The Wuhan coronavirus has now infected over 2.5 million people globally and has resulted in over 1,50,000 fatalities as the virus continues to spread unabated. The economic consequences of the pandemic is something that the world has never witnessed and will be arguably similar if not worse to the times of the Great Depression. The world knows who’s culpable but it is unlikely that China will face the consequences over its actions that have caused a pandemic as a confused America and a dilapidated Europe will not be able to challenge the dragon.
Knowingly or unknowingly, China has laid the steps of officially overtaking the USA and becoming the undisputed superpower as America’s economy is beginning to contract due to the pandemic as whatever little gains that the American economy was able to achieve under Trump now stand to be wiped out.
There is a reason why any attempt to punish China for its wrongdoings should be led by the USA. It was the USA who created this uncontrollable dragon by helping China get a seat at the table in major international organisations. It was Henry Kissinger who is widely considered as the doyen of the U.S. foreign policy community, who pushed for China’s inclusion on global platforms. There was a belief in the West that a nation with over a billion people cannot be left alone and it will eventually fall in line and agree to the international norms. It is safe to say that hasn’t happened and the world is paying the price for trusting and aiding China.
History is a witness that the USA and Europe have never been able to stand up to China. In 1971, Taiwan was forced to give up its permanent seat in the UN Security Council to China as the world willingly handed the key to China to control the world at its whims and fancy thanks to the veto power.
Over the years be it under the tyrant Mao Zedong or Mao in waiting, Xi Jinping, the USA, and Europe have continued to ignore China’s human rights violations. Such is the influence of China, that the country is being awarded high ranking posts in the United Nations Human Rights Commission despite its horrendous record of human rights violations. Recently, China has been rewarded with a position in the UNHRC that will pick human-rights investigators. Jiang Duan who is a minister at the Chinese Mission in Geneva has been appointed to the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Consultative Group — where he will act as the representative of the Asia-Pacific states.
This development means that the Chinese Communist Party is all set to pick at least 17 human rights investigators, including those looking at freedom of speech, enforced disappearance, and arbitrary detention — which is a regular occurrence in Xi Jinping’s China. China’s ascendancy to a key position in the UNHRC not only allows it to pontificate to other nations about human rights but also effectively shields the CCP from any actions against its atrocities on Uyghurs or the sudden disappearance of the dissenters.
Throughout the pandemic, the CCP has heavily cracked on free speech. In February, two journalists – Chen Quishi and Fang Bin had also disappeared mysteriously. Their crime? They unmasked the true face of the Chinese Communist Party as they exposed the government’s inability to tackle the virus at its epicenter in Wuhan. Chen’s colleague and journalist Fang Bin secretly filmed 8 bodies in 5 minutes in 1 Wuhan hospital ward and Chen was immediately arrested the same night by the Chinese authorities.
The US and Europe have only been able to issue meek statements in response to China’s crackdown on transparency which has arguably played a key role in creating the pandemic.
Tibet has been historically ignored by the USA and Europe while they have also been largely silent on the plight of Uighur Muslims in China. In September last year, Lawyer Hamid Sabi, speaking at the UNHRC headquarters in Geneva claimed that the Chinese government is harvesting and selling organs from persecuted ethnic and religious minorities including the Uyghur Muslims, who are being persecuted at an accelerated pace.
A heart-wrenching account from a former Falun Gong prisoner exposes the sheer brutality with which such crimes against humanity were committed. He told the Guardian, “after about a month in the camp, everyone was handcuffed and put in a van and taken to a huge hospital. That was for a more thorough physical check-up. We were given X-rays. On the third occasion in the camp, they were drawing blood from us. We were all told to line up in the corridor and the test was given.”
China has a very low number of voluntary organ donors, at an average of just more than 100 per year. However, the number of organ transplants run into thousands. This number shot up in a big way only after 2004. In fact, a report says that in China, over 60,000 to 100,000 transplants have been taking place annually, to the point that surgeons have ‘lost count’.
