TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China’s vaccine diplomacy campaign has been a surprising success: It has pledged roughly half a billion doses of its vaccines to more than 45 countries, according to a country-by-country tally by The Associated Press. With just four of China’s many vaccine makers claiming they are able to produce at least 2.6 billion doses this year, a large part of the world’s population will end up inoculated not with the fancy Western vaccines boasting headline-grabbing efficacy rates, but with China’s humble, traditionally made shots. However, concerns over safety and efficacy, as well as a dearth of publicly available data also means many are suspicious. But due to the pandemic’s urgency, many countries have chosen to use China’s vaccines.
