China was lauded as positioning itself as the new global leader for distributing medical equipment to countries affected by the coronavirus this week, but now it appears most of that equipment was defective.

The news comes after NBC News published a much-criticized story on Thursday titled “As U.S. struggles to stem coronavirus, China asserts itself as global leader.” The Netherlands received 1.3 million masks from China, and 600,000 were defective, according to Dutch media. Spain and the Czech Republic also ordered hundreds of thousands of test kits, and 80% of them were reportedly defective. (RELATED: Mitch McConnell Restructures Campaign Into Meals Effort For Kentuckians Affected By Coronavirus)

NEW — 600,000 Chinese FFP2 masks the Netherlands have distributed to the hospitals DO NOT WORK. They are now RECALLED, because they are mostly likely ALREADY in use. — Dutch public news organisation NOS reports — Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) March 28, 2020

80% of the Coronavirus test kits that Spain & Czech Republic had purchased from China, have been found to be faulty. The #ChineseVirus threatens the world and China is not helping by delivering fake test kits. Yeah…fake or faulty…same difference. https://t.co/okFT7FpMgG — Major Gaurav Arya (Retd) (@majorgauravarya) March 28, 2020

The Dutch government has launched a recall of 100,000s of masks purchased from China because they do not meet quality standards and offer inadequate protection.

https://t.co/C7K3nSqpxH — Adrian Zenz (@adrianzenz) March 28, 2020



The Thursday NBC story read:

With Italy in dire need of medical equipment, an economic superpower stepped in to help. No, not the United States. It was China.

President Donald Trump said the U.S. is planning to build up to 100,000 ventilators for the coronavirus pandemic, of which he says not all will be used and some will be sent overseas to allies like the United Kingdom. (RELATED: Pelosi Says Senate Coronavirus Bill Is Discriminatory To Residents In DC, One Day Before House Vote)

The news of the faulty equipment comes just as senior World Health Organization official Bruce Aylward was recorded cutting off an interview with Hong Kong journalists after they implied Taiwan was not a part of China.

The reporter asked whether the WHO would allow Taiwan to become a member state. It has so far been unable to due to China’s insistence that Taiwan is not an independent state.

Aylward initially doesn’t react, appearing to pretend he couldn’t hear the question. When the reporter prompts him again, he claims outright he didn’t hear the question, but quickly requests that she “move on to another one.”



When the reporter asks the question again, Alyward cancels the call.

China’s own public numbers on coronavirus deaths and infections have long been treated with suspicion. Wuhan, where the virus first broke out, reported 2,500 deaths, but over the course of two days during the crisis, just one of the city’s eight mortuaries received shipments of 5,000 urns to carry ashes of the deceased, according to Shanghaiist.

The mortuary plans to release urns at a rate of 500 per day until April 4. If the city’s seven other mortuaries are adopting the same policy, that would total 40,000 urns, starting with the first confirmed delivery on March 26.