Be Like Arjun: India shouldn’t be rattled by China but work on an effective counter strategy

Whatever the followers in social media and elsewhere may be doing, our leaders at least are avoiding any chest thumping and belligerence. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement in response to the clash in the Galwan valley that took the lives of 20 Indian soldiers has been tough, but sober. It is difficult to avoid some schadenfreude over his predicament. In similar circumstances in Uri in 2016 or in Pulwama in 2019 he did not hold back his rhetoric, or hand. Retribution visited Pakistan swiftly and was wildly acclaimed.

But he is right to treat China differently, because it is different. For one, it is much stronger than we are. Getting into a scrap over a place where no blade of grass grows was foolish in the 1950s, and would be so now. There are many in the mustachioed fraternity dying to give Beijing a bloody nose as we did in 1967. But they are confusing response to a localised incident with the larger undertaking of dealing with an assertive China.

Given the balance of forces on the LAC, we can, indeed, deliver a telling blow to the Chinese in western Tibet, but what then? China’s heartland is 2,500 km away and once it brings its superior numbers there will be a backflow. We are not even talking about nuclear weapons, which should ensure that the conflict remains limited, but it just may not.

There are many other proposals in the air – boycott Chinese goods, join the US in a formal military alliance, spend huge monies in modernising the armed forces. But none of them can address the situation we confront today.

With established global supply chains fraying, we must first decide whether we’ll be “atmanirbhar” or an alternative workshop of the world. Either way, industrial ecosystems cannot be created by magic. Pimpri-Chinchwad, Madurai-Coimbatore, Faridabad-Gurgaon regions did not come up overnight, but over several decades.

As for spending more on defence modernisation, understand that it can’t be done along with the above-mentioned tasks. With no defence industry to speak of, we’ll have to import our needs. Opportunity costs in developmental and social welfare sectors will have to be paid.

The US alliance appears to be the most seductive option. Without putting down serious money we can get a free ride on Uncle Sam’s back. But that’s provided you are willing to trust his current avatar – Donald J Trump. Remember, though, that when you sign up with the greatest power on earth, orbited by economic giants like the UK, Germany and Japan, you do not have the vanity of deciding your role. Ask the South Koreans or the Afghans.

There are two new suggestions doing the rounds – forming a coalition of middle powers or a concert of democracies. The former would be a geopolitical equivalent of a platypus, the animal designed by committee. Democracies are not looking too good these days either. Witness the travails of the leader, the US, wracked by an uprising of people saying that they have not been treated fairly for a long, long time. As for India, we will reserve our comment except to say that we alone can safeguard our national interest. The democracies don’t even recognise that Ladakh is an indisputable part of India.

The important thing right now is not to get rattled by immediate events. Covid-19 has jangled nerves globally, and we shouldn’t allow a border clash to rattle ours in the region. Before Covid things were not too good. The pandemic has created further damage and is yet to peak. This is neither the time to boycott a major economic power or get into a shooting war with anyone. Anger against China is understandable, but there are times in one’s life, when you must swallow back bile and get on with life. Only sustained high economic growth will have the means of offsetting China. Our aim, like Arjun, must be on the eye of the fish. And as the Americans say, don’t get mad, get even.

Times of India June 20, 2020

China's Galwan Valley Gambit is Attempt to Extend Official Claim Line

At no point in the past has China laid claim to the entire Galwan Valley, a sliver of flat land abutted by steep gorges through which the Galwan river flows and enters the Shyok river, and the maps Beijing has itself published in the past show its claim line stopping short of the confluence.

Earlier this week, however, in the wake of bloody clashes between the Indian and Chinese armies in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed and China too suffered an unknown number of casualties, both the Peoples Liberation Army and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing have described the Galwan Valley as part of China’s territory.

China’s claim line stops short of the confluence of the Galwan and Shyok rivers, encompassing most but not all of the Galwan valley. Lines of Actual Control have varied over the years and in many ways have been notional. When there were no roads, the LAC was merely a line connecting the scattered posts. On the right, a Chinese map issued in the midst of the 1962 war indicating what they claim were Indian incursions (blue dots) Source: Dorothy Woodman, Himalayan Frontiers (1969) for map on left and the Foreign Languages Press, Peking 1974 publication of Premier Zhou’s letter to Afro-Asian leaders on the Sino-Indian boundary issue on November 15, 1962, for map on the right.

