The Wuhan coronavirus pandemic has finally made the world realise the fact that for China, even a tragedy that too of its own making, presents a business opportunity for the rogue state. After the Chinese hostile takeovers of foreign companies reeling from the impact of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, China is now looking to exploit the economically weaker nations to test its vaccine for the virus. China through its “vaccine diplomacy” is using the citizens of poor nations as guinea pigs for its vaccine.
While the developed part of the world has the necessary tools to deal with the havoc that the pandemic has unleashed, the lesser developed and the economically weaker nations are struggling as not only do they have the required medical infrastructure, but also cannot afford further lockdowns if they wish to avoid an economic disaster.
At a time when nations like the US, UK and Australia are striking deal with the biggest pharmaceutical companies to deliver the vaccine to their population, China’s “vaccine diplomacy” gained much traction among the economically weaker countries who saw China as their only hope to get a vaccine ironically, to defeat the China-made pandemic.
Turns out, it was nothing but a Chinese ploy to test their clinically unproven vaccines on the citizens of the weaker nations and based on the results, eventually arrive on a vaccine which passes all the regulations.
China has deliberately announced priority access of its vaccine to lower and middle-income nations, especially the Mekong neighbours including Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. Economic Times reports that China has also targeted some countries in Latin America, West Asia, North Africa and Eastern Europe besides Nepal.
When in late August, Bangladesh approved human trials of the Chinese vaccine, it was met with a tremendous resistance from within the country. The vaccine which is slated to be used on 40,000 Bangladesh citizens, has raised alarm bells amongst the country’s medical fraternity as the medical fraternity in Dhaka are of the opinion that Bangladeshis are being used as guinea pigs.
This is nothing new for China, which is just implementing its Xinjiang playbook on comparatively poorer nations. Not since Hitler’s treatment of the Jews, has any community been subjected to such horrific atrocities as the Uighur Muslims.
There are several reports that the Chinese Communist Party is testing its vaccine on Uighur Muslims as an experiment. The Uighur Muslims have been forced to produce PPE and masks for both domestic and international markets, apart from also being forced by the CCP officials to work in the factories for foreign investors.
While Chinese President Xi Jinping would like the world to believe that China is willing to make its potential vaccines a “global public good”, in reality, China’s offer of vaccine is also conditional on Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects.
It’s a Catch-22 situation for the economically weaker nations who have no hope of the vaccine anytime soon as the developed world would understandably, first aim to vaccinate their respective populations before producing it for the rest of the world. Here, China presents a ‘solution’ where China would use the countries as laboratories for its vaccine candidates which will of course come at a price.
BRI is China’s sophisticated way of trapping poor countries in its famed debt-trap and once the country defaults on Chinese loans, the rogue state starts taking over the defaulting country’s resources and properties and eventually make it a client state, case in point being Pakistan and Laos.
Recently, China was caught red-handed in creating a second Wuhan coronavirus Pandemic in Papua New Guinea after a Chinese state-owned company, the China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC), which controls a major nickel mine in Papua New Guinea said that 48 staffers who returned from China in August may test positive for COVID-19 because they have been vaccinated. It is being believed that China is using workers from State owned companies as lab rats and testing them on foreign soil.
For China, the pandemic presents a dual opportunity: first, use weaker countries as laboratories and their population as guinea pigs for their vaccine candidates. Once approved, commercialise the vaccine and emerge as the ‘messiah’ which ended the pandemic. Secondly, as a result of China’s ‘benevolence’ by providing vaccines, the country will then indulge in debt-trap diplomacy through Xi Jinping’s pet project, the Belt and Road Initiative, and hence, completely trap the economically weaker nations in China’s throngs and lay the groundwork for making the poorer countries as latest Chinese client states.
