The consequences of COVID-19 are truly unimaginable. From the ever-mounting death toll to the surge in unemployment, nobody could imagine how a disease could bring the world to its knees.

China, without doubt, is at enormous fault for this. Its lack of transparency left the world unaware of the dangers posed by the virus. It’s being said that privately, world leaders are fuming at the Chinese leadership. Yet with the US increasingly abdicating its position of world leadership, China is stepping into its shoes and may yet make huge gains in spite of its moral responsibility for this chaos. This is the Chinese paradox, and how it manifests itself in the most pernicious of ways.

China Round the World

Had the virus hit thirty or forty years ago, it would have simply passed through Hong Kong to the rest of the world. Perhaps it would have even stopped in Hong Kong if local authorities had an effective response.

Recently, China has become a major investor in countries ranging from the United States to Congo. Because of high levels of domestic savings and a strong balance of trade, China has the capability to invest in foreign economies. Today, with their economies in the dumps, many countries will be looking to foreign investment for their recovery. And China, unlike the US, has large amounts of capital at its disposal to invest abroad. So, in the name of aiding other countries in their economic recovery, China will greatly extend its influence.

Countries that have increasingly become reliant on Chinese money include a number of African countries, as well as Central Asian nations. While these aren’t centres for political power, they have huge quantities of natural resources. Resources mean money and money means power; China could end up with a lot of both by the end of this global recession.

An American Disaster

How does one describe America’s response to the Coronavirus? To describe it as anything less than an unmitigated disaster would be generous. Regardless of your views of President Trump, he has evidently been trying to downplay the pandemic to save his increasingly dire prospects of being re-elected in November.

There is disagreement on Capitol Hill between the President and the Democratic House over how to respond. And while there is some recognition of China’s rising influence, their responses have been in the form of micro-aggressions such as subtly worded support for Taiwan and purely rhetorical legislation surrounding Tibet.

The problem is the lack of foresight and an inability to see the bigger picture. Trump, and surely the people around him, would have assumed that the pandemic would lead to anger against China. This it has. However, they lost sight of the fact that by retreating from the world stage in protest of the WHO’s pro-China biases, they are actually empowering China.

Consider this. The US will no longer fund the WHO. What this means is that the second-largest contributor, which is China, will automatically become the largest contributor. While in principle the WHO’s response has proven disastrous, with the evident lack of foresight from the world’s biggest superpower, the Americans have become the inadvertent enablers of Chinese expansionism.

China: To trust or not to trust?

Let’s face it. The United States hasn’t been the most benevolent of superpowers and has on more than one occasion abused its status of being the world’s top dog. But make no mistake; China has, in its foreign policy, shown itself to be a power-hungry, purely undemocratic and deeply selfish nation that has no qualms about suppressing both its minority-citizens and bullying governments abroad.

The one hope for the West that is left, is that the virus leads to a period of de-Sinification. That is, the western countries realise that China is gaining ground fast, and subsequently try and restrict Chinese investment and influence in their countries. As China already owns large amounts of US debt and property, by reducing Chinese influence it could contain China’s expansion and limit it into the so-called “Third World.” Strategic partnerships with other emerging economies and large countries like India should, and hopefully will become the new norm.

Already, there is some evidence that the British and American governments may be embarking on this scheme. But both countries are declining on the international stage, and (while it’s a whole subject of its own) the EU has failed as well. The rising tide of China may well have been accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic, and it is now for the West to sort out a mess arguably of its own creation.

By Priyankar Kandarpa