China & India engaging in vaccine diplomacy; Ranil

Colombo (News 1st); The pandemic is hastening the coming of a New Global Order, said Former Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Wednesday (24) at a Global Forum.

"What is emerging now is a multi-polar world, it may not even become bi-polar," said Wickremesinghe while joining the summit virtually from Colombo. "You've got the US, China, India, and then you have EU, Russia, UK, and South Korea as lesser poles," he added. The world is yet to reach a stage where there is a medical solution to address COVID-19, said Ranil Wickremesinghe adding the world is still at the Pandemic Stage. "We will have to stay there (Pandemic Stage) until we find a medical solution and that will not happen this year," said Wickremesinghe. "How we respond to the social and economic disruptions caused by the pandemic will determine the outcome," he said. Today we have a vaccine war, said Wickremesinghe adding the UN has been immobilized while there is open warfare in the World Health Organization. China and India have played a positive role-taking leadership not only in our region but also in helping Europe. "Both India and China are also engaging in vaccine diplomacy. They may be competing with each other but, Europe has not been able to come up with any of these," said Wickremesinghe who added "Though the US has had meetings of the QUAD on how to fight the pandemic, it has still not proved effective," India and China have been more successful and this is accelerating the power shift to Asia, he added.