According to the Washington Examiner, a Chinese offer to donate supplies to Italy, to help it deal with the Covid-19 outbreak, turned out to be something beyond a shrewd business deal. An unnamed senior official in the US administration, who spoke with the Spectator, related that: "Before the virus hit Europe, Italy sent tons of PPE to China to help China protect its own population. China then has sent Italian PPE back to Italy — some of it, not even all of it ... and charged them for it."
According to Agence France-Presse, China has sold nearly 4 billion face masks to at least 50 countries affected by the coronavirus, as well as tens of millions of PPE, 16,000 ventilators, and millions of testing kits - a large proportion of which turned out not only to be faulty but actually infected with coronavirus.