COVID-19 vaccine is the most effective weapon to combat the global spread of the pandemic, but the “me-first” vaccine nationalism of the United States and some other Western developed countries have seriously hindered the successful global fight against COVID-19. Foreign academic circles have made critical studies of Western vaccine nationalism. Starting from the definition of vaccine nationalism, they analyzed the influences, causes and essence of Western vaccine nationalism. On this basis, they put forward arguments against Western vaccine nationalism from the aspects of public health and morality, and propose countermeasures such as expanding global vaccine supply, unblocking global vaccine supply chain and ensuring the fairness of global vaccine distribution. The critical studies of Western vaccine nationalism in foreign academic circles are relatively in-depth, and the countermeasures proposed are mostly feasible, which provide a useful reference for resisting Western vaccine nationalism and jointly building a human health community. Nonetheless, there are two shortcomings found in their critical studies: first, their position on the conditionality of vaccine as a global public good weakens their critique; second, they do not clarify the ideological nature of Western vaccine nationalism, therefore fail to analyze the root cause with the basic principles of Marxist global political economy, hence undermining the effectiveness of the countermeasures proposed.

Editor: Zhong Yao、Zheng Yifan

From:Journal of World Peoples Studies.2023.No.2.