the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) on 25 September 1964, which China, along with the other socialist countries, consistently supported morally and materially. This struggle culminated in the founding of the People’s Republic of Mozambique (now the Republic of Mozambique) on 25 June 1975, with the outstanding Marxist Samora Machel becoming the country’s first President. With a revolutionary friendship already forged in battle, China and Mozambique established diplomatic relations the same day.

Also on April 14, China and Zimbabwe signed two agreements for airport infrastructure maintenance and skills development training in the transport sector in the capital Harare.

At the signing ceremony, Zimbabwean Deputy Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development Joshua Sacco said: “The signing of the two agreements is a continuation of the long-standing relationship between our two nations dating back to the days of the liberation struggle and it now shows that we are moving on to a stage where we share economic development.”

Ma Xin, Vice Governor of China’s Jiangsu Province, who was leading a provincial delegation, said that with Zimbabwe transitioning towards an industrialised economy, there is heavy demand for infrastructure building and construction, and engineering and construction companies from Jiangsu are more than willing to participate in Zimbabwe’s infrastructure construction development.

From despair to revolution: the Bronx’s path to defeating addiction

The following article by the Bronx [New York] Anti-War Coalition, which was originally published by Workers World, reports on their October 11 screening of the documentary film, ‘Dope is Death’. The event included a Q&A session with Walter Bosque, an acupuncturist and former Young Lord.

The Young Lords were a youth organisation of the Puerto Rican national minority in the United States, who took up revolutionary organising and the study of Marxism-Leninism and who supported and forged links with socialist China.

‘Dope is Death’ highlights the late Dr. Mutulu Shakur’s transformative work with the Young Lords and the Black Panther Party, who used acupuncture to combat drug dependency. Their efforts not only rescued individuals from addiction but also empowered the community to rebuild, laying the groundwork for revolutionary change. [Mutulu Shakur was a political prisoner and member of the Black Liberation Army and other revolutionary organisations as well as the stepfather of the rapper Tupac Shakur.]

Having drawn attention to the ‘Opium Wars’ waged by British imperialism against China in the 19th century, the article notes:

After the 1949 revolution, the People’s Republic of China swiftly eradicated opium production and consumption through revolutionary social reform… Mao Zedong’s landmark 1965 health-care speech and his June 26 directive emphasised accessible health care in rural areas, leading to the ‘barefoot doctors’ program. This initiative trained community health workers to provide basic medical services in rural areas, blending modern and traditional medicine to meet the needs of under-served communities. By 1968, this program became a key component of national health policy.

As we celebrate 75 years of the Chinese Revolution, China’s achievements in eradicating addiction, reducing poverty and advancing public health testify to the transformative potential of revolutionary movements. Ultimately, China’s rise as a global power signifies the rise of the Global South, as it extends a helping hand to nations historically oppressed by the US empire and sanctions.

It goes on to outline how the Palestinian resistance had created Muslim youth associations, community clubs and Islamic social gatherings to combat drug trafficking, help individuals overcome addiction and strengthen social cohesion and concludes:

“This history of social resilience and organized resistance across the Bronx, the People’s Republic of China and Gaza highlights the power of community-led healing in the face of systemic oppression.”

A synopsis of the film can be read here.

The Bronx Anti-War Coalition hosted a film screening on Oct. 11 of the documentary “Dope is Death” as part of our guerrilla cinema series. The widely attended event featured a Q&A session with former Young Lord and acupuncturist Walter Bosque, where community members engaged in a lively discussion about continuing and expanding the revolutionary movement of healing.

In recent years, the Bronx, a predominantly Black, Brown and working-class borough in one of the most densely populated areas of Turtle Island, has experienced a sharp rise in opioid use, including oxycodone, street fentanyl and heroin.

We recognize that drug use, particularly opioids, is not merely a personal struggle but a symptom of systemic issues rooted in capitalism and government neglect. This crisis profoundly harms our community. Those most affected by poverty, alienation and exploitation often turn to drugs for temporary relief from oppressive daily conditions. Addiction burdens those already suffering from state-imposed violence and capitalist exploitation.

