This spring, India has provided COVID-19 shots to more than 90 countries. One of those is Paraguay, which received 100,000 doses of India’s Covaxin vaccine last month.
That might seem par for the course of New Delhi’s vaccine diplomacy, which has seen the country use inoculations and other medical equipment to cement its status—except for the fact that the supply to Paraguay apparently came after a request from Taiwan. This was reflected in an April statement by Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu that the Chinese government had tried to convince Paraguay to drop Taiwan as a diplomatic ally in exchange for vaccine doses. “In the last few weeks, we have been speaking to like-minded countries, including Japan, the United States, India etc., and India fortunately has been able to provide some Covaxin vaccines to Paraguay,” Wu said.
