They say it risks pressuring countries to approve Chinese vaccines and sets a dangerous precedent which
China is making it easier for foreigners to enter the country. But there’s one condition: they need to have received a China-made Covid-19 vaccine.
At least 23 Chinese embassies around the world issued new visa policies over the past week with this condition, including in the United States and United Kingdom — both places where Chinese vaccines aren’t available.
China’s foreign ministry says the move is about kick-starting international travel in an “orderly fashion,” and vaccinated travelers will still face state-run quarantine on arrival.
But experts have raised concerns over China’s decision to prioritize domestic vaccines over those approved by the World Health Organization, and with a higher efficacy rate.
They say it risks pressuring countries to approve Chinese vaccines and sets a dangerous precedent which, if adopted by other nations, could leave the world in vaccine-based silos.
It also raises practical issues — what options do people have if they live in countries which haven’t approved China-made vaccines?
“It’s very much at the sharp end of vaccine diplomacy,” said Nicholas Thomas, an associate professor in health security at the City University of Hong Kong. “(It’s) essentially saying if you want to visit us, you need to take our vaccine.”
After the Quad — a partnership between the US, India, Japan and Australia — met last week, US President Joe Biden announced they would together finance, manufacture and distribute at least 1 billion vaccines for the Indo-Pacific by the end of 2022.
Those vaccines would be developed in the US and manufactured in India, which has been engaging in its own vaccine diplomacy around the region. Some saw that as a direct counter to China’s own vaccine diplomacy efforts, which were recently criticized by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, saying Chinese vaccines comes with “strings attached.”
China has been one of a number of countries at the forefront of vaccine development and, as of March 15, China had exported vaccines to 28 countries, according to the Chinese Mission to the UN. Mass public vaccination programs with Chinese vaccines are underway in Indonesia and Turkey. In China alone, 65 million people have been vaccinated with the country’s five approved domestically produced vaccines.
But none of China’s vaccines have yet been approved by the WHO or have released full Phase 3 trial data, leading to a lack of clarity over how effective the vaccines really are. The available data suggests China’s vaccines may actually be less effective than other vaccines — Sinovac, for example, had an efficacy rate of 50.38% in late-stage trials in Brazil, lower than the 78% announced in China, and lower than the efficacy rate of other vaccines such as Pfizer, which has reported a 95% efficacy rate.
That means China can’t claim its preference for homegrown vaccines is due to them being superior to other vaccines. Instead, Thomas sees China’s new visa rules as a “power move,” which will pressure people to take one of China’s vaccines.
Sarah Chan, a reader in bioethics at the University of Edinburgh’s College of Medicine, says if someone’s livelihood depends on traveling to China for work, that could push them to take the vaccines, despite their lack of data. Scott Rosenstein, director of the global health programme at Eurasia Group, said it could also pressure countries to authorize the Chinese vaccines.
Some people may have health conditions that mean they are unable to take certain shots. “It is simply not justified to make so much of what we do depend on whether or not we have had a vaccine, let alone whether we have had one particular version of the vaccine,” Chan said.
Despite China’s new visa rules placing an incentive on travelers to take the Chinese vaccines, Zhao Lijian, spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, rejected the idea of “vaccine nationalism.”
“Regardless of where a vaccine is made, it is a good vaccine so long as it is safe and effective,” he said in a press conference Monday. “China stands ready to advance mutual recognition of vaccination with other countries.”
