BEIJING – China increased the stakes in the international vaccine competition on Saturday, saying foreigners who want to enter the Chinese mainland from Hong Kong will face less paperwork requirements if they are inoculated with Chinese-made coronavirus vaccines.
The policy announcement, which covers foreigners applying for a visa in Chinese territory, comes a day after the United States, India, Japan and Australia announced plans to provide vaccines more widely to other countries. The four powers called Quads have promised to help finance the production in India of at least one billion doses of the coronavirus vaccine by the end of next year.
China is trying to increase the international appeal of its vaccines, although scientists and foreign governments urge Chinese vaccine manufacturers to be more transparent with their clinical trial data. Guo Weimin, a Chinese government spokesman, said that China had sent vaccines to 69 countries by the end of February and started commercial exports to 28 countries.
Chinese state media organizations have also launched a disinformation campaign that questions the safety of Modern and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines and promotes Chinese vaccines as the best alternatives.
Chinese vaccines have not yet been approved by most regulators in the West, although Hungary has agreed to buy five million doses. China has not yet approved the manufacture or distribution of foreign vaccines within its borders.
This week, China presented an international electronic passport to its citizens, which shows whether a traveler has been vaccinated against the coronavirus. But it was not immediately clear what difference the policy announcement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Saturday would make to foreigners living in Hong Kong, as China has barely issued visas lately.
In addition, Hong Kong’s borders have been closed to non-residents for nearly a year. Therefore, the new policy will not help many foreigners in other countries who wish to return to mainland China for reasons of work or family.
The Hong Kong government allows residents to choose between the Sinovac vaccine from mainland China and a version of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine that it imported from Germany. The announcement on Saturday did not specify whether people in Hong Kong who had already received the injection from Pfizer-BioNTech would need to be vaccinated again with the Sinovac product.
Alan Beebe, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, said that border restrictions have become the biggest concern of multinationals doing business in the country and questioned the need to restrict entry based on the vaccine chosen by travelers.
“It is not clear to us,” he said, “what is the difference between having an imported vaccine and one produced in China.”
Liu Yi contributed research.