An earlier version of this article was published in the Nikkei Asian Review.

As the coronavirus crisis continues to reshape geopolitical contours and dynamics, the rivalry between China and the United States has deteriorated markedly. Divisions over China’s re-emergence as the first-in and first-out of the Covid-19 ward have thereby deepened. At issue is whether China’s virus-fighting assistance and its post-Covid position in the world is accepted or resisted. The either/or proposition of whether “you are with us or against us,” not long ago admonished by Washington, is increasingly coming from Beijing.

Three distinct phases have characterized the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The first was whether other countries suffered “with” or “against” China. As the world watched with shock and awe in January and February, and while the Chinese government boldly locked down swathes of its vast territory like a turnkey operation, some governments imposed early travel restrictions on China, led by Australia and the US. For Southeast Asia, a critical battleground in the China-US faceoff, Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam tightened travel rules quickly, whereas Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand maintained road and air transport routes with China well into March. These four countries in mainland Southeast Asia have depended on China for tourism, trade, investment, and superpower support in the face of Western criticisms against human rights and authoritarian proclivities.

A similar pro- and anti-China wedge has been evident in the West. As China exerted and stabilized virus control from mid-March, the pandemic went on a rampage in Europe and the US. Global coronavirus tallies became a league table of sorts, not only for public health management but also the ability of each afflicted country to overcome an external enemy. China began at top spot but soon gave way to the US and European countries.

This second stage was about whether other pandemic-ravaged countries accepted China’s assistance and advice through its so-called “coronavirus diplomacy,” as Beijing began to export its medical equipment, expertise, experience, and largesse. To date, more than a hundred countries around the world have received China’s anti-virus overtures with varying degrees of enthusiasm. European countries that are participants in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, such as Italy, took in Chinese aid. Southeast Asian governments have broadly welcomed Chinese medical gear and advice but more so among the mainland countries, especially Cambodia and Laos.

But some countries have pushed back hard. Spain and the Netherlands, for example, declined what they deemed “defective” Chinese test kits and face masks. Sweden, with its own approach of building “herd immunity,” closed the last of China’s Confucius Institutes. On the other hand, President Trump labeled Covid-19 the “Chinese virus,” questioned Beijing over virus misinformation, and suspended the US budget contribution to the World Health Organization, which is accused of conniving with Chinese authorities. Australia went a step further and called for an independent investigation into China’s virus mismanagement and the WHO’s role in it.

As partial re-openings take place in various countries from May, the third phase comes into play. The sharp economic contraction around the world will bite all economies hard but China’s centralized rule and large domestic market may give the country some additional room to maneuver. If the weaknesses of the US and Europe in the 2008-09 Global Financial Crisis enabled China’s launch to superpower status, the 2020-21 period could lead to solidification should China’s economy rebound quickly. Even though its growth this year will be much lower than forecast, China may come out of Covid-19 more intact than the other established major powers because it has suffered earlier and recovered faster.

China’s new phase of ascendancy will line up the international community between those nations that recognize China’s pre-eminence and others that resist it. In an ideal world, the coronavirus crisis would have galvanized international cooperation, led by China and the US, to fight against a common enemy. But instead, the virus has worsened pre-existing geopolitical tensions.

As the coronavirus blame game between the US and China intensifies, an open conflict between the two superpowers is more plausible than at any time in recent decades. China, for example, has expanded its claims in the South China Sea by setting up administrative regions in the face of Vietnam’s opposition, while the US and others are preoccupied by the pandemic. Nine plaintiffs so far in the US, including the state of Missouri, have filed lawsuits against China for its role in not preventing the spread of the coronavirus, and the Trump administration is alarmingly fingering China as the culprit for America’s woes, charges that can degenerate into a “casus belli” if conditions take turn for the worst.

Naturally, China is defensive regarding what it sees as a global scapegoating and a concerted drag on its geopolitical position. Moreover, China’s economic slowdown also will put President Xi Jinping under pressure at home ahead of the Chinese Communist Party’s centennial anniversary next year, while Trump faces election-year challenges. Both leaders will have incentives to boost nationalist inclinations and domestic popularity by finding outsiders to blame for internal problems.

Profound crises, such as imposed by the coronavirus, often lead to cathartic changes. Instead of more tension and potential conflict, Covid-19 may also force structural reforms and adjustments at home in both the US and China in a way that realigns their interests abroad. For example, Trump could lose the election this year, while Xi could be forced out or pressured by CCP cadres to take a different tack, resulting in changes away from confrontation towards peaceful co-existence and a revamped international order that satisfies both, with a bigger space for China and enough of a role for the US. While such a scenario and others based on shifting domestic dynamics that lead to more international cooperation may seem farfetched, the alternatives of untenable tension and geopolitical showdown are infinitely more detrimental to all parties involved.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak ([email protected]) teaches at Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Political Science in Bangkok and directs its Institute of Security and International Studies.

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The poor performance of Western Europe and the United States during the pandemic has revived Western declinism. A recent example is an essay by Zhou Bo of the Center of China-American Defense Relations, Academy of Military Science of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. Zhou’s assertions are important, but also mainly wrong, and therefore call for a critique. Below I will summarize Zhou’s arguments before refuting them.

1) The West is “falling apart,” and in a “nadir of its self-confidence,” based on the observation that Europe does not have a coordinated response to the pandemic.

