The problem is that the whole thing feels fake for 2 reasons (this is my personal opinion):
1) They are an authoritarian state using soft power for a democratic nation (Italy, Netherlands) - there is a real conflict of interest.
2) It is "pull" rather than "push" when it comes to soft power. You cannot muscle your way through it. As a superpower, you need to influence other nations such that those nations "want" to collaborate and be influenced - leading by example, helping them gain foothold after the catastrophy, long term investments in shared interests, etc. You can't buy your way into it.
IMO - China has a branding and goodwill problem :-). You're seeing that in HK. People outside of this propaganda sphere have no trust in the CCP.
Those sources are not being honest. Yes countries initially claimed that kits and masks were defective. But later researches showed that countries made wrong orders because of haste, not understanding Chinese standards, etc. I already said elsewhere that the Dutch ordered wrong masks. In case of the Spanish: they ordered kits for testing whether a recovered patient had the virus, not for testing whether one is infected.
Those sources are not being honest because they still present the initial claims as the final truth. No word about later research results that invalidate those claims.
China has now put in stricter export regulations in order to ensure that quality is as expected. But not much mention of that in mainstream western media either.
As for pull rather than push: did the Chinese force aid on countries? No: countries accepted and allowed aid on their own will. In my opinion, this "pull vs push" perception is based on prejudice that China must be pushing something, rather than what is actually happening.
Trouw -- "Als gevolg van de tekorten zijn de criteria voor het gebruik van de mondmaskers verlaagd" (because of the shortages, they lowered the standards for masks, making it easier to purchase the wrong thing) -- https://www.trouw.nl/politiek/ministerie-van-volksgezondheid...
Why do you not find those sources convincing? Yeah nobody is explicitly making the statement "sorry, I messed up" but if I put the facts together then that's still what happened, in my opinion.
I think you dismiss LinkedIn way too quickly. Hedda Sasburg is a business development consultant specialized in trade with China. I think this counts as expertise w.r.t. what Chinese different products and standards are. Why do you dismiss it so easily?
> Maar "de Chinese kwaliteitsstandaard KN95 van de mondmaskers is een medische code", zegt een woordvoerder van de IGJ.
> But "the Chinese standard KN95 means that it's for medical use", said the Dutch ministery of health.
Hedda Sasburg (and not sure why the article doesn't point this out):
> Ik lees dat het KN95 [aka GB2626] mondmaskers zijn; maskers die in China niet zijn bestemd voor medisch gebruik in ziekenhuizen.
> KN95 masks [aka GB2626] are not for medical use.
Note: the Chinese KN95 is not equivalent to the American N95.
Also from the article:
> "De producten stonden beschreven als 'niet-medische maskers' in de douanepapieren"
> The customs paper said that these are non-medical masks.
Even if you don't believe Hedda Sasburg and the Chinese statements, the customs paper seems pretty definitive to me.
The only loose end I still see is why IGJ ruled KN95 to be equivalent to the European EN-149:2001+A1:2009 when even the Chinese don't use them for medical purposes.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/china-floods-europe-d...
China is trying the same thing that US did for many decades after WWII - to rally up global support through humanitarian aid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_aid
The problem is that the whole thing feels fake for 2 reasons (this is my personal opinion):
1) They are an authoritarian state using soft power for a democratic nation (Italy, Netherlands) - there is a real conflict of interest.
2) It is "pull" rather than "push" when it comes to soft power. You cannot muscle your way through it. As a superpower, you need to influence other nations such that those nations "want" to collaborate and be influenced - leading by example, helping them gain foothold after the catastrophy, long term investments in shared interests, etc. You can't buy your way into it.
IMO - China has a branding and goodwill problem :-). You're seeing that in HK. People outside of this propaganda sphere have no trust in the CCP.