The briefing was interesting tonight – with one journalist asking why the Indian government had slowed down our deliveries. Boris was quick to say they had not.
But he didn’t go in to the information about which government had intervened to slow down our delivery. It is our old friends, our best buddies, the USA – and in particular that nice new president Joe Biden.
He has used the DPA to restrict exports of materials essential for the production of the vaccines – which is hitting production schedules in India. Another bully in the Whitehouse? Maybe the big difference is that the last one was honest about it.
I’m sure China will fill the gap. Why? Because that is what China does. It expands influence by being nice to people. Look at the expansion of their influence in Africa – they supported projects to make lives better. Now they have mineral rights in a lot of countries.
It can be interesting watching the politics play out. Quite often in the short term the bully wins, but over time the do good to you team creeps forward. People have long memories.
I had people I worked with from the USA that were really stumped at why the UK always had more political influence than them. The truth is that the UK uses the same approach as China. Yes we had all that Empire stuff in the past, but today we really do work hard to be good to others.
This is why we are the biggest funder of vaccine provision for the poorest countries (and I am not just talking about coronavirus – we have been leading this field for years). This is why we were one of the few countries that met the 0.7% support.
Some people might have seen this as a cynical approach – buying favours (truth is I’ve seen it done by some countries when being a bully fails).
At this time when the UK is trying to re-establish itself as important outside the EU we have a choice – continue to tale the China approach or adopt the USA bully approach. Reducing our overseas aid budget is a step in the wrong direction, it will not be good for us in the long run.