Post-covid China: ‘vaccine diplomacy’ and the new developments of Chinese foreign policy

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic that hit the world in early 2020 changed it unimaginably. China was forced to face many new challenges at the international level, not only those related to the handling of a health crisis. After overcoming the first wave of the pandemic, China had to focus on foreign policy and public diplomacy efforts to secure its main interests. As the world continues to struggle with COVID-19, China is using the pandemic for its own foreign policy purposes, mainly by using vaccines as a new foreign policy tool. The purpose of the research is to investigate the position of recent Chinese ‘vaccine diplomacy’ with reference to its traditional and contemporary public diplomacy and foreign policy strategies. The investigation has a qualitative character and is based on a content analysis of official press conferences conducted by the Chinese Ministry for Foreign Affairs.