‘Since the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic occurred in Myanmar, China actively helped Myanmar to contact Chinese vaccine producers and secure vaccines at the cheapest prices and as quickly as possible. So far, there have been 20.6 million COVID-19 vaccine doses supported by China to Myanmar, 3.9 million of the doses were donated by China to Myanmar and Myanmar bought 16.7 million doses.’ [Translation by the author]

The post, among many by the Embassy since June 2021 when the third and deadliest-so-far wave of COVID-19 engulfed Myanmar, illustrates China’s ‘vaccine diplomacy’ assisting more than 100 countries. This exercise of soft power could be described as building ‘health silk roads’, an idea and practice that predated COVID-19, in Southeast Asia, Africa, the Middle East and North Africa.

I argue that China’s building a China-Myanmar Health Silk Road (CMHSR)—since the outbreak of COVID-19 in Myanmar in March 2020 and working with both the former government of the National League for Democracy and the current military junta, the State Administration Council—relates to China’s longer-term geoeconomic and geopolitical interests. The CMHSR is both an offshoot of China’s diplomacy regime that promotes its global Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its Myanmar portion known as the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor.

‘Mask diplomacy’, ‘vaccine diplomacy’, ‘health diplomacy’, ‘soft power’ and ‘health silk road’

Academics and journalists use five terms—mask diplomacy, vaccine diplomacy, health diplomacy, soft power, and Health Silk Road—to define the Chinese practice of providing assistance to pandemic-stricken countries. The first two terms are situational and will likely stop being used when or if COVID-19 is no longer a global threat.

Health diplomacy, soft power, and Health Silk Road are all power-laden and apt descriptions for China’s long-term exercise of diplomacy in relation to health issues. I prefer ‘Health Silk Road’ because it evinces ‘Chineseness’ and concepts of trade. Chinese leaders and policymakers including President Xi Jinping often use the term. I argue the ‘road’ metaphor describes well the contact-building between China and other countries, and how China makes inroads into other states and societies.

The origins of COVID-19 and China’s response

Whatever China does, or does not do, is significant and controversial, especially after COVID-19 originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan spread globally from early 2020.

Notoriously, the then-US-president Donald Trump repeatedly called COVID-19 the ‘China virus’. That China tried to hide the outbreak in Wuhan or was slow in reporting it flamed a narrative of blame, especially from the US. The way in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under President Xi contained the pandemic within China with extensive restrictions on movement also came into focus. Subsequently, China’s help for other countries is also a matter of international attention.

Blame of China has abated, at least for now, notwithstanding continued calls for a scientific analysis of the origin(s) of COVID-19 so that another will not recur undetected. The Trumpian phrases ‘China virus’ or ‘Wuhan virus’ are not frequently used currently; instead terms such as vaccine diplomacy and health silk road are more common.

China employs two main strategies to absolve itself of direct or indirect responsibility for the trail of biomedical, economic, political and social devastation left by COVID-19.

First, China aggressively rejects any further calls for international investigations into the origins of COVID-19. China shows remarkable sensitivity to the ‘Lab Leak’ theory that postulates that the novel coronavirus was created in the Wuhan Institute of Virology and accidentally, or deliberately, leaked outside it.

Second, China has targeted diplomacy, ‘health silk roads’, in the developing world in Asia, Africa and the Middle East which have been particularly badly affected by COVID-19 via the donation of vaccines, masks, gloves, protective clothing, and emergency medical teams. Many, if not most, developing countries will not have finished vaccinating their peoples until mid-2022 or beyond and rely on China for help.

In July 2021, a joint letter from 55 nations to the WHO opposed the politisation of COVID-19 and supported the inconclusive results of the World Health Organisation study in China in January and February of that year. Subsequently, Chinese government officials and government-owned or -linked media have celebrated this and others that followed as support of China.

But China may not escape further scientific scrutiny on the origins of COVID-19; and may still find it useful to enlist as much support from as many nations as possible. Building health silk roads is one among policy choices.

China began the CMHSR at the outbreak of COVID-19

It should be noted that China does not itself articulate a ‘health silk road’ narrative in Myanmar, perhaps because the broader Myanmar society is wary of Chinese economic and political interests. As a result, China commonly uses the familial Myanmar term pauk-phaw (siblings or relatives), which has the implied Confucian meaning of ‘love your family first’ and connotes that Myanmar and China are on a par with each other as ‘siblings’. Pauk-Phaw is used frequently on COVID-19 donor banners, posters and signboards, by Chinese officials and leaders including President Xi, and on the Facebook page of the Chinese Embassy in Myanmar.

