China-US trade tensions likely to affect help to global poor: Bill Gates

Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has warned that trade tensions between China and the United States are likely to affect global initiatives aimed at conquering poverty, contagious diseases and other global woes.

Gates, who founded the foundation in 2000 with the aim of helping people around the world lead healthy, productive lives, told Chinese media recently that a healthy and constructive relationship between China and the US not only benefits the two countries, but also bolsters progress toward addressing major global issues.

"I see anything that cuts down global cooperation as a potential step backward, where the people who would get hurt the most by it are the poorest in the world," he said ahead of the launch of the foundation's Goalkeepers Data Report on Tuesday, an annual report card on efforts to improve living conditions for people worldwide, especially those in poor countries.

As concerns run high that the China-US trade war might trigger a global economic downturn, Gates said foreign aid donations, which were determined by overall government budgets, would possibly take a hit.

He said the idea of caring for other people, like African children dying of malaria, could be dismissed or made less of a priority. "People tend to turn inward when government budgets get tight," Gates said.

In a worst-case scenario, the mortality rates of infectious disease would go up, as critical medicines that treat malaria, tuberculosis and some HIV drugs risk losing their efficacy due to potential resistance, Gates said.

"If we don't get generous contributions to those organizations (that deliver vaccines), it results in literally millions of deaths," he said. "If you don't keep infectious diseases in check, they just keep expanding and expanding."

A self-proclaimed "impatient optimist", Gates said he feels upbeat about future trade talks between the two countries.

"I'm a huge believer that China and the US getting along is the most important bilateral relationship in the world," he said. "I'm hopeful that the trade problems can get behind us and that we can go on to work constructively together."

Gates said the partnership between the foundation and China is progressing at full speed and had deepened over the years.

Last year, China unveiled its International Development Cooperation Agency, which is responsible for overseeing and coordinating the country's expanding foreign assistance programs.

The foundation is now working with the agency, Gates said.

"It has helped us understand China's priorities and to coordinate our work with China in an even better way," he said.

The foundation launched the Goalkeepers Data Report in 2017 as an initiative to spur action and chart progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations in 2015.

The 2019 report examines the issue of inequality across genders, districts and countries and discusses transferable practices that can help close the gap.