Rather than supporting and uplifting working-class communities, capitalist society allows drugs like fentanyl, heroin and crack to infiltrate and erode social bonds, deteriorate health and stifle revolutionary potential. Addiction acts as a tool of oppression, weakening communities and diverting energy away from organizing and resistance.

The story of Chinese doctors overseas

On 29 December, 2023, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with people attending an event marking the 60th anniversary of China dispatching its first international medical aid team.

In its second issue for 2024, Qiushi, an important journal of the Communist Party of China, published an article outlining the six decades of historical experience that lay behind the celebration of this anniversary.

In December 1962, China’s Ministry of Health received a special letter from the government of Algeria through the International Red Cross; the North African country, which had just won its independence through a bloody war against French colonialism, had issued an urgent appeal to the world for medical assistance. The Chinese government was the first to respond, announcing that it would set up a medical aid team of outstanding doctors. On April 6, 1963, China’s first overseas medical aid team left Beijing for Algeria.

The article, full of inspiring and touching examples drawn from various countries, notes that: “For more than six decades, over 30,000 medical aid team members have carried on this mission, providing care to almost 300 million patients across 76 countries and regions… Dispatching medical teams to developing countries was a great initiative pioneered by the older generation of Chinese leaders, represented by Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. It has since become a golden practice of China’s international diplomacy and cooperation.”

It introduces the story of Xu Changzhen, who first went to Algeria thirty years after the original mission and has since returned three times, spending almost eight years in the country. When she first arrived, Algeria was convulsed by war and one day the hospital where she was working was attacked by terrorists. Refusing to take shelter, she returned to the operating theatre, a local midwife sheltering her from stray gunfire with her own body as they went. Recalling the incident, Xu says: “A doctor is a special calling. Like a soldier going to battle, there are times when you must step up.”

The article adds: “It is no wonder that in Algeria, she is endearingly referred to as ‘Mother Xu.’ For over six decades, wave after wave of ‘Chinese mothers’ like her have collectively delivered more than 2.07 million newborns in Algeria. Of these, over 10,000 were named ‘Sinova,’ meaning ‘Chinese.'”

In 2021, Roosevelt Skerrit, Prime Minister of the Caribbean island nation of Dominica, took to his personal Facebook page to announce the establishment of the country’s first cardiovascular department at the Dominica-China Friendship Hospital, made possible with the help of a Chinese medical team. Dr. Wu Dexi, born in the 1980s, played a pivotal role in this achievement. Joining the second medical aid team to Dominica in 2019, Wu extended his stay in the country twice during the height of the Covid-19 crisis. Remaining on the front lines, he managed to save numerous critically ill patients.

The article explains that: “President Xi Jinping’s proposal to build a global community of health for all stems from the Chinese cultural view of the world as one family, while also exemplifying China’s sense of mission as a responsible major country in the new era.”

It illustrates the point with reference to China’s response to the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa:

“As one often quoted saying puts it, ‘While others fled in the face of Ebola, the Chinese came because of it.’ For Chinese doctors, this is the highest praise they could receive. In 2014, an Ebola outbreak hit West Africa, with the mortality rate exceeding 60%. When many nations were evacuating their personnel and the world was speaking of Ebola in dread, 16 Chinese medical teams consisting of over 1,200 medical personnel marched against the tide to the front lines. They treated upwards of 800 patients, provided public health training to over 13,000 participants, and came to be recognised as true friends by their host nations.”

(A similar internationalist spirit was also displayed by doctors from socialist Cuba.)

It concludes:

“Today, Chinese medical teams are operating in 115 medical facilities across 56 countries and regions around the world. Almost half of them are stationed in remote and challenging areas. Perhaps the local people in those places do not know the faces behind the masks of those who treat them, but they clearly recognise the five-star red flag emblazoned on their medical coats. What’s more, they know that these are Chinese doctors and that they are part of a force known simply as the Chinese medical team.”

