China's two-pronged diplomatic response to covid-19 | thearticle

There ought to be an independent inquiry into how the coronavirus pandemic got out of control. We could, borrowing from Adam Smith, call it: “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the

Health of Nations.” People deserve an explanation. In its absence, it is hardly surprising that many believe the Chinese Communist Party should be held to account.  Others insist the CCP

should not be blamed, arguing that after early missteps and errors, China managed to control the virus, re-open its economy, supply needed global public goods and offer global governance

which the US could not. These two views mark out a new global geopolitical fault-line, which will outlive the worst of the pandemic. China was rocked by the coronavirus outbreak. The CCP’s

craving for stability and control, and its institutionalised demand for good news and suppression of discussion, lay behind decisions to mislead, deceive and cover up crucial information for

six to seven crucial weeks, before “owning up” to the crisis in late January. The government permitted its citizens to carry on as normal before Chinese New Year, and allowed several

million people to leave Wuhan for domestic and foreign visits, knowing that a new and dangerous virus was on the loose.  As the western world succumbed to the virus, China launched a

two-pronged diplomatic initiative. The first part was to supply badly needed global goods — for example, masks, medicines, ventilators and other equipment — to various countries in Europe,

including the UK and Italy, and the US. Many countries have welcomed this gesture, though some, including the Netherlands, Spain and the Czech Republic have complained of defective

equipment. China also moved to organise crisis responses in several countries in western Asia, the Middle East and Africa. The second element involved assuming a global governance and

leadership role in health and other areas, by exploiting the plight of the US and the political distancing of the Trump Administration from global bodies. China has long tried to “capture”

influence, in the WHO, doubtless helped by the White House’s recent abrupt decision to suspend funding. China has also been pressuring the UN to adopt its technical internet standards and

protocols, as well as telecommunications technologies. It was recently elected on to a panel of the UN Commission on Human Rights and had it not been for US intervention, it would have

provided the head of the World Intellectual Property Organisation. The irony of having China play such prominent governance roles in these areas specifically in international agencies, is

mind-numbing.  The diplomatic offensive has also extended to a more direct form of nationalism, in which the US and other nations have been accused of being incompetent or inferior in their

Covid crisis responses, and in which Foreign Ministry officials and diplomats  have engaged in “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy (named after a patriotic film) to deflect western criticisms of

China’s response to the pandemic. They have even charged that the US military and Italy were responsible for the virus. While China’s diplomatic initiatives have resonated for some, they are

also encountering a lot of pushback. Much of that is coming from the US, where law-makers have sought to introduce various bills looking to sanction China’s leaders, launch formal

investigations, remove China from US pharmaceutical supply chains, and pressurise Beijing to change animal hygiene regulations. But there has also been pushback from France, Germany, the EU,

Japan, India, Brazil, South Korea, Singapore and a score of African nations, including Ghana and Nigeria, and the UK.  UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, said there’s no going back to

“business as usual” and there have been reports that the government’s Huawei decision could be reversed. The Henry Jackson Society issued a report recently, arguing that the Covid outbreak

had cost the G7 countries over £3 trillion, an amount for which China should be held to account.  A lot of the legal initiatives probably won’t fly, and there’s no way China will listen to,

let alone, agree to compensation claims. The point, though is that China is now in a lot of people’s cross-hairs, not just because of the long-standing reasons of human rights and values.

The CCP now faces a much graver charge — that it was complacent in the face of a pandemic that is causing huge personal distress and has plunged the world into an economic contraction which

will reduce global GDP by hundreds of trillions of dollars.  Despite this, some insist that China should not be blamed, and that the West would be better off trying to work with China to

bring the pandemic under control and ensure it doesn’t happen again. It’s also crucial to get the Chinese economy back on to a sustainable growth path, they argue, to help the global economy

recover. Chatham House, published an opinion piece on its website last week called “Blaming China is a Dangerous Distraction”. Another example of this view came from Professor Kerry Brown

of King’s College, who has argued that we should engage with China rather than argue with it. Some of these sentiments are fine. Who doesn’t think that collaboration in global health, or

climate change, for example, is a good idea? And all but some supporters of Trump think that America is handling its global role with diabolical ineptitude. Yet, others play straight to the

Beijing gallery. They help to shape a narrative in which China is a significant force for good in the world, too big to ignore, and getting bigger. In this story, Western decline,

intransigence and churlishness are at fault. China is unquestionably large and economically significant, and fully merits its place in the global system. Yet, it is not necessarily a force

for good, or a likely leader in global governance, given its proclivity for secrecy, lack of transparency, and disdain for the rule of law and other values we hold dear. Yes, we should

collaborate where we can when our interests are aligned, but trust relations have to work both ways, and right now China is deemed untrustworthy.  Nor is its ascendancy, or even primacy as

some assume, inevitable. China’s authoritarian and rigid political systems not suited to a messy post-Covid world. The adaptability and flexibility of the more malleable economies in the

West might be better suited.