#COVID19
Dancing with Wolf Warriors: China’s COVID U-turn and its Implications for Europe
Both China’s zero-COVID U-turn and gentler diplomatic tone are politically useful for Xi Jinping. European leaders should remain vigilant in the face of a potential new charm offensive.
Amid Sunny Rhetoric, China Restricts Investment in Belarus
While Minsk places high expectations on China to replace the closed Western commodity and financial markets, and access to technologies, Beijing is reluctant to extend a helping hand due to strained relations between Belarus and the West.
Assessing China’s Vaccine Diplomacy
Since early 2019, China has emerged as one of the key COVID-19 vaccine providers to lower-income countries, actively providing both donations and commercial deliveries. China mostly negotiated the purchases on a bilateral basis, utilizing the donations for its diplomacy goals. Despite the overall demand for vaccines declining and interest in China’s jabs taking a hit, Beijing keeps making new donation pledges.
China’s Changing Views of Russia and the US after the Ukraine Invasion
This article was originally published by The Diplomat and is republished here with the permission of the author. Weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Chinese were unapologetically positive about Russia and highly negative about…
Beyond COVID-19 Diplomacy: Sustaining Momentum in CEE-Taiwan Relations
As the Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis announced his country’s pledge to donate 20 thousand COVID-19 vaccine doses to Taiwan, the Taiwanese people were quick to devise creative ways to demonstrate their gratitude. Rapidly,…
How China and India are Competing in Vaccine Diplomacy
At the first high-level summit of the “Quad” grouping, the US, Australia, Japan and India agreed to jointly develop, finance, distribute and manufacture vaccines in order to increase vaccine production and to counter Chinese…
The Logic of China’s Vaccine Diplomacy
This article was originally published in The Diplomat and is republished here with the permission of the authors. Since May 2020, when Chinese President Xi Jinping announced at a World Health Assembly meeting that China considered…
Chinese Vaccine Diplomacy Reigns Supreme in Serbia
This article was originally published in The Diplomat and is republished here with the permission of the author. When a plane carrying a million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from the Chinese company Sinopharm landed…
Fortifying 5G Networks in North Macedonia: The Need for Western Partners
On September 10, 2020, only ten days into his second term as leader of the government, the Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev met with Zhang Zuo, the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China…
United Front Reaches Central Europe? Chinese Diaspora during COVID-19
Central Europe is home to a small Chinese community that rarely makes headlines. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, diaspora activities in the region stand at the forefront of China’s “mask diplomacy”. Prepared in Advance…