We reprint the full text of the article below.

In December 1962, China’s Ministry of Health received a special letter from the government of Algeria through the International Red Cross; the newly independent country had sent an urgent appeal to the world for medical assistance. The Chinese government was the first to respond, announcing that it would set up a medical aid team of outstanding doctors to assist African friends. On April 6, 1963, China’s first overseas medical aid team left Beijing for Algeria. For China, this marked the start of a great international medical assistance endeavor, which has since transcended national borders, ethnicity, and skin color. For more than six decades, over 30,000 medical aid team members have carried on this mission, providing care to almost 300 million patients across 76 countries and regions. Their compassion and medical expertise have brought great benefits to local populations, and their concrete actions have effectively conveyed China’s story to the world. Earning high acclaim from governments and citizens of host countries, they have made an important contribution to the development of a global community of health for all.

I. Courage in adversity: enduring legacy of Chinese doctors

Dispatching medical teams to developing countries was a great initiative pioneered by the older generation of Chinese leaders, represented by Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. It has since become a golden practice of China’s international diplomacy and cooperation. For more than six decades, Chinese medical aid teams have braved harsh and complex conditions, confronting perilous challenges such as infectious diseases, wars, and natural disasters. With an unyielding spirit, indomitable will, and tremendous sacrifice and courage, they have created one after another inspirational achievements in lands far from home.

On April 16, 1963, after a 10-day journey, China’s first medical aid team eventually arrived in Saida, a small city on the edge of the Algerian desert. The arid city suffered from water scarcity. With summer temperatures of over 40 degrees Celsius and snow depth of up to one meter in winter, diseases were widespread, and the living environment was harsh. In spite of these conditions, the medical team did everything it could to serve the local community. They resourcefully fashioned their own instruments when equipment was lacking and prepared their own reagents when testing kits were unavailable. Qiu Yuehua, a member of the team, made the following note on the back of a photograph featuring a one-month-old baby, “This is one of the newborns I helped to bring into the world. The mother had tuberculosis, so the child was left in our care for feeding. It’s been almost a month now.” That year, Qiu was just 24 years old. Born in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province, she had never traveled further than the provincial capital of Nanjing before going to Algeria. Nevertheless, she did not hesitate when she received her mission.

The US ruling class, not China, is responsible for the opioid crisis

The following article by Friends of Socialist China co-founder Danny Haiphong, originally published in Beijing Review, discusses the growing opioid crisis in the United States and the tendency of US politicians to place blame for the crisis on China. Noting that opioid overdoses caused over 112,000 deaths in 2023, Danny writes that “the causes for the spike in both the use of fentanyl and its deadly consequences have been obscured by the rampant politicization of the issue”.

The House Select Committee on “Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party” claims that China has been promoting the manufacture and export of the precursor chemicals critical to the production of fentanyl. Danny observes however that this claim is not substantiated by meaningful evidence, and furthermore “disregards China’s serious efforts in cracking down on the trafficking of fentanyl despite having no domestic problem with opioid abuse.” For example, in 2019, “China became the first country in the world to include all fentanyl-related substances in its supplementary list of controlled narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances.”

In truth the regulatory failures are taking place in the US, not China – “in large part due to the influence of corporate power on politics”. The attempt to pin blame on China is part of a broader New Cold War agenda in which China is demonised and its rise presented as an existential threat to the Western way of life. This narrative in turn serves to justify the US military build-up in the Pacific and the escalating campaign of China encirclement.

It is no secret that drug addiction is a major problem in the United States. When it comes to opioids, the crisis has become increasingly deadly. Over 112,000 fatal overdoses occurred in the U.S. in 2023. The potent synthetic opioid, fentanyl, is now a household name for its role in aggravating overdoses in the country to such a historic scale.

