International Affairs
Chinese Vaccine Diplomacy
Paweł Paszak
Global crisis, inequalities between north and south, and Beijing's "window of opportunity"
O
ver 2.5 million people have lost their lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic that triggered the worst economic crisis since the end of World War II1. The cumulative loss in output relative to the prepandemic projected path will grow from $11 trillion over between 2020 and 2021 and next to $28 trillion until 20252. The total toll could be even higher if to acknowledge the hidden victims of COVID-19. The massscale losses forced the world’s mightiest countries, businesses, and research centers to make unprecedented efforts to develop an effective vaccine. As infection outbreaks A. Kose, N. Sugawara, Understanding the depth of the 2020 global recession in 5 charts, https://blogs. worldbank.org/opendata/understanding-depth2020-global-recession-5-charts
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G. Gopinath, A. Long, Uneven and Uncertain Ascent, IMF, October 13, 2020, https://blogs.imf. org/2020/10/13/a-long-uneven-and-uncertainascent/
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22
The Warsaw Institute Review
tended to recur, bringing back restrictive measures, both people and officials realized that it was best to reach herd immunity with widespread vaccination campaigns. The world’s biggest drug manufacturers rushed to develop a vaccine while governments gave them billions of dollars to fund the study. The U.S. government alone spent $13 billion on the Operation Warp Speed3. Of course, those more likely to win the race for a vaccine are developed countries whose agencies have at their disposal both funds as well as research and development facilities. OECD members secured the delivery of vaccines much in advance, while some, such as Israel, paid more to achieve herd immunity faster. Now, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Fact Sheet: Explaining Operation Warp Speed, https:// www.hhs.gov/coronavirus/explaining-operationwarp-speed/index.html 3
