How Covid-19 pandemic has thrust China to apex of global leadership

President Donald Trump has gone from downplaying Covid-19 to claiming that the pandemic could claim, in days, the lives of 200,000 Americans. New York City, the capital of global finance and home to the United Nations, would be hit hard.

Described as “ground zero”, the city is hurriedly augmenting its healthcare capacity, setting up makeshift hospitals in Central Park and other sites as the 1,000-bed navy ship Comfort dropped anchor in the harbour. Despite this, the United States has, by far, the greatest number of Covid-19 infections and leads in daily new cases and deaths.

America faces a test of leadership. Governors and senators are questioning the pace, choice, scale and timing of measures taken by the Trump administration to limit the spread and impact of the pandemic.

Many agree that Washington squandered time it could have used to formulate a contingent plan for managing the coronavirus. Many are dismayed and angry that the most powerful nation does not have enough testing kits, ventilators and protective equipment for its frontline healthcare workers. Face masks ran out. The US is reportedly intercepting and diverting critical medical supplies procured by its European allies in the throes of the epidemic. But Trump remains unfazed, nonetheless.

Initially blamed for originating and concealing the outbreak, China has leveraged its success in taming the pandemic by ascending to the apex of global leadership, from where it’s championing international cooperation, coordination and solidarity.

Besides sharing its expertise, interventions and lessons with the rest of the world, Beijing has sent test kits to Africa, a trainload of supplies to Europe and a brigade of doctors and nurses to Italy. Its factory workers are frantically mass-producing critical supplies in an effort to save the world.

China could use this moment to tout the superiority of its political, economic and social models even as rising Covid-19 mortality would further undermine global confidence in American hegemony.

The US has the largest healthcare budget. In 2018, it was $3.65 trillion, four and a half times higher than China’s $0.83 trillion. The average American spent more than $11,000 on healthcare, compared to China’s miniscule $700. This notwithstanding, China’s universal health coverage system, preventive medicine and access to medical equipment and supplies is arguably better than many in the West are willing to admit.

The “Global Health Security Index”, published last year by the John Hopkins University’s Center for Health Security and other Western organisations, assessed the capabilities of 195 countries to respond to infectious disease outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics. The US, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands were deemed the most-prepared while China was ranked 51st — slightly better than Kenya, at 55th!

Beijing is rarely bothered by Western arrogance and untested assumption in the superiority of their healthcare systems, some on the brink of collapse. In attempt to manage Covid-19, many countries have rushed to emulate China in the wearing of face masks, social distancing, contact tracing, quarantines and lockdowns. But in the long run, such copy-and-paste strategies could prove expensive, unsustainable and inadequate.

China’s decisive leadership leveraged the power of artificial intelligence, super computers and a surveillance system that integrates street cameras, social media and mobile money platforms. Western countries have more cameras per person but they are largely restricted to counter-terrorism surveillance.

China has demonstrated that computerised tracing of patient movements and human interactions is, certainly, more effective in curbing the spread of the virus than shutting down entire cities and countries.

In African countries, as in many others, contact tracing is a manual exercise. Current interventions risk collapsing our political, social and economic systems yet we could look to China for lessons and inspiration.

Mr Chesoli is a New York-based development economist and global policy expert. [email protected], @kenchesoli