By Malika Knapp*
Medical assistance and defence objectives are closely intertwined, with free treatment serving to normalise a foreign military presence while advancing China’s geopolitical aims. But from a health systems perspective, the benefits are immediate but fleeting.
When China’s newest naval hospital ship, the Silk Road Ark, set sail on its first overseas mission in September 2025, Beijing framed the voyage as a triumph of humanitarianism. Yet the deployment also illustrates a broader pattern: China’s use of medical assistance as an instrument of statecraft. (From: The Australian Institute of International Affairs.)