Europe is a collection of sovereign governments with very limited merged sovereignty. Each still has its own policies in most areas, including pandemic response. Similarly, China and its Northeast Asian neighbors Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Mongolia, and Taiwan each had separate national policy responses to the pandemic. That does not indicate that any of the states in Northeast Asia is suffering a crisis of confidence in its own political system.

2) China successfully implemented emergency counter-measures now “being emulated around the world.”

The Chinese government did relatively quickly take the drastic measures that are relatively easy for an authoritarian state with untrammeled police powers. But the West will not seek to “emulate” other aspects of China’s performance that Zhou does not mention: the Chinese government treated initial reports of the disease as criminal rumor-mongering, suppressed information about the outbreak in the crucial early days, hoarded supplies of medical equipment purchased by importers abroad while China had shortages, demanded that other countries lift their restrictions against Chinese travelers while itself excluding and scapegoating foreigners, attempted to re-write the story of China’s role in the pandemic, and concealed the actual numbers of China’s sick and dead.

3) The pandemic suggests the United States will lose its declared strategic competition with China and Russia because the United States needs medical equipment from China and, aside from the pandemic, relies on China for drugs.

The US need for imported medical equipment is temporary and rectifiable; it will not limit US ability to strategically compete with China. The pandemic is, however, accelerating the trend of American diversification away from China for vital supplies, even if China is the cheapest producer. Chinese commentators such as Zhou who crow about this US over-dependence on China are unintentionally doing Americans a favor.

4) “China and Europe will inevitably get closer” because “a divided Europe will naturally look east” and because Europe, like China, wants “multilateralism” in “global trade,” climate change, and “the role of international institutions” while the United States is opposed.

First, it does not logically follow that less commitment to European integration among individual Western European countries causes them to “naturally” move to China. Zhou would have to make the case that individual European countries want to trade more or align themselves more tightly with China but have been prevented by their membership in the EU or by now-absent US leadership. But Zhou doesn’t go there.

Secondly, it is over-simplistic and misleading for Zhou to say that China and Europe see eye-to-eye on “multilateralism” in a way that leaves America out. In keeping with decades of previous US policy, Washington continues to support NATO, advocates for human rights and democracy worldwide, and is the EU’s top trading partner.

Beijing, on the other hand, routinely violates or disavows international law when it clashes with Chinese self-interests, often sides with outlaw states, and opposes attempts by international organizations to champion liberal principles. China’s idea of multilateral trade is other countries being open to Chinese imports and technology extraction while China maintains protectionism and predatory policies against Western direct investment in China. European political leaders have been much like Trump administration officials in their recent criticism of China over various issues.

It’s questionable that the desire of European states for a relationship with China extends beyond wanting their share of the possible economic benefits.

5) Americans want the EU to view China as an enemy, but will fail because “the creation of the EU is meant, in part, to avoid great power competition.”

This seems to be a reference to US attempts to discourage security partners from contracting Chinese corporation Huawei to build their advanced data network infrastructure. The EU was founded on what began as Western Europe’s common interest not in “avoiding great power competition,” but rather protecting themselves by banding together against a threatening great power. China is a long way from being their new Soviet Union, but is getting some negative attention, which is why some European governments have reservations about using Huawei systems.

6) As the US economically decouples from China, Europe will gain “a greater flow of goods, capital, personnel and technology from China.”

Are Chinese exports to Europe currently limited by China choosing to sell to the US rather than Europe? In any case, the US interest in decoupling is driven by American concerns about economic dependence on China. Western Europeans share those concerns, which means they may not want everything China offers.

7) The pandemic “can become a turning point for the country to provide more public goods to the world,” as shown by China providing medical supplies to many virus-hit countries.

Selling previously hoarded medical supplies is not providing public goods. Zhou is correct that China has the capacity to be a global “Good Samaritan” by quickly producing a large amount of certain items for which there might be a desperate foreign demand during a humanitarian crisis. China fulfilling such a role would be welcome. This, however, is a relatively low level of providing public goods. A higher level is something like intervening in a failed state to deliver food and other aid while under hostile fire, as the US and other countries did in Somalia in 1993-94. Beijing avoids operations such as this because they are difficult and controversial, but meaningful international leadership is inherently difficult and controversial.

8) What matters is not whether states are democratic or authoritarian, but the government’s performance. China, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore proved during the pandemic that a “strong and decisive” state is necessary and that the Western model of limited government cannot cope with crises.

By admitting that multiparty democracies like Japan and South Korea handled the pandemic well, Zhou fatally undercuts his implied argument that the lack of civil and political liberties in China is justified by superior government performance. Politically, Japan and South Korea are more similar to Western Europe than to China. Furthermore, Zhou neglects to mention the two countries most praised for their pandemic responses: New Zealand, a transplanted Western European country; and Taiwan, another liberal democracy. By ignoring Taiwan, Zhou silently reminds us that the China Model overly empowers a regime to prioritize its own survival, leading to unconstrained ruthlessness and vindictiveness even at the expense of its own and international society.

Europeans want to profit from China, but will not see the China Model as politically or culturally inspirational or attractive as long as China is ruled by a regime with objectives and policies so deeply at odds with Western Europe’s liberal traditions.

Denny Roy ([email protected]) is a senior fellow at the East-West Center, Honolulu.  He specializes in strategic and international security issues in the Asia-Pacific region.

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