China opens its borders for foreigners inoculated with Chinese COVID-19 vaccines

The Chinese authorities have now come up with a new policy that allows foreigners to enter China by imposing one condition that requires the people to receive a China-made coronavirus vaccine. Nearly 23  embassies around the world have issued new visa policies. The condition stays the same for those coming from the United States and the United Kingdom, even after both places do not have Chinese vaccines available. China's foreign ministry said that the move aims at kick-starting international travel in an "orderly fashion". 

However, the vaccinated travellers will still have to go through the state-run quarantine on arrival. The experts have raised their concerns regarding China's decision to prioritise domestic vaccines over the ones which have been approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) and have a higher efficacy rate. As per the experts, it leads to pressure countries to approve Chinese vaccines and also sets a dangerous precedent.

A counter to China's diplomacy efforts 

This comes the United States President Joe Biden announced that the quad, which includes the US, India, Japan and Australia, would finance, manufacture and distribute at least 1 billion vaccines for the Indo-Pacific by the end of 2022. The vaccines would be developed in the US and manufactured in India. Some people considered it as a direct counter to China's own vaccine diplomacy efforts.

Earlier this year, China let a second WHO-led mission into China but denied its access to essential data on the earliest patients recorded with COVID-19. Even though the virus has been successfully controlled in the nation, the authoritarian system of party-line censorship and cover-up at all costs had facilitated COVID-19's spread in the first place. "This time, China has cost itself, and the world, the only reliable warning system in the country where it may be most needed," Sparrow concluded.