The official Twitter account of the Tamil Nadu unit of the CPI(M) on Friday posted a tweet congratulating China for administering 200 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to its population.
An infographic having the picture of Chinese Premier Xi Jinping and informing that China has administered a total of 200 million COVID-19 vaccines doses was shared by CPIM Tamil Nadu.
“China has achieved the record of vaccinating 200 million doses of its citizens,” read the English translation of the tweet posted in Tamil.
While the CPI(M) went hammers and tongs in celebrating the milestone reached by China in administering 200 million vaccine doses, it predictably did not react to India’s record of dispensing more than 1 crore doses of efficacious vaccines in a single day, which it achieved yesterday.
The number of Covid-19 vaccine doses administered yesterday in the country created a record, as the number crossed 1 crore (10 million) for the first time. With this, the total number of Covid-19 vaccine doses given in India has crossed 62 crores, the second-highest in the world after China.
But, no congratulatory tweet lauding the efforts of the health care workers, doctors, nurses and hospitals across the country was posted by the official Twitter account of CPI(M), CPIM Tamil Nadu or for that matter by CPI(M) patriarch Sitaram Yechury. Through his official Twitter account, Yechury posted a couple of tweets furthering its propaganda against the Modi government, but no tweets commending India’s efforts in scaling up its vaccination programme was tweeted by him.
CPI(M) lavishes praises on Chinese vaccination pace even though questions are raised of their vaccine’s efficacy
Instead, the CPI(M) bend over backwards in pleasing their Chinese masters and applauding them for administering vaccines whose efficacy has come increasingly under scrutiny. In June 2021, there were reports of COVID-19 outbreak recrudescence in countries that had already vaccinated their population with Chinese vaccines. Countries like Bahrain, UAE, Mongolia, and Seychelles started witnessing a spike in COVID-19 infections.
The recent studies from these countries suggest that the Chinese vaccines may not be very effective at preventing the spread of the coronavirus, particularly the new variants, the NYT report said.
China had kicked off its vaccine diplomacy campaign last year with much fanfare and had pledged to provide “safe and effective” vaccines. Though their efficacy data was questioned, transmission, many countries had bought the Chinese-made vaccines.
However, CPI(M) has remained blind to this criticism. Their visceral hatred for the Modi government and their ideological convergence with the Chinese Communist Party(CCP)—the same party that controls the People’s Liberation Army(PLA), whose troops routinely indulge in salami-slicing of Indian territories—and which resulted in a months-long tense standoff along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh, meant that the apprehensions over Chinese vaccines were cast aside and they had no qualms in lapping up the Chinese propaganda.
It must be noted that China had claimed to administer 200 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccines back in April 2021. It is intriguing that the CPIM Tamil Nadu shared the questionable statistic on the day when India reached its record vaccination of jabbing more than 1 crore doses in a single day. It is not far-fetched to assume that CPI(M) tweeted months-old news to glorify the Chinese model and belittle India’s record of administering more than 1 crore vaccine doses.
CPI(M) leaders participated in an event to mark the centenary year of CCP
Earlier this year, on July 28, Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sitaram Yechury, Communist Party of India (CPI) leader D Raja, Lok Sabha MP S Senthilkumar G Devarajan, Secretary, Central Committee of All India Forward Bloc & Du Xiaolin, Counselor, International Dept, Chinese Communist Party (CPC) also participated in an event organised by Chinese Embassy to mark 100 years of the Communist Party of China.
During the keynote speech by Ambassador Sun Weidong, several topics related to the India-China relationship were talked about. Du Xiaolin claimed that China had helped India at a large scale in fighting the pandemic. He also alleged that the workers at Chinese companies worked overtime to meet the procurement needs India had to fight the Wuhan virus.
He further added that the two countries need to “manage the differences” and talked about the face-off between Indian and Chinese troops last year in Galwan Valley. He said, “The rights and wrongs of what happened in the China-India border area last year are very clear. China has made clear its position on many occasions. The two sides have maintained communication through diplomatic and military channels.”
