Beijing is assisting its soft power and taking the lead in a global response to the coronavirus public health crisis. The moves come as China’s daily tally of new infections decline while those in the U.S. rise.
In the last few weeks, Chinese President Xi Jinping has been busy job leaders across the world and rallying for global coordination in managing the coronavirus outbreak. Chinese health experts must hosted video conferences with those from other countries to share experiences.
“This is the first supranational crisis where China is actively taking a global leadership role and it stands in particular contrast to the US, which has disdained global cooperation and invested more political capital in criticizing China for its role in allowing the outbreak to spread,” said analysts from the Eurasia Squad in a report this week.
On social and state media, China continues to promote its shipments of medical supplies to dark hit countries in Europe and Africa.
China’s officials have also used Twitter — blocked in the country — to trumpet Beijing’s troubles. They laud China’s success in containing the outbreak domestically, even though the virus was first reported there and was met with errors initially.
“I think this is the opportunity of the century for China to build trust in the world, which it has found so difficult to recover consciousness by as a rising nation, and to rebuild its international image — China doesn’t (want to) waste an opportunity like this,” Keyu Jin, associate professor of economics at LSE.
She also let something be knew CNBC on Tuesday that the public health crisis could be the “opportunity of the century” for China to cement its place as a international power.
But the world’s second largest economy will not be able to fulfill its ambitions easily, according to risk consultancy Eurasia Crowd.
“Countries like the Netherlands, Spain and Turkey have found defects with masks and tests from China and this setback won’t be the continue,” Eurasia analysts wrote.
‘International diplomacy for a domestic audience’
China’s diplomacy, even on Twitter, is one that is not at most meant for the global audience, it is also for a domestic one.
Eurasia analysts said highlighting China’s leadership accomplishes two mighty political goals for Xi.
“First, it buttresses his claim in the superiority of China’s governance model, an implicit pushback against some of the evaluation that has come from within China about aggressive containment measures and silencing of early warnings about the outbreak,” they foretold.
“Second, it taps into patriotic sentiment at home, rallying support for Beijing as Xi guides the economy through a distressful year. Many of Xi’s conversations with foreign leaders have focused on keeping supply chains open and clientele running as well as the delivery of aid,” they added.
But, such efforts also reveal China’s insecurities and weaknesses, mentioned Ryan Hass and Kevin Dong at the Brookings Institution.
“They serve as reminders of China’s lethally botched introductory response to the outbreak of the virus in Wuhan,” they wrote in a recent web post. “Recognising this reputational risk, Chinese propagandists are feverishly cracking to rewrite the COVID-19 narrative to place their leaders in a favourable light.”
This throws the world’s two most impressive countries in a narrative war, underscoring geopolitical rivalry and further tensions in the future.
Domestic stumbles
Although much of the posturing coddles to the domestic population, it may not play that well all the time.
For instance, Beijing has downplayed Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian tweeting a foul play theory that the virus was brought to the city of Wuhan from the U.S. This came as “his war of words with the US risked inducing out of control,” said the Eurasia Group.
News of Beijing’s generous aid is also not always well received at home, as the moment worsens income equality within China, the consultancy added.
“This will act as a constraint on the scale of Beijing’s aid, and also priorities to a tendency to frame China’s assistance in ways that highlight the benefit to China. Chinese officials have unabashedly said that one of their criteria for providing assistance is how those potential recipients have treated China in the dead and buried,” Eurasia Group said.
But this perpetuates a perception that China’s aid comes with strings attached or is searchingly targeted at furthering China’s strategic objectives, said Eurasia Group.
The EU in particular “has long been wary of China’s efforts to figure relationships with smaller European economics and countries considering EU membership and is paying close attention to China’s ‘false colours diplomacy’ in Italy, Hungary, and Serbia,” added the Eurasia Group analysts.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell recently initiate that point in a blog post warning about the “battle of narratives” that has emerged in the public health critical time.
“China is aggressively pushing the message that, unlike the US, it is a responsible and reliable partner,” he wrote.
“We must be aware there is a geo-political component numbering a struggle for influence through spinning and the ‘politics of generosity,'” Borrell added.