Hyderabad: The COVID-19 crisis comes in the backdrop of a high degree of trust deficit which has existed for some time now between China and the rest of the world. The trust-deficit has been caused primarily by the growing power, footprints and influence of China across the continents and its ambition to conquer the word through economic enslavement.
There is a broad international consensus that China's seemingly benign economic and infrastructure projects and its international aid and assistance policy have serious geo-political and strategic and security implications. Specifically, China's One Belt One Road (OBOR)/ Belt and Road (BRI) initiative and its by-product i.e. China's debt-trap policy, are looked at with suspicion.
Most of the large countries, including USA and India, are concerned over huge trade deficits with China and its systematically increasing stakes in global companies and institutions of global governance. China's aggression in disputed South-China Sea is considered a threat to freedom of navigation and aviation in a region through which international trade worth billions of dollars is routed.
The manner in which the CVOID-19 pandemic has unfolded and engulfed the entire world, coupled with China's attempts to take advantage of the on-going crisis is bound to further dent the international image and reputation of China, while putting the international community on alert. This submission is elaborated as follows.
Amidst the conspiracy theories in some segments of the international community, particularly in the USA that the virus was manufactured in a Wuhan Lab in China and spread by design to weaken the world, there is a widespread global consensus that China failed to alert the rest of the world about the impending pandemic well-in-time, which resulted in enormous loss of life and a severe setback to world economy.
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China is also being accused of successfully manipulating the World health Organization (WHO), whose Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was elected in May 2017 with China's support and therefore allegedly covered up China's failure, and not only endorsed China's narrative on the spread of the deadly virus, it went on record praising China for its containment efforts.
Meanwhile, what makes it worse for China's already tarnished image is the fact that China is looking for opportunities in the crisis. Media reports at hand suggest that China sold the Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) to Italy (when the latter became the epicentre of Coronavirus) which Italy had earlier donated by tons to China in the early stages of outbreak of epidemic in that country. A shameful act, if indeed true.
China is also trying to make some quick money by selling poor quality medical goods. Spain is reported to have returned to China as many as 50000 defective quick-testing kits. Similarly, the Netherlands has also rejected the Chinese supplies on account of the supplies not meeting the safety standards.
Of more serious concern for long-term implications is the fear that China may take advantage of the crash of stocks in the global markets and aggressively purchase shares and acquire assets abroad. The USA and some European countries have for some time now been resisting the sale of technology companies to Chinese firms for security reasons. Countries such as Italy, Spain, Germany etc. have announced – after the outbreak of pandemicV- further measures to scrutinise foreign investments, particularly from China.
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The Western communities are demanding an inquiry into the role of China; law suits have been filed in the USA and elsewhere seeking trillions of dollars in compensation from China for the damages it has caused by downplaying the outbreak of the virus. The USA has taken a punitive but arguably avoidable measure against WHO by introducing a cut into the US financial contribution to the organization in the midst of the crisis.
How has India responded? India has refrained from making any official statements echoing the international sentiment against China. India has also eschewed any direct criticism of the WHO; instead India (at G-20 Virtual Conference) called for the reform and strengthening of the WHO. India's primary focus at the moment is on preventing the transition of the COVID-19 into third stage in India on the one hand and on mobilising concerted and coordinated global efforts to combat the pandemic, including through creation of funds to help in particular the poor and needy countries, exchange of information, accelerated research in quest of appropriate anti-novel Coronavirus vaccine at the earliest.
In the field of trade and investments, India has adopted a two-pronged pragmatic approach. As part of its global search, India continues to buy from China the urgently required medical equipment needed in the wake of the pandemic. According to media reports (citing government sources), more than 390 tonnes of medical supplies, including RT-PCR test kits, rapid antibody tests, thermometers and personal protective equipment (PPE) were bought and airlifted to India from China during 4th to 19th April.
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At the same time, India is treading with caution to ensure that China is not able to take any undue advantage of the crash of stock markets in India. For instance, India announced (18th April) its revised Foreign Direct Investment Policy to ensure inter-alia that investments from all countries sharing land boundaries would come through government route. The move is obviously aimed at deterring China from distress buying of Indian businesses or investment in enterprises which may be facing financial crunch owing to the pandemic.
The announcement came soon after the recent purchase by the Central bank of China of 17.5 million shares in one of the largest housing finance lenders, HDFC Ltd in the midst of pandemic, when the prices of the shares had significantly plunged. India has dismissed China's allegation that the revised policy is a violation of India's commitments to WTO and other multilateral organisations.
India has correctly explained that the revised guidelines only provide for a change of route for FDI into India and do not tantamount to any denial of investments into India to selected countries. It is relevant to point out that China herself has put several restrictions on market access to Indian companies in several sectors e.g. pharmaceutical, IT etc.
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The global crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over. It is premature to make any accurate assessment of the ultimate damage to human life and world economy and even societies as a whole, which the unprecedented crisis is likely to cause. It may take for ever and yet it may not be possible to discover as to whether the Covid-19 was by design or by default and whether or not the failure in the case of WHO was a systemic failure or it was a case of its DG returning the favour to its mentor.
What is clear, however, at the moment, is that the crisis has deepened the distrust for China amongst the global community. The crisis has also underlined the need for drawing a line between economic liberalisation/globalisation and the national security of individual countries.
It remains to be seen as to whether it would be business as usual for China once the pandemic is over or the rest of the world would adopt the policy of maintaining "social distance" with China.
