25
The U.S. and
Chinese governments
now a ppear more
interested in taunting
each o ther than
cooperating to
contain the damage
wreaked by COVID-19. That’s bad news
for the whole world, because if they
worked together to limit further human
and e conomic d amage from this crisis
and to prevent future viral emergencies
from going global, there is much they
could d o.
U.S.-China relations have now reached
their lowest point since the immediate
aftermath o f the Tiananmen
Square massacre in June 1989.
Both c ountries h ave suffered
large-scale loss of life and a
sharp e conomic slowdown,
but p olitical o fficials in both
countries a re working to
protect their own domestic
standing by blaming the
other’s government. President
Trump h as taken to calling
COVID-19 the “Chinese
virus,” while senior Chinese
officials a nd state media have
pushed a ludicrous theory that the U.S.
created the virus and planted it in China
last fall.
This animosity didn’t begin, of cours e,
with coronavirus. Trump has waged a
tariff war against China for most of his
presidency and threatened the survival
of Huawei, the telecom giant central to
China’s strategy for state-of-the-art 5G
technologies.But COVID-19, and China’s initial
reaction to it, has made matters much
worse. In early January, at a time when
China was still hiding the spread of the
virus (and, even worse, while Chinese
citizens were traveling unfettered all
around the world), international health
officials hoping to enter the country
to study the virus and its effects were
denied access. In February, Trump
Administration officials announced thatfve Chinese media organizations would
be treated essentially as agents of the
Chinese government. China immediately
retaliated by expelling three Wall Street
Journal reporters because an article that
appeared in that paper referred to China
as “the real sick man of Asia.”
As for the virus itself, Chinese leaders
like to point out that they have achieved
remarkable success in containing
it at home and have now offered
humanitarian help to hard-hit countries
like Italy at a time when America is
headed for chaos. That’s true.
It’s also true that this virus, like severe
acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in
2 002, b egan in China, that
many Chinese p eople d ied
needlessly while Chinese
Communist Party officials hid
the d angers a nd lied, and that
much o f the impact elsewhere
in the world can be blamed on
China’s slow initial response.
All true, and in a moment
of true global crisis, none
of these charges will save a
single human life or limit
the economic fallout. At a
bare minimum, the U.S. and
China should share with each other and
with global health institutions useful
data on COVID-19 to help us understand
how to contain this plague. Washington
and Beijing could also invest cash and
scientifc expertise in a joint bid to
develop treatments and a vaccine.
They could work together to create an
earl y monitoring and surveillance system
to contain future viral threats before
they go global, and propose international
standards for preparedness and best
practices when the next public-health
crisis appears , no matter its source. They
could take the lead in creating global
reserves of medicine and supplies for
future emergencies. They could work
together to bolster the global economy.
In short, instead of accusing each
other of playing with matches, these two
powerhouse countries could help put out
the fre. □THE RISK REPORT
China and America’s blame game
over COVID-19 hurts everyone
By Ian BremmerWashington
and Beijing
could invest
cash and
scientific
expertise
in a joint bid
to develop
treatments
and a vaccineNAT ION
Cash now
A key c omponent o f A ndrew
Yang’s 2 020 p residential
platform was considered
a p articularly fringe idea:
universal basic income
(UBI). H is p roposal, w hich
he d ubbed t he Fr eedom
Dividend, w ould h ave put
$1,000 i n t he p ocke ts o f a ll
U.S. c itizens over the age of
1 8 ev ery s ingle m onth.
“I’m i ncredibly e xcited
by t he f act t hat o ur
government s eems l ike
they ’re on the cusp of doing
the c ommon sense t hing t o
help p eople g et t hrough t his
coronavirus crisis by putting
cash s traight i nto a f amily’s
hands,” Yang t ells T IME o f
the U BI-adjacent s olutions
that l awmakers i n b oth
part ies h ave embraced.
He a rgues t hat o ther
economic s olutions l ike
paid s ick a nd f amily l eave
would t ake t oo l ong t o r oll
out. “ We d on’t h ave time
right n ow,” Yang s ays. “This
is s omething we a ctually
can i mplement i mmediately,
in a p owe rful way, that
will i mprove millions of
Americans’ l ives a nd m ake
us s tronger a nd h ealthier
from d ay one.”
But Yang i sn’t t aking
sole c redit f or m aking t he
idea m ainstream. “ My
goal h as a lways been to
eradicate a nd a lleviate all
of t he u nnecessary poverty
and d eprivation i n t his
country,” he says.
—Abby VesoulisAmid COVID-
19 fallout,
Yang’s UBI
proposal gets a
second lookVLEDE.indd 25 3/25/20 4:28 PM