Читать книгу The World According to China - Elizabeth C. Economy - Страница 16

During fall 2020, China mounted a renewed effort to assume a leadership position in responding to the pandemic. It joined COVAX, the international initiative to ensure a degree of equity in the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, after initially rejecting participation. Several senior Chinese foreign policy analysts had argued publicly that joining would be in China’s best interest. They noted that it would send an important signal to the international community that China was not simply “sweeping its own snow in front of the door” but instead was interested in helping others. They also offered an array of less altruistic motivations, including improving Beijing’s image, assisting in the global economic recovery (which they suggested would serve the country’s economic interests), and establishing China’s vaccine as an internationally recognized brand.⁶⁹

Figure 1.2 Comparison of global levels of faith in Xi Jinping from 2019 to 2020

Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/10/06/unfavorable-views-of-china-reach-historic-highs-in-many-countries/

By the time it joined COVAX, China had already vaccinated one million people domestically and in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Peru, and Argentina. But there was growing concern in the international scientific community over Beijing’s lack of transparency in its vaccine trials. China had not provided information concerning the vaccine trial results, leaving the international community questioning the efficacy and safety of the vaccines.⁷⁰ It was not until April 2021 that the head of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Gao Fu, acknowledged that the efficacy of the country’s vaccines was relatively low and measures should be taken to improve their protection rates. (He later asserted that his comments had been misinterpreted.)⁷¹

China’s international credibility had suffered a blow the previous month as well when WHO experts finally gained access to China for their long-promised investigation. Several delegation members raised concerns over the Chinese government’s failure to provide access to critical data. Even Tedros called on China to be more forthcoming and stated that the trip report did not provide an “extensive enough” assessment of the possibility that the virus originated in a lab.⁷²