Vaccines from China bolster COVID fight

Many countries' leaders even came to the airport for handover ceremonies when the shipments of Chinese vaccines arrived, and more than 50 heads of state or government have taken the lead in getting inoculated with Chinese vaccines, according to the Foreign Ministry.

In January 2021, Chilean President Sebastian Pinera welcomed the arrival of nearly 2 million doses of Sinovac vaccines at Arturo Merino Benitez International Airport in the capital, Santiago, when the South American country was preparing for a mass vaccination campaign.

"Today is a day of joy, excitement and hope," Pinera said after the aircraft landed. He later received the first dose of the Sinovac vaccine along with those age 71 and older.

"China's efforts have played a key role in addressing the global shortage of COVID-19 vaccines and added confidence and strength to the fight against the virus in developing regions," Tian Huifang, a senior research fellow at the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, wrote in an opinion piece published on the China Global Television Network's website.

In 2020, President Xi Jinping proposed at the opening of the 73rd World Health Assembly that COVID-19 vaccine development and deployment in China, when available, would be made a global public good.

"This will be China's contribution to ensuring vaccine accessibility and affordability in developing countries," he said at the virtual event.

When addressing the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2022 in April, Xi declared that China would donate another 600 million vaccine doses to Africa and 150 million doses to ASEAN member countries.

Yao, of the CIIS, said, "China is honoring its commitments with concrete actions, because we believe that no country can stay unaffected in the face of the pandemic, and only when an overall anti-pandemic protective system across the world is established can we truly walk away from it."

Allawi Ssemanda, a research fellow with the Development Watch Center, a think tank based in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, said that when some developed countries practiced vaccine nationalism, which resulted in the hoarding of much-needed vaccines at the height of the pandemic, China stood shoulder to shoulder with developing countries, especially in Africa.

China has been working to ensure that many people are vaccinated against COVID-19, by donating billions of vaccine doses to African countries, he said in an article published on the New Vision website.

As of August, China had provided 189 million doses of vaccines to 27 African countries.

In addition to vaccine deliveries, China was also among the first to support intellectual property rights exemptions for vaccine research and development and has taken the lead in carrying out joint production with a dozen countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Indonesia and Brazil, with an annual production capacity of 1 billion doses.

Speaking at the launch ceremony of a joint China-UAE project to initiate the first COVID-19 vaccine production line in the UAE, the country's Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan said that the two countries' partnership has set "an example to be emulated for collaboration between friendly nations in times of crisis".

The top diplomat emphasized that the dividends of this significant project will be reaped not only by the UAE and China, but by the entire world.

Yao, of the CIIS, said, "China is building a global community of health for all and upholding true multilateralism through efforts in realizing the local production of vaccines in other countries."