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Sinovac Biotech vaccines are unloaded at Guarulhos International Airport in Sao Paulo on Nov. 19. Few places have seen the vaccine issue become more politicized than Brazil.

Sinovac Biotech vaccines are unloaded at Guarulhos International Airport in Sao Paulo on Nov. 19. Few places have seen the vaccine issue become more politicized than Brazil.

Photographer: Jonne Roriz/Bloomberg
Politics
Prognosis

China Is Struggling to Get the World to Trust Its Vaccines

What should have been a big Covid win for Beijing in building ties is revealing widespread mistrust in China’s products.

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Of all the developing countries testing China’s Covid-19 vaccines, few are friendlier to Beijing than Pakistan. In the years leading up to the pandemic, China financed nearly $70 billion across the South Asian nation on roads, railways and power stations, and Pakistan now has two Chinese clinical trials underway, with even senior government officials being inoculated.

Yet interviews with people in Karachi, the nation’s biggest city -- as well as in other developing nations from Indonesia to Brazil, together with surveys and official comments -- show that China has failed to assure the millions of people who may have to rely on its vaccines.

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