China will only rarely agree with the reports which praised other countries and that too with those, which are going gaga over India. However, this is one of those rare moments and Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece Global Times has accepted the expertise of its South Asian neighbour in the domain of medicine and it has gone to the length of saying that, “Experts suggested that India’s vaccines are no less competitive than Chinese Covid-19 vaccines in both research and production capacity, considering that India has the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer and lower costs in labour and facilities.”
While Chinese diplomacy has crashed and so has its hopes to regain global standing as a responsible power, it is suffering to manage things in its own backyard. Chinese state-owned newspaper, China Daily reported, “Shijiazhuang goes on lockdown to curb infection.”
Shijiazhuang is the largest city in North China’s Hebei province. And from this, we can assume that the Wuhan virus outbreak has gone out of control in China. This is not it, while the country has failed to contain Wuhan virus, even after the strictest lockdown, it has been subjecting its citizen to shady vaccines.
An expert as mentioned in the Global Times article stated, “India has the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer Serum Institute of India that has a very mature production and supply capacity, even stronger than some Western countries. Indian manufacturers also have much earlier cooperation with global institutes including WHO, GAVI and the Pan American Health Organization in South America (PAHO), and earned their trust decades ago.”
“They take a closer approach to Western standards in vaccine development and regulation that has also helped their exports,” Jiang added.
These arguments are emboldened by the fact that India’s neighbouring countries which had earlier outrightly denied becoming China-manufactured vaccine’s guinea pigs are signing MoUs with India for the supply of the two Indian vaccines as early as possible. Brazil too has filed a request of 5 million vaccine doses from India. The Brazilian Association of Vaccine Clinics (ABCVAC), yesterday, confirmed on its website that it had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Bharat Biotech to purchase its Covaxin vaccine, which is currently in the final stage of clinical trials.
Read more: After Brazil, South Africa snubs China, requests 1.5 million doses of India-made vaccine
China is mainly concerned by the fact that most of the countries are welcoming the Indian vaccines and that India never made vaccine diplomacy its policy preference, but is doing it out of its goodwill. This acts as a further irritant for Beijing. India has already had a great track record for being the dispensary of the world. Countries are flocking to get hold of Indian vaccines, as they are considered high quality at lower prices. Neighbouring countries are also considering Indian vaccine as it is cheaper, as well as, has a lesser transportation cost.
At a time when China is facing problems in all corners, India has taken the one win, that China was hoping to get. In the end, the win for India has been soo obvious that the Chinese mouthpiece which has been most critical of anything Indian has been forced to accept Indian victory.