China and US go dose to dose in Covid-19 vaccine donations to El Salvador
- Beijing announces it will send 1.5 million Sinovac shots to the Central American country just hours after Washington makes similar commitment
- United States also plans to send jabs to other countries in need in the Americas
“In the next few days, 1.5 million Sinovac vaccines will arrive in El Salvador, the fifth and biggest batch of Chinese vaccines that [it] has received, thanks to the excellent bilateral relations and the will to overcome the pandemic together and safeguard the health of the people,” the Chinese embassy in San Salvador tweeted on Saturday.
El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele retweeted the Chinese embassy’s announcement and added a Chinese flag and El Salvador flag to the message.
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Inside a plant in China producing the WHO-approved Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine
Already locked in bitter strategic competition in multiple fronts, from trade to the military, China and the US have been ramping up vaccine diplomacy, rushing to send doses to countries in need.
On Friday, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan told Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi that the US would send 4 million doses of Moderna vaccines to the Southeast Asian country, which has been relying heavily on Chinese-made vaccines and is battling a fresh wave of cases.