The Galwan river is named after Ghulam Rassul Galwan, a Ladakhi adventurer who accompanied many European explorers in the region at the turn of the 19th century. According to Ladakhi history the Galwan Nullah was named so by British geologists after he discovered a passage through what seemed like an impenetrable set of gorges.

Over the years, the status of the Galwan Valley has changed and, if the recent developments are to be taken into account, it is still changing.

Commenting on the incident of July 15,  the official spokesman of the Western Theatre Command of the PLA, Zhang Shuili, accused the Indian side of “deliberately launching a provocative attack” and he went on to add that “the sovereignty of the Galwan Valley has always belonged to China.”India, of course, disagrees with this claim, and the Special Representatives process was designed to help the two countries resolve their differences over the boundary question. Linked to this process is the line of actual control, or LAC, which is not a line on the ground or even an agreed line on a map – which is why it is susceptible to changes by one side or the other. Over the years, a familiar pattern has built up around specific problem areas along the LAC but the Galwan Valley has not been one of them.

While the earliest map issued by India after independence showed the countries borders in Aksai Chin as undefined, the present boundaries of what is now the Union Territory of Ladakh were drawn unilaterally in 1954.

As for the Chinese, different maps showed  Aksai Chin sometimes in their territory, sometimes outside. But they needed the area to build an all-weather road from Xinjiang to facilitate their assimilation of Tibet. And they did this over several years in the early 1950s.

In the 1950s, Indian patrols rarely ventured into the inhospitable region where there is no human habitation. The history of India’s inability to prevent the construction of China’s highway from Xinjiang to Tibet through the region is well known, as is the fact that New Delhi only learnt of the development years after it had occurred.

Today, we talk about the LAC, but at the time there was virtually no Chinese presence in the area around Galwan. When we talk of the “line of actual control” we are talking of a line that connects the dots on the maps indicating isolated posts of both sides, some being held by 20-30 persons in that vast area.

The Chinese established a post at Samzungling at the head of the Galwan river  before India could some time in 1959. As part of its misguided ‘forward policy’, India tried to cut off the Chinese post by planting one of its own. Army HQ overruled the Western Command headquarters and insisted that the post be set up. In the winter of 1961, an effort to go up the river valley failed, so a platoon of Gorkhas was sent up from the Hot Springs area in the south. After a month’s march, the group reached the upper reaches of the Galwan Valley and established themselves on July 5, 1962, cutting off the Chinese post down river and even blocking a Chinese supply party to the post.

There was an exchange of diplomatic notes with a stiff Chinese protest on July 8. India’s response was that it had always been patrolling the area and accused the Chinese of “incessant intrusions” into Indian territory. On July 10, some 70 Chinese soldiers surrounded the Indian post and later increased their strength to a  battalion. The post was now cut off and  columns sent overland to  supply it in mid-July were intercepted. Eventually, it had to be supplied by air. On the morning of October 20, 1962, it was wiped out, along with other posts set up in Chip Chap river valley up north.

Map showing ‘Historical development of Western Sector Boundary’. Source: Neville Maxwell, India’s China War (Pelican, 1972)

Incidentally, the Henderson-Brooks report notes that in the discussions before sending the forces to evict the Chinese from the Thag La pass north of Tawang, the government was willing to accept a loss of certain territory in Ladakh. Indeed, the report notes that even while the operation at Thag La – the event that triggered the Sino-Indian war of 1962 – was being planned, there was little or no attention paid to shoring up the isolated posts in Ladakh. They were simply asked to be prepared for some Chinese reactions on the forward posts and their orders were to “fight it out and inflict maximum casualties on the Chinese.”

Following the war, the Chinese said they were carrying out a 20 km withdrawal behind their frontlines. There were no Indian forces in that region anywhere so it didn’t really matter. It is only in the 1980s that India began to re-establish itself along the LAC, but in areas like the Galwan Valley it was constrained by the terrain.

