Yu Xuejun, vice-minister of China's National Health Commission (NHC), speaks at the second conference of the Global Health Forum of Boao Forum for Asia on June 2. [Photo/nhc.gov.cn]

The second conference of the Global Health Forum of Boao Forum for Asia was held in Qingdao, Shandong province, on June 2. Yu Xuejun, vice-minister of China's National Health Commission (NHC), attended the opening ceremony and the plenary session and delivered a keynote speech.

Yu said that China attaches great significance to people's health, and that the Healthy China Initiative is an institutional arrangement designed to better protect people's health both now and in the future.

He also stressed that solidarity and cooperation are the most powerful weapons with which the international community will defeat the COVID-19 pandemic. Efforts should be made to build a strong medical system to respond to any public health crisis that may arise; to give play to the role of the World Health Organization (WHO) and maintain a global governance system with the United Nations at its core; to comprehensively improve global health governance capabilities; and to work in solidarity to promote the construction of a global community of health for all.

The conference, with the theme of "Health Beyond Health in the Year of Sustainable Development 2030", was held both online and offline. Over 2,800 guests from more than 40 countries and regions participated.

Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun, president of the Global Health Forum of Boao Forum for Asia, attended and addressed the conference. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus delivered a speech via video link.