he rapid and deadly spread of the coronavirus has wreaked havoc around the world. As of mid-July 2020, it has already led to over 14 million confirmed cases of sickness and claimed more than 600,000 lives. It has also caused the most serious economic recession since the Great Depression, involving massive unemployment and bankruptcies. With no cure or vaccine on the horizon, the situation will get worse before it gets better. Some of the pandemic’s damages — as traumatic and painful as they are — will be relatively short-lived. Other consequences will have much longer-term influence on societies.
One of these longer-term consequences has to do with China’s international relations, in particular its relations with the Western world. As an emerging economy whose rise has been a focus of worldwide fascination, or anxiety, since the late twentieth century, China has also been a central actor in the unfolding of the current global pandemic. As far as we know, the first sign of trouble came at the end of 2019, when a cluster of pneumonia cases emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. Chinese government officials’ knee-jerk reaction was to hide the bad news. But when it became clear the problem was serious and worsening by the day, Beijing took the drastic measure of locking down Wuhan with its 11 million residents. But the virus was already spreading to other parts of the world. In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 — the disease caused by the virus — a global pandemic. Many countries followed China’s example and locked down their cities to various degrees in an effort to slow down the spread of the virus. Since April, China has brought the pandemic within its borders under control and gradually reopened its economy and society. A couple of months later, a number of other countries have also started their own phased reopening. But there are already indications in China and elsewhere that the virus is striking back.