Vietnam to give Chinese nationals priority for Covid-19 jabs after complaint, embassy says
- It says Vietnamese government broke promise to put Chinese in the country first after 500,000 doses donated
- Embassy in Hanoi ‘immediately expressed concerns’ and says Vietnam has agreed to withdraw the plan
It comes after China donated 500,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine to its southern neighbour, which arrived in Hanoi on Sunday.
Vietnam’s health ministry on Wednesday said the doses would be sent to nine northern provinces for “Vietnamese people living in communities neighbouring China, people who engage in trade and service exchanges with China, and Chinese nationals staying and working in Vietnam”.
But the following day, the Chinese embassy in Hanoi said Vietnam had broken its promise to give priority to Chinese nationals and that they should be vaccinated ahead of the other groups.
“According to the consensus of China and Vietnam, the Vietnamese government has made repeated pledges that the vaccines given by China would first go to Chinese people in Vietnam, Vietnamese people who have plans to work in China, and Vietnamese people living near the Chinese border,” the embassy said in a statement.
“The Vietnamese authorities did not liaise with China according to the above consensus before announcing the distribution plan.”
The embassy said it had “immediately expressed” its concerns and that the Vietnamese authorities had agreed to withdraw the plan.