Coronavirus: China must win over global partners for post-pandemic economic recovery: analyst

Capitalism vs socialism will no longer be the issue, China expert says of international prospects in the wake of Covid-19 crisis

Unlike in 1978 when Deng opened China up and launched economic reform, the country no longer has to succeed by having a different governance system

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China was expected to be the only major economy registering positive growth this year, according to the OECD. Photo: AP

Published: 9:00pm, 13 Nov 2020Updated: 10:28pm, 13 Nov 2020

How China manages its messages for a global audience is critical as the world struggles with decoupling, or duality, brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, according to a London-based China specialist.

Kerry Brown, professor and director of the Lau China Institute at King’s College, said China’s economic success should not be seen as a victory of socialism over the capitalist model since there was no competition between different models of growth.

Brown called on countries to focus on areas for cooperation, such as promoting economic growth, because most countries around the world were struggling to stay out of recession.

“It’s a common responsibility for all of us … not to rely on one economic model or success of one or the other. I would not like to see a situation where this is a zero-sum game again,” Brown told a webinar organised by the Beijing-based think tank the Centre for China and Globalisation (CCG) on Wednesday.

Economists have argued that the global economy faces strong headwinds as the coronavirus pandemic exerts huge pressure around the world.

China was expected to be the only major economy registering positive growth this year, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said in September. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted in the World Economic Outlook released in October that China’s GDP would expand 1.9 per cent in 2020 and it would accelerate to 8.2 per cent next year.

“What is looking most likely is that Europe will be suffering, America will be suffering maybe more modestly but China will prevail,” Brown said.