China, COVID19, and the future

China, COVID19, and the future MATTHEW BUGEJA

The novel coronavirus has impacted the overwhelmingly vast majority of countries and territories on the planet, with only a handful of countries so far saying that they are free from the pandemic. The country which has been most heavily affected by the COVID19 outbreak, from a geopolitical standpoint, is arguably China.

It was the country in which COVID19 seems to have originated, although, as yet, the global scientific community is still unsure as to how it made the jump from bats into human beings. That is something we will find at some point in the months ahead.

But for now, allow us to focus our gaze on China, the geopolitical and economic behemoth itself. Beijing’s power has been on the rise in the past decade or so, and arguably its role has grown even more prominent since the election of Donald Trump in the United States in 2016. With the United States seemingly taking a step back from global leadership, China, along with the European Union, have sought to fill the void - the EU due to necessity, and China rather enthusiastically. It had previously sought to expand its influence through economic ties with the One Belt, One Road Initiative and the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank, a Chineseled multilateral institution based in China, offering assistance to a number of countries that institutions, such as the World Bank, saw as not being in a position to meet their criteria for economic assistance. This has seen China’s influence grow considerably.

Then, sometime in early to mid-December 2019, the novel coronavirus made the jump to human beings, and proved to have all of the characteristics of a highly contagious virus. It spread through not only symptomatic patients, but also asymptomatic

ones. The estimates of COVID19 carriers, based on numerous studies by national authorities, range anywhere from 20-50% of all those afflicted with the disease. In addition, the virus has an incubation period of approximately two weeks in which no symptoms would be displayed on the affected individual, but they would be able to potentially infect others. The Chinese authorities had first reported a strange new type of pneumonia to the World Health Organisation on New Year’s Eve, 2019.

As we know, the virus has spread like wildfire, thanks in no small part to modern aviation. By the time I wrote this in early May 2020, the global economy had ground to a complete halt, and in the span of three weeks some 23 million people registered for unemployment benefits in the United States, which was unprecedented. Needless to say, millions of people around the world have struggled to make ends meet, a number of them having lost their jobs, and governments have scrambled to provide economic assistance to companies in order to retain their employees until economies can be reopened once the pandemic is brought under control.

China, having been the first country to have been impacted by the virus, was also the first to emerge from it by beginning to reopen its economy. However, its international reputation had been tarnished to a degree, given that there have been accusations that it was not fully transparent with the WHO, and has also been accused of underreporting cases of COVID19. With scientists and mathematicians using data from China to gauge the impact of the virus on their countries, they were surprised when places like Italy and Spain surged past China’s infection numbers and death toll at some speed. Beijing’s credibility had come under severe fire as a result.

In order to help offset the damage done to his country’s image abroad, President Xi Jinping had approved the issuance of vast medical equipment aid packages to a number of countries in order to help restore some good will, and perhaps to help guide public discourse away from China being the centre of the COVI19 outbreak, and towards discussing China as a responsible global actor who will provide that assistance when needed. This has been partially successful, although some, including the US & EU, have called for

investigations into the early stages of the outbreak. The White House, in particular, is keen to gain as much mileage from blaming China as possible, due to missteps by the federal government in the early stages of the outbreak in the United States.

China recognises that with its growing power and influence, it will receive more attention from the international community than ever before, as fragmented as that international community is. Its handling of the pandemic within China itself, at first glance, appears to have been strong enough to mitigate the outbreak. However, it also suppressed information, and had silenced a Chinese doctor who tried to blow the whistle on COVID19. China’s strong hand when it comes to information control has been costly for the international community, and to its image abroad.

COVID19 may also set China and the United States on a collision course at a much faster rate than otherwise would have been the case. This is an election year in the US, and you can expect President Trump to point the finger of blame at China on more than one occasion between now and November. China can respond in one of two ways: it can either ignore it, or in the realisation that Trump’s words are more about a domestic audience than a foreign one. Or it can respond as it has so far, with rebuttals, in part to minimise any further damage to its international standing. This would raise geopolitical tensions in a way that would not be conducive to a stable global system at a time in which the global economy is already in the doldrums.

The coronavirus has been a curse for China, but it can also be a blessing. If it finds itself able to steer public perception of its handling of the crisis to a positive disposition, China’s rise to true superpower status will be accelerated further. But if it finds itself caught in a geopolitical tussle with the United States, or a mere war of words that damages their relationship, it may find its reputation on the decline rather than the ascendancy. President Xi will need to be strategic to guide China to the next level, but he must also remember that sometimes, perception is everything.