The CMHRS is part of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor that was effectively suspended after the coup on 1 February 2021, when the State Administration Council overthrew the National League for Democracy. When, or if, it is completed, the corridor will connect China’s landlocked Yunnan Province to the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone in Myanmar’s Rakhine State in the west, with access to the Indian Ocean. This would enable China to bypass the maritime chokepoint of the Strait of Malacca, and have access to Yangon and Mandalay, the two biggest cities and most important economic powerhouses of Myanmar. Along the CMEC the Myanmar-China Gas Pipeline and the Myanmar-China Crude Oil Pipeline have been operational since 2013 and 2017 respectively.    

China began the CMHSR 18 months ago and has worked with both the former democratically elected National League for Democracy (2016–2020) and the State Administration Council.

China claims to be building the CMHSR for humane reasons and the need is great (but, more importantly, the CMHSR is an offshoot of the BRI/China Myanmar Economic Corridor). The National League for Democracy sought to diversify COVID-19 assistance including vaccines, but the internationally friendless State Administration Council finds it difficult to do so.

China’s hitherto multi-layered COVID-19 diplomacy in Myanmar has been State Administration Council-centric since the coup. China has targeted non-governmental actors in Myanmar such as writers, politically active monks, and civil society organisations. Many were relatively easier to approach during the rule of the National League for Democracy, but since the coup many, except ethnic armed groups, have become unapproachable at best because they have been arrested or gone in hiding.

CMHSR during the rule of the National League for Democracy

The first two cases of COVID-19 in Myanmar were announced on 23 March 2020, two months after President Xi’s tour to Myanmar which was the first of a Chinese head of state in 19 years.

Initially, Chinese nationals, migrant workers and tourists in Myanmar were believed to be carriers of the coronavirus. On 11 February 2020, notably more than a month before COVID-19 was first detected in Myanmar, the Chinese Consulate in Mandalay held a briefing at which they emphasised they were doing everything they could to contain the pandemic.

China donated COVID-19 tests to Myanmar, laying the foundation for the CMHSR as early as 17 March 2020, which was followed by supplies of protective clothing and face masks days later. On 8 April 2020, Yunnan Province, the paradiplomatic proxy of the Chinese Central Government, dispatched a 12-person expert team with more COVID testing kits and personal protective equipment. During field visits to Yangon and Mandalay they shared resources and technical knowledge and learned firsthand what Myanmar was facing and lacking. The then government of the National League for Democracy mobilised public funds and private donations too, but they were insufficient.

The People’s Liberal Army, as well as civilian Chinese officials, has helped with the CMHSR. The army helped build a COVID testing laboratory at the No. 1 Defence Services General Hospital in Yangon under the Myanmar military in April 2020, and donated medical equipment to the hospital a month later. A week later, the Yunnanese Buddhist Temple in Mandalay with close links with the Chinese Consulate there also donated supplies to the Myanmar military’s central command based in the same city. The temple and the Yangon-based Myanmar Chinese Chamber of Commerce are among key ongoing focal points of China’s multi-layered, multi-actor construction of CMHSR.

The highest levels of Chinese leadership have also been involved: President Xi had a telephone conversation with Win Myint, Myanmar’s then President, on 20 May 2020, and more Chinese technical and material aid was on its way days later.

The first wave of COVID -19 infection in Myanmar abated in mid-July, with officially only 374 cases and six fatalities, though the figures were perhaps low due to limited testing. Chinese aid then was mostly state-centric. But in April of that year Chinese state-owned and semi-state-owned entities with business interests in Myanmar—such as the China Communications Construction Co., Ltd., the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the Yangon-Shenzhen Industrial Park Group Company Limited and Wanbao Company—donated supplies. It led to concern that the assistance would have strings attached, but the need was great.

The second and deadlier outbreak of COVID-19 in Myanmar began in August 2020 and continued until February this year. When it began, Chinese government officials (mostly from Yunnan but from Hubei, etc.), semi-governmental or state-owned enterprises and private enterprises continued building and maintaining the CMHSR, often in cooperation with overseas-Chinese Myanmar citizens and Chinese business associations in Myanmar.

No complete record of pandemic aid to Myanmar from different Chinese-related actors exists up until the time of the military coup in February this year. But during my fieldwork in Mandalay and Yangon in December 2020 and January 2021, as well as online ethnography before and during this two-month period, I saw Chinese supplies at offices of civil society organisations and homes of well-known people, or images of such donations posted on Facebook. Facebook pages associated with or backed by China, including that of the Chinese Embassy in Myanmar, featured donations by Chinese actors from China and within Myanmar, both governmental and non-governmental.

Two members of parliament in the Mandalay Region told me that culturally it has been very difficult for Myanmar people and associations to refuse the donations, and three civil society organisations told me they had received donations from China without requesting them.