The Asahi Shimbun:

Countries are stepping up efforts to research and develop vaccines for COVID-19. What cooperation has China carried out with other countries in this regard? Thank you.

Xu Nanping:

Thanks for your question. We all know that a vaccine is the key to combat the pandemic, and countries are working with high hopes. Vaccine research and development is very difficult, as it must be both safe and effective, so the research and development process always faces many uncertainties. It is wise for all of us to conduct international cooperation and pool human wisdom to develop such an effective vaccine the world needs badly and is critically important to fight against the pandemic. So, your question is very important.

We have been working with the international community since the beginning of the vaccine development phase. Why did we share with the world information on the virus and its genome sequence in a timely manner? We just hoped that all countries will start developing vaccines as soon as possible. We have adopted a five-prong approach in vaccine research and development. We have been cooperating with international community in all these five directions, and all the research are open for more international cooperation. 

For example, in terms of the DNA vaccine, Chinese enterprises are working with the U.S. company Inovio. For the mRNA vaccine, we are working with the German company BioNTech. Regarding the recombinant protein vaccine, Chinese companies are working with the U.K. company GSK. Actually, more cooperation is in the pipeline. Generally speaking, China's vaccine research and development depends on global endeavors. It is pooling wisdom of the world, and will be shared by the whole world. Thank you for your question.