E-Paper
China delivers Covid vaccines to Pakistani military
A video on the handover released by the defence ministry showed the vaccines to be from the state-run Chinese pharmaceutical company, Sinopharm.
China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on Sunday delivered a batch of coronavirus vaccines to the Pakistan military, making it the first foreign military to receive anti-Covid shots directly from the Chinese armed forces.
The PLA also dispatched vaccines to the Cambodian army on Sunday, the Chinese defence ministry said. China and Pakistan consider each other close allies while Beijing’s ties with Phnom Penh are possibly the strongest among southeast Asian countries.
China and Pakistan share close military ties, with a senior Chinese general once remarking that it’s the “backbone” of the overall bilateral relations. The Chinese defence ministry on Sunday released separate statements on delivering the vaccines, saying the Pakistani military was the first to receive “vaccine assistance” from their Chinese counterparts.
“The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on Sunday delivered a batch of Covid-19 vaccines to the Pakistani military at the latter’s request and with the approval of the Central Military Commission,” China’s defence ministry said.
“The Pakistani military is the first foreign military to receive the Covid-19 vaccine assistance from the Chinese military.”
A video on the handover released by the defence ministry showed the vaccines to be from the state-run Chinese pharmaceutical company, Sinopharm.
The PLA will continue to make positive contributions to the building of a community of common health for mankind, the statement said. It did not share details about the number of vaccine doses that were given to the Pakistan army.
The defence ministry issued a similar statement on delivering vaccines to the Cambodian military, saying the “Cambodian military is one of the first foreign militaries to receive the Covid-19 vaccine assistance from the Chinese military”.
Last week, the first batch of 500,000 Chinese Covid-19 vaccines were sent to Pakistan, days after foreign minister Wang Yi promised Islamabad that Beijing would assist Pakistan with vaccines and accelerate vaccines exports to the country, Chinese state media reported.
Besides Pakistan, China is also providing vaccine aid to 13 developing countries, including Brunei, Nepal, the Philippines, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Palestine, Belarus, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, and Equatorial Guinea, with 38 more developing countries in need slated to receive China’s vaccine aid at a later stage, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Wang Wenbin, said last week.
“China has supported its companies in conducting joint research and production of vaccines with foreign partners and already exported Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines to countries including the UAE, Morocco, Indonesia, Turkey, Brazil, and Chile,” Wang said.
