China’s COVID-19 Vaccine Diplomacy in the Gulf and Beyond: Efforts and Challenges

This chapter argues that the COVID-19 vaccine has become an important diplomatic tool to expand China’s influence and set up a positive Chinese image in the Middle East. The study reports three important trends in China’s COVID-19 vaccine diplomacy. It states that China’s vaccine diplomacy toward the Middle East still faces challenges. On the one hand, the effectiveness of China’s vaccine is not widely recognized. Some European and American experts still doubt the effect of China’s vaccine made by Sinovac and Sinopharm. On the other hand, China’s mechanism to constrain COVID-19 by national lockdown and universal vaccination might not be copied in the Middle East.

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Published in: Social Change and Transformation in the Gulf Region
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
See article on publisher's website: https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7796-1_39