A long-awaited continuation to REMIT’s dashboard series is now up and available! REMIT’s second dashboard, created with the data from our Lead Partner University of Maastricht, is a look into the research that came out of UM this past fall.
Catherine Lo, whose research was the basis for this dashboard, has introduced it as follows:
“The dashboard attempts to visualize the main findings of the journal article “The effect of Chinese vaccine diplomacy during COVID-19 in the Philippines and Vietnam: a multiple case study from a soft power perspective,” published in October 2023 by Humanities and Social Sciences Communications.
Vaccine diplomacy is a subset of global health diplomacy and refers to the use and delivery of vaccines to achieve a country’s global health goals and foreign policy objectives. Countries have used vaccine diplomacy to increase their soft power during the COVID-19 pandemic. China, an emerging world power, was no exception in this trend. Focusing on two key claimants in the SCS, our study has the following research question: How effective was Chinese COVID-19 vaccine diplomacy in the Philippines and Vietnam from a soft power perspective? Through a qualitative multiple case study research design, we determined the effectiveness of Chinese vaccine diplomacy in the Philippines and Vietnam by using four indicators of soft power: public opinion, foreign policy, attractiveness, and business and trade. Data collection consisted of a literature search of academic literature and newspaper articles that were published between 26 May and 13 June 2022.
Analysing the effectiveness of Chinese vaccine diplomacy based on the four indicators of soft power, our results show that only the indicators of attractiveness in Vietnam and business and trade in the Philippines have somewhat improved. In contrast, the indicators of public opinion and foreign policy showed neutral or negative results for China. This study concludes that Chinese vaccine diplomacy in the Philippines and Vietnam during the COVID-19 pandemic was unsuccessful from a soft power perspective. One reason is that China undermined its soft power approach by simultaneously using hard power tactics in Southeast Asia. Using vaccine diplomacy to increase soft power is not always desirable from a global health perspective. Instead, countries should focus on equitable vaccine access and address asymmetrical power relations.”
