The New Yort Times (NYT) reported February 11, 2021
"NEW DELHI — India, the unmatched vaccine manufacturing power, is giving away millions of doses to neighbors friendly and estranged. It is trying to counter China, which has made doling out shots a central plank of its foreign relations. And the United Arab Emirates, drawing on its oil riches, is buying jabs on behalf of its allies..."
yet
NYT earlier reported December 15, 2020:
"The U.S., Britain, Canada and
others are hedging their bets, reserving doses that far outnumber their
populations, as many poorer nations struggle to secure enough.
As a growing number of coronavirus vaccines advance through clinical
trials, wealthy countries are fueling an extraordinary
gap in access around the world, laying claim to more than half the doses that
could come on the market by the end of [2021]."
_________________________
A. What is to be done?
B. Is the World Health Organisation or some other entity, up to sorting things out?
'Countering China' is an imbecilic infantile concept that exists mostly in the febrile imaginations of India's illiterate troglodyte media...left or right....
ReplyDeleteChina's industrial sector alone consumes 3,600 TWh compared to 465 TWh by India's industrial sector (a 10:1 ratio for all purposes) and China's economy is US$ 15 trillion compared to India's 2.6 trillion or 5.75x...there is simply no realistic comparison for starters....
India is good at doing some things but comes with an important caveat...India's pharma strength comes from reverse engineering and from economies of scale afforded by generic medicines...this is not a sustainable proposition as India relies a lot on China for upstream Pharma API...India's strength here is not necessarily a thing of permanence in the absence of a solid cupboard of original IP rights...
India's 3/5 share of vaccine manufacturing market is not a trifle like thing but the context is very important if India is to attain actual leverage in the future... till that 'preening' would be to 'strike attitudes that ill suits' India and is likely to be harmful...
Better to keep plugging away to improve educational infrastructure and fostering a critical thinking friendly environment....
PS: On that count, overall signs are not encouraging as both the 'right' and 'left' (the left a bit more hypocritically preachy in India) are only promoting their 'cause celebre' despite endless prattling about 'freedom of expression' 'liberalism' and all that jazz..
The current cycle of 'propaganda smearing' followed by endless 'victimhood placard' waving is deeply unhelpful to say the very least as is 'fact mining' to suit a 'narrative'...
Hi GhalibKabir [at February 18, 2021 at 7:05 PM]
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment.
Yes India is not in neck-and-neck competition with China as China’s industrial sector is a far larger energy consumer than India’s. And, as you illustrate, China’s GDP is also far larger than India’s.
I only hope that the One Child Policy reproductive distortion China’s authoritarian regime imposed on its people flows through into a smaller percentage than usual productive workforce. This would hopefully act as a break on China's approx average 7% annual eco growth. Growth that still seems to be a PLUS 2% even in the 2020 Covid year that sent almost all other major economies into negative economic contraction in 2020.
A Chinese economy that grows larger than the US economy (by around 2027) would be bad news for India, the US and Australia because economic power comfortably permits increasing strategic power.
Yes the Intellectual Property (IP) and “API” = (Active pharmaceutical ingredient, a basic component of any medicine or pharmaceutical drug) issues you point out are serious.
India needs to exert its market power in pharmaceutical’s and other high tech (relatively low cost but skilled labour) industries carefully.
If Japan, Korea and Taiwan can succeed in their high work ethic post 1950 initial or re-industrialisations I hope India can as well.
Regards
Pete
ReplyDeleteHi Pete,
The problem with the liberal NYT article and leftist argument is they tend to generally use fallacious logic or adopt misleading premise. For example, the article states that first world countries have ordered doses of Covid vaccines that far exceed their populations but third world countries have problem procuring them. The problem is the argument is using the fallacious logic of comparing apples vs. oranges in that it is comparing total order size vs. delivery schedule constrained by supply issues. Take an example with Australia. Whilst it is true that Australia has ordered vaccine dose many times its population size, until this weekend there is not a single dose of vaccine on Australian soil ready to rollout. The simple fact is initially there are not enough vaccines to meet immediate demand. It doesn't matter whether you are a first or third world country. There will be lead and there will be lag. If the NYT article wants to make it a case of vaccine nationalism then it needs to do a better job of arguing its case rather than using fallacious logic. Such is the poor state of journalism today.
This brings me to the heart of the subject i.e. "nationalism". Every sovereign country's primary responsibility is toward its own citizens first. This is thee sole purpose of statehood throughout history. If the argument being made is globalism should take precedent over nationalism then the philosophical argument should be made. The problem seems to be the premise should be accepted without question. Herein lies the problem.
Brumby
Thanks Brumby for your Feb 20 comment.
ReplyDeleteYes best to keep a conservative eye. Those countries with the money and foresight to order millions of vaccine doses have an understandable serves-ones-own-national-citizens first position.
Its even better if nations make enough doses for their own national use (like India) and have enough left over to send overseas.
True that availability and actual delivery is crucial. Australia is only getting 100,000s of the most effective Pfizer vaccine but is making millions of doses of Astrazeneca vaccine in Melbourne for national use - and then for smaller Pacific regional countries (maybe).
On the leftist idea of giving 10os millions doses to "dirt poor third world countries" there may be suspicions that high political corruption levels may see millions of doses provided to those countries for free hoarded by local politicians and then sold to their citizens or even onsold in shady deals elsewhere.
If the World Health Organisation (WHO) didn't appear to be a passive tool of China then the WHO may be an effective vaccine distributor.
I thought New Zealand secured vaccines for South Pacific countries?
ReplyDeleteAustralia has ordered 126 million doses of COVID-19 vaccinations-
20 million Pfizer
54 million Oxford University/AstraZeneca
51 million Novovax
So that enough to vaccinate everyone in Australia five times, so I do hope they’ve ordered excess to donate to nations like Indonesia and the Philippines - whose government has screwed up, as usual.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-04/scott-morrison-coronavirus-pfizer-vaccine-more-doses/13094812
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/02/18/969008730/the-philippines-has-vaccinated-zero-health-care-workers-so-far
Here's a very interesting article from The Diplomat paysite: of Feb 20, 2021 at https://thediplomat.com/2021/02/is-chinas-covid-19-diplomacy-working-in-southeast-asia/
ReplyDelete"Is China’s COVID-19 Diplomacy Working in Southeast Asia?
A recent poll suggests a mixed picture for China.
Many observers have discussed how China is using its COVID-19 medical aid as a means to improve its soft power, or even to exert geopolitical control overseas. A recent poll of Southeast Asian states might suggest a more mixed picture: While most Southeast Asian countries acknowledged that their powerful neighbor has contributed the most to the region in coping with the pandemic, the very same poll also showed that China’s image has actually deteriorated in the region over the past year."
See whole article at https://thediplomat.com/2021/02/is-chinas-covid-19-diplomacy-working-in-southeast-asia/
Hi Shawn C.
ReplyDeleteSEA countries you mention are quite wealthy countries these days (eg. buying jetfighters warships, Swiss bank accounts) more than capable of buying vaccines.
Some countries high levels of corruption? Once vaccines are donated, recipient countries politicians/officials hoarding them or having them waste away as shelf-life passes? selling vaccines to selected groups? or on-selling to third countries?
If only the World Health Organisation were not a China vassal the WHO might handle supply and distribution...
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization
"The WHO's broad mandate includes advocating for universal healthcare, monitoring public health risks, coordinating responses to health emergencies, and promoting human health and well being. It provides technical assistance to countries, sets international health standards and guidelines, and collects data on global health issues through the World Health Survey."
Maybe the WHO should do what it was paid to do - rather than letting China's COVID become a world pandemic...