Thread: Modi's Covid-19 disaster effectively ended his aspiration to keep Chinese vaccines out of India's South Asia "backyard" altogether, having made commitments to these countries that they were unable to keep.

1. Modi advocates a "neighbourhood first" policy geared at upholding India's immediate security by aiming to sustain dominance over their neighbours. Excluding Pakistan, this involves Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Mauritius and the Maldives

2. Regionally, India has the most dominance arguably over Bangladesh, where it was able to put pressure on them to end a Sinovac trial last year. It then made large commitments of donations to them attempting to lock Beijing out.

3. However again Modi has made promises he can't keep. With the crisis at home, deliveries to Bangladesh have stopped and ground their vaccine rollout to a halt. https://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/news/first-jab-covid-vaccine-suspended-2083709

4. This has resulted in Bangladesh making a deal with Sinopharm and China to provide 5 million doses in May, ruining Modi's plan.

Despite this, he was not able to keep Chinese vaccines out of Nepal, the Maldives or Mauritius anyway. Sri Lanka has received them too, but I observe they have not yet approved them which I think is a diplomatic nod to Modi.