NEW DELHI: India has started giving millions of doses of vaccine to its South Asian neighbors, using its position as a vaccine manufacturing center to strengthen its ties in a region where China exerts influence growing up.
India announced this week that it would give one million doses of vaccine in Nepal, 2 million in Bangladesh, 100,000 in the Maldives and 150,000 in Bhutan. It also plans to give 1.5 million doses to Myanmar and 50,000 doses to Seychelles as early as Friday, government officials said, and start commercial exports of the two vaccines that have received emergency approval and are already in production en masse in India.
As part of its attempts to offset China’s growing profile in Asia and elsewhere, India is trying to strengthen its ties with South Asia, Africa and Latin America by establishing itself as a vaccine supplier, he said. Sreeram Chaulia, dean of the OP School of International Affairs at Jindal Global University in Sonipat, India.
“Through its diplomacy against the Covid-19 vaccine, India intends to harness its strengths to enhance soft power, especially in the poorest countries,” he said. “There is a strategy to strengthen India’s immediate neighborhood health care systems first from Chinese intrusions and then to spread to the rest of the world.”
India has been on the defensive in much of South Asia, as China has granted huge loans and used its experience in building infrastructure to tighten ties in places traditionally in the sphere of influence. of India, including Sri Lanka and Nepal, as well as with its largest rival in the region, Pakistan.