Beijing Hasn’t Won the Soft-Power Stakes, but It Has an Early Lead.
Vaccines have had a place in diplomacy since the Cold War era. The country that can manufacture and distribute lifesaving injections to others less fortunate sees a return on its investment in the form of soft power: prestige, goodwill, perhaps a degree of indebtedness, even awe. Today the country moving fastest toward consolidating these gains may be China, under President Xi Jinping, who proclaimed last May that Chinese-made vaccines against COVID-19 would become a “global public good.” Since that time, top officials have promised many developing countries priority access to Chinese vaccines, and the Chinese Foreign Ministry has announced that the country is providing free vaccines to 69 countries and commercially exporting them to 28 more.
China’s competitors worry that where Beijing’s inoculations go, its influence will follow. But the field of COVID-19 vaccination is still a largely uncharted one and scattered with barriers, whether logistical, scientific, psychological, or geopolitical. China’s path through this labyrinth is neither obvious nor assured. The country faces stiffening competition from Russia and India. Now the United States, too, has entered the global stakes for equitable distribution of safe and effective vaccines. China has yet to prove that it can fulfill the role it has taken on or win the trust of those it has offered to aid.
This is an excerpt, read the full article published by Foreign Affairs.
Since its founding in 1922, Foreign Affairs has been the leading forum for serious discussion of American foreign policy and global affairs. Foreign Affairs is published by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a non-profit and nonpartisan membership organization dedicated to improving the understanding of U.S. foreign policy and international affairs through the free exchange of ideas.
Comments
12 responses to “Vaccine Diplomacy Is Paying Off for China”
This is the difference between Eastern and Western cultures. The West believes that China is engaged in a certain kind of competition, and the rule of the competition is to export vaccines to other countries to spread its soft power.
To be honest, the Chinese did not think so much. The Chinese just hope that the world will return to what it was before the pandemic, and then happily continue to trade and make money.
For China, the soft power is not created, but a by-product of the improvement of national strength. Therefore, to improve soft power, there is no need to take the initiative to do anything.
Can’t read this article – its author compels subscription.
Why does China alone have to “prove that it can fulfill the role it has taken on, or win the trust of those it has offered to aid”.
This is just another example of ‘we are superior’ Western talk. Can we cut out the condescending and patronising attitudes?
Actually observe what is going on?
The truth is that America is only doing QUAD oriented vaccine support for developing nations because it fears China will gain ground with what it is doing. China’s been doing that sort of soft power work for a very long time. America has not, and has no precedent in international vaccine pandemic rollouts to the developing world in the least. The best that can be said is that it is pure copycat behaviour, and an effort to make things look better, when QUAD has morphed into a group more interested in containing china’s economy and business interests. Potentially that could mean conflict with China as well – always the real name of the game – although the Indians and Japanese aren’t too hot about that at the moment.
America is the learner here, the common mistake it has made frequently in the past is to run its geopolitical campaigns and carry out its military strategies in poorer developing countries with little regard to the people who actually live in those countries.
Go back to pre-Vietnam. America was more interested in stopping the ‘commies’ in Vietnam and surrounding countries, their usual paranoia. Instead of actually winning friends through soft diplomacy and asking how they could help such countries, they ran roughshod over the people with anti-commie campaigns and military projects. The people said why spend all of this money on US needs, building military purposed roads and military purposed infrastructure, instead of offering us a few schools, useful infrastructure such as village to village roads, and hospitals? America just didn’t get it. That left the communists in the position of winning favour because they actually offered such things.
America is a learner here, China has vastly more experience being a successful developing nation itself, one that understands the needs of other developing countries far more than the US ever has demonstrated. It’s also well capable of delivering vaccines in its own country, eventually to 1.4 billion people, and for everything else. Who else can do that?
It is the west that insists that China is playing soft power games. In fact a recent post to this blog by the ABC, likely written by Stan Grant asserted that Xi’s main motivation was to gain influence, but allowed that along the way he was doing something for the good of mankind. That Xi may be motivated by the latter rather than the former is clearly not going to get any traction in my local media. Yet when we wonderful, open hearted people from the west extend a helping hand, it is always portrayed as caring, and generous. We are not motivated by such low goals as ‘seeking influence.’ We always act from the highest motives and for the good of all.
