China mum over India's upper hand in COVID vaccine diplomacy; cites 'global cooperation'

China on Friday responded to media reports that India's huge capacity to make Coronavirus vaccine is helping New Delhi to take on Beijing in the 'vaccine diplomacy game.' China played down the reports and welcomed India supplying more COVID-19 vaccines to a number of countries.

'We welcome & certainly hope to see more countries...'

Responding to a question on a Bloomberg report that India has beaten China in its own game of vaccine diplomacy, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin during a media briefing said, "We welcome and certainly hope to see more countries pitching in to provide vaccines to the international community, in particular to the developing countries, as this will strengthen the global cooperation on defeating COVID-19."

"On top of overcoming domestic problems, China has been offering vaccines to other countries as a concrete step to deliver on President Xi Jinping's pledge to make vaccines a global public good. China has provided and is providing vaccine assistance to 53 countries, and has exported and is exporting vaccines to 27 countries," Wenbin said.

"China will continue to cooperate vaccine-wise with relevant countries in various ways to take the world closer to the final victory against the pandemic. We hope that capable countries will contribute to promoting vaccine accessibility in developing countries as well as equitable distribution and application worldwide," he added.

According to PTI, for its part, China has promised 10 million vaccines to the United Nations-backed COVAX initiative, but the first supplies of COVAX vaccines went from the Serum Institute of India to Ghana.

India on Wednesday dispatched the first batch of six lakh COVID-19 vaccine doses to Ghana under the COVAX facility, an international cooperative programme formed to make sure low- and middle-income countries have fair access to COVID-19 vaccines.

WHO lauds PM Modi's commitment

Besides neighbouring countries like Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and Maldives where China competed with India in expanding its influence, New Delhi has delivered vaccines to numerous countries, a substantial amount of doses freely well ahead of Beijing's offers to supply the jabs.

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WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi's commitment to supporting vaccine equity and sharing COVID-19 vaccines with over 60 countries across the world, hoping that other nations will follow his example.

India, the largest drug producer in the world, is currently manufacturing two COVID-19 vaccines- Covishield and Covaxin. While Oxford-AstraZeneca's Covishield is being manufactured by the Serum Institute of India in Pune, Covaxin is being produced by Bharat Biotech. India is expected to step up its vaccine diplomacy in a big way once the Covaxin of the Bharat Biotech gets the WHO nod in the coming weeks.

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(With PTI Inputs)