The COVID-19 Pandemic and China's Global Health Leadership

In 2020, China supplied 43 percent of global imports of PPE, compared with 21 percent in 2019.46 In the words of China’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi, China “took the lead in building a global anti-epidemic defense.”47 In the meantime, China became a frontrunner in the global race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. [...] In exchange for China’s compliance with the International Health Regulations (IHR), the international law that gov- erns global infectious disease governance, the WHO not only repeated China’s rhetoric on the nature of the virus’s spread but also refrained from criticizing Beijing for its poor response during the early stage 16 The COVID-19 Pandemic and China’s Global Health Leadership of the outb. [...] Though China was unable to prevent the World Health Assembly from adopting a landmark resolution on May 19, 2020, to kick off phase one of the pandemic origin probe, China delayed the WHO’s access to Wuhan until January 2021 and gained a clear upper hand in the negotiation with the WHO on the terms and timing of the investigation. [...] efforts to roll out booster vaccines in coping with the omicron variant are likely to further constrain the global vaccine supply and potentially deepen a sense of injustice in the developing world.115 A more immediate and effective approach for the United States to reclaim global health leadership would be to scale up its ability to vacci- nate the world. [...] The rapid spread of the omicron variant worldwide may put the United States in a better position to promote, or encourage like-minded coun- tries to promote, the superiority of Western vaccines over Chinese ones in mitigating the threat of the new variant.