However, the causes for the spike in both the use of fentanyl and its deadly consequences have been obscured by the rampant politicization of the issue. In recent years, U.S. political elites have attempted to explain away the crisis by blaming a convenient scapegoat: China.

The House Select Committee on “Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party” in April released a report claiming that China has directly subsidized precursor chemicals critical to the production of fentanyl.

The insinuation is that China is directly trading these substances with illicit fentanyl producers and therefore fueling the opioid crisis in the U.S.

Blaming China for the opioid crisis didn’t begin this year, however. Political officials placed fentanyl production at the top of their domestic agenda in 2021 and immediately blamed China for the deadly consequences. U.S. President Joe Biden stated prior to his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the APEC conference in San Francisco, California, last November that he would make pressuring China on fentanyl a key topic and claimed a “diplomatic victory” after China and the U.S. agreed to resume talks on the issue.

Blaming China for the U.S. opioid overdose crisis is rife with problems. For one, the House committee is a byproduct of a broader Cold War agenda and the credibility of its report is in serious question given the majority of its sources are anecdotal or regurgitation of Western media claims.

Furthermore, U.S. claims disregard China’s serious efforts in cracking down on the trafficking of fentanyl despite having no domestic problem with opioid abuse. In 2019, China became the first country in the world to include all fentanyl-related substances in its supplementary list of controlled narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances.

The country has also taken numerous security measures in compliance with the law, and many of these actions include cooperating directly with U.S. export-import control mechanisms.

It’s also important to note that the responsibility of how precursor chemicals are utilized falls on the importing country. The U.S. has consistently ignored necessary regulations on the sale and distribution of opioids in large part due to the influence of corporate power on politics.

U.S. pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma LP is infamous for starting the opioid epidemic in the U.S. beginning in the 1990s as the maker and aggressive peddler of OxyContin, a strong and potentially addictive pain medication.

Purdue Pharma opened the floodgates to the over-prescription of opioids within an already profit-driven health insurance and medical system. For the past 30 years, pharmaceutical corporations have poured billions of dollars into political campaigns to ensure that their products receive legislative priority and protection.

The close relationship between U.S. politicians and pharmaceutical corporations has created what’s called the “revolving door.” For example, during the Donald Trump administration, former Commissioner for the Food and Drug Administration Scott Gottlieb resigned to join the board of directors of Pfizer, one of the world’s premier pharmaceutical and biomedical enterprises.

And the revolving door is no partisan affair. Major members of Biden’s staff, such as former Deputy Chief of Staff Jennifer O’Malley Dillon and current Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, have worked for law firms representing major pharmaceutical corporations such as Pfizer and Gilead Sciences, Inc.

The U.S. geopolitical footprint on the illicit drug trade has contributed to countless suffering and chaos throughout the Global South, or the nations of the world that are considered to have a relatively low level of economic and industrial development and are typically located to the south of more industrialized nations. The U.S. played a role in the Opium Wars in the 19th century which led to China’s “century of humiliation” and was a major force in the global opium trade of that period. Throughout the Cold War, covert U.S. wars in Latin America led to the proliferation of the drug trade from Colombia to Central America. And Afghanistan, suffering decades of U.S. interventions, became the top producer of opium in the world for much of the 21st century until its growth and distribution was banned by the Taliban in 2022 following the U.S. withdrawl from the country.

Blaming China won’t address any self-inflicted wounds. It is U.S. policy, or rather the lack thereof, that is responsible for making American society an attractive market for the illicit drug trade. Despair, stress, poverty and racial discrimination make for a toxic mix that continues to fester and grow in the heart of American society. Political leaders and their elite sponsors are the ones who need to be held accountable. Not China.

Breakthrough by Shanghai doctors uses stem cells to cure diabetes

The following article from China Daily reports on an extremely promising Chinese innovation in the treatment of diabetes: “Doctors in Shanghai have, for the first time in the world, cured a patient’s diabetes through the transplantation of pancreatic cells derived from stem cells.” The patient has been able to function normally without insulin injections for nearly three years.