Very good point! Parochialism is hard to overcome … All of us need to work hard to be less parochial. But arguably overcoming parochialism is hardest for those who only speak English and read only Western media.
So China distributes its easy to store and transport vaccine to developing world not even covered by the West and its called “vaccine diplomacy” but US blocking Brazil to use Russian vaccine without providing any doses of its own is a beacon of human rights, FREEDOM(tm) and democracy!!! F.CK YEAH!
U.S. officials pushed Brazil to reject Russia’s coronavirus vaccine, according to HHS report
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/03/16/hhs-brazil-sputnik-russia/
Seriously what a bunch of wankers.
Nearer home, Australia sends 8,000 doses to PNG, and has asked EU, which is desperately short of vaccines itself, to allow the redirection of 1 mil doses that Australia had ordered to go to PNG. Unlikely that PNG will get them anytime soon.
Meanwhile lots of Chinese vaccines have been offered to PNG, but for some reason they have not been approved. Having been to PNG myself, I suspect this is a case of Australian ‘soft power’ in action.
Any Chinese vaccines supplied would still need Australian help in the logistics and administration… . Hence no Chinese vaccines for PNG!
Not so much wankers as murderers. Ho hum, nothing new.
Why does China alone have to “prove that it can fulfill the role it has taken on, or win the trust of those it has offered to aid”.
This is just another example of ‘we are superior’ Western talk. Can we cut out the condescending and patronising attitudes?
Actually observe what is going on?
The truth is that America is only doing QUAD oriented vaccine support for developing nations because it fears China will gain ground with what it is doing. China’s been doing that sort of soft power work for a very long time. America has not, and has no precedent in international vaccine pandemic rollouts to the developing world in the least. The best that can be said is that it is pure copycat behaviour, and an effort to make things look better, when QUAD has morphed into a group more interested in containing china’s economy and business interests. Potentially that could mean conflict with China as well – always the real name of the game – although the Indians and Japanese aren’t too hot about that at the moment.
America is the learner here, the common mistake it has made frequently in the past is to run its geopolitical campaigns and carry out its military strategies in poorer developing countries with little regard to the people who actually live in those countries.
Go back to pre-Vietnam. America was more interested in stopping the ‘commies’ in Vietnam and surrounding countries, their usual paranoia. Instead of actually winning friends through soft diplomacy and asking how they could help such countries, they ran roughshod over the people with anti-commie campaigns and military projects. The people said why spend all of this money on US needs, building military purposed roads and military purposed infrastructure, instead of offering us a few schools, useful infrastructure such as village to village roads, and hospitals? America just didn’t get it. That left the communists in the position of winning favour because they actually offered such things.
America is a learner here, China has vastly more experience being a successful developing nation itself, one that understands the needs of other developing countries far more than the US ever has demonstrated. It’s also well capable of delivering vaccines in its own country, eventually to 1.4 billion people, and for everything else. Who else can do that?
The biowarfare experts of the US and their Five Eyes pals will sooner or later engineer an incident, involving numerous deaths, aimed at discrediting the Chinese and/or Russian coronavirus vaccine programs in poor and not-so-poor countries. You can depend on it; the only questions are when, where and exactly how.
Your prediction is scary, reprehensible and, I fear, probably correct. Just how far the U.S. is prepared to go to discredit its rivals is something we should all fear. Lies – Putin is a killer and the Chinese are guilty of genocide – no longer gain traction, and if as we all hope the nuclear option will not happen, anything else is possible.
It is not only vaccine and covid-19 managment that China is providing world leadership but also in economic development aimed at lifting huge numbers of mankind from poverty to prosperity.
Meanwhile the US slumps into community violence, poverty, household and government debt and decaying infrastructure.
There is no hope for the US dependent as it is on GDP growth based on financial speculation and the issuance of more debt.
As the American economist Michael Hudson says ” the US today does not have one fast train and with little hope of ever building one”.
The US is an empire in decay with no moral leadership left. Its remaining power is dependent on its atomic arsenal. Something we should all fear.
Will our leaders ever wake up? Australia is on wrong side of history.