China is overreaching in bid for greater global influence amid coronavirus pandemic, US advisers say
- Testimony before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission in Washington highlights several moves that have tarnished China’s image
- The US and other Western countries are also faulted for ceding ground to China and failing to work cooperatively
Beijing has overplayed its global hand during the coronavirus crisis, but its longer-term goal of undercutting Western democracies remains intact, witnesses told a US congressional advisory panel on Monday, warning against any discounting of China’s ability to shift gears and retrench.
China experts testifying before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission highlighted several moves that have tarnished the country’s image, including a flood of defective masks, protective gowns and ventilators that Beijing has sent to other countries.
China’s global propaganda campaign has often been blunt and obvious to foreign ears, and a series of coronavirus-related racist incidents in Guangzhou sparked strong diplomatic resistance from African leaders, leading to calls for debt relief tied to the Belt and Road Initiative, President Xi Jinping’s signature infrastructure project, the experts noted.
“This is a very tough moment and unprecedented challenge for China as Xi Jinping himself recognised it. It’s a crisis unprecedented since the creation of the PRC,” said Nadège Rolland, a senior fellow with the National Bureau of Asian Research, referring to the People’s Republic of China.
“What China is trying to sell to the rest of the world is maybe not a good version of the world we want,” she added in her presentation, delivered remotely. “At the same time, the party has proven over and over again its capacity to be adaptive and flexible.”