Up to now, it has been possible to treat severe diabetes patients with pancreatic cell transplantation, but the shortage of donors and the complexity of the technology have meant that clinical needs are not currently being met. The doctors at Shanghai Changzheng Hospital have shown that it is possible to restore normal insulin production using pancreatic cells derived from the patient’s own stem cells – thus not requiring a donor. Yin Hao, director of the hospital’s Organ Transplant Center, commented: “Our technology has matured and it has pushed boundaries in the field of regenerative medicine for the treatment of diabetes.”

Timothy Kieffer, a professor in the department of cellular and physiological sciences at the University of British Columbia, Canada, is cited by South China Morning Post describing the study as “representing an important advance in the field of cell therapy for diabetes.” If the results of the Shanghai study can be reliably reproduced, “it can free patients from the burden of chronic medications, improve health and quality of life, and reduce healthcare expenditures”.

The funding sources for the study were the Chinese Academy of Science, the National Basic Research Program of China, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality, and the Shenkang Project. The study has been published in the journal Cell Discovery.

Doctors in Shanghai have, for the first time in the world, cured a patient’s diabetes through the transplantation of pancreatic cells derived from stem cells.

The 59-year-old man, who had Type 2 diabetes for 25 years, has been completely weaned off insulin for 33 months, Shanghai Changzheng Hospital announced on Tuesday.

A paper about the medical breakthrough, achieved after more than a decade of endeavor by a team of doctors at the hospital, was published on the website of the journal Cell Discovery on April 30.

It is the first reported instance in the world of a case of diabetes with severely impaired pancreatic islet function being cured via stem cell-derived autologous, regenerative islet transplantation, the hospital said. The most common pancreatic islet cells produce insulin.

Diabetes poses a serious threat to human health. Medical experts said that poor blood sugar control over a long period can lead to severe complications, including blindness, kidney failure, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular complications, and amputation. Life-threatening situations may also occur due to hypoglycemic coma, and ketoacidosis, which happens when the body begins breaking down fat too quickly.

China is the country with the largest diabetic patient population. There are 140 million diabetes patients in the country, of whom about 40 million depend on lifelong insulin injections, according to the International Diabetes Federation.

Experts said severe diabetes patients struggling with blood sugar control can only be effectively treated by minimally invasive transplantation, which injects islet tissue extracted from the pancreas of a donor.

However, due to factors such as a severe shortage of donors and the complexity of the islet isolation technology, it is hard for such transplantation to meet current clinical needs. That made how to regenerate human pancreatic islet tissue on a large scale in vitro a worldwide academic focus, the team in Shanghai said.

Yin Hao, a leading researcher on the team and director of the hospital’s Organ Transplant Center, said they used the patient’s own peripheral blood mononuclear cells and reprogrammed them into autologous induced pluripotent stem cells. They used technology they devised to transform them into “seed cells” and reconstituted pancreatic islet tissue in an artificial environment.

“Our technology has matured and it has pushed boundaries in the field of regenerative medicine for the treatment of diabetes,” said Yin, whose team conducted the research with scientists from the Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

He said the patient, who was at serious risk of diabetes complications, had a kidney transplant in June 2017 but had lost most pancreatic islet function and relied on multiple insulin injections every day.

The patient received the transplantation in July 2021. Eleven weeks after the surgery, he was weaned off external insulin, and the dose of oral drugs for sugar-level control was gradually reduced and completely withdrawn one year later. “Follow-up examinations showed that the patient’s pancreatic islet function was effectively restored, and his renal function was within normal range,” Yin said. “Such results suggested that the treatment can avoid the progression of diabetic complications.”

Health cooperation between China and Eritrea contributes to a lasting friendship

In the following article, which was originally carried in ChinAfrica, a publication issued under the auspices of Beijing Review, Fikrejesus Amahazion, an Eritrean educator and researcher, explains how cooperation in the healthcare sector epitomises the close friendship between China and Eritrea.

