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Workers wearing personal protective equipment install a barricade around a residential area under lockdown in Beijing on Wednesday amid a Covid-19 outbreak. Photo: Reuters
Opinion
Asian Angle
by Kishore Mahbubani
Asian Angle
by Kishore Mahbubani

If China abandons zero-Covid, it could prove it’s more rational and pragmatic than the paralysed West

  • By performing a massive U-turn and reopening to the world, China would undoubtedly earn immeasurable admiration and respect for saving the global economy
  • All it would take is a few billion dollars to give the entire population mRNA booster shots. That’s what worked for Singapore – it can work for China too
Our world is beginning to drown in pessimism. Dark clouds, both geopolitical and geoeconomic, bear down upon us – some unleashing great pain and suffering on the people below. Energy prices are spiking. Inflation is accelerating. Governments, as in Sri Lanka, are falling. The burning question our world now faces is a simple one: can we turn things around?

The short answer is yes, we can. In our modern world, sound public policies based on logical reasoning and good scientific evidence could solve many of our problems. There’s only one catch: it would require all major countries to perform equally major U-turns.

In theory, democratically elected governments have enough innate flexibility to perform such a manoeuvre. But in practice, this turning point in history may instead present China with a unique opportunity to show that it has the most rational and pragmatic government in the world.
A woman stands among the ruins of her home destroyed by bombing in Irpin, Ukraine. Future historians will no doubt record that Europe’s geopolitical incompetence contributed to the war. Photo: AP
Europe, whose Enlightenment ideas birthed the social contract that underpins modern democratic government, has nonetheless shown itself incapable of delivering rational governance. Even though Russia was clearly wrong in invading Ukraine, future historians will no doubt record that Europe’s geopolitical incompetence contributed to the war. Warnings about the dangers of Nato expansionism from great Western strategic thinkers such as George Kennan and Henry Kissinger were ignored. An avoidable tragedy was not avoided.
Now war is being waged and energy prices are spiking, as the conflict’s ripple effects risk tipping up to 1.7 billion people – more than one-fifth of humanity – into poverty, destitution and hunger, according to the UN. The logical response would be to sue for peace, but European leaders are too busy arming Ukraine and indulging in bellicose rhetoric to follow such a path. A U-turn from Europe isn’t coming.

Why the US-China contest will be fought in the heartlands of America

Nor should we expect one from Washington. The United States enjoys seeing Russia’s military fail, and is happier still that the Europeans have once again fallen into lockstep with American geopolitical priorities.
Yet in making Vladimir Putin enemy number one, the administration of US President Joe Biden has made what future historians will surely conclude was a huge strategic mistake. The war, and Washington’s reaction to it, has taken the heat off twice-impeached former president Donald Trump, who could now ride a second wave of populism fuelled by rising prices and widespread shortages to regain the White House in 2024.

China’s opportunity

Western governments’ paralysis provides a massive geopolitical opportunity for China to show that it has the most rational and pragmatic government in the world. It is the one major economy with the dynamism and heft to revitalise the global economy – but doing so would require another major U-turn: this time on Covid policy.

There is no doubt that China’s zero-Covid policy has saved countless lives. If the virus had been left to run rampant as it was in the US, which has had more than a million deaths, then China’s Covid-19 toll would have exceeded it multiple times over, instead of the 5,000 or so fatalities that had been recorded as of Wednesday. Which invites the question: would a zero-Covid reversal inevitably lead to a surge in deaths?

Scientific evidence from countries whose populations are well-inoculated with mRNA vaccines, such as Singapore, shows that economies can reopen without paying a terrible toll in lives. The city state has recorded fewer than 1,400 deaths throughout the pandemic and the chances of many more Singaporeans dying are very low – even though the economy has mostly reopened – thanks to its successful vaccination campaign. I have personally benefited from this drive, having just had my fourth vaccine dose.

Pedestrians walk through Singapore’s central business district in April. The city state has recorded fewer than 1,400 deaths throughout the pandemic Photo: Bloomberg

Chinese governments have not been afraid to learn lessons from Singapore in the past. As a small society, it provides a good test-bed for sound public policies that can be replicated elsewhere. China’s advantage here is that most of its population is already vaccinated – albeit with domestically developed inactivated vaccines rather than the mRNA jabs that have proven to be more effective.

Fortunately, these new-style Covid-19 vaccines are much cheaper to procure now, at a few US dollars a piece, than they were in the early days of the pandemic when the likes of Israel and Singapore paid US$30 per dose to secure supplies. China is even developing mRNA vaccines of its own.

For just a few billion dollars, then – based on current market prices – the entire population of China could be given mRNA booster shots developed by the likes of Pfizer. The main reason given for why this will not happen is that Beijing would “lose face”. But for much of the world’s population, especially the 88 per cent who live outside the West, such a move to reopen China’s economy to the world would be cheered. The spike in global economic confidence would be clear and palpable.

A man undergoes a Covid-19 test in Beijing on Wednesday. Giving up on zero-Covid would allow China to reopen to the world. Photo: EPA-EFE

Such a move would undoubtedly cause admiration and respect for the Chinese government to grow immeasurably, as it would show it is willing to make a massive U-turn to save the global economy. More importantly, it would contrast with the irrational geopolitical and geoeconomic policies of Western governments and show that they are no longer the standard bearers for good governance.

Executing a shift in Covid policy so momentous would take several months. But even a signal that China was considering this shift would allow a ray of hope to emerge from behind the dark clouds of pessimism and despair. This is an opportunity the likes of which China has rarely seen.

Kishore Mahbubani, a Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore, is the author of ‘Has China Won? The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy’ (2020).

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