The New England Patriots plane has delivered 500,000 Chinese-made COVID vaccines to El Salvador, and in the process has inadvertently drawn itself into a bitter geopolitical battle for influence in Latin America.
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, just after midnight, China’s top diplomat in the small Central American country greeted the “pat plane” as it arrived in San Salvador.
When the red, white and blue emblems of the six-time Super Bowl champions were emblazoned on the Boeing 767, the cargo bay opened to unload a giant crate with Chinese characters on it.Ambassador Ou Jianhong said that China “will always be El Salvador’s friend and partner”.
Her comments were a not-so-subtle dig at the Biden administration, which has blasted President Nayib Bukele in recent weeks for ousting several Supreme Court justices of the peace and a top prosecutor and Warns that this undermines El Salvador’s democracy.
Bukele has not been shy about using his budding relationship with China to seek concessions from the United States, and in several social media posts he touted the delivery of the vaccine — El Salvador’s fourth delivery from Beijing since the pandemic began.The country has so far received 2.1 million doses of the vaccine from China, but not one from its traditional ally and largest trading partner, and the United States, which is home to more than 2 million Salvadoran immigrants.
“Go Pats,” Bukele tweeted Thursday with a smiley face with a sunglasses emoji — even though the team itself had little to do with the flight, which was arranged by a company that leases the planes when the team isn’t using them.
Across Latin America, China has found fertile ground for so-called vaccine diplomacy aimed at reversing decades of U.S. dominance.The region is the worst-hit region in the world by the virus, with eight countries in the top 10 for deaths per capita, according to the online research site Our World in Data.At the same time, a deep recession wiped out more than a decade of economic growth, and governments in several countries are facing mounting pressure, even violent protests by voters angered by their failure to control soaring infection rates.
This week, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which advises Congress on the impact of China’s rise on national security, warned that the U.S. needs to start shipping its own vaccines to the region or risk losing the support of longtime allies.
“The Chinese are turning every shipment to the tarmac into a photo,” Evan Ellis, a China-Latin America expert at the U.S. Army War College’s Institute for Strategic Studies, told the panel on Thursday. “The president came out, There is a Chinese flag on the box. So unfortunately, the Chinese are doing a better job of marketing.”
Patriots spokesman Stacey James said the team had no direct role in the delivery of the vaccine and dismissed the idea that they were taking sides in a geopolitical battle.Last year, at the start of the pandemic, Patriots owner Robert Kraft struck a deal with China to use one of the team’s two planes to transport 1 million N95 masks from Shenzhen to Boston.The plane was chartered by Philadelphia-based Eastern Airlines when the team was not using it, James said.
“It’s nice to be part of an active mission to get a vaccine where it’s needed,” James said. “But it’s not a political mission.”
As part of vaccine diplomacy, China has pledged to provide about 1 billion vaccine doses to more than 45 countries, according to the Associated Press.Of China’s many vaccine makers, only four claim they will be able to produce at least 2.6 billion doses this year.
U.S. health officials have yet to prove the Chinese vaccine works, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken has complained that China politicizes its vaccine sales and donations.Meanwhile, Democrats and Republicans alike have sharply criticized China’s human rights record, predatory trade practices and digital surveillance as a deterrent to closer ties.
But many developing countries struggling to vaccinate their own people have little tolerance for bad talk about China and accuse the United States of hoarding more fancy Western-made vaccines.President Joe Biden on Monday pledged to share another 20 million doses of his own vaccine over the next six weeks, bringing the U.S.’s total overseas commitment to 80 million.
The Latin American country also thanked China for its investment in major infrastructure projects and purchases of goods from the region amid the pandemic-induced recession.
Also this week, El Salvador’s Congress, dominated by Bukler’s allies, approved a cooperation agreement with China that calls for an investment of 400 million yuan ($60 million) to build water purification plants, stadiums and Libraries, etc.The agreement is the product of the former El Salvador government’s 2018 severance of diplomatic ties with Taiwan and a relationship with communist Beijing.
“The Biden administration should stop giving Latin American policymakers public advice on China,” Oliver Stuenkel, a professor of international affairs at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in São Paulo, Brazil, said in a speech to a congressional advisory panel. This sounds arrogant and dishonest given the many positive economic consequences of trade with China in Latin America.”
Post time: Jun-10-2022