Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) - Today, out of 11 candidates for the COVID-19 vaccine undergoing the third phase of trials, 4 are Chinese. The most successful vaccine is considered to be the Sinopharm vaccine, which may be officially registered this month, according to Foreign Affairs (USA).

While China faces stiff competition from the United States and other Western countries in the race to develop the first vaccine, it is poised to dominate and strategically benefit from vaccine distribution among developing countries.

The United States does not plan to compete with the PRC in the distribution of vaccines to developing countries. Their approach to developing and distributing vaccines so far has followed the America First Principle.

As such, in the huge fast-growing markets of Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, where more than half of the world's population lives and many governments can hardly afford vaccines, Chinese manufacturers could dominate. Chinese vaccines are already in phase three clinical trials in 19 countries, including Argentina, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Morocco, Pakistan, Peru, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Uzbekistan and the UAE.

China's vaccine distribution strategy will be heavily subsidized. Chinese President Xi Jinping voiced this strategy in May when he promised that any Chinese vaccine against COVID-19 would be a "global public good." Xi Jinping has pledged to provide US$1 billion in loans to Latin America and the Caribbean to pay for access to Chinese vaccines. In October, Mexico signed an agreement with CanSino to buy 70 million doses of vaccines with a promised Chinese loan. China will use such preferential vaccine deals to strengthen partnerships with governments in regions it considers strategically important (SEA, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean).

Thus, by surrendering the public health sector to China, the United States risks not only losing the vaccine race, but thereby allowing Beijing to gain the prestige of a first-class technological power and savior of the developing world, the goodwill of many new potential allies and a legitimate claim to global leadership.