Chinese claims in the Aksai Chin were confusing and sometimes contradictory. But, at the end of the day, they had physical control of the territory and easier access to it than India. Maps in the 1950s often showed the Chang Chenmo Valley within India. In 1959, Zhou Enlai confirmed that a map published in 1956 was the correct alignment. This map showed the Galwan and Chip Chap river valleys to be parts of India. It was only in their sixth meeting with Indian officials in June 1960 that the Chinese put out what they said was their official map which included the two valleys as part of Chinese territory.

Since 1993, both India and China have maintained the fiction of a “Line of Actual Control” in the area, which was all right till the other day. Suddenly the Chinese have decided that the entire Galwan Valley is part of their territory.

The Chinese goal now seems to be to establish their boundary along the Shyok river, as it seems to be to push forward and control all of the north bank of Pangong Lake  constraining Indian defences relating to the Leh region. As for the LAC, to paraphrase  Humpty Dumpty, it is where you choose it to be.

The Wire JUne 18, 2020

Can India Still Avoid Becoming Collateral Damage In US-China Row?

The clash in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley – that has caused the deaths of Colonel Santosh Babu of the Bihar Regiment and reportedly 19 other Indian Army personnel, and an unspecified number of Chinese casualties – should not surprise us. Given the increasing tension on the Sino-Indian border, it was only a matter of time before the situation exploded as it has now. According to sources, more than twice this number of casualties has occurred on the Chinese side.

Ironically, this violence has taken place during the de-escalation process.

As the Indian Army statement notes, “During the de-escalation process underway in the Galwan Valley, a violent face-off took place yesterday (Monday, 15 June) night, with casualties on both sides. The loss of life on the Indian side includes an officer and two soldiers. Senior military officials of two sides are currently meeting at the venue to defuse the situation.”

Indeed, on Saturday, 13 June, Indian Army Chief MM Naravane had himself said that both armies “are disengaging in a phased manner” from the Galwan Valley, and that the military talks between the two sides had been “very fruitful”, and that “the entire situation along our borders with China is under control.”

India-China Border Violence: Collapse of Confidence Building Measures Regime

The Ministry of External Affairs has charged that the incident was the outcome of an effort by the Chinese forces to “unilaterally change status quo there.” The Chinese seem to be suggesting that the boot may be on the other foot.

Reports suggest that a quarrel over the Chinese side not removing a tent, which they had previously committed to do so, was the immediate provocation for the scuffle.

The situation got out of hand; people have lost their lives or been injured, and both sides are now trying to contain the problem. It needs to be noted that while iron rods and stones are not guns and knives, they can be equally lethal – and it is a wonder that someone hadn’t got killed until now in the other scuffles that have been happening in recent years.

More than anything else, the event in Galwan Valley marks the breakdown of the 27-year-old Confidence Building Measures (CBM) regime, through which the two sides were trying to work out a mutually acceptable border, even while maintaining peace along the Line of Actual Control.

Earlier there had been clashes, such as the ones in Sikkim in 1967 when artillery was used, leading to hundreds of casualties. Then there was the eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation in Sumdorong Chu Valley and other areas near Tawang in 1987, but this had ended without any physical clashes.

Why We Shouldn’t Underestimate Seriousness Of India-China Border Violence

In a peculiar way, the incident in Galwan on the night of 15 June 2020, can also be seen as a ‘success’ of the CBM regime – that the casualties were the outcome of stone-pelting rather than the substantial weaponry both sides have brought up near the LAC. In some ways, this was a repeat of the violent clashes that occurred in Pangong Tso on 5-6 May, when soldiers on both sides clashed with iron rods and stones, with several being injured on both sides.

Given the massive military deployments along the LAC, we should not underestimate the seriousness of the situation. The reason is that with the CBMs breaking down, there will be little to restrain the two sides in an area where there is no recognised border. 

