Has China Won The War For Global Supremacy?

Chinese President Xi Jinping visits Chuanshan port area of the Ningbo-Zhoushan Port, Zhejiang Province

Edward Lucas: China was once the cradle of the coronavirus pandemic but it has bounced back with astonishing speed, writes EDWARD LUCAS as he reveals the country may have won the war for global supremacy as well

* China's cases of coronavirus have stagnated while Western countries suffer
* Country's regime used mandatory quarantine and other draconian measures
* Virus outbreak has highlighted weaknesses in Western countries' reliance for resources such as medicine

China has — it seems — won its battle against the coronavirus. It may have won the war for global supremacy as well.

That would be a paradoxical outcome. The coronavirus outbreak originated in China, reportedly in the ‘wet’ livestock markets in the city of Wuhan. The (to us) bizarre habits of eating virus-infested wildlife such as snakes and bats — as well as the critically-endangered pangolin — on sale in these markets is a minority taste in modern China.

But in an interconnected, densely populated urban environment it is an epidemiological nightmare — and a danger that the Chinese authorities have ignored.

Delay and deceit over the origins of the outbreak cost precious time — and many thousands of lives both in China and subsequently in the rest of the world.

Indeed, the Chinese Communist Party is still lying about the true number of cases and deaths, according to a new U.S. intelligence report leaked this week. It has led to an increasingly intense war of words between the two nations.

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WNU Editor: This pandemic has revealed how much of the world's supply chain now runs through China. And with every major economy in the world now shut down, China's role and importance in this global chain becomes even more important. Does this mean China is now the dominant power in the world? At the moment no. But if this global economic shutdown continues for another year (or more), the heavy debt load that it will create and the businesses that it will eliminate .... it is going to take a decade to recover. And the country that will be playing the major role in this recovery will be China. In a certain way the China of today reminds me of the U.S. after the Second World War. The U.S. was the only standing economic power at the end of that conflict, and it used its position to dominate geopolitical events for 75 years. China may find itself in that position in the next year or two as this pandemic continues to ravage the world. And if that happens, you can take this to the bank, China will exploit the situation for its benefit.