This article was previously published on analyzingwar.org.
The COVID-19 pandemic has evolved into a litmus test for China’s capacity to lead the world. Despite experiencing unwelcome repercussions for silencing Li Wenliang, deflecting blame for the coronavirus outbreak, and selling defective medical supplies to ill-stricken countries, Beijing remains determined.
It is common knowledge that this has to do with China’s dissatisfaction with the liberal order that was designed after American democratic aspirations for the world, a stark contrast to Beijing’s own version of world order. As a result, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been advocating for multipolarity as an expression of Chinese displeasure. Under Xi Jinping, the CCP persists on this route through strategic competition with Washington, a major departure from Beijing’s long-held policy of “hiding China’s strength and biding its time.” For Xi, it seems, China’s long wait is over and complete.
Meanwhile, America’s unipolar moment in the 1990s is now understood as a brief transitional period, merely the world’s evolution towards ushering in a more pluralistic international community. Nonetheless, it is to be viewed in relational rather than absolute terms. In other words, US decline is relative to rising powers like China and, therefore, Washington is expected to remain in the way in the event Beijing grants itself some degree of hegemonic latitude. Along with similar threshold economies such as Brazil, South Africa, and India, the world will have to manage each other’s interests more effectively, multilaterally, and pursue common problems under a unified effort.
Asymmetry in response
The COVID-19 pandemic is one such problem, which is ostensibly marked by US-China competition that led to blame games, conspiracy theories, fake news, but most importantly, the quest to find a cure for the coronavirus. In the midst of it all, the gist is that the US is unprepared and distracted while China is projecting global leadership in the middle of an international crisis with laser focus. (READ: U.S. report accuses China of covering up coronavirus numbers)
America, for its part, is in disarray. Overconfidence and complacency notably on the part of the US president have turned the virus into a political weapon, stoking the rage of pugnacious Chinese diplomats who responded in kind against Trump’s Twitter diplomacy. Washington’s inability to decisively mobilize its industrial might on a wartime scale in order to meet domestic demand for medical supplies may have been caused by such distractions, along with this year’s upcoming presidential elections. (READ: Politics aside, U.S. relies on China supplies to fight coronavirus)
At the same time, with New York experiencing its worst humanitarian challenge since 9/11 at 11,477 deaths as of this writing, the US continues to fail to muster and coordinate a global response to the pandemic, which is made worse by its withdrawal from the World Health Organization, a reflection of the primacy of Trump’s “America First” agenda over scientific and medical agenda. The rest of the world is in no better position. It may only be a matter of time before social unrest in Europe and America spirals out of control.
Global security imperative
On the other hand, China is aggressively working to draw the international community towards its orbit as US global influence recedes at a time of crisis. It is curious enough that the coronavirus originated from Wuhan, something that no credible epidemiologist in the world has contested. It has also been the subject of conspiracy theories where circumstantial evidence is heavy given the city’s location for a research institute of virology from where the virus is rumored to have leaked.
Still, true to form, Beijing is turning this bioterrorism accusation on its head by ordering the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to beat the West, particularly the US, in developing a vaccine. Led by China’s top epidemiologist and virologist who is a female major general in the PLA, they have enrolled 108 subjects – all dedicated PLA military officers – for clinical trial which will take place in Wuhan’s Tongji Hospital, likely a symbolic move to save face and glorify the CCP if the research were to succeed considering it is where the pandemic began. They have now bypassed necessary testing phases on small animals and primates by going straight to human trials.
Germany’s efforts, however, appears to hold promise following multiple overtures made by China and the US and other Western countries to acquire one of its biopharmaceutical companies that is involved in the vaccine research, further underscoring the fact that biotechnology is, indeed, a strategic industry with global security imperatives.
This brings to mind Australia’s 2009 shortcoming after it successfully developed a single-dose vaccine for the swine flu epidemic, prioritizing its own population first prior to fulfilling export orders to the US and other countries. It is therefore logical to consider how China will behave if, indeed, it beats the West to developing the vaccine. Similarly, there would expectedly be quality issues that might put a nation’s population at risk if not add to the already high global death toll, which is now nearly 200,000 as of posting.
The world still needs a leader
In sum, Beijing’s success not only lies in winning the global race to develop the first vaccine to COVID-19, but as to what the US and the West will have to give up diplomatically, economically, and militarily as a function of China’s exclusive control of the vaccine’s global distribution. It should also be noted that PLA forces in the South China Sea have already been emboldened by two inoperable U.S. aircraft carriers due to COVID-19 infections: American strategic assets that could not do anything while the Liaoning strike group is busy projecting Chinese military might in the western Pacific, a reminder of Beijing’s readiness to fill the vacuum in the event the US is ultimately displaced from the region.
Although multilateralism is the modus operandi of a modern world order, multipolarity still demands a leader, one that can channel the energy of a concert of great powers towards a meaningful future for the world. This is a sobering challenge given Chinese attempts to take on the mantle of leadership during and after this pandemic, one that might question the resilience of global interdependence that is increasingly skewed towards the CCP’s core interests. Given that America is the only viable great power that is capable to balance China, it must regain momentum and trust and confidence that may have been lost owing to its protectionist distractions. (READ: Trump warns China could face 'consequences' over pandemic)
Beijing may be poised to win the race to the vaccine owing to the draconian methods it has employed right from the beginning. This will determine a China-centric, post-COVID-19 global scenario whether it passes the test or not. The world must be ready to accept this possibility or do more to shape the environment in which China rises. – Rappler.com
Chester Cabalza, PhD is a Fellow of the PLA National Defense University in Beijing, China and the US Department of State under the Study of US Institutes (SUSI) Program.
Mark Payumo is an international security analyst who is a former Philippine Army Special Forces Officer. He graduated from the Philippine Military Academy in 2006.