Early Days
In December 2019, a group of people got sick in Wuhan, in the Hubei province of China. They all displayed flu-like symptoms, and yet no previously known form of the influenza virus was recognised, and no known treatment worked for them. The sickness was linked to a local seafood market called the Huanan Wholesale market, run by the upcoming middle class, which also dealt in the sale of wildlife in close proximity to the seafood stalls. A few months later, this market would be known throughout the world as the source of the outbreak of the deadliest and most widespread pandemic in more than a century – the coronavirus pandemic.
The First Responder – China’s Actions in the ‘Golden Hour’ of the Pandemic, and a Global Game of ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’
Whether it was their downplay of the efficacy and contagious nature of the disease, or the refusal to cooperate with world-wide lab analysis of the virus, or their delay in informing WHO of the potential threat of a pandemic – China has certainly played a defining role in magnifying the coronavirus pandemic, far larger than it could’ve, or rather, should’ve been, according to several studies. An early 2020 study funded partly by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation suggested that had China began ‘non-pharmaceutical intervention’, or NPI, which are tantamount to quarantine and social distancing measures, even three weeks before they did in fact, the number of cases could have reduced by 95%, and even a week before, by 66%. However, just before the city of Wuhan entered complete lockdown, and its residents who hadn’t yet been exposed to the virus, just began to understand the severity of the virus, officials all over had systematically shut down any concerns raised by doctors who had seen cases of the novel coronavirus up close. The government, while projecting optimism and confidence, played down any and all public concern over the outbreak, and Wuhan’s health commission, while reporting 25 new cases of an unknown form of pneumonia, stated, and I quote, “The disease is preventable and controllable.”
These words seem almost laughable now, as we surpass the one-year mark since the pandemic ‘began’. But this is only part of the story. While China’s misdeeds certainly shaped the coronavirus pandemic in undeniable ways, it can hardly be blamed for other nations’ handling of the pandemic. Even a layman news-reader could recall words of malicious and condemning intent flung across the Pacific, with politicians and policy-makers spanning from the local to the central level spewing blame and disdain for their counterparts. Simply put, the United States blamed China for attempting to cripple its economy by releasing a lab-grown virus onto its soil, and the eastern heavyweight retaliated with mistranslated headlines and censured criticism of an insincere government incapable of protecting its own citizens from a biological weapon they incubated.
Whatever the truth may be, one thing has been made abundantly clear – the virus dubbed ‘corona’ cares for no government, no race, and certainly no border.
Getting our Facts Straight
As an independent investigation by the World Health Organisation is currently afoot to investigate China’s role in the pandemic, it remains pertinent not to be swayed by political propaganda, and focus on the facts that have clearly been established. It is true that China suppressed vital information from the public that could’ve helped identify and contain what then, might not have been a global pandemic of such magnitude. It is also true that even after repeated concerns by scientists, doctors, and even the people of Wuhan, to raise awareness about the unidentified disease, the authoritarian regime was reluctant to act, be it due to an effort to conserve political vanity or retain its economic influence on the region. But one year later, as China’s economy gleefully bounces back from what was mere stagnation while the rest of the world sank into recession, it is obvious that blaming China is simply not the answer.
Instead, what could’ve served the world a few months ago would have been to study China’s effective measures that have resulted in almost no new cases in the country in the last few months. Notwithstanding the Communist Party’s notoriously unreliable data, and if recent reports are to be believed, the country is back to normal – a feat few nations have been able to achieve. Rigorous lockdown measures including the entire Hubei province, the world’s largest testing and tracing system, and the equally pivotal work done by thousands of healthcare workers, have all worked in sync to bring China’s Covid-19 toll to a screeching halt, when other parts of the world are scrambling to deal with new variants and vaccinations. At times when countries were scrambling for testing kits, masks, PPEs, and now the vaccines, China has even donated supplies worth millions of dollars, across the globe. To have such a state of affairs in times of crisis, clearly, Beijing has done something right.
So that one is not to be lost in admiration for one of, if not the largest economy in the world, let’s bring some of China’s other activities in the past year into light. The country is undeniably taking advantage of the chaos to advance its own agenda in the developing world, exploiting opportunities at a time when there are plenty of them across the globe. China has staked a claim on several dispute islands in the South China Sea, encroached upon the sovereign territory of Taiwan and India, and even attempted to quash the democratic reform protests in Hong Kong. As the U.S. under President Trump terminated funding to the WHO, China stepped up to add millions of dollars to WHO’s coffers, effectively amping up its influence on the global health agency. Continuing with its policy of debt-and-rule, China has continued to invest heavily in the African subcontinent and Latin America, taking advantage of their crumpled economies in dire need of upliftment due to the pandemic. In essence, China is striving to become the hero of a problem it may very well have created.
Without divulging into conspiracies or being swayed by any nation’s propaganda, analysts of the role of China must thoroughly and unbiasedly investigate its role in the pandemic, and subsequently, work not only on individual or bilateral, but global actions to penalize those who are true to be held accountable for the pandemic, and solutions to prevent the same in the visible future.