In spite of pleas for global solidarity in vaccine production and distribution, the global vaccine roll-out is quickly turning into a race between two models of vaccine diplomacy. On one hand, pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer and Moderna are making record profits while jealously guarding intellectual property rights over the mRNA vaccines which have been critical to the United States and Europe’s swift vaccine roll-out. Meanwhile, lower-income countries are forced to rely on other types of inoculations. As a result, while the West has every reason to feel that the end of the pandemic is in sight, things look bleaker for many other parts of the planet. The US alone accounts for nearly 20 per cent of the nearly 1.4 billion jabs given worldwide so far. Meanwhile, Africa’s three most populous countries – Nigeria, Ethiopia and Egypt, home to more than 400 million people between them – each account for just 0.1 per cent. Developing countries are understandably seeking ways to bridge that gap. One source of hope has come from Chinese vaccine manufacturers who are collaborating with partners in the developing world to produce and distribute vaccines to countries in need. They received a major boost from the World Health Organization’s decision to greenlight China’s Sinopharm vaccine . As the first non-Western vaccine approved for worldwide use by the global health body, the decision put Sinopharm’s jab – already used in countries from the Middle East to Latin America – on equal footing with Western counterparts and a step ahead of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine. With partnership agreements in the United Arab Emirates , Malaysia, and Indonesia ensuring locally manufactured Sinopharm can be distributed across the developing world, Chinese vaccines could supplant Western competitors as “workhorses” of the global inoculation effort, even as China’s level of transparency around its vaccines falls short of the mark. If the pandemic has created a window for companies like Sinopharm to supplant Western pharmaceutical heavyweights, Western leaders’ approach to vaccine distribution is in large part responsible. Despite production issues and vaccine hesitancy, many of these countries are on track to achieve herd immunity by the end of the year. Some, such as Israel or Britain, already have a sizeable chunk of the population fully or partially immunised. The US, having reached a new milestone by administering 250 million vaccine doses, is seeking to encourage vaccine holdouts even as neighbouring Canada struggles to find enough doses to administer second shots. Western countries have been slow to share this bounty of doses, even among themselves. US President Joe Biden , for example, has said “every American will have access” before the US transitions to becoming “an arsenal for vaccines for other countries”. The EU has, to its credit, already shipped more doses abroad than it has used among its own members. However, the lion’s share has gone to wealthy countries such as Japan and the UK. Further accentuating these imbalances is the vehemence with which Western pharmaceutical giants and governments defend vaccine patents, even as Pfizer made US$3.5 billion from its vaccine in the first three months of 2021 alone. Biden might have upended the debate by endorsing an IP waiver , including for the Moderna vaccine the US government helped develop, but the pharmaceutical sector and many of Biden’s European counterparts have already pushed back. Western leaders’ squabbles over exports and IP rights have given Beijing an opportunity to showcase a different kind of vaccine diplomacy. Chinese pharmaceutical companies have exported large quantities of doses as well as entered into partnerships to manufacture their vaccines in other parts of the world. A landmark joint venture between Sinopharm and Abu Dhabi-based Group 42, for example, saw the UAE begin producing its own version of Sinopharm last month. Sinovac has signed up for similar schemes with companies in Malaysia and Indonesia . In a clear effort to reframe itself as the solution to the pandemic rather than its source, Beijing has provided vaccine aid to 53 countries. Chinese leadership makes a point of referring to vaccines as a “global public good”, contrasting with Western leaders. Western vaccines still enjoy important advantages in terms of proven efficacy . Also, studies of the Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines have faced questions over their reliability . The WHO’s positive evaluation of Sinopharm represents an important step forward for the credibility of Chinese-made inoculations. China’s pharmaceutical sector needs to embrace transparency and cooperation with other international bodies to convince the global health community that Chinese vaccines are just as good as their Western counterparts. Caveats notwithstanding, partnerships like the one between Sinopharm and Group 42 might prove critical in curbing the pandemic across regions like the Middle East. The UAE has already immunised a significant portion of its population, meaning most manufactured doses will go abroad. This type of local manufacturing deal expands production and could also increase the appeal of vaccination among populations suspicious of foreign governments and companies. Reticence towards vaccines in countries such as Iran and Egypt , devastated by Covid-19 but plagued by low trust in public institutions, has fed off historical and political factors to hamper administration of the few doses governments are able to procure. In Iran, the regime’s propaganda war against Western vaccines has dovetailed with the distrust Iranians hold towards their own government to produce a disastrous level of vaccine hesitancy. If alternatives can sidestep those issues and advance vaccination drives in these countries, the US and other Western countries could find China has already usurped the mantle of vaccine leadership before they ever get around to claiming it. James Borton, a former non-resident Stimson Center fellow, is an independent writer and researcher who has been reporting on Southeast Asia and the South China Sea for more than two decades