38 China The EconomistOctober 17th 2020
A
series offailures made 2020 a rough year for China’s relations
with the world. First, Chinese officials—following the logic of
their unaccountable, secretive one-party system—failed to report
an unknown virus in the central city of Wuhan for several critical
weeks, giving covid-19 time to take hold. More failures followed.
As one foreign government after another botched its own re-
sponse, China’s rulers refused to take any blame for the pandemic,
instead slapping economic sanctions on such countries as Austra-
lia that called for inquiries into the outbreak’s origins. The costs
are plain to see: a recent survey of rich countries by the Pew Re-
search Centre found soaring distrust of China (with negative views
in Australia jumping 24 percentage points since last year).
That political gulf between China and the world is set to widen.
This time, the cause will be asymmetric success. China has effec-
tively controlled covid-19 and its economy is returning to life.
Meanwhile, governments in America, Europe and beyond face sec-
ond waves of infections and business bankruptcies and exploding
public deficits. Several elected incumbents will lose office.
Amid that global misery, China’s leaders call their country’s re-
covery proof that Communist Party rule offers a uniquely effective
blend of organisational prowess, respect for science, and tradi-
tional Chinese morality. They are about to discover how provoca-
tive that boasting will sound to many in the rest of the world. For-
eign anger will in turn prompt resentment within China. Ordinary
Chinese remember the collective sacrifices made by hundreds of
millions of citizens who stopped transmission by staying indoors
for weeks, often without pay. Glib lines from Western politicians
about admiring China’s people and opposing the Communist Party
will not help. People are complicated. It is possible for Chinese
citizens to remember their leaders’ early mistakes, to resent offi-
cials for thuggishly enforcing lockdowns, and at the same time to
agree that the country’s pandemic response is a source of national
pride. Modern China’s story is not one of oppressed masses all
yearning to be free. Party bosses stake their claim to rule on mak-
ing people’s lives better. Their China is a majoritarian project that
enjoys broad, if unknowable, public support. The headache for for-
eign governments is how to respond when the party crushes mi-
norities that get in the way, whether ethnic, religious or political.Covid-19hasgivena freshedge to arguments about which polit-
ical system is best. It is hard to overstate how bad the West’s han-
dling of the virus looks to ordinary Chinese. It is heartbreaking to
hear Western-educated liberals wonder whether democracy is be-
ing exposed as selfish and disorderly. Longtime admirers of Amer-
ica watch President Donald Trump blaming their country for un-
leashing a “China virus” on the world, and hear a horrifying
incitement to racial hatred. Chinese nationalists feel vindicated.
Diplomats in Beijing compare covid-19 to the global financial
crisis of 2008, another event that convinced many Chinese leaders
that the West is in long-term decline. Arguably, this pandemic is a
more perilous moment. For one thing, in 2008 the credit crunch
was a crisis discussed between Chinese and Western elites. Few
American or European voters either knew or cared that global
growth was being sustained by massive Chinese investments in
domestic infrastructure. For another, China was not on the defen-
sive. Elites in Beijing were tut-tutting observers of a crisis created
in the West. As one Chinese leader told Americans in 2008: “You
were our teacher, and the teacher doesn’t look very smart.”
This time, on both sides, elites and regular folk have strong
views about covid-19. In Beijing, Western diplomats recall this
pandemic year with real bitterness. They remember the dark days
of January and February as their home governments cancelled
scheduled flights to and from China, and pleaded for permission
to evacuate citizens from Wuhan, only to be summoned for hours-
long meetings at the Chinese foreign ministry, where officials an-
grily accused them of sowing panic and insulting China. With un-
blushing hypocrisy, China then turned round and sealed its bor-
ders still more tightly a few weeks later, after foreign infection
rates climbed. Early on, foreign countries were asked to send med-
ical aid to China without any publicity, and complied. Later, when
they sought to buy Chinese ventilators for their own patients, they
were told that the price included public praise for China.Why China’s return to growth will inspire mixed feelings
Far from the embassies in Beijing, foreign views of China have
soured dramatically, too. In the Pew survey of public opinion in ad-
vanced economies, a median of 61% of respondents deplored Chi-
na’s handling of covid-19. Chinese officials blame such criticism
on scapegoating by anti-China hawks in America. That is self-serv-
ing tosh. Thirteen of the 14 countries polled were even harsher
about America’s covid blunders. The survey is a record of public
displeasure over mistakes made, not a festival of China-bashing.
Foreign scepticism about China’s record is not entirely fair.
Some in the West speculate that China is hiding mass infections.
That is improbable: despite strict censorship, news of another Wu-
han-like catastrophe would leak. Instead, after early cover-ups,
China’s response has been simple but effective. Since late March it
has closed its borders to most foreigners, built high-tech systems
to monitor domestic travel and attacked even small flare-ups with
lockdowns and mass testing. After announcing a dozen cases on
October 11th, the coastal city of Qingdao began testing 9m people.
Yet a core claim made by the party is also false—that its crush-
ing of covid-19 proves the unique advantages of autocracy. Off Chi-
na’s coast, the democratic island of Taiwan has handled the virus
brilliantly, recording just seven deaths in a population of 23m.
The arguments will not stop even if vaccines are found to beat
the virus back. Shared suffering did not bring the world together in- Alas, a lopsided global recovery, especially if accompanied
by Chinese bragging, risks creating still sharper divisions. 7
Chaguan Claiming covid as a win
China calls its handling of the pandemic a “heroic feat” proving the Communist Party’s wisdom