Beijing may balk at ‘vaccine diplomacy’ term but beating Covid-19 is key to China’s outreach plan

State media rejects that China’s future vaccine aid is conditional while Beijing admits it is in a propaganda battle to reshape the pandemic narrative

If anything goes wrong during a Chinese-backed immunisation roll-out overseas, China may bear the brunt

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The subject of vaccines features prominently in China’s discussions with other countries. But any soft power advantage could be undercut by failures in rolling out a Chinese vaccine programme overseas. Photo: AFP

Josephine Ma

Josephine Ma is China news editor and has covered China news for the Post for more than 20 years.

Published: 7:34pm, 5 Jan 2021Updated: 10:13pm, 5 Jan 2021

China’s combative diplomats and state media are resistant about the label “vaccine diplomacy”.

The term touches a raw nerve in Beijing. A Xinhua commentary said it was “malign” to suggest Beijing was attaching strings and seeking to increase geopolitical influence while selling vaccines abroad.

But vaccines undeniably took a prominent place in China’s diplomacy in 2020, and that is likely to continue in 2021.

In a long interview last weekend, State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said “cooperation to fight the pandemic” was a theme running through China’s diplomacy last year. Vaccines were prominent when Wang talked about relations with Asean, Africa and Russia.

He also made it clear that China positioned itself as a provider of vaccines for developing countries.

Vaccines are brought up in almost every bilateral meeting between China and developing countries, as in a telephone conversation between Wang and his Mexican counterpart Marcelo Ebrard last week. Several Middle Eastern countries are the first to approve Chinese vaccines for general use.