If both sides begin to press their claims unrestrainedly, or create new claims, we have all the ingredients for a larger conflict. Neither side can afford to have one at this time when they are reeling from an attack by another enemy — the COVID-19 virus.

If Beijing Thinks New Delhi May Throw Its Weight Into US Camp, Then All Bets Are Off

Already, it seems clear that the Chinese want to redraw the LAC in the Galwan sector. There have never been clashes earlier in this area since the end of the 1962 war when Indian posts upriver were wiped out or withdrawn during the conflict. The Chinese motive now seems to be two-fold – one being to threaten the vital Indian road running along the Shyok linking Darbuk to Daulat Beg Oldie.

They know fully well that this means a major shift in maintaining peace and tranquility on the LAC, and here, their signal seems to be aimed at India’s steady drift into the American camp.

As long as India maintained its strategic autonomy, it could leverage its independence for the guarantee of China’s ‘good behaviour’.

But if Beijing thinks that New Delhi has decided to throw its weight into the American camp, then all bets are off.

Whether India has indeed begun the process of becoming a military partner of the US or not is unclear. The Modi government has taken several steps, including the signing of three of four foundational agreements to cement military-to-military ties, and upgraded the Quad dialogue to the ministerial level.

But the sheer scale of the casualties on the LAC will now drive decision-making in South Block – and that is not a good thing.

 

Why India Must Remain Cautious – And Not Become ‘Collateral Damage’

In normal times, the situation could have been managed, as, indeed, it was through the Wuhan and Chennai summits. But these are not normal times.

COVID-19 has greatly heightened US-China tensions, and given the rhetoric coming out of Washington, Beijing could be on edge. And what we are witnessing on the India-China border is a manifestation of that. 

Our endeavour should be to stay out of any Big Power conflict in which we could be collateral damage. But the number of dead may force India’s hand in taking an action that generates its own dynamic.

Quint June 17, 2020

https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/india-china-border-violence-casualties-united-states-pressure-diplomacy-indian-chinese-military#read-more

China & Post-COVID World: Worries Facing Xi Jinping as He Turns 67

Last year, China President Xi Jinping got surprise gifts on his birthday. Russia President Vladimir Putin presented him a cake, a box full of ice cream and a vase, at the hotel they were staying in at Dushanbe, for a summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA). This was clearly a return gesture as Putin revealed that he had spent his 61st birthday in 2013 drinking vodka shots and eating sandwiches with Xi.

It is unlikely that on Monday, 15 June, when Xi celebrates his 67th, his friend Putin will be around. These are hard times for all, and friendship is a scarce commodity

Xi has just about managed to turn the tide of the COVID-19 pandemic, but is still caught in the vortex of the consequences of shutting down the Chinese economy, albeit for a while. As for Putin, COVID-19 rages in Russia and having taken a heavy toll, it may only now be on a downward course.

‘COVID-19 One of the Biggest Tests in Xi’s 8 Years of Governance’

A year ago, China amended its Constitution to remove term limits on its Presidency. But Xi is not just the President of the People’s Republic of China, he is the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, as well as the supreme commander of the People’s Liberation Army, offices that have not had any term limits anyway.

Not for nothing is he called “the Chairman of everything.” In fact, another amendment to the Constitution has added “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese characteristics for a New Era” into its preamble.

In the nascent stages of COVID-19, in January 2020, the political situation in China was not the greatest, but it was not too bad, despite the ongoing strife in Hong Kong. Japan had come around, Xi was planning a visit, his first, to his neighbour, marking a possible entente. He had managed to strike a Phase I trade deal with the United States, which would not have ended the confrontation, but certainly moderated it. As for India, the Chennai summit of 2019 had confirmed the détente struck at Wuhan the year before.

Within the country, the modernisation of the military was continuing apace and the government was moving, although slowly, to reform its economic structure. Hong Kong was the one visible mess and the Party had finally decided to act on it. But this has not been known till recently.

Suddenly, COVID-19 hit, and for a while, the Chinese ship began to list. As a Xinhua commentary acknowledged on the day Xi visited Wuhan for the first time after the pandemic on 10 March, this was “one of the biggest tests in his eight years of governance.”

