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China, for example, has incorporated the fight against COVID-19 into a broader national narrative of its “peaceful rise” and systemic superiority. It has sought diplomatic and public relations leverage from its contributions to the global fight against COVID-19.
Countries that managed to contain the disease have also kept their economies more or less functioning, and this has invariably conferred a degree of strategic advantage.
Meanwhile, the capacity to vaccinate populations quickly and to help other countries vaccinate has become a kind of diplomatic currency. Those leaders who have discounted the virus altogether have invariably learned that the disease does not follow political diktats.