What has China been up to after the Wuhan virus spread
It is December 31, 2019 when the Chinese authorities find themselves having to recognize, at least partially, the first cases of contagion due to Covid 19. What happened next? Extract from the essay "Geopolitics of the pandemic: soft and hard power as a key to reading" by Gino Filippo Massetti
It is December 31, 2019 when the Beijing authorities find themselves having to recognize, at least partially, the first cases of contagion due to Covid 19, in a chaotic and ever-changing situation: January 23, on the initiative of the President of the People's Republic , China is implementing the first drastic lockdown measures not only in the city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the infection, but also in the entire populous province of Hubei, with the result of confining about 70 million Chinese citizens in isolation.
The Communist Party authorities, within a few days, suspend demonstrations, sporting events, fairs, showrooms, and all situations leading to gatherings and reunions throughout the country, including the Chinese New Year. Not only the province of Hubei, therefore, but all of China gradually (and not always in a linear way) enters a state of quarantine and almost total suspension of activities.
Initially, the Chinese measure, so harsh and highly restrictive, appeared to be an exaggeration, or an attempt to make up for that time lost between the end of December 2019 and the end of January 2020 in which the government of Xi Jinping did not want, nor knew, nor attempted to declare a state of calamity and international mobilization.
From the very first weeks, the approach to the pandemic and at the same time the message that China aimed to communicate about its political strategy has oscillated between hard and soft power, both through the use of open and reassuring internal and external propaganda, and in order attacks and accusations from the international community: on the one hand, Beijing first closed an internal province, strictly forbidding travel, meetings and human and social contacts, if not for reasons of imperative necessity, also using specific apps for the location of people; on the other hand, it has deployed all the weapons of its soft power to try not only to alleviate the period of forced confinement for its citizens, but above all to establish itself as a virtuous model for managing the pandemic.
With regard to the alleged "Chinese model", a lot of disinformation has been made from the beginning and, to counteract, a process of uncritical praise has been set in motion which has led to opposing attitudes and declarations. At the beginning, the decision-making policies of the CCP worked to transmit outside China the image of a cohesive and motivated country in facing the health emergency, also trying to relegate the endogenous origins of the virus and the causes of the its diffusion (Dougherty, 2020). The entire capillary "machine" of Chinese soft power has consequently been recalibrated from the transparency side of the origin of the pandemic to the media focus on the readiness and functionality of the national model to combat the spread of contagion: sudden construction of hospitals Covid 19 production massive and constant use of masks, gloves and health protection devices, as well as the sending of international aid and doctors specialized in combating the insidious and in many cases deadly respiratory disease (Kynge Lockett, 2020). President Xi and the entire world of Chinese information have given wide echo to these diplomatic and "international solidarity" moves thanks to the brilliant coordination of the communication of the state agency Xinhua News and the press offices of the various Chinese embassies present in the most affected (Kurlantzick, 2020).
A geopolitical treaty would not be sufficient to go into the details of all the issues concerning the exercise of soft power by China (Ranaldo, 2020); the constant economic and commercial growth, the primacy in the export of goods and products, the cultural use of Chinese history, the rhetoric of the Celestial Empire5, the revaluation of the doctrine of Confucianism and the "market socialism with Chinese characteristics", conceptual basis of a peaceful growth of the Dragon and of the "Beijing Consensus", broadly represent the many branches of the convincing power of the People's Republic (Kurlantzick, 2007, pp. 145 46).
However, the Covid 19 epidemic has posed a series of challenges and threats to the very survival of the Chinese socio-political system; for this reason, the CCP's senior executives suddenly worked to transform a national disaster into a great opportunity for global cooperation. The aid that the Dragon has implemented towards the nations that have progressively had to face the most acute phase of the virus have been the object of enormous visibility, in a triumph of the logic of soft power. Set aside the hard measures, Beijing has deployed all its cognitive, competitive and communicative know-how: paradigmatic was the case of Serbia, which, having not received immediate solidarity from the European community, requested help from China, which promptly sent medical supplies and medical personnel. Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić publicly thanked his counterpart Xi and all the Chinese people, and the news gained wide coverage in the Beijing media (Kynge Lockett, 2020). In other words, it is evident that China has drawn heavily on soft power in such a critical global situation by focusing on concrete support above all for European countries, including Italy, to propose a "Silk Road of health" parallel to the great geostrategic initiative and geopolitics launched in 2013 by Xi.
However, the Wuhan Model has not found success in all Western diplomacies, not only due to the doubts raised by many NGOs regarding an alleged lack of respect for human rights, but in particular due to the decisive stance by the US authorities, to start with President Donald Trump: in fact, in the space of a few weeks, he repeatedly attacked the People's Republic, defining Covid 19 in his statements and tweets as "the Chinese virus" and arriving, with a well-structured decision in optics of hard power, to cut American funds to the World Health Organization accusing it of having an excessively pro-Chinese attitude (Riccardi, 2020).
However, once the dramatic initial phase has passed, the pandemic management model could represent a reputational turning point capable of quickly reviving Chinese leadership in the global economy, also definitively confirming the centrality of the stability of the Dragon for international international economic balances.
Extract from the essay "Geopolitics of the pandemic: soft and hard power as a key to reading" by Gino Filippo Massetti
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/che-cosa-ha-combinato-la-cina-dopo-la-diffusione-del-virus-di-wuhan/ on Sat, 02 Jan 2021 06:04:39 +0000.