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In recent days, the Israeli government released documents showing the extent of its extensive cooperation with the American giant Pfizer, which is allied with the German company Biontech, as part of its campaign to immunize its population, one of the largest campaigns. of the world.
Israel has already vaccinated a quarter of its population of nine million people. In exchange for immediate receipt of the vaccines, Israel provides the laboratory with information on the level of immunity and possible side effects of the vaccine based on indicators such as age or medical history. It has extensive digital medical databases.
This important cooperation was not surprising given that Israel is the main strategic ally of the United States in the region. Israel has also requested millions of doses of the vaccine from the American company Moderna, which currently receives less demand in the region.
In the Middle East, other countries like Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Oman have opted for Pfizer. As for Iraq, Jordan, the Emirates and Bahrain, they chose to diversify and also ordered vaccines from the Chinese Sinopharm.
Abu Dhabi and Bahrain are allies of Washington and normalized their relations with Israel in late 2020, and participated in the third phase of clinical trials of the Chinese vaccine, which the UAE now considers “completely safe.”
Health of the Silk Road
Yahya Zubair, who specializes in relations between China and the Arab world, explains that these options are based on technical considerations such as cost or storage requirements. The Pfizer vaccine should be stored at minus 70 degrees, while the Sinopharm vaccine needs two to eight degrees. However, geopolitics is not immune to this.
The Cage Business School professor says that since the beginning of the epidemic, “The United States has acted abnormally. The (former President Donald) Trump administration has closed in on itself while China has adopted a healthy diplomacy in its entirety. “.
“The Chinese were more active and showed more cooperation,” he added, referring to sending them masks and respirators or even conducting webinars with medical bodies in various countries.
And he emphasizes: “Today, with the new Silk Roads (the Chinese infrastructure that includes more than 130 countries), there is also a healthy Silk Road.”
He added that “health has become an element of China’s foreign policy, and this allows it to expand its circle of friends” in a region where various parties compete to impose their influence, and from which China gets half of its oil imports.
However, Jonathan Fulton, a China-Middle East relations specialist at Zayed University in the United Arab Emirates, believes the United States has exerted “strong pressure on its allies not to cooperate with China.” However, in light of this health crisis that started from its territory, China has managed to become a “credible actor”.
But Fulton says that with its new Silk Roads project, Beijing clearly seeks to “increase its influence” in the Middle East, but not to replace the United States.
Trump effects
In the rest of the region, other loyal allies of the United States, such as Egypt and Morocco in particular, have requested the Sinopharm vaccine.
Analysts say that these countries seek, among other things, to benefit from this cooperation to establish potential Chinese vaccine production centers in the Middle East and Africa.
“It seems clear that Beijing’s prestige is increasing day by day,” said Tevin Cook, an analyst at the Council on International Relations, a Washington think tank.
“In this region, people see the United States as the global technological powerhouse … But, until now, it has been completely absent from this vaccine diplomacy,” he adds. In part he attributes this “absence” to Trump, who “avoided international cooperation and devalued science.”
Sputnik arrives
In this dispute for influence through vaccines, the United Kingdom relies on AstraZeneca, which has commissioned a vaccine from six countries in the region, while Russia is promoting its vaccine, Sputnik-V.
Algeria, a longtime Moscow ally, also requested doses of the Chinese vaccine and the Russian vaccine, which are cheaper than competing vaccines produced in the West, but local newspapers have questioned their reliability.
The newspaper El Watan said that “one should not bet on the health of Algerians in the game of Russian roulette.” Morocco and the Palestinians also requested the Russian vaccine.
Ramallah, the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority, which cut communications with the United States under Trump, is expected to receive the Sputnik-V vaccine, while 2.5 million Israelis received at least a first dose of the Pfizer vaccine, a reported variation. by non-governmental organizations.
Iran refuses to order Western vaccines, saying it wants to source its vaccines from India, China or Russia, or even rely on its own production.
But if, according to analysts, China appears to be the winner in this “vaccine diplomacy,” things could still change depending on the pace of the handover and the position of the new administration in Washington. Jonathan Fulton says, “It’s not resolved yet.”
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