National Post (National Edition)
Russia, China and India's new weapon for global supremacy? Vaccines
THIS IS PART OF THEIR EFFORTS TO BURNISH THEIR REPUTATION ABROAD BECAUSE THEY KNOW THAT IT HAS BEEN TARNISHED WITH ALL THE MISTAKES THEY MADE HANDLING THE PANDEMIC. — GUY SAINT-JACQUES, A SENIOR FELLOW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA'S CHINA INSTITUTE
WE HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THAT THERE'S A BIGGER GAME AT PLAY.
In Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates vaccines are flowing quickly into arms. The tiny island nation of the Seychelles, with just 100,000 residents, has given more than half its population its first dose, and in Serbia they are handing out nearly 25,000 doses per day.
None of those countries have significant vaccine manufacturing or a major pharmaceutical industry, but what they do have is a regular supply of Chinese and Russian-made vaccines, in some cases supplementing the vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca.
Of the top 10 countries in the world on a doses per capita basis, six of them are using vaccines from Russia, China or India. Canada is 42nd in the world on a doses per capita basis according to Bloomberg News Service's vaccine tracker. News reports and information from government websites show 16 of the countries ahead of Canada are using shots from one of those three countries.
While Western nations, including Canada, scramble to get doses for their citizens, the governments in Beijing, Moscow and New Delhi are shipping vaccine abroad to make new friends, even as their own national vaccination efforts lag behind the rest of the world.
This week, China's ambassador to Canada, Cong Peiwu, said his country always planned to help the world.
“China stated in the early stages that once vaccines were developed and deployed they will become a global public good, so we are just honouring our commitment to help people, especially in developing countries,” he said. “We know the virus knows no borders.”
He said China is providing vaccine assistance to more than 50 countries and insists it comes with no strings attached.
“We are doing things so we make sure we are together in fighting this horrible pandemic.”
Guy Saint-Jacques, a senior fellow at the University of Alberta's China Institute and a former Canadian ambassador to Beijing, said China is clearly using the vaccines to help its image.
“This is part of their efforts to burnish their reputation abroad because they know that it has been tarnished with all the mistakes they made handling the pandemic and also they want to contrast themselves with Western countries,” he said.
Several news outlets and human rights groups have condemned China's apparent genocide of the Uyghur people and it has also faced criticism for the ongoing crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong. He said those issues could come to a head through votes at the United Nations or with a push to have the International Olympic Committee move the 2022 Beijing games. Saint-Jacques said Beijing will need more allies on the world stage and this is one way to get them.
“We have to understand that there's a bigger game at play.”
David Mulroney, another of Canada's former ambassadors to China, said much like with its belt and road initiative, China looks to garner favour wherever it can.
“It's not at all surprising that China is seizing the initiative to conduct vaccine diplomacy. China makes use of carrots as well as sticks in its global influence campaign.”
Most Western countries have not sought out China or Russia's vaccines. Canada has approved four vaccines as of Friday, from Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Johnson and Johnson, with a fifth from Novavax, still under review. Canada is receiving a version of AstraZencea's vaccine made in India, but the Russian and Chinese candidates are not being considered.
The two vaccines are now showing positive real-world results, but early on there was limited data about their effectiveness. They didn't follow the same clinical trial approach that vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna went through. Neither Health Canada or the American Food and Drug Administration are considering the two vaccines as viable candidates.
Russia's vaccine, named Sputnik V, was more than 90 per cent effective in a recent study released in the British medical journal the Lancet. China has two vaccines shipping to other countries, one from a company named Sinovac and another from a firm called Sinopharm. Some studies have shown they are more than 80 per cent effective, but a trial in Brazil showed Sinovac's vaccine was only 50.4 per cent effective.
In addition to developing nations and Gulf states, Russia has shipped its vaccine to countries like Hungary and Slovakia that were once more firmly inside the Russian orbit.