In November 2022, members of the Chinese medical team, working side-by-side with Eritrean doctors, performed complex spinal surgeries on patients in the capital Asmara for the first time in the nation’s history. This coincided with the 25th anniversary of the first dispatch of a Chinese medical team to Eritrea and served as “a timely and powerful reflection of the longstanding ties and enduring friendship between China and Eritrea.”

Contacts between China and Eritrea, the author notes, date back almost 2,000 years. However, “contemporary ties can be traced back to Eritrea’s long struggle for independence, when China offered support to Eritrea’s independence movement.”

In Amahazion’s view, “A key factor that underlies the success of health cooperation between Eritrea and China, as well as the broader relationship, is the firm commitment to the principles of mutual understanding, trust, and respect…The Eritrean government has historically insisted on establishing genuine partnerships and cooperation, while retaining firm control of its development agenda and local implementation. It encourages assistance addressing specific needs that cannot be met internally, and that complements and strengthens, rather than replacing, the country’s own institutional capacity to implement projects.”

This is rooted in a great desire to avoid crippling dependence and to foster a strong, clear sense of responsibility for and genuine ownership of the country’s future among all citizens. “For its part,” he notes, “China’s own approach to assistance has considerable similarities.”

Local media outlets in Eritrea recently reported about how members of the Chinese medical team, working side by side with Eritrean doctors, performed complex spinal surgeries on patients at Halibet Hospital in Asmara in November 2022. The extremely technical operations, which are the first-ever procedures of their kind within Eritrea, are an exciting landmark in the country’s medical sector and history.

Coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the first dispatch of Chinese medical team to Eritrea, the recent surgeries also serve as a timely and powerful reflection of the longstanding ties and enduring friendship between China and Eritrea, especially in the field of health. For a quarter of a century, health cooperation between China and Eritrea has positively contributed to the lives and wellbeing of the Eritrean people nationwide, and also helped to move the country’s health system forward.

Historical background

Although it has received significant global attention in recent years, China’s engagement with Africa actually dates back centuries and spans a number of ancient dynasties. Modern Sino-African ties can be traced to the earliest years of African independence in the 1950s and 1960s. Since then, China has become the continent’s leading trading partner, while Chinese investment in and lending to African countries have grown rapidly. Over the years, the relationship has steadily broadened to reach an array of other sectors, including culture, digital infrastructure and technology, security, and education.

Cuba-China cooperation leads to vaccine breakthrough

We’re pleased to re-publish this important article by Sara Flounders, posted in Workers World on 7 June 2022, about the progress made by a Cuban-Chinese cooperation project towards a universal coronavirus vaccine. Sara explains that these two socialist countries are far better positioned than their capitalist counterparts to work together on projects of long-term value to humanity, because their social systems are centered on meeting human need, as opposed to maximizing private profit. The article goes on to detail the outsized contribution made by China and Cuba to suppressing the pandemic in the developing world, as well as the ongoing and deepening cooperation between the two countries in a number of crucially important areas. Sara concludes: “The growing scientific cooperation of China and Cuba represents a hopeful future for humanity. Global problems can be solved. What is required is economic planning, cooperation and sharing of scientific knowledge and technology.”

Cuba and China formally announced June 2 that they have filed for joint patent for a Pan-Corona vaccine. The new vaccine, a collaboration between the biotechnological sectors of the two countries, is the first patent for a single vaccine effective against the many variants of COVID-19.

News of the jointly developed vaccine is particularly exciting because of the two countries’ cooperative approach in a field that is highly competitive, secretive and totally profit-oriented in Western capitalist countries.

Breakthrough in emerging virus protection

The Pan-Corona vaccine was announced to be effective against present variants of COVID-19 and thus of value in the current pandemic.

