US, Indo-Pacific allies to expand India's vaccine production

President Joe Biden and fellow leaders of the Indo-Pacific alliance known as the Quad are set to announce a plan to expand coronavirus vaccine manufacturing capacity in India, according to administration officials.

The effort was to be announced Friday at a virtual meeting of the leaders of Australia, India, Japan and the United States. It comes as the Biden administration is putting greater emphasis on the Indo-Pacific region in the face of growing economic competition from China.

The effort by the alliance to pump up India’s vaccine manufacturing also comes as the Biden administration and leaders of other wealthy nations have faced calls from France and some global health advocacy groups to donate a small percentage of vaccine produced in the U.S. and other industrialized nations to poor countries. Biden has also fielded requests from allies, including Canada and Mexico, to buy vaccines made in the United States.

But the Biden administration has remained steadfast that, at least for now, it is focused on making sure that all Americans are first vaccinated even as China and Russia have engaged in vaccine diplomacy, sending badly needed vaccines to other countries. Administration officials have noted the United States' $4 billion commitment to COVAX, an international effort to bolster the purchase and distribution of coronavirus vaccines to poor nations.

“If we have a surplus, we’re going to share it with the rest of the world,” Biden said earlier this week at an event where he announced that the U.S. had acquired an additional 100 million doses.

The effort by the Quad is projected to allow India to increase manufacturing capacity by 1 billion doses by 2022, according to two senior administration officials who briefed reporters ahead of the meeting.

But the effort is already deemed not ambitious enough by...