Hungary, which is using both the Chinese and Russian vaccine, placed its orders last month as the European Union's vaccine program ground down due to manufacturing delays.
Marcus Kolga, a senior fellow at the MacDonald-Laurier Institute, said Russia is fully prepared to use its vaccine shipments to win new allies.
“I have no doubt that this is a strategic push to promote and increase Russia's influence in those parts of the world,” he said.
He said former members of the Soviet Union or the Warsaw Pact, like Hungary, that have drifted into the European Union are key targets for that influence and have been for decades.
“Ever since Vladimir Putin came into power he's been trying to pull them back into Russia's sphere,” he said.
But Russia has also spread its vaccine wider, with Mexico taking the shot and several states in the Middle East and Africa also taking doses.
Kolga said Russians themselves aren't interested in the vaccine. Polling there has shown as many as 60 per cent of Riussians don't plan to take it. He said that gives Russia even more latitude to ship doses around the world.
He said a lack of pressure at home means Russia and China can push vaccines to the world.
“When it comes to a country like Russia, but especially China, they will just pour resources into mass producing these vaccinations because they see the opportunity here to win friends and new clients in Africa.”
The West's answer to this vaccine diplomacy is supposed to come through COVAX, the international alliance that is expected to ship two billion vaccines this year.
The program is structured to have rich countries buy doses for themselves alongside vaccines for developing countries. Many wealthier countries opted to skip or at least delay their doses, but Canada is taking at least 1.9 million doses from the alliance.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau defended that decision after it was announced. “Our contribution was always intended to access vaccine doses for Canadians as well as to support lower-income countries,” he said.
But there have been vaccine disputes, even among Western nations. On Thursday Italy halted the shipment of 250,000 doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine to Australia, citing AstraZeneca's inability to meet delivery targets in Europe, a move supported by the European Union and France.
When Canada's first shipment of its newest vaccine, AstraZeneca, arrived in Canada this week, India's High Commissioner Ajay Bisaria was on hand. AstraZeneca is making its own doses, but also has a licence agreement with India's Serum Institute to make billions of doses for India and for countries around the world.
Canada's deal for two million doses from India was a commercial arrangement, but India has also donated thousands of vaccines to countries like Barbados and the Maldives. In all, Bisaria said his country has shipped 40 million doses to 14 different countries, either through donations or commercial deals.
Bisaria said the country is “very aware of a global responsibility of being the pharmacy of the world and the vaccine-makers of the world.”
He said they do view the vaccine as a diplomatic tool to build stronger ties between nations and commercial links for its industry. The Serum Institute is the world's largest vaccine maker, but they also feel they have a responsibility to help.
“We attempt to give it to countries which have made requests, which didn't have any program of their own. So, it is certainly one aspect of diplomacy, but it is also a consciousness of an international responsibility,” he said.
COVID cases in India have been in decline for weeks, after growing to as many as 100,000 new cases a day. Its own vaccine rollout has been slow, with only one per cent of the population currently vaccinated. While still much lower than it was at the start of the year, cases have begun to creep up again in the country.
Bisaria said that steep decline in cases gives India the room to share its doses to countries in need.
Kanta Murali, an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto, said she sees India vaccine shipments in part as a counter on China, especially among India's neighbours — countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal.
“In fact, that is a little bit of a geopolitically strategic move — it's a counter to China's growing influence in the region,” she said.
Murali said for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, which has faced criticisms on a variety of fronts, it is also a chance to do some reputational repair. The country has been criticized for violent crackdowns on farmers protesting new legislation and the Modi government has arrested dozens of journalists.
“In some ways, this is also an attempt to improve its image in the midst of what is what has been significantly declining democratic trends,” she said.
She said Western governments will have to deal with the consequences of this vaccine diplomacy in the long term, but in the short term it is hard to see them diverting supplies for their own citizens.
“The hands of Western governments are tied at this point in time, given their need to get their own populations vaccinated very quickly.”