To increase its business in China, the New York City-based multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation Pfizer partnered with a Chinese pharmaceutical firm linked to China's military.
Eleven years ago, Pfizer signed a memorandum of understanding with Shanghai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. which began a partnership "for the companies to jointly pursue potential business opportunities in China."
"The potential partnership is intended to leverage both companies' strengths," a press release explained, as reported by the National Pulse. The deal was designed to "[match] Pfizer's global capabilities in developing innovative medicines with Shanghai Pharmaceutical's capabilities and reach in the China market."
The release explained further that the two companies intended to "explore future cooperation opportunities, including further distribution and commercialization, research and development activities, manufacturing and equity investment opportunities."
However, Shanghai Pharmaceuticals has been known to support the "military combat" of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) and has also partnered with universities that are funded by the group. This means that Chinese military-linked pharmaceutical company is subject to Article 7 of China's National Intelligence Law, which declares, "any [Chinese] organization or citizen shall support, assist, and cooperate with state intelligence work."
Meanwhile, a Corporate Social Responsibility Report dated 2020 shows that the Chinese pharmaceutical firm has been a longtime collaborator of the Chinese Communist Party's PLA. In fact in 2007, Shanghai Pharmaceuticals had been known to "organize and implement rug storage on behalf of the military combat" worth about $2.4 million.
Aside from teaming up with Pfizer, Shanghai Pharmaceuticals has also worked alongside China's Secondary Military Medical University (SMMU), which is also known as the People's Liberation Army Naval Medical University.
A press release explained that the Chinese military-linked pharmaceutical company, under the partnership, was set to provide "a certain amount of R&D fund input annually for the establishment of advance of 'SMMU - Shanghai Pharmaceutical Translational Medicine Alliance' to carry out R&D cooperation in fields of new medicine and medical devices development and so forth."
SMMU is also linked to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is believed to be the true source of the coronavirus that caused the COVID pandemic. Hongyang Wang, who is the Deputy Director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology's Academic Committee had listed an affiliation with the school before the webpage was scrubbed clean in the middle of 2020.
Elsewhere in the U.S., some are honoring the anniversary of a key point in the U.S.-China relations. Fifty years ago on Monday, former President Richard Nixon visited communist China for an engagement that would build the U.S.-China relations moving forward. These relations, which according to ABC News was "always going to be a challenge," remains to be "more fraught than ever." Despite the Cold War being over for decades, there are fears of a new one looming.
Oriana Skylar Mastro, a China expert at Stanford University remarked, "The U.S.-China relationship has always been contentious but one of necessity. Perhaps 50 years ago the reasons were mainly economic. Now they are mainly in the security realm. But the relationship has never - and will never - be easy."