The visit marked the turning point of the COVID-19 crisis for China, a period that led to shuttered businesses and factories and even the postponement of the National People’s Congress. After initial mis-steps, Xi gambled by taking unprecedented measures that curbed the virus’ spread in China, though it continued to ravage Europe and the US, and has yet to stop its deadly course around the world.

Changing Global Equations Amid the Pandemic

Today, the whole world has changed. In China COVID-19 brought huge job losses in its wake. Besides the formal unemployment of largely urban workers, migrants who are registered as living in rural areas lost their jobs.

According to the Wall Street Journal, as many as 80 million people were out of work during the lockdown, this is more than the 26 million stated in government figures. Recovery has begun, but the path to the future is uncertain, especially because of the breakdown with the US.

As COVID-19 hit, Xi worked the phones with world leaders, first the Americans, Russians and the British, mainly to gather support. He also spoke to others such as Moon Jae-in, King Salman, and leaders of various other countries, but there was no conversation with Shinzo Abe or Narendra Modi. There were clearly faultlines that became more visible in the succeeding months.

With the US, relations were on the verge of beginning to mend following the Phase 1 trade deal in January, but the pandemic has taken them several notches lower. The two countries are now on the verge of a New Cold War, with Washington stepping up restrictions against Chinese companies and talking of a larger process of decoupling.

When the COVID-19 crisis hit, relations with Japan were doing well. Xi had been scheduled to make his first visit to the country as the leader of China in April. But the pandemic led to its postponement and now it is not clear whether it will take place this year. The issue is no longer about timing, but a deterioration of the relationship, triggered by the Chinese decision to pass a new security law in Hong Kong. But it has definitely been affected by the tensions between Washington and Beijing.

Tensions with India are so far manifested by the give-and-take along the Line of Actual Control. In that sense they do not bring Xi directly into the equation. Ties with India are, no doubt, a function of its relationship with the US.

With the torrent of bad news, Xi has also had to confront the damage to his cherished Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Across the developing world, China is facing calls for forgiveness of some, and possibly even all, loans they have given. Having somewhat recklessly loaned money on a scheme that had the imprimatur of the President himself, the Chinese banks are now in trouble.

Following the G20, China agreed to freeze all debt repayments for the poorest countries till the end of 2020. But it has said nothing about forgiveness. You can’t blame them, considering the total amount is to the tune of $0.6 trillion. But since it is Xi’s signature initiative, we are likely to see a retrenchment of the plan, rather than its collapse. As for now, China has kept the BRI active as the “Health Silk Road,” which is seeking to provide medical supplies to the COVID-19-hit countries.

Time to Reflect on His Signature Policies?

The COVID-19 pandemic, the lockdown and the freeze of normal governance activity and travel may have given Xi some time to reflect on his own signature policies, whether they are the China Dream of strong military power, economic reform in China, or of the BRI.

Xi must be wondering whether it was a good idea to, at least theoretically, be able to extend his tenure as President indefinitely. Any way you look at it, China now faces a sea of troubles and uncertainty for the rest of his second term till 2023. He can be pardoned for wondering if it may not be a bad idea to join his predecessors in working on gardening and grandchildren thereafter.

Speaking of birthdays, Xi’s American bete noire Donald Trump continues to haunt him, having celebrated his the day before, on Sunday, 14 June.

Quint June 15, 2020

https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/on-xi-jinping-birthday-a-sea-of-troubles-lies-ahead-of-china-covid19-coronavirus-pandemic?

India-China Tensions: Betting on a Quick Return to Status Quo Ante Would Be Hazardous

There should be no surprise at the insipid Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) statement on the India-China border issue. It tells us what we already know 1) a meeting was held between the Corps Commanders of India and China on June 6 and 2) the two sides were maintaining their military and diplomatic engagement to peacefully resolve the situation.

There is no word on whether there has been any kind of disengagement, or even a commitment towards one in all, or any one of the problem areas—Galwan, Gogra or Pangong Tso. We may, in the coming months, be able to persuade the Chinese to thin their deployments near the Line of Actual Control (LAC), but betting on a quick return to the status quo ante would be hazardous.

