China and COVID-19: global leadership challenged

It is true that, when approaching the reality of an epidemic, we always run the risk of being left behind, as current events advance and unfold in a dizzying manner, making any real approach to it in many cases futile.

These days, the scenario has changed. There has been a transformation within a reflective perspective regarding the Chinese case and with the rest of the world, where the COVID-19 is expanding in some cases in an out-of-control way: Italy, Spain, North and South Korea, Japan, Ecuador, the United States or Iran.

The centre of this epidemic situation is China, a country that is experiencing moments of certain anxiety - commercial war with the United States, conflicts on the periphery of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and swine fever, among other issues - and which is tackling it with all the resources it has at its disposal at the moment and in coordination with the international institutions responsible for health. The official figures are 83,039 infected, 3,340 dead and 77,367 recovered.

China has demonstrated extraordinary economic development, with the “recovery” of millions of people from extreme poverty, being a clear advocate of globalisation in which it has benefited enormously and with a strategic projection which is becoming inherent to its potential as a country in the area and worldwide. In view of this, it is worth considering, as could well happen in other circumstances and with other players, whether China knows how to manage a domestic crisis that turns into a global one.

At the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, the known cases of COVID-19 were small; however, as of January 20, the figures grew exponentially, and this is when it became clear that the inaction of local authorities and the concealment of information, as well as the delay in the action of the Chinese central authority, are realities that help create an ineffective and insecure response, something that we have seen in other countries affected by the pandemic.

As Mario Esteban, head researcher at the Instituto Real Elcano in Madrid, points out, “in the first months of the crisis there were no tests, everyone who died in those early days is not officially counted”. Many are the voices that have expressed criticism of the management carried out so far. One example is Professor Xu Xhangrun, who condemned both the lack of ethics and the use that the Chinese regime might make of this new reality in a kind of backward step of all that has been gained in the last three decades in the country's development.

However, what can this pandemic reality represent for a country that is trying to build an image of strength and global leadership? In the 1993 National Security Strategy of the United States, it was stated that “no other nation has the same capacity for moral, cultural, political, economic and military credibility. No other has achieved such trust, respect and fidelity. No other has the same potential and responsibility to exercise world leadership”. While this definition may be classic, it is correct for those who aspire to lead globalisation and who, while in some aspects of leadership such as the management of this type of crisis, are at the forefront of it in other aspects such as trust, credibility and transparency, remain at a loss. Leadership must be not only commercial, military, economic - a country that contributes more than 15% of its GDP to the world economy - and cultural under normal circumstances, but also when crisis situations of this kind occur and we all understand that they are exceptional.

That is why some questions arise that may bring us closer to understanding the management of Chinese rule in this pandemic crisis: how this emerging leadership reacts to an unmistakably special moment. It will be interesting to analyse how the Chinese government and its political-administrative apparatus is managing this crisis with all the real data on it that we have available in the country today; what account is being given to us by the Chinese authorities in the face of the reality of COVID-19's impact; what productive and logistical capacity is going to be deployed in the face of the demand for health products at a global level; What actions will it take in those international forums and institutions where its presence is decisive; and of course, a comparison between the Chinese management model and the American one cannot be avoided, since it will be inevitable to reflect on how these two global leaders have managed the COVID-19 attack and the geopolitical consequences that this may entail.