The west basically "developed" by exploiting/colonizing resources from the 3rd world countries. The west basically pulled the ladder once it climbed up. Now you are wondering why the 3rd world countries can't develop their own vaccines.
And as an aside, modern capitalism as it stands right now almost necessitates some group be exploited in order to produce cheap labor/goods for consumption for another wealthier group, and the exploited group is most often a poorer country and the goods/labor are then imported. You're not gonna get very far paying your workforce a living wage to produce things that people making that same living wage need to buy, not with the percentage of profit modern owners/shareholders take right off the top.
https://www.firstpost.com/world/in-south-korea-asian-migrant...
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/1001194446/as-workforce-ages-...
edit: And that's just more modern examples exploitation, Western society didn't suddenly spring forth into existence in it's current state of being. If you wanna talk about how exactly Western society reached its current level of wealth and privilege I'm more than happy to talk about that as well.
> And as an aside, modern capitalism as it stands right now almost necessitates some group be exploited in order to produce cheap labor/goods for consumption for another wealthier group, and the exploited group is most often a poorer country and the goods/labor are then imported.
Which certainly does not follow from the articles you linked.
Moreover if we are talking about South korea, they have benefited from US backing.
"International relations between South Korea and the United States commenced in 1950, when the United States helped establish the modern state of South Korea, also known as the Republic of Korea, and fought on its UN-sponsored side in the Korean war" [0]
Of course they are fully developed now and may not depend on US backing. Even Japan after WW2 was helped by the US in reconstruction [1]
So in essence unless one of the "developed" countries helps you get a head start, you either develop slowly or not at all. Since all the tech and trade agreements are controlled by the established dominant players
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea%E2%80%93United_Sta... [1] - https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/japan-reconst...
Seriously, people are in colonialism denial now?
All of the colonizer countries were much wealthier and technologically advanced before they started colonizing. The disparities were already enormous in 1500, before much of colonization happened. English, Dutch and Spanish became colonizers because they were more developed, not the other way around.
The “plunderers” had way more resources than the “plundered”: look at the trade volumes between England and its Indian colonies, and compare them with the volumes of domestic production in England: the latter has always been orders magnitude bigger than the former. It’s even more lopsided with African colonies.
Next, the little that the colonizers got out of the colonies were not “treasures” that were “plundered”, hindering development by victims of colonization. Spanish got a lot of silver from Argentina, but the silver was basically worthless to the natives, and had they kept all of it, they could’ve made more plates and jewelry, which in no way could have made them richer and more developed. In fact, metal oriented policy of Spain probably was detrimental to them too. But, if not the Spanish, the indigenous would not have worked Potosi mines anyway, so it’s moot. Most of physical resources that colonizers removed from colonies were like that: of what value are minerals in the ground, if the natives cannot extract them or make use of them?
Most of the actual use of colonies was cultivation of land and exploitation of human labor, often forced. These were overwhelmingly seriously underutilized by the natives. It should not need to be said, but knowing how obstinate some people are here, I’ll say it anyway: this underutilization in no way justifies colonization. Rather, the point is that the colonizers did not “plunder” land from colonies (because you can’t carry it away), and the amount of labor exploited was in almost all cases very small relative to the total workforce of the natives.
Finally, there are many countries that successfully developed without serious colonization effort. Consider Germany: it had some colonies, but only got them in late 1800s, and only keep them for three decades. It would be ridiculous to argue that Germany is now rich and developed thanks to these three crucial decades 1890-1920, when they held some colonies in Africa. In fact, they not only did not get wealthy by exploiting these, but most likely it was a net loss to them, considering the expense required to set them up.
All of this is not meant to excuse or justify colonization. Clearly, conquering and subjugating other nations by military force is wrong, according to our today’s moral standards. The point here is that the idea that it was the colonies that allowed some nations to become wealthy and developed, is simply wrong, and betrays lack of familiarity with economic history of the world.
It exploited the "we have nice capitalism"-wall build against socialism. Basically all along the border, there was a gradient to be exploited for starting up. I assume alot of players near china are waiting for the same sort of ladder to climb up on, once the 2nd cold war starts.
Even if they build vaccines, it is not held to the same standard, for ex: India's covaxin was not being accepted for travel to western countries. The dominant players set all the rules.
Unless we understand why/how we are in this situation, we will keep on making the same mistakes again and again