Pedestrians walk through the Qianmen area of Beijing on October 4, during the Golden Week holiday. China is the only major economy expected to post positive economic growth in 2020. Photo: Bloomberg
Opinion
The View
by Mark Clifford
The View
by Mark Clifford
China is wasting its Covid-19 leadership moment on the world stage
China led the world into the pandemic and its economy is leading the way out. This should be a time for Beijing to effortlessly extend its soft power. So why hasn’t China’s push to win friends and influence people paid dividends?
Covid-19 is hastening the arrival of the long-promised Asian century, with China leading the world in economic growth as it comes out of coronavirus-induced depression.
The pandemic is acting as an accelerant – whether in adoption of new technologies or in allowing China to take more of a leadership role, economically and politically. The West is exhausted and uncertain, leaving the field open for China. Can Beijing seize the moment?
China led the world into the Covid-19 pandemic and it is leading the way out. Monday’s third-quarter growth figure of 4.9 per cent shows a solid recovery. China alone among major economies will post positive economic growth in 2020.
Much of East Asia is on the same trajectory, with Covid-19 case numbers and fatalities a tiny fraction of those in Europe and the United States. The US’ population is one-quarter that of China’s, yet it has almost 50 times as many deaths. The Trump administration has alienated much of the world with its erratic “America first” policies.
Pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the first days of his administration, withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement and the recent decision to exit the World Health Organization leaves the way open for China to lead, in Asia and beyond.
The Lowy Institute’s just-released Asia Power Index shows a big drop for the US, while Vietnam, Australia and Taiwan are the biggest gainers. China’s ranking is unchanged. This should be a time for China to be effortlessly extending its soft power. Why hasn’t China’s push to win friends and influence people paid dividends?
Certainly President Xi Jinping has shown himself to be a bold decision-maker. After almost two months of confusion, the decision to shut down much of the country in late January effectively stopped Covid-19 in its tracks in the world’s second-largest economy. Continuing tight curbs on citizens backed up with a world-class health surveillance system have allowed the world’s most populous country to do an impressive job of keeping the pandemic in check.
Yet China seems determined to keep scoring own goals. A mobilisation by the United Front to buy personal protective equipment from around the world in the early days of the epidemic was alarming to countries that saw their shelves quietly stripped bare by Chinese civic groups. When the balance of supply and demand shifted, China conditioned its shipments of PPE, sometimes shoddily made, to other countries on expressions of fealty, as if Italy and other recipients were tributary states.
This is a time of enormous human suffering, yet picking quarrels seems to be the preferred strategy of China’s diplomats. Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig have been jailed in difficult conditions in China fornearly two years, hostages to Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou’s extradition case in Vancouver.
China is set to be a major power in Asia. Whether its neighbours agree with everything Beijing decrees or not – indeed, even if it exercises sovereignty over Taiwan – seems beside the point
China’s response has been to double down. China’s ambassador to Canada recently threatened the “good health and safety” of the 300,000 Canadian passport holders in Hong Kong if Ottawa moved to grant political asylum to Hongkongers. That prompted Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the two countries’ diplomatic relations, to lash out at what he called China’s “coercive diplomacy”.
US citizens in China are next on the list of hostage targets, in retaliation for the arrest of alleged People’s Liberation Army-affiliated researchers in the United States, according to warnings given to US officials by their Chinese counterparts, The Wall Street Journal reported over the past weekend.
A distracted world has been powerless to stop Xi as the screw tightens in Xinjiang and Hong Kong. Pressure has intensified on Taiwan, with PLA fighter jets repeatedly testing the island’s defences.
Those who have dared speak up for people in Hong Kong, Xinjiang or Taiwan have been attacked by Chinese officials. Australia, Finland, Germany and the Czech Republic all have been on the receiving end of China’s “wolf warrior” diplomacy.
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Taiwan posts video of troops ‘fending off attack from mainland’ amid worsening cross-strait tensions
Taiwan posts video of troops ‘fending off attack from mainland’ amid worsening cross-strait tensions
Replacing panda diplomacy with wolf warriors might seem counterproductive. China is set to be a major power in Asia. Whether its neighbours agree with everything Beijing decrees or not – indeed, even if it exercises sovereignty over Taiwan – seems beside the point.
However, the Soviet Union tolerated Finland’s existence as an independent state even as it dominated the country economically and left virtually no room for political manoeuvre.
By using the carrot of economic opportunities, a softer China would be able to bring South Korea and perhaps even Japan into its fold in a matter of decades. For a civilisation that claims to think in 100-year terms, this is the blink of an eye.
Perhaps we need to look at China differently. Its wolf warriors don’t care about the international audience. They are playing to an audience of one, their boss. His concern is the survival of the Communist Party. Perhaps it’s time to forget about the peaceful rise of China and think instead of Xi as China’s Donald Trump – a man who wants to “Make China Great Again” and pursues a “China first” policy.
Covid-19 is the great accelerant. The pandemic is putting China in the spotlight as never before. Beijing needs to show it is ready for prime time. China has shown some strength, notably its success in tamping down the pandemic and restarting its economy – but it is in danger of doing long-term damage to its global ambitions at a time when the international environment has rarely been more favourable.
Mark L. Clifford is the executive director of the Hong Kong-based Asia Business Council
