As the United States has taken a step back from world affairs to focus on an unprecedented health crisis at home, China has made full use of its massive military power to promote itself as a leader in the global fight against Covid-19 . In the latest of a slew of recent overseas aid efforts carried out by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) , a Chinese medical team put the finishing touches to a testing laboratory in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, which they had helped to build from the ground up in just 10 days. While America’s absence from the world stage has raised questions about its commitment to global affairs, defence experts doubt whether the medical and logistical support doled out by the PLA – as substantial and welcome as it is – will ever be enough for China to overtake the US in terms of global leadership. Jeffrey Becker, director of the Indo-Pacific security affairs programme at CNA, a US think tank in Arlington, Virginia, said that while the PLA’s help was appreciated by recipient countries, it was unlikely to offset the criticism directed at China over its role in the global health crisis. “The PLA’s overseas Covid-19 operations are part of larger efforts to create an image of China as a responsible global actor, shifting the narrative away from its initial mishandling of the crisis,” he said. Also, despite the PLA’s apparent magnanimity, its activities were consistent with China’s long-term military policy of fostering goodwill with strategically important countries while providing protection for its ever-expanding overseas interests, he said. To date, the PLA has dispatched medical teams or supplies to almost a dozen countries – including Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan – while experts have held videoconferences with their foreign counterparts in several others, according to the defence ministry. Before venturing overseas, almost 4,500 Chinese military health workers and epidemiologists were dispatched to Wuhan, the city at the epicentre of the initial coronavirus outbreak. Wu Qian, a spokesman for China’s defence ministry, said last week that the PLA would continue to foster military cooperation overseas through the deployment of medical teams, provision of expert advice and supply of essential materials, including personal protective equipment (PPE) and test kits. Are China’s ‘Wolf Warrior’ diplomats doing more harm than good? Whatever Beijing’s motives, Becker said that one of the key obstacles faced by the PLA when dealing with foreign militaries was a lack of trust. “The PLA’s overseas Covid-19 operations are taking place at a time when suspicions of Chinese activities abroad are already quite high,” he said. Such misgivings had been stoked by allegations of commercial espionage and the increasingly assertive stance of China’s “ Wolf Warrior ” diplomats – named after a popular nationalistic film – who sought to change the narrative on the global health crisis, he said. Becker also said that while the PLA had been much more engaged with other militaries in recent years, it was still a relative newcomer to that arena. “The PLA is still in the process of developing the institutional capacity and organisational culture needed to work with foreign militaries abroad,” he said. “The US spent decades developing these traits by working closely with partners and allies in times of crisis.” While America has well-established leadership credentials and has played pivotal roles in many global crises over the years, Beijing-based military expert Zhou Chenming said that had not so far been the case with the Covid-19 pandemic. While the US military’s Operation United Assistance mission to help fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014 was exemplary, Washington’s global leadership status had been “unquestionably tarnished” by the current health crisis, he said. “It’s not because of what China has done, but what the US has not done,” Zhou said. However, when the US did finally wake up to what was happening in the world, “they will certainly reach out to help others”, he said. As for China, Zhou said that it would take time for Western and some Southeast Asian countries to overcome their deep-rooted prejudices. “In the short term, [the help provided by the PLA in fighting Covid-19] may go some way to improving countries’ views on China, but how far depends on whether Beijing can do good deeds consistently,” he said. While the US military’s role in the global fight against Covid-19 might have been smaller than expected, it has made some significant contributions. Its Africa Command has provided test kits, PPE, field hospitals and support with monitoring projects in about a dozen countries on the continent, while its Indo-Pacific Command said it held a videoconference for regional air force chiefs on April 29 to share the lessons they had learned in responding to the killer disease. In March, Kurt Campbell, a US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs in the Obama administration, said in an article in Foreign Affairs magazine that the failure of Washington to coordinate the world’s response to Covid-19 would allow Beijing to “fill the vacuum and position itself as the global leader”. He also argued that for the US to cement its global leadership position it would have to cooperate with China in areas such as vaccine research, financial stimulus packages and the provision of support to those in need. Cui Tiankai, China’s ambassador to the US, said in an interview with Chinese state television that both countries should explore new relations in cooperation on pandemic control and public health. China’s Defence Minister Wei Fenghe and US Defence Secretary Mark Esper spoke for the first time about cooperation on Covid-19 in early March. However, at that time, while the outbreak was almost at its peak in China, the devastation it was set to wreak in the US had yet to be realised. Partly because of that, the war of words and finger-pointing that now dominates US-China relations was significantly less ferocious. Bonnie Glaser, a senior adviser at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington, said that the PLA was notable by its absence from last week’s US-led videoconference, which was attended by 18 air force chiefs, including from self-governed Taiwan, which Beijing considers part of its sovereign territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary. “Given the toxic atmosphere in the US-China relationship, I think that cooperation between their militaries on epidemic prevention and control will be difficult, if not impossible,” Glaser said. Additional reporting by Minnie Chan