Vaccine Diplomacy

By Scott Morgan

Over the last year of the Covid Pandemic, there have been additions to our vocabulary that have proven to be most interesting. One of my favorites is Vaccine Diplomacy.

During the week of April 10th this phrase has reared its ugly head. It seems that the authorities in Beijing found an opportunity to:

• Promote its own interests
• Impose a defeat on the Republic of China (Taiwan) while finding a new outlet to promote the vaccines. 

Sounds quite simple doesn't it? 

The country that is at the center of this row is Paraguay. This landlocked country is one of many that has reportedly seen an upsurge in Covid cases. Already vaccines have been airlifted into the country from both the United States and India. However, Beijing made an offer that it felt was just simply to good to turn down. 

The Chinese made an offer to Paraguay: it would deliver the number of vaccines currently needed in Paraguay. Sounds simple enough, right? But there was a hidden cost to this seemingly benign offer: 

Paraguay would have to withdraw its recognition of Taiwan as an independent state and transfer it to Beijing and the CCP Machine. 

Taiwan which currently has few allies (little more than a dozen) around the world utilized the one option that was available to it: to expose the deal to the International Media and cry foul. Since 2016, Beijing has poached three former allies away from Taiwan in Latin America. Those countries are Panama, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic. 

This attempt by Beijing should not be considered to be a bolt out of the blue. There are strong indications that the Political Opposition within Paraguay are keen to take the offer from Beijing. 

Vaccines to be delivered against severing relations with Taipei. 

The Government of President Abdo Benitez is currently in a precarious state. Already the President suffered an attempted impeachment and protests over his his administration has been handling the Covid Outbreak as well. 

India has sent 100,000 doses of Covaxin, AstraZeneca has sent 36,000 doses, 4,000 doses of the Russian made Sputnik Vand 20,000 doses of the Cornovac shot donated by Chile. 

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