JOIN USChina takes advantage of India's fresh Covid-19 wave, approaches neighbours
Bangladesh has authorised the emergency use of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Sinopharm of China.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government in Dhaka is now holding talks with Beijing for procuring vaccine doses from China as well as for manufacturing the jabs in Bangladesh.
Nepal also received 8,00,000 vaccine doses from China on March 29 and of late started talks to bring in more jabs from the communist country.
Sri Lanka already received 6,00,000 doses of the vaccines from China, which also promised 4,00,000 doses for Afghanistan and 2,00,000 doses for the Maldives.
The raging second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic brought New India’s “Vaccine Maitri” initiative to provide vaccines to anti-Covid-19 jabs to other nations to a halt. China took advantage and stepped in to fill the void, particularly in the neighbourhood of India.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi recently had a meeting with his counterparts from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. He told the foreign ministers of the five South Asian nations that China was willing to promote vaccine cooperation with other countries through flexible methods such as free aid, commercial procurement, and filling and production.
Yi said that China’s proposal was intended to help the South Asian nations to obtain more diversified and stable vaccine supplies. He also said China is also willing to establish a China-South Asia emergency supplies reserve after discussion with other nations in the region.
Yi also said that China would establish a China-South Asia poverty reduction and development cooperation centre to exchange experiences in poverty reduction with other countries.
China has since long been trying to expand its geopolitical influence in the neighbourhood of India. It renewed its focus on the region after India-China relations hit a new low over the military stand-off in eastern Ladakh.
India supplied 64 million doses of vaccines to over 80 countries, including Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bhutan, Afghanistan and other nations in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. The second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic and the shortage of vaccines however prompted New Delhi to suspend the programme.
Sources in New Delhi said that India had already conveyed to its neighbours that it might not be able to consider restarting its ‘Vaccine Maitri’ initiative before July.
Yi’s proposals were supported by the foreign ministers of the five South Asian nations. They said that vaccines should be distributed under the principle of fairness and equality, instead of being monopolised by a few countries, according to a report by China’s state-run news agency Xinhua.
Wang promised that Beijing would later this year hold a forum on rural e-commerce and poverty reduction in South Asian countries and China to build a new platform for cooperation in poverty reduction.