© Provided by Washington Examiner President Biden and congressional allies are eager to undercut China's so-called "vaccine diplomacy," as the rollout of American-made vaccines provides the U.S. government with an alternative to Beijing's influence-peddling.
"We're looking at ways to accelerate access to vaccines around the world," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing.
Chinese Communist officials have wielded coronavirus-related material as a geopolitical tool from the early days of the pandemic, when China's dominance in the hospital mask manufacturing industry empowered Beijing to restrict or distribute medical gear around the world. U.S. officials may have an opportunity to flip that script, but Biden and his allies are careful to signal that this strategy will wait until after U.S. citizens receive their vaccines.
"If we have a surplus, we're going to share it with the rest of the world," Biden told reporters on Wednesday. "This is not something that can be stopped by a fence, no matter how high you build a fence or a wall ... We're going to start off making sure Americans are being taken care of first, but we're then going to try to help the rest of the world."
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China has been offering vaccines to U.S. allies in recent months, with an emphasis on government officials whose goodwill or public health needs could generate strategic advantages for Beijing.
"I also ... am concerned that of China's use the vaccine diplomacy again to trade access to COVID vaccines for expanded standard influence in target countries," Rep. Ann Wagner, a Missouri Republican, told Blinken. "I think China is even incorporating these efforts into its predatory Belt and Road initiatives."
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban - whose country hosts a major regional hub for Huawei, despite U.S. warnings that the company represents an espionage threat - has received the Chinese-made vaccine. So have certain members of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who has implied that he might scrap a key pact with the U.S. military if Biden fails to provide vaccines.
"In my dialogue with others around the world, they understand that American companies are, in a transparent way, are producing some of the best and most effective vaccines coming out," Rep. Ami Bera, a California Democrat, told Blinken. "I'd be curious as we start to think about once we've stopped COVID here domestically or at least gotten vaccines to the U.S. population, how we're going to directly engage and counter some of what China is doing - in a coercive way, quite frankly - with what I think is a worse vaccine."
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Blinken agreed but echoed the need to vaccinate Americans first. "We have to make sure that every American is vaccinated, and that is our No. 1 priority," he said. "Of course, if a big chunk of the rest of the world is not vaccinated and their economies continue to suffer, there's human suffering that goes with that, but there's also an economic deficit for us because we lose partners. So, we have real interest in doing that."
Tags: News, Foreign Policy, National Security, China, Antony Blinken, Vaccination, Coronavirus, Joe Biden
Original Author: Joel Gehrke
Original Location: US eager to beat China at vaccine diplomacy game