More than one year into the pandemic, it is hard to overstate how much China has improved its standing in Latin America in terms of both its reputation among the general public and its influence with leaders and policymakers. Beijing’s diplomatic triumph—as the provider of the majority of all vaccines administered in Latin America, where the pandemic is still raging and more than 1 million people have died of COVID-19 so far—is all the more remarkable given the obstacles China faced along the way.
First, Chinese diplomats had to address lingering doubts in Latin America about the origins of COVID-19, which led to diplomatic tensions after Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro suggested the pandemic may be the result of Chinese “chemical warfare.” His son Eduardo, a powerful congressman, along with several cabinet members, insisted on calling the coronavirus the “China virus,” and former Brazilian Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo often referred to COVID-19 as the “comunavirus” in an attempt to link the virus to communism. Sinophobia has now become a key element of Brazilian nationalist discourse.