Such blatant atrocities have still not invited any action from the West. If such brutal atrocities had been taking place in any democratic country like India, the international pressure would have been punishing. But there’s a pin drop silence when it comes to China as the USA and Europe are too scared to not spook the dragon.
Despite the fact that China has free press it is still given utmost respect and state propaganda is given the treatment of legitimate news. So much is China’s hold in the USA and Europe, that almost every major publication carried a “China Daily” supplement which spoke glowingly about China. China has recently kicked out the likes of Washington Post and the New York Times from the country but that hasn’t stopped them from taking China’s side. The New York Times actually published an article that claimed that China had effectively bought time for the world to fight the pandemic.
The likes of Donald Trump, Dominic Raab, and Emmanuel Macron have all made statements seeking to investigate China’s wrongdoings but every statement has been monkey balanced. Trump might be leading the charge to get into Wuhan and investigate but has now shied away from addressing it as the “Chinese virus”. Dominic Raab earlier claimed that it won’t be business as usual with China after the pandemic but also praised China for helping in the evacuation of UK citizens from China.
The pandemic hasn’t stopped China from aggressively pursuing its nefarious interests in the South China Sea. Despite the fact that an international tribunal rejecting its claims to exclusive jurisdiction in the South China Sea, it continues to expand and vilify smaller nations which rightfully claim their right over the sea. The US and UK have sent their warships to counter China, not out of the goodness of their hearts because the sea is of strategic importance for the trade of the two countries. The rest of Europe with France in particular has made it a point to not publicly raise objections to China’s expansionist policy in the South China Sea as it seeks to protect its trade ties with China.
As the world now scrambles to shift supply chains out of China, it will be easier said than done. China enticed foreign companies with dirt-cheap labour and authoritarian policies which made land acquisition for foreign firms and factories a cakewalk. Over the years China has managed to become the export hub of the world which has resulted in massive trade deficits with the USA and Europe turning a blind eye to the red flags.
While the USA had its apprehensions over the Belt and Road Initiative is known, Europe lined up to take part in Xi Jinping’s ambitious BRI which has further exacerbated the trade deficits. Poor countries who are not able to pay back China’s loans are increasingly facing the threat of becoming Chinese colonies with case in point being the Maldives and Sri Lanka.
It is only ironic that Italy who was one of the first countries to sing up for the BRI has been one of the worst affected countries as China didn’t even shield its close allies from the China-made pandemic.
China brilliantly used the trade deficit to gain control of the Food and Agriculture Organisation. After trapping the Cameroonian government in its famed debt-trap diplomacy, China slashed $78 million in debt owed by Cameroon which was followed by the latter withdrawing its candidate for the FAO. Thus, Chinese candidate, Qu Dongyu, was elected as the director-general of the FAO.
It took a Donald Trump to start a trade war with China to make it finally behave but that now appears to have fizzled out partly due to the pandemic and party due to the lack of support from the European countries.
China has been indulging in the theft of intellectual property for decades. It is estimated that Chinese IP theft costs the United States anywhere between $225 billion to $600 billion a year. The USA finally woke up this threat as in March, after successfully exporting the virus to the world, China was back to its nefarious ways with it trying to usurp the position of the director-general election of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). China would have been successful in its efforts if not for the USA’s alertness. The US diplomats lobbied with more than 80 governments who were voting for the coveted post as the US argued that China will use the WIPO to steal technology. This paved way for the victory of Daren Tang, the Singaporean candidate who received the backing of the USA.
After years of flying under the radar and trying to act as a country which will follow the international rules and regulations, China is now the world’s second-largest economy by dollar gross domestic product as the country’s GDP is now approximately about $14 trillion as compared to the US’s $20 trillion. The pandemic presents the perfect opportunity for China to overtake the USA as the latter’s economy has now begun to contract.
If history is anything to go by, there is no guarantee that China will be dealt with in the harshest terms and be held accountable for the massive coverup and the resultant pandemic?
As the West spirals down towards a nasty recession, China is all set to get a booster shot in the long term. It’s ambition to overtake the USA and be the biggest world superpower is closer than ever and ironically it is going to be because of the Wuhan coronavirus.