A friend indeed to friends in need? China's trade regime and Covid-19 vaccine diplomacy

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6045453
AutoresIndra De Soysa (0000-0003-2751-4223, Norwegian University of Science and Technology), Krishna Chaitanya Vadlamannati (0000-0001-5999-1126, University College Dublin, autor de correspondencia)
Año2024
Volumen4
Número3
Páginas212-226
Fecha de publicación2024-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaChina Economic Quarterly International (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 2666-9331 • E-ISSN: 2666-9331
EditorialElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.ceqi.2024.09.001
OpenAlexW4402624454
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas21

Employing newly available data on Chinese Covid-19 vaccine deliveries for a cross-section of 157 countries, we examine if China's vaccine diplomacy is driven by altruistic, enlightened self-interested motives or by purely strategic motives. According to the enlightened self-interested logic, China's vaccine supply would coincide with helping countries dependent on China for trade, i.e. its trading friends, while the strategic logic would entail providing vaccines to countries important commercially to China. In other words, the gravity of the Covid situation would be leveraged by China for strategic gain. Utilizing the logit estimator on probability of receiving vaccines from China and Tobit estimator on vaccine purchases and donations, we find that developing countries that are important to China's trade, and thereby, China's own commercial interests were less likely to get vaccines compared with countries that are more dependent on China. Furthermore, we find that countries more dependent on China are also likely to receive vaccine donations rather than purchases, suggesting that vaccine diplomacy was unlikely to be for commercial and strategic gain. Our results taken together signify that vaccine deliveries by China were not manipulated by trade interests in Beijing. The results suggest instead that China supplied vaccines to countries needing them and with whom Chinese goodwill reflects a more normal course of diplomacy—to service friends in need

2019-20 coronavirus outbreak · Biology · China · Diplomacy · Economics · International trade · Political science · Politics · Global Health and Epidemiology · HIV/AIDS Impact and Responses · International Development and Aid · Law · Medicine · Virology