China Is Winning the Race to Vaccinate the World, for Now

The Covid-19 pandemic has been a devastating public-health catastrophe the world over. For China, it’s also provided an unprecedented geopolitical opportunity. After it got the outbreak under control, and with world leaders distracted by their own countries’ health struggles, it was able to use the chaos of the pandemic to step up political crackdowns in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. Other nations cried foul, but China persisted. Perhaps most important, early exports of its rapidly developed vaccines have provided Beijing with a potent diplomatic calling card in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. And as the global death toll mounts, Chinese officials get to brag about their virus-fighting success around the world even as they gain greater access and influence in far-flung capitals.

“The U.S. response to the epidemic is nothing short of a mess and total failure,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, one of the original wolf warrior diplomats, named for their confrontational stance, said last month. “In contrast, China secured major strategic outcomes in fighting the virus.”