Just read the latest issue of The Economist with a cover of “Is China Winning?” Not the best piece of the journal but still an interesting question. I agree with the conclusion that China is unlikely to win big from this pandemic. But instead of worrying about who will win or lose, it is far more important to ask “What should the world leaders be doing right now?”
My key point is that there should be someone, or better yet, a group of true global leaders as well as true global citizens (not defined by legal rights but rather by thinking power) who keep thinking of what is the best for the world, and make decisions toward that goal. With the world so much globalized and inter-connected, what is the best for the entire world tends to be the best for individual countries, even though nobody can guarantee an equal share of gains for every member of the international community. What we should be thinking is to reach the maximum net gains for the world using the Kaldor-Hicks efficiency criterion, and to act as quickly as possible for a minimum or decreasing opportunity cost.
My proposal is to use and to leverage China’s eagerness of acting as a responsible global citizen, of showing the superiority of their chosen path, polity, ideology and culture (the four confidence doctrine) over the west. Now, instead of questioning their motive and brushing them away as a propaganda, we ask them to prove themselves and to contribute to current fight against the virus. We keep close eyes on their course of actions during the entire period, but we do take advantage of their huge production capacities to let them do the job. Many innovations related to taming the pandemic are from the rich world but let us face it: They are not the ones with best manufacturing power. China is, and it would be waste of resources not let them do the job!
This has several advantages. First of all, we are truly looking forward, not backward and figuring out how much we should ask China for compensation after the outbreak. Secondly, it is not antagonistic but cooperative. Thirdly, it works quickly and cheaply. Instead of thinking about leaving China, which would be costly and god knows how long it would take, we use the country for what is the best for the world, with a minimum cost! Finally, if we could pull it off now, more people would see the value of globalization and would be willing to save it rather than kill it.
Really wish someone from the US could see it as a viable, valuable and crucial strategy and provide the leadership to make it happen, although I certainly would not bet on it.