NEW DELHI – India, the unmatched vaccine-making power, is distributing millions of doses to friendly and distant neighbors. He is trying to oppose China, which has made gun distribution a central element of its foreign relations. And the United Arab Emirates, taking advantage of its oil wealth, is buying jabs on behalf of its allies.
The coronavirus vaccine – one of the most sought after commodities in the world – has become a new currency for international diplomacy.
Countries with means or know-how are using the shots to obtain favors or to thaw icy relations. India sent them to Nepal, a country that is increasingly under the influence of China. Sri Lanka, in the midst of a diplomatic tug of war between New Delhi and Beijing, is receiving doses of both.
The strategy carries risks. India and China, which are producing vaccines for the rest of the world, have their own vast populations that they need to inoculate. Although there are few signs of complaint in both countries, this may change as doses of public watches are sold or donated abroad.
“Indians are dying. Indians are still catching the disease, ”said Manoj Joshi, a distinguished colleague at the Observer Research Foundation, a think tank in New Delhi. “I could understand if our needs had been met and then you had given things. But I think there is a false moral superiority that you are trying to convey, where you say that we are donating our things before we even use them. “
Donor countries are making their offerings at a time when the United States and other wealthy nations are collecting supplies from the world. The poorest countries are frantically trying to get their own, a disparity that the World Health Organization has recently warned that has put the world “on the verge of catastrophic moral failure”.
With their health systems tested like never before, many countries are eager to accept what is offered to them – and donors could reap political goodwill as a reward.
“Instead of protecting a country by sending troops, you can protect the country by saving lives, saving its economy, helping with its vaccination,” said Dania Thafer, executive director of the Gulf International Forum, a Washington-based study group.
China was one of the first countries to launch a diplomatic vaccine campaign, promising to help developing countries last year, even before the country mass produced a vaccine that proved to be effective. Just this week, he said he would donate 300,000 doses of vaccines to Egypt.
But some of China’s vaccine diplomacy efforts have failed with supplies that arrived late, lack of disclosure about the effectiveness of their vaccines and other issues. Chinese government officials cited unexpectedly strong needs at home amid isolated outbreaks, a move that may contain any internal reaction.
Even with the spread of Chinese vaccines, India saw a chance to strengthen its own image.
The Serum Institute of India, the largest vaccine factory in the world, produces the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine at a daily rate of around 2.5 million doses. This pace allowed India to start distributing doses free of charge to its neighbors. To much fanfare, loaded planes arrived in Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Seychelles and Afghanistan.
“Acting in the East. Acting fast, ”said S. Jaishankar, India’s foreign minister, announcing the arrival of 1.5 million doses in Myanmar, on twitter.
The Indian government tried to mark advertising spots for doses sent to places like Brazil and Morocco, although these countries have bought theirs. The Serum Institute also promised 200 million doses to a WHO global pool called Covax that would go to the poorest nations, while China recently promised 10 million.
For now, the Indian government has space to donate abroad, even after months when cases have skyrocketed and the economy has been damaged, and even after vaccinating only a tiny percent of its 1.3 billion inhabitants. Part of the reason for the lack of reaction: the Serum Institute is producing at a faster rate than India’s vaccination program can currently support, leaving extras for donations and exports.
And some Indians are in no hurry to get vaccinated because of skepticism about a home-made vaccine called Covaxin. The Indian government approved its emergency use without releasing much data about it, leading some to doubt its effectiveness. Although the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine has faced less skepticism, those being vaccinated have no choice as to which vaccine they will receive.
For India, its soft power vaccination campaign has replicated China, after years of watching the Chinese make political gains in their own backyard – in Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Nepal and elsewhere. Beijing offered big pockets and quick responses when it came to large investments that India, with a layered bureaucracy and a slowing economy, has struggled to match.
“India’s neighborhood has become more populous, more competitive,” said Constantino Xavier, who studies India’s relations with its neighbors at the Center for Social and Economic Progress, a think tank in New Delhi. “The vaccine push reinforces India’s credibility as a reliable crisis response and solution provider for these neighboring countries.”
One of India’s biggest donations was to Nepal, where the relationship with India reached its lowest point. Sandwiched between India and China, the small country is strategically significant for both.
In the past five years, after border disputes and what some in Nepal criticize as a master and servant relationship with India, the government of KP Sharma Oli, the prime minister, has begun to approach China. Mr. Oli held workshops on “Thinking of Xi Jinping,” based on the strategies of China’s top leader, and signed contracts for several projects as part of the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing’s infrastructure and development push.
But the prime minister began to lose control of power last year. As the Chinese and Indian delegations arrived in Kathmandu to control Nepal’s domestic political dispute, the Nepalese leader appears to have lowered the temperature with India.
After Oli sent his foreign minister for negotiations in New Delhi, India donated one million doses. China’s Sinopharm has also applied for Nepal’s approval for its vaccine, but local pharmaceutical authorities have not given authorization.
“The vaccine came as an opportunity to normalize ties” between Nepal and India, said Tanka Karki, a former Nepalese envoy to China.
Even so, the strategy of using vaccines to win hearts and minds is not always successful.
The United Arab Emirates, which is distributing vaccines faster than any other country except Israel, has started donating Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccines that it has bought to countries where it has strategic or commercial interests, including 50,000 doses for each in the Seychelles, the nation island in the Indian Ocean and Egypt, one of its Arab allies.
But in Egypt, some doctors hesitated to use them because they said they did not trust the data that the United Arab Emirates and the Chinese vaccine manufacturer released about the tests. The Malaysian government, one of the Emirates’ largest trading partners, declined an offer of 500,000 doses, saying regulators would have to independently approve the Sinopharm vaccine. After regulatory approval, Malaysia purchased vaccines from Pfizer in the United States, the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine and one made by another Chinese company, Sinovac.
Even accepted goodwill can be short-lived. Witness Sri Lanka, where India and China are in a battle for influence.
Since Gotabaya Rajapaksa assumed the presidency in 2019, New Delhi has struggled for its government to commit to an agreement that its predecessor signed to complete a terminal project at the port of Colombo to be partially developed by India. As large Chinese projects continued, Rajapaksa opened the Indian business for review.
Hoping to emphasize the importance of the project, Jaishankar, India’s foreign minister, paid a visit last month. That same month, 500,000 doses of vaccine arrived from India. Mr. Rajapaksa was at the airport to receive them. Sri Lanka has also placed an order to purchase 18 million doses of the Serum Institute, confirmed the ministry of health in Colombo.
Indian media have treated both as a diplomatic victory, and it seems clear that Sri Lanka will depend heavily on India for vaccines. But on January 27, Mr. Rajapaksa received another gift, from China: a promise to donate 300,000 doses.
Donor duels are just part of a much bigger diplomatic dance. Still, a week later, Rajapaksa’s office decided that Sri Lanka was developing the Colombo terminal on its own, taking India out of the project.
Mujib Mashal reported from New Delhi and Vivian Yee from Cairo. Bhadra Sharma, Elsie Chen, Aanya Piyari, Salman Masood and Zia ur-Rehman contributed reports.