China’s coronavirus ‘victory’ and Britain’s threat of a ‘reckoning’ show two countries out of touch with the post-Covid-19 future
- If a post-Brexit Britain wants change in China, it needs to think about what that change is – and whether it has enough friends left who share those views
- But China, too, should reflect on why a warm relationship has suddenly turned cold
Meanwhile, last weekend the British newspaper The Mail on Sunday featured a “senior [UK] government source” claiming that after the coronavirus crisis was over, China would face a “reckoning” and might become a “pariah state”.
Yet seeing the way that Britain’s policy was being reported in China may have hardened hearts in London.
In fact, Britain’s domestic response to the virus has been science-based and well-received, although it has been criticised for paying insufficient attention to testing. Even Johnson’s critics acknowledged that he had also shown genuine concern that emergency police powers should not unduly affect civil liberties.
That potential world, which was already in grave danger from the combination of sluggish global growth and the election of protectionist and isolationist leaders, now looks about as likely as a springtime picnic in London’s Hyde Park. Rage against China is perhaps an understandable reaction in the circumstances. But it is a reaction that is unsupported by strategy.
Who is Britain’s message about a “reckoning” supposed to target? If it means that Britain wants to bring together like-minded countries to demand that China change its standards on internal transparency of information, or indeed on animal welfare, that’s a worthy but very big ask. It’s a particularly big ask for a country that has recently left the EU, the international entity with the most interest in raising such issues on the international stage, but with which the British government is still in a form of Cold War, even during the virus crisis.
Blame Boris Johnson for giving my colleague the coronavirus
Britain still has many advantages: creative talent, superb higher education, hi-tech manufacturing, world-class services. But Brexit has, at least in the short term, made its international relationships much more fragile. Which of its relationships is Britain seeking to leverage with its comments on China? And why would China pay attention?
Actually, there are good reasons for China to pay attention not just to British, but also world opinion. Beijing can expect immense sympathy for the many deaths in China, and respect for the swift way the state dealt with the crisis. But if China simply declares that it has been right all along, rather than reassessing its opaque treatment of information and the culture of political fear, then it will squander the goodwill it has created.
Blaming China for the coronavirus will come back to haunt the West
In a strange way, Britain and China find themselves in a geopolitically similar position. Both are countries which are globally admired for aspects of what they do. But they are both a long way from the sweet spot that would give them a globally plausible voice when the virus crisis is over.
If Britain wants change in China, it needs to be precise about what that change is, and how it will seek new friends who share those views. And if China wants to protest angrily that Britain is quite wrong, then it needs to change its systems visibly, to make sure that its premier does not have to appear in public to demand that public officials tell the truth because they are still terrified of the consequences of honesty. ■
Rana Mitter is Director of the University China Centre at the University of Oxford and author of A Bitter Revolution: China’s Struggle with the Modern World and China’s War with Japan, 1937-45: The Struggle for Survival
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