EVALUATING THE OUTCOMES OF CHINA’S COVID-19 VACCINE DIPLOMACY: A NATURAL AND SURVEY EXPERIMENT IN BRAZIL

Abstract

In an era of strategic competition between the US and China, China’s COVID-19 vaccine diplomacy has emerged as an important subject of debate. As China distributed its vaccines around the world, US policy experts have grappled with the possible implications for China’s ability to win friends, influence public opinion, and rewrite the narrative about the pandemic. These concerns generate an urgency to understand whether and to what extent China has been successful in using vaccines to shape public opinion and expand its influence abroad. However, there remains relatively little empirical literature on the effects and outcomes of vaccine diplomacy. Thus, this thesis seeks to answer the question: Has China’s COVID-19 vaccine diplomacy improved public opinion towards China in recipient countries?

Using Brazil as a case study, I conduct a natural and survey experiment to test whether respondents who received a Chinese vaccine or are exposed to information about China’s vaccine distribution have more favorable opinions of China. My results show that overall, China’s vaccine diplomacy has not been successful in improving its image in Brazil. I find that receiving a Chinese vaccine has no significant impact on opinions towards China. Additionally, exposure to China’s vaccine distribution to one’s country has only a small – almost negligible –positive effect on attitudes towards China; more importantly, it produces no change in opinion on policy positions that involve China. Based on my results, China’s vaccine diplomacy has failed to productively shape foreign public opinion to be more open towards engagement with China and supportive of its bid for global leadership. These results suggest that China’s vaccine diplomacy does not pose a soft power threat to the US. Instead of focusing on competition with China, there may be more space for the US to prioritize global vaccine equity and health cooperation in the service of long-term US interests and overcoming the pandemic.