But its strength is that it could also be effective against the appearance of new pathogens belonging to this family of viruses, noted Eduardo Martínez Díaz, president of the state-owned BioCubaFarma Business Group. (telesurenglish.net, June 3)

The Pan-Corona project is based in a joint biotechnological research and development center, operating since 2019 in the city of Yongzhou in Hunan province, and led by experts from Cuba’s Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB). Dr. Gerardo Guillén Nieto, the center’s director of Biomedical Research, explained the project arose at the request of the Chinese and had the approval of Cuba’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment. The equipment and laboratories at the Yongzhou center were designed by Cuban scientific personnel. (Radio Havana Cuba, June 3)

The two countries focused on coronaviruses because of the global pandemic and because this is the family of viruses most likely to jump from animals to humans. This phenomenon, called zoonosis, was the cause of previous epidemics such as the 2002 SARS outbreak and the 2012 MERS infection — both serious respiratory illnesses.

Why China continues with its dynamic Zero Covid strategy

The following article from Global Times provides valuable insight into China’s strategy for suppressing the Covid-19 pandemic. Liang Wiannan, a renowned epidemiologist and one of the architects of the Zero Covid approach, outlines the expected consequences of the alternative “lying flat” or “living with the virus” strategy, which relies on gradually building passive/herd immunity. Although China’s overall vaccination rate is high, there is significant variation between regions and age groups. To “live with the virus” at this moment would result in severely stretched medical resources, and would pose a serious threat to patients with underlying diseases, children, seniors, and pregnant women. However, the article makes clear that, as understanding of the virus develops, health authorities are able to restrict the negative side-effects of the suppression strategy with the extensive use of nucleic acid testing.

Why won’t China adopt a “lying flat” strategy in face of Omicron like some Western countries do? Liang Wannian, head of the expert group in China’s epidemic response and disposal leading group, said that to passively respond to Omicron is not China’s option as the country still faces unbalanced medical resources.

Adopting the dynamic zero-COVID strategy could be seen as “purchasing an insurance for 1.4 billion of Chinese people,” Liang said, noting that it helps avoiding large-scale transmissions and outbreaks, protecting people’s lives, effectively diminishing the loss of life expectancy per capita.

In countries like the US, life expectancy declined dramatically in 2020 after being hit by the COVID-19 outbreak and continued to decline in 2021, these tragic data are seen as historically unusual drops for the US.

Some countries chose the so-called “lying flat” strategy by living with the virus to gain herd immunity while China is getting immunity by vaccination, Liang said, noting that although 90 percent of population have been vaccinated, there have been unequal results in different ages and regions.

Deteriorating healthcare system reflects deep-rooted problems with US democracy

The following article by Carlos Martinez, first published in CGTN, describes the escalating healthcare crisis in the US, particularly the wave of maternity ward closures in low-income and remote areas. Carlos compares this with the universal public healthcare system in China, which continues to gain strength.

A recent Vox report notes that maternity wards throughout the United States have been closing down, a process that has been underway for several years but which has accelerated over the course of the pandemic.

Predictably, this wave of maternity ward closures has resulted in increased travel times for women in labor. There have even been reports of people having to give birth on the side of the road, unable to reach a medical facility in time. Such a situation is scandalous, particularly in one of the world’s richest countries and a country that considers itself a leading force of democracy and human advancement. And yet it is barely considered newsworthy to the Western media.

As is so often the case, low-income and ethnic minority groups are disproportionately impacted. This is a direct function of the private healthcare system in the U.S., which is driven by profits rather than the imperative of providing crucial services to the population. It is often not financially viable for hospitals to provide labor and delivery services in remote rural or low-income areas.

What can the world learn from China’s response to Covid-19?

This short article by Jin-Ling Tang and Kamran Abbasi, republished from the British Medical Journal, provides a valuable summary of China’s successful strategy suppressing Covid-19. The authors note that while Zero Covid created certain short-term costs, the overall result has been far preferable to the alternative, given that China has reported only 0.05 percent of the total number of global cases despite making up 19 percent of the world’s population.