A new and nervous era

A lot of the commentary we have seen on the Sino-Indian contretemps on the LAC has been about history, geopolitics and cartography. It could actually be the harbinger of a new and nervous era, a geopolitical side-effect of the terrible COVID-19 pandemic which is racking the world.

Instead of following the rational path of uniting to fight a common public health calamity, as we have done in the case of polio, HIV, small pox and so on, this time, geopolitical nerve points are being deliberately inflamed.

The US seems to be moving from trade war to decoupling and has successfully persuaded its old allies, Australia and the UK, to once again march to its drumbeat. Japan, which was on the verge of an entente with China earlier this year, seems to have drawn back. And China which is never too comfortable with disorderly things, is like a blindfolded person, hitting out in all directions with the belief it is protecting itself.

And then there is India. As usual, after the “masterstroke” that was the lockdown, the Narendra Modi government is trying to cope with its consequences. And as it appears unable to do so, it a) throws the issue back to the states, after having ridden roughshod over them in the first place and b) simply declares victory, even as people are starting to die across the country in ever larger numbers from a pandemic multiplied by the original “masterstroke” without any supporting plan to exploit its advantages.

So what has happened on the border? First and foremost, the LAC is something of a ghost line. It’s not delimited on any map, leave alone marked on the ground by a fence or boundary pillars. Whether this side of a nullah or a ridge is Chinese territory, or that, is a matter of perception and, when push comes to shove, physical possession.

So, whether it is in Galwan or in the Pangong Tso Finger 4-Finger 8 area, the system worked when both sides observed the rules of the game, worked out laboriously through a regime of Confidence Building Measures – the 1993 Border Peace and Tranquility Agreement, the 1996 Military CBM agreement, the 2005 Protocol on CBM implementation along the LAC, and the Border Defence Cooperation Agreement of 2013.

Now, one of the parties seems to be suggesting that new rules be worked out. It is true that China has, for the past decade, trying to get India to freeze its border infrastructure construction. It is also true that India has, instead rightly accelerated the process since it was badly placed in terms of infrastructure along the LAC, as compared to the Chinese. Because of this, curiously, it maintained a stronger forward presence along the LAC than the Chinese did. And some of this is clearly making the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) nervous. Whether it was the COVID-19 outbreak, or something else, it has decided to act nowA warning from 2017

But we should have heeded the warning from 2017 that was contained in an article in the South China Morning Post in the wake of the Doklam crisis, written by Senior Colonel Zhou Bo, a familiar figure in the Chinese information war circuit and an honorary fellow in the PLA Academy of Military Sciences. According to Zhou, India would be the net loser of the crisis because “the disputed border was not on China’s strategic radar” till the Doklam standoff. The PLA had since reconsidered its assessment of the strategic importance of the Sino-Indian border and would begin to upgrade its military capabilities there. And that is what has happened.

Till Doklam, China had a relaxed posture, keeping just five PLA brigades in Tibet with a capacity to reinforce them to 30 divisions. Its Air Force lacked adequate bases, and even where the PLAF operated, the bases lacked bomb-proof shelters for parking combat aircraft. But things have changed in the last three years. The PLA is being equipped with newer weapons and more cantonments have come up to house them permanently. And so have bomb-proof facilities for fighters, at least in the main base at Lhasa’s Gonggar airfield.

All this has, of course, been happening in recent years, but now we are seeing a new nervous tic that COVID-19 may have given to the global body politic. It could be signalling hard times ahead.

The Wire  June 12, 2020 

https://thewire.in/security/india-china-border-tensions-manoj-joshi

The race for Covid-19 vaccine

EVEN as the US is tightening the screws on China on account of 5G technology, another, perhaps more consequential, front may be opening up in its new Cold War with China. According to a report, Beijing may deploy a coronavirus vaccine as early as September, even if the clinical trials are not finished. This is being justified as an effort to protect ‘at risk’ groups like medical personnel, but it is also about who comes first in the race for an effective vaccine.

