Towards Global Health Diplomacy

The Health Silk Road (HSR) presented in 2016 by President Xi Jinping in Uzbekistan was conceived as a strand of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) under the pillar of people-to-people links. This emerging diplomatic initiative aims within the BRI framework to promote international health cooperation in a world increasingly threatened by the emergence and proliferation of global public health emergencies that require a multilateral and concerted response. Until the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic the HSR developed through the implementation of various documents and strategic partnerships that leveraged the foundations of the HSR and which we will analyze throughout this book. With the COVID-19 pandemic the HSR attracted great interest and scrutiny from the international community largely due to the developments associated with Mask Diplomacy and consequently Vaccine Diplomacy which allowed the People's Republic of China to seek a leading role in Global Health Governance.