The Tribune

By Malcolm Strachan

THE Bahamas is increasingly finding itself caught in the middle of a geopolitical fight. On one side is the growing presence of China in the West. On the other, the United States.

China’s interest in what it refers to as a mutually beneficial relationship with The Bahamas has caused a number of prominent political voices in the US to sound the alarm. But with a focus on its own battle with COVID-19, the US has not done nearly enough to assist other countries being battered by the virus.

The latest blow in the China-US fight has come from US Senator Marco Rubio, who is calling on the Biden administration to act in the interest of the nation’s national security with respect to China’s evolving diplomatic power in developing countries in the western hemisphere.

Responding to what the Biden administration should do to assist The Bahamas with our need for additional vaccines, he said: “It’s important that the US stand ready to utilise all available tools to usher in an expedient end to the COVID-19 pandemic, which includes evaluating ways to effectively support the global vaccination effort.

“To protect our nation’s security and our neighbours in the region, we must prevent malign actors – like Russia and China – from leading this effort in our hemisphere. We must move quickly on this urgent matter.”

So far, there seems little indication the US intends to donate some of the 60 million doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca it plans to offload. As far as their vaccination programme, it is continuing at a pace the Biden administration is happy with, having administered 267 million doses and fully inoculating 119 million of their citizens. Make no mistake, Biden is indeed looking out for America first.

That is little different in tone from the previous administration, and beyond courtesy calls, there has not been a substantial engagement in the region initiated by the US.

If we think back to when Biden was Vice President, that was a time when the financial crisis of 2008 led to an inward focus by the Obama administration. This saw a reduced partnership which made way for a deepening of China’s presence in The Bahamas. Now, more than a decade later, President Biden is in the top seat in Washington, and yet again, an inward focus due to a global heath crisis and racial division in his country is opening the door to China.

China, for its part, having produced 240 million doses of vaccines, bears the title of the world’s largest exporter. This number is only likely to grow with production lines being expanded to more developing countries.

As we are fully engulfed in a third wave of COVID-19 with the likelihood of variants of the virus in our country, our vaccination programme needs to be hugely expanded. Unsure of where additional doses of the vaccine will be coming from, Minister of Foreign Affairs Darren Henfield and Minister of Health Renward Wells have their work cut out for them on the diplomatic front.

In times of extreme adversity, China and US competition actually may benefit The Bahamas.

With the pressure in Washington likely to ramp up for the US to look outward and assist developing countries, taking a page out of China’s playbook makes good sense. No question, the US would be wise to begin considering which side of history it wants to be remembered.

Chinese Embassy spokesperson Haigang Yin did not pull his punches when he offered a rebuttal to Senator Rubio’s statements.

“The statements made by certain politicians in the United States have only served to highlight the fact that the United States, as the predominant country in the Western Hemisphere and the world’s second-largest producer of COVID-19 vaccines, has so far done too little and has been too slow in helping its neighbours,” said Yin.

He added: “In the eyes of these politicians, geopolitical considerations trump the imperative of saving lives. For them, vaccines are nothing but tools for peddling influence in a zero-sum geopolitical game.”

Chinese xenophobia, American reverence, geographical proximity – none of it can overshadow that Yin makes a compelling point.

The fact that it has been weeks since the US announced its intention to dump unneeded vaccines and there hasn’t been a single donation we can point to, certainly does not delegitimise Yin’s commentary.

In the weeks to come, China, too, will have to put its money where its mouth is as our people are sick and dying.

With the World Health Organization’s (WHO) approval for Sinopharm - a vaccine developed by the Beijing Institute of Biological Products - China not only intends to vaccinate more than 60 percent of its own population by the end of the year, but also to continue exporting millions of doses to developing countries. And with an efficacy rate of 78 percent, eight percent higher than that of AstraZeneca, many countries will be looking to take advantage of that generosity.

In September of last year, Yin confirmed once vaccines were approved that The Bahamas would stand to benefit as one of its mutual partners. We certainly hope both Ministers Wells and Henfield have been in talks with the Chinese, and the former will soon be reporting to the Bahamian people about the next steps in acquiring additional vaccines.

Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis stands by his decision to remove testing requirements from our COVID protocols and early returns noted by Tourism Minister Dionisio D’Aguilar last week confirm it was the best decision as far as revenue generation goes. That said, if no course reversal is ahead, buttressing our vaccine capacity is the next and most immediate step in our continued fight with COVID-19.