Covid-19: Geopolitical ramifications for China and beyond

4 April 2020

As the world is locked in battle against the spreading COVID-19, the worst crises since World War Two, China’s narrative has evolved from the initial cover-up of the seriousness of the novel virus into portraying herself as the benevolent saviour of the world. This narrative has been backed by claims that China provided the world with precious time to prepare for the outbreak, and after, by providing the China-friendly countries with medical supplies. The story has evolved into China depicting itself as an example for other countries while openly smearing the failed responses to the pandemic in the rest of the world.

Recently, we have witnessed the Chinese propaganda machine in its full force, first by its forceful denial of China being the origin of the virus and then, by pointing the origin towards the US, aiming to blur the logical chain of events. Both the US and China have accused each other and even if the leaders are now trying to ease the tensions; the internal pressures in their countries will hardly decrease.

Governments, organisations and businesses alike are trying to make sense of the ramifications of the COVID-19 outbreak across the world while plenty is still unknown about the virus itself, including its origin in China. Both the Black Death in the 14th century and the Spanish Flu in 1918 kicked off chains of economic, technological and societal changes. COVID-19 will also shape our world, strengthen some development drivers, fasten consequences and eventually, in the years to come, transform our world into something different.

In regards to China, one thing seems unavoidable: the crisis will render it more unpredictable. When economic growth stalls, control and censorship will increase, and this will reflect on international relations.

Counter-globalisation strengthens

Signals of counter-globalisation are multiplying along with the spread of the pandemic. Critical supply chains are breaking down not only as a direct result of the COVID-19 but also because nations en masse have woken up to their heavy dependency on Chinese production and to the vulnerabilities this reliance creates. China-dependent supply chains have been on a slow move since the financial crises, and especially after the calls for China+1 strategies started to emerge.

A worrying global outcome of the pandemic is the threat it is posing to democracy. China has been able to increasingly divide the already weak unity of the European Union where the ‘China-friendly’ countries are willingly trading off the core values of the block for the commercial benefits China offers.

Chinese reactions to current international calls for lessening the manufacturing dependency have been defensive ranging from threats of cutting off some medical supplies to the US to the Chinese foreign ministry’s statements that it is “unrealistic” to sever the supply chains as “the era of globalisation means deeply integrated interests and highly intertwined industrial and supply chains”.

The current pandemic feeds the counter-globalisation. National security concerns — especially in the Western countries, unfair trade practices with the trade war remaining unsolved, failed soft power such as the Confucius Institutes, as well as China’s bully-ish diplomatic tactics (for example with Sweden) further feed distrust and decoupling.

Stakes have become high. Undoubtedly, China has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of globalisation and any counter-trend is a threat to its economic growth, and therefore also a threat to its internal stability and eventually to the Communist Party itself. To manage the pandemic consequences, the party has already tightened internal control and censorship. This indicates that China will remain active in trying to control the external narrative and will continue to divide countries into friends and foes. ‘Unfriendly’ countries will then feel the repercussions, especially in their trade and economic relations with China.

The wounding of ‘brand China’

Recently, even China’s ‘politics of generosity’, meant to help with medical supplies for the most severely impacted nations in Europe, has been received with unease and mistrust. The more aggressively China pushes with its narrative, the wearier the other countries grow.

Putting aside the human torment this novel virus has created, it is also a massive blow on China’s brand. COVID-19, regardless of its neutral name, will likely have a permanent ‘China label’ on it. The spillover from the political and trade confrontation shapes the sentiments of ordinary citizens across the continents and has already kicked off other dominos such as globally growing xenophobia.

Chinese people have faced discrimination abroad, and recently so have foreigners in China. It is difficult to imagine the rising death tolls around the world making ridding the sentiments of any negative connotations or that the tit-for-tat between the US and China would suddenly turn into an all-embracing community of shared future for mankind. Altogether, these intertwine with the already globally rising local nationalism and protectionism.

Solidarity test for Europe and the West

The Coronavirus has put the Western countries’ solidarity to the test, and China has been quick to use the situation to her advantage. Despite China’s misleading narrative, the EU countries have been the biggest aid donors among themselves during the COVID-19 outbreak. When the crisis broke out in China, the EU countries donated 56 tonnes of medical supplies for China, but remained quiet about the aid, allegedly due to China’s request.

Eventually, when the EU Commission’s counter-response to China’s campaign of being the major aid provider in Europe came out, it was already clear that China — if not already winning the war of global influencing — is using the pandemic for its political advantage in gaining a more solid footing in the international arena.

COVID-19 crisis creates a vacuum for China to advance its other objectives. This February, in the middle of the pandemic, Huawei together with Chinese state-owned teleoperators, moved on with their earlier proposal for a new internet core technology standard made to the United Nation’s International Telecommunication Union in September. Should this plan move forward, the nation-states would have authority over the internet, and as the Financial Times reported, it ‘could embed a system of centralised rule enforcement into the technical fabric of the internet’. This is exactly what China aims at achieving, with plausible outcomes being either a divided internet between authoritarian nation-states and between those still vowing in the name of freedom of speech. The latter group is tangled with flawed democracies, as the freedom of speech becomes somewhat of an endangered species.

A worrying global outcome of the pandemic is the threat it is posing to democracy. China has been able to increasingly divide the already weak unity of the European Union where the ‘China-friendly’ countries are willingly trading off the core values of the block for the commercial benefits China offers. China’s extensive surveillance and draconian measures in controlling the outbreak and its simultaneous propaganda drumming its successes have worked as a positive example to many nations and have helped in normalising the strong, authoritarian leader archetype.

Without many of us noticing, China slowly normalises and spreads its authoritarian governance model. For increasingly many, losing individual rights and freedoms do not seem like such a significant barter when someone offers stability and safety in these turbid and insecure times. In the future, when we look back to 2020, the COVID-19 outbreak may well be one of the triggers that led into the break-up of the European Union and China becoming the biggest economy in the world.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.

Author biography

Sari Arho Havrén is a visiting researcher at the University of Helsinki focusing on international relations, especially during the Cold War period and on geopolitical future analyses in the Asia Pacific. She has been living and working in China over a decade and in the Asia Pacific for close to 15 years. She has a PhD in international relations and she is a certified futurist. Image credit: CC BY-NC 4.0/Republic of Korea/Flickr.

Faultlines9DLApril 4, 2020China, Covid-19, Huawei, Europe