Soft Power and Covid Diplomacy in Asia

The Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade (IFAT) hosted an online roundtable discussion entitled Soft Power and Covid Diplomacy in Asia, which was the third part of the Asia roundtable program initiated by IFAT. Three experts were invited to join the discussion; Viktor Eszterhai, Senior Research Fellow, IFAT, Júlia Szivák, Assistant Research Fellow, Modern East Asia Research Group, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, and Gergely Salát, Senior Research Fellow, IFAT and Head of the China Department, Pázmány Péter Catholic University. The discussion was moderated by Tibor Mezei, Research Fellow, IFAT.

Gergely Salát stated that although the so-called covid diplomacy of the People’s Republic of China had been widely discussed, it didn’t have much foundation because China regarded the demand for covid vaccines primarily as a business opportunity. It had sold its vaccines on the market, and donated only an insignificant part of the manufactured vaccines to other countries.

Júlia Szivák, on the other hand, pointed out that India made an attempt to bolster its influence in the region through covid diplomacy, and donated a lot of packages of vaccines with the picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on them to neighboring countries. However, as the pandemic situation deteriorated in India, they stopped donating vaccines because they needed them at home.

Viktor Eszterhai declared that, all in all, he perceived the negative impact of the pandemic on the reputation of China and of the United States in the Asia-Pacific region. Consequently, neither of the two great power were able to increase their soft power through their management of the corona virus pandemic.

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