While a ‘gold standard’ vaccine will take time, the contest is as much about prestige as about saving millions of lives and earning billions of dollars.

This contest is as much about prestige, as about saving millions of lives and earning billions of dollars. For China, it is also about redemption, given its inexplicable delay in informing the world about the outbreak.

We can only hope that following the unseemly conduct of countries in restricting the export of medicines and medical equipment at the outbreak of Covid-19, we will not see ‘vaccine nationalism’ when their efforts bear fruit.

The Chinese see themselves against a US effort triggered by President Trump’s call, in mid-May, for developing a vaccine at ‘warp speed’. To meet the target of a vaccine by October — in part motivated by the US elections in November — the US’s Biomedical Advanced Research & Development Authority (BARDA) said they would provide $1.2 billion support to Oxford University-AstraZeneca to deliver 300 doses of their potential vaccine by the end of September.

As of now, there are 224 candidate vaccines in development globally, according to the data collected by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). While North America has the largest number of projects — 49 per cent — China is the furthest along the track with five vaccines in phase II human trials, more than any other country.

Of the 10 vaccines that are at the stage of human trials, six are Chinese, and it is the only country with a vaccine which has advanced to phase II. This is the Can Sino Biologics-Beijing Institute of Biotechnology product using the ‘non-replicating viral vector’ design, similar to the Oxford University one, and whose phase I trial was reported on May 22 by Lancet.

Other leading candidates are being developed by Pfizer and BioNTech of Germany, Moderna and Inovio of the US, and a clutch of Chinese institutions like Sinovac Biotech, the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products and the Shenzhen Geno-Immune Medical Institute. Most of them are completing their phase I trial.

Both the US and Chinese militaries are active in the vaccine development front. The Beijing Institute of Biotechnology, which is working with Can Sino, is part of the Academy of Military Medical Sciences, whose star is a top virologist, Major General Chen Wei. In the US, the Army Medical Research Institute and the Walter Reed Institute of Research are also working to develop a vaccine.

The effort is seeing innovative approaches and new kinds of partnerships to ensure that, when certified, the vaccine will be available at the fastest speed and most widely distributed. Besides AstraZeneca, BARDA has also agreed to give $483 million to Moderna and $500 million to Johnson & Johnson for their efforts. But, BARDA’s 300 million doses are obviously aimed to cover all US citizens. The real battle is to ensure that it reaches the globe’s billions.

For this reason, Oxford University has a prior agreement with AstraZeneca to distribute the potential vaccine at no profit for the duration of the epidemic. Another British effort through the Imperial College’s laboratory would bypass the drug industry entirely. According to the New York Times, the vaccine, using specifically engineered genetic material—RNA—is cheaper and easier to make than Moderna’s, which uses a similar technique, and so would be ideal for global use.

A major player in these efforts is CEPI, launched in Norway in 2017 to finance new vaccines. It has among its sponsors, the Norwegian and Indian governments, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust. CEPI has provided initial support and funding to Curevac, Inovio, Moderna, Novavax, University of Queensland, University of Hong Kong and Oxford University and a consortium led by Institut Pasteur and Clover Biopharmaceuticals.

AstraZeneca has arrived at a $750 million agreement with CEPI and GAVI to provide 300 million doses of their vaccine for the poorer countries by the end of the year. A major share of this effort will be achieved through the partnership with the Serum Institute of India, the world’s biggest vaccine maker based in Pune, to make a billion doses of their vaccine eventually.

Vaccines against viruses are notoriously difficult to develop. There is none, despite huge expenditure and effort, against HIV as yet. They can take a great deal of time, but the coronavirus pandemic is pushing its own envelope. A ‘gold standard’ vaccine—giving protection of six months, at least 50 per cent effective and able to prevent the transmission of the virus—will take time. The early vaccines may provide limited protection for frontline workers and medical personnel.

Technology has always been a major element in global power equations. Some of it has been good, and some bad. In some cases like nuclear power, it has both facets. But now, for the first time, we may be seeing biotechnology emerge as a factor as well.

Tribune JUne 9, 2020

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/the-race-for-covid-19-vaccine-96464