Authors: Yang Yizhong and Wang Li
On March 11 in Washington, American President Trump announced that the United States would suspend all travel from Europe (with the U.K. excluded), starting on March 13 and lasting for the next 30 days. The announcement was seen as a sharp departure from his earlier attempts to downplay the threat, as he admitted that the confirmed COVID-19 cases in the U.S. has rolled past 1,000. With coronavirus outbreak officially declared as a pandemic, schools are closed and Dow continues to plummet. Yet as always, Trump blamed Europe, like he did to China, for not acting quickly enough and contended that US clusters were “seeded” by European travelers.
At the same time, it is reportedly said that China province at center of virus outbreak lets some companies reopen on the same day on March 11.Notwithstanding, the U.S. President, like most of other politicians in the U.S., never forgets to take China as a target to attack or as a scapegoat for their wrongdoing in one way or other. Trump claimed that the coronavirus outbreak started in China and is now spreading throughout the world. Well, his rhetoric was not “wrong” at the first look; but it is inaccurate or even outrageous to define China as the source of the COVID-19 because it is still too early to identify scientifically where the virus originated from.
Like a cowboy in American movie, President Trump did not stop here as he continued to verify his decisions including his sweeping travel restrictions on China and putting in place the first federally mandated quarantine six-weeks ago. He stated that it was due to his early decision to take action against “a foreign virus”, there is fewer cases of the virus in the U.S. than are now present in the EU. In contrary, the worse situation in Europe came out of their failure to take the same precautions and restrict travel, like what the U.S. did, from China and other hot spots. It is a clear message that due to his wise and decisive measures, the United States at a critical time made a life-saving move with early action on China and now on Europe, a new China.
In a few sentences of his address on the virus, Trump mentioned China for three times in a negative and irresponsible way. He seems to forget the warning about one month ago from the director-general of the World Health Organization that it was impossible to predict which direction this epidemic would take. In effect, the head of the WHO reported that it was the steps China had taken that have contained the outbreak at its source appear to have bought the world time.
Yes, no nation could be more stronger or more resilient than the United States. It has the largest economy, the most advanced health care, and the most well-trained doctors, scientists and researchers in the relevant fields. But in a face of the global virus, the U.S. falls into a cold war mentality that it can win alone in the war against COVID-19. The key issue is that in a globalized world today, each country can’t be well-prepared for outbreaks within its own borders. Trump’s slogan of “always put the well-being of America first” is simply unworkable.
It is true that smart action today will prevent the spread of the virus tomorrow. Yet, it requires collective spirit to work together in a worldwide campaign. The power of the United States is admired highly and universally, but it needs the leadership with high morals. Recently, Joseph Nye Jr. talks about an interesting topic of “Morals Matter”. He argued that although history has proven time and time again that Americans always rise to the challenge and overcome adversity, but in a face of coronavirus pandemic or climate change, the idea of America’s safe behind the borders is nonsense, as Nye noted that virus or pandemic do not respect borders. Accordingly, the U.S