Chinese vaccine diplomacy has been in the spotlight recently. With the global shortage of vaccine for Wuhan pneumonia (CCP pneumonia), the Chinese Communist Party has been handing out vaccine packages to the Third World, and earlier even European countries such as Hungary began using Chinese vaccines. China has so far administered 40 million doses of the vaccine domestically, but more than 350 million doses have been promised to other countries, with at least 15.55 million doses delivered and at least 20 countries worldwide having received the Chinese vaccine. International relations scholar Yuan Yichang told the media that the CCP’s goal is to divide Europe while diverting the international agenda from accountability for the spread of the Epidemic, and to promote multilateralism in favor of the CCP while Biden is not on firm ground. Veteran current affairs commentator Liu Ruishao pointed out that it would be difficult to consolidate diplomatic relations in the long run if the CCP only relied on vaccine favors.
The Chinese Communist Party has announced plans to provide vaccine aid to 53 countries, and has sold vaccines to 27 other countries, including Pakistan, Myanmar, Zimbabwe and other backward countries. According to Liu Ruishao, this move is aimed at maintaining the traditional friendship of the Chinese Communist Party’s diplomacy, especially Pakistan, a country that firmly supports the Chinese Communist Party and plays a key role in the stability of the Chinese Communist Party’s neighboring environment. Yuan Yichang said that the list of recipients shows that the Communist Party attaches importance to geopolitical strategy; he also said that “China (the Communist Party) has always boasted of being the leader of the Third World countries and considers itself responsible for assistance.
But the main battleground of the Chinese Communist Party’s vaccine diplomacy soon shifted to Eastern Europe. Last month, Hungary became the first European country to use a vaccine developed by China National Pharmaceutical Corporation (CNPC). Serbia followed suit with a mass vaccination with Sinopharm. Recently, the Chinese Communist Party donated 30,000 doses of vaccines to Montenegro, and vaccine diplomacy is shifting from defense to offense. Yuan explains that Eastern Europe has always been the main focus of Chinese diplomacy, with Hungarian Prime Minister Orban, who has taken the ‘illiberal democracy’ line. Serbia is also at odds with the European Union, which gives the Chinese Communist Party the opportunity to take advantage of the situation and, on the one hand, to divide Europe and, at the same Time, to promote the Chinese Communist style of public diplomacy.”
Liu Ruishao said that in addition to the origin of the virus, the responsibility for the spread of the epidemic is equally remarkable, “This is an immediate political need, the Chinese Communist Party through a large faction of vaccine resistance, the conflict will be transferred to the West.”
Currently, for every 100 EU member nationals, there are only 6 doses of vaccine; the United States and the United Kingdom are 18 and 26 doses per 100 people, respectively. The speed of vaccination, the EU is greatly behind, not to mention assisting other countries. French President Macron has been trying to maintain the framework of joint procurement of vaccines in the EU to avoid competition among member states. However, Hungary, which has been complaining that the EU is too slow, has taken the liberty of receiving “gifts from the Chinese Communist Party,” and the chairman of the EU parliamentary group on relations with China, Bittigov, has criticized Hungary for fighting alone.
Yuan said that it is unlikely that the Chinese Communist Party will make up for its responsibility for the outbreak, but sending the vaccine to Europe will make the West feel that “the most important thing is not the responsibility issue. The message that the Chinese Communist Party wants to send is that the Chinese system can produce vaccines in large quantities to satisfy itself and give them to its friends,” he said. This puts the Western system in a bad light.”
Macron also admitted that the efficiency of the Chinese Communist Party in producing and exporting vaccines “is a bit embarrassing for us. Serbia’s use of Chinese vaccines has seen it rise to 14 doses per 100 citizens, twice the number in the EU. But China’s own vaccination rate of less than three doses per 100 citizens is even lower than the EU’s, which means it is “tightening its belt”.
After 600,000 doses of Chinese vaccines arrived in Cambodia, India, the Communist Party’s rival, approved an emergency delivery of 100,000 doses of vaccines to that country, and 500,000 doses of British-made AstraZeneca vaccine to Afghanistan; 17 countries have so far received vaccines from India or donations.
Another major vaccine country, the United States, has received 60 million doses of vaccine, but the U.S. is ambiguous about vaccine aid, with officials saying that the premise of the donation is an adequate domestic supply. Biden did not mention direct vaccine donations at the G7 summit, but only said that $2 billion would be allocated to help 92 low-income countries obtain vaccines. Liu Ruishao expects that China and the United States will compete for the fruits of vaccine diplomacy, but vaccine production and supply in Western countries is mainly commercial; the Chinese Communist Party’s state-run system has a greater advantage in this regard.
Biden wants to reintroduce multilateral diplomacy, but he has no time to do so. Instead, China has used vaccines to build its own camp, which is very different from the Western camp on the issue of vaccines,” Yuan said. The Chinese (Communist) state wants to show that if you are close to the Chinese (Communist) state, your performance can compete with the West.” This is just as the Serbian president, after acquiring the Chinese vaccine, proudly said, “One day you will erect a monument to me.” Yuan’s analysis: “As the U.S. liberal international order collapses, the world will split in the long run into a non-free world led by China and a free world led by the West. And the thirst for vaccines gives the Chinese (Communist) state a good opportunity to increase its appeal. This is the diplomatic and strategic goal that vaccine diplomacy is trying to achieve.”
Vaccine diplomacy also has a “War Wolf” side. The PLA delivered a shipment of vaccines to the Pakistani military earlier this month, a move the Chinese Defense Ministry explained as a demonstration of China’s ability and willingness to assume its responsibilities as a major power. Pakistan has been in constant conflict with India, the CCP’s arch-rival, for years, and for the CCP, Pakistan is a geopolitical check on India. The provision of vaccines in the form of military aid is a weaponization of vaccines. At the same time, the vaccine has also become a powerful tool to contain Taiwan. When Taiwan’s office in Guyana was abolished earlier, the country was immediately given 20,000 doses of Chinese vaccines. Taiwan’s 5 million doses of vaccines ordered from Germany‘s BioNTech were also nearly blocked by the Chinese Communist Party’s intervention. Liu Ruishao said the Chinese Communist Party used the vaccine as a tool to suppress Taiwan’s independence, but it actually had the opposite effect, making Taiwanese people more disgusted with the mainland regime.
Chinese vaccines are not unimpeded. Contrary to the enthusiasm of Hungary and other countries, the “17+1” summit between the Chinese Communist Party and Central and Eastern European countries earlier, the heads of Lithuania, Estonia and other six countries were absent. Yuan explains that some countries, such as the Baltic States, have a backlash against the CCP because of friendly relations between China and Russia, and that vaccine diplomacy is also limited by traditional geopolitics.
During the 1960s famine, the Chinese Communist Party provided 100,000 tons of grain to Albania, with a total value of nearly 9 billion yuan in various types of aid, but since the 1970s, Albania has continued to criticize China, and the two countries broke up completely after the aid stopped. Will the vaccine diplomacy repeat the same mistake? Liu Ruishao said that vaccine aid has helped a lot in consolidating friendly ties, but has a limited role in competing for new diplomatic space, and that the West is expanding its own alliances to limit the Chinese Communist Party. Vaccine diplomacy is just one part of international politics, and the U.S. will also fight human rights diplomacy, making it difficult to build long-term diplomatic relations on vaccines alone.”
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