The West's campaign against Chinese COVID-19 vaccines distorts facts

**Editor's note: **Dennis Etler is a current affairs commentator who holds a doctorate in anthropology from the University of California, Berkley. He conducted archaeological and anthropological research in China throughout the 1980s and 1990s and taught at the college and university level for over 35 years. The article reflects the author's opinions, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

A recent article in AsiaTimes (The West practicing vaccine apartheid at a global level) offers a piercing exposé and indictment of Western Big Pharma, Western governments, and their complicit Corporate Media in hyping Western COVID-19 vaccines while denigrating those from China and Russia. The hypocrisy and double standards employed are par for the course and what has come to be expected by any discerning reader of the corrupt Western news and social media.

From early on during the COVID-19 pandemic the Donald Trump administration propagandized how Operation Warp Speed, a public–private partnership initiated by the United States government, would mass produce multiple vaccines, and different types of vaccine technologies, in record time. This was supposed to illustrate the technological superiority and prowess of the American pharmaceutical industry. It was one of the few feathers Trump could put on his presidential cap.

Left unsaid was the fact that the two prize vaccines, both of which used new messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, were using a technique that had been pioneered by joint scientific collaboration between U.S., Chinese and other scientists from around the world.

As reported by Global Times, "The development of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines may not have come so fast without the efforts of a scientist from China who has invested years in laying the groundwork."

"Wang Nianshuang, a former research associate with the University of Texas at Austin, who has studied coronaviruses for years found his work became vital in design of a synthetic spike protein of the vaccines developed by multiple developers including the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson Johnson and Novavax."

The vaccines developed by Operation Warp Speed were thus not the sole brainchild of the U.S. but the result of prior international scientific collaborations that helped pave the way for their creation and production. None of that background is, however, ever mentioned in the Western media that is so quick to pounce on China whenever they need a convenient scapegoat.

Even today, after Trump has been relegated to the historical dustbin, the Joe Biden administration harps on how quickly the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines were developed and deployed, notwithstanding the fact that the Chinese, Russian and Indian vaccines were developed and deployed just as fast.

The first shipment of 200,000 doses China-provided COVID-19 vaccine arrived at the Robert Mugabe International Airport, Harare, Zimbabwe, February 15, 2021. /CFP

More than that, both the Chinese and Russian vaccines do not require the cold chain infrastructure that the mRNA vaccines need, and they are easier and cheaper to produce in that they use more traditional, tried and true technologies. Why then didn't Western Big Pharma follow suit and gear up to produce the type of vaccines made by China and Russia? The answer, apparently, was there is a lot more profit in producing mRNA vaccines than the more traditional types, especially when Western governments foot the RD costs to the tune of billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies.

Recently Western vaccines produced by AstraZeneca, and JJ have been suspended because of untoward side effects, putting a damper on their international rollout. This is rather embarrassing, to say the least, especially in light of the disinformation campaign launched by the Western media about both the Chinese and Russian vaccines. All the scaremongering by the Western mass media regarding the alleged unreliability and low efficacy of the Chinese and Russian vaccines have been proven wrong by their success in real-life circumstances, and their safety record has been impeccable.

China was able to contain and control COVID-19 without one shot in the arm. Unlike nearly every other country in the world, China has not seen a second wave. Whatever local flare-ups that occurred have been quickly stanched by testing and quarantines. As a consequence, China has been able to supply its vaccines to the global South and certain other countries as a global public good, even while beginning to vaccinate its own citizens. No other country is in a position to do the same.

Much ado was recently made about the U.S. and its so-called "Quad" allies supporting India as the preferred supplier of COVID-19 vaccines to low and middle income countries in an attempt to counter Chinese efforts. India, however, has been afflicted with a devastating second wave of infection and has withdrawn its vaccines from export. China, on the other hand, is in a position to supply its vaccines to low and middle income countries but it can't do it alone. Nonetheless, China has demonstrated that it is not in competition with any other countries and instead welcomes all efforts to make vaccines more readily available for free or at affordable cost.

The vindictive campaign of the West against Chinese COVID-19 vaccines is just one example of the prejudicial and biased attitude the West takes towards anything that China does, distorting facts and fabricating falsehoods. But the truth has a way of eventually coming to the fore to the benefit of those who have been slandered and the detriment of those who spread lies and calumnies.

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