Old school public health and technology can allow aggressive containment to succeed

The combination of high transmissibility and moderate severity made SARS-CoV-2 a perfect pathogen for a perfect pandemic, unlike SARS, MERS, and flu. In two years, the covid-19 pandemic has swept the entire globe and caused over 250 million infections and five million deaths, despite unprecedented efforts to stop it.

China was the first country affected and held the world’s interest as it battled to understand and contain the new pathogen. But China has reported only 0.05% of the total number of global cases despite making up 19% of the world’s population. The question then is what can the world learn from China’s response to SARS-CoV-2? A new collection of articles written by people involved with that response attempts to shed light on China’s experiences and draw out lessons for the rest of the world (www.bmj.com/how-china-responded-to-covid-19). Indeed, China’s prevention and control strategies remain more aggressive than most other countries.

Interview with the Editor of ‘Waiting for Dawn: 21 Diaries from 16 COVID-19 Frontlines’

We are republishing this interview with Leijie Wei, editor of the book ‘Waiting for Dawn: 21 Diaries from 16 COVID-19 Frontlines’ and academic at the School of Law, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China. It provides valuable insight into China’s public health system and the social, economic and political structures that allowed China to very quickly and effectively contain the Covid-19 pandemic.

The interview was conducted by Shuoying Chen (Academy of Marxism, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), and was originally published in World Review of Political Economy, Volume 11, Number 4, Winter 2020. Republished with permission.

ABSTRACT

Waiting for Dawn: 21 Diaries from 16 COVID-19 Frontlines takes a global perspective, examining the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on governments and the public around the world. The editor of the book believes that the reasons why mandatory tracking, testing and quarantine measures have been effectively implemented in China center on the unified leadership provided by the Communist Party of China (CPC); the active response by state-owned enterprises and institutions; and the full trust of the majority of the public in the government’s anti-pandemic measures. In an effort to win elections, meanwhile, politicians in Europe and the United States are politicizing the pandemic and making China a scapegoat. In contrast to socialist China’s policy of ensuring all those in need are hospitalized with free testing and treatment, the essentially capitalist public health models applied in most Western countries have brought more concrete and explicit class conflict, and the drawn-out pandemic in the West has exacerbated various forms of social injustice. The COVID-19 epidemic is a reminder that a country’s governance ability should not be judged on the basis of simplistic conceptions of democracy, and that the needs of Mother Earth must be considered in the collective building of a community of shared future for humankind.

Shuoying Chen (SC): To begin with, how did you come to the idea of producing a collection of diaries from different countries around the world?

Leijie Wei (LW): In 2020, China faced a very dangerous first few months, but through the efforts of the whole nation, it achieved an epic reversal. The global pandemic began in February when the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) broke through the threshold of extraterritorial spread, and the world then fell gradually into the “darkest moment” of the pandemic. Since that time, we have had to rethink COVID-19 from a global rather than a local perspective, taking account especially of how other countries are different from or similar to China in terms of their experience of fighting the pandemic. With that in mind, I invited 21 contributors from 16 countries to document the lives during the pandemic of people around the world, recording what they have seen, heard, felt and understood during this period, with various narrative perspectives and in the form of diaries. Various pandemic diaries kept by Chinese people in quarantined cities, based on personal experience and with a strong literary flavor, undoubtedly have their value. Nevertheless, their unidimensional focus on a single area and lack of a multi-dimensional comparative perspective may lead to narrow and idiosyncratic accounts. This collection, entitled 21 Diaries from 16 COVID-19 Frontlines, covers 16 countries on four continents, including Asia, Europe, North America and South America. The authors are from various social backgrounds and differ in their social status. With its multi-dimensional and global perspective, the collection offers particular promise as a way of examining the impact of COVID-19 on different governments and populations, and as a history of everyday life in the age of the pandemic, it will also serve in future years as a first-hand account of this unforgettable experience.