Political economy of vaccine diplomacy: explaining varying strategies of China, India, and Russia’s COVID-19 vaccine diplomacy

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic and global responses to this crisis reveal the changing landscape of global health governance. As countries around the world struggle to secure COVID-19 vaccines for their citizens, some non-Western powers have actively distributed vaccines internationally – an act broadly recognized as vaccine diplomacy. While existing literature suggests that geopolitical concerns affect the selection of recipient countries, it has yet to explain other aspects of vaccine diplomacy. Why are some countries focused on vaccine sales while others are more open to donation? Why do some prefer bilateral to multilateral channels in distributing vaccines? Through comparative analysis of China, India, and Russia, this article shows that political economic factors, in addition to geopolitics, shape the ways non-Western powers conduct vaccine diplomacy. We argue that these countries adjust their strategies in line with their relative advantages in development, manufacturing, and delivery of vaccines. Each country has unique strengths and weakness, which gives rise to the varied patterns in vaccine diplomacy. Our findings suggest that their strategies of vaccine diplomacy are enabled as well as constrained by their economic realities, and the rise of these countries in this field does not necessarily mean an outright challenge to the existing international system.

Keywords:

• Vaccine diplomacy
• rising powers
• global health governance
• economic advantage

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Acknowledgement

We thank Saori Katada, Ben Graham, Jackie Wong, Miriam Barnum, Pongkwan Sawasdipakdi, and Taylor Dalton for helpful comments. We also thank participants of the ISA 2021 panel on Neoliberal Pandemic, the Singapore Political Economy Seminar, the Yale-NUS Global Affairs Working Paper Series, and the Leiden Political Economy Group for valuable feedback. Finally, we are grateful to the RIPE editorial team and four anonymous reviewers for their guidance.

Notes

1 The COVID-19 pandemic can be also characterized as a “disaster” as well as “crisis,” with three defining features of threat, time-pressure, and uncertainty. See Lipscy, 2020.

2 For detailed information of COVAX, see https://www.who.int/initiatives/act-accelerator/covax

3 Sinopharm and G42 have created a joint-venture in the UAE to produce BBIBP-CorV called “Hayat-Vax”. Sinopharm also provided equipment for vaccine production in Serbia.

4 A governmental statement said China has offered vaccine aid to 106 countries without specifying country names. The author(s) have found deliveries for 81 countries by September 2021.

5 The first 13 countries (excluding Pakistan) are Brunei Darussalam, Nepal, the Philippines, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Palestine, Belarus, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, and Equatorial Guinea.

6 Another governmental statement claims China has exported over 700 million doses. Here we adopt the more conservative figure.

7 Selling prices of Chinese vaccines abroad vary widely. Due to confidentiality provisions of these contracts, there is very limited information on price. Based on information from Brazil and Indonesia, the price of CoronaVac can be as low as $10 to $14 per dose. Based on information from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal, the price of BBIBP-CorV is as low as $10 to $15 per dose.

8 Since then, Fiocruz imported API from a Chinese provider for vaccine production.

9 Brazil has only two (human) vaccine-producing plants: Butantan Institute produces for Sinovac and Fiocruz for AstraZeneca. Both plants are publicly owned.

10 For a more detailed discussion regarding how the emerging powers are collectively challenging the existing international architecture, see Roberts et al., 2017.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mao Suzuki

Mao Suzuki is an Assistant Professor at Yale-NUS College in Singapore. She received her PhD in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC). Her research interests lie in the intersection of global governance, international development and international cooperation, with specific focus on global health.

Shiming Yang

Shiming Yang is a postdoctoral researcher at Global Transformations and Governance Challenge Programme at Leiden University. She received her PhD in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC). She studies environmental politics and international political economy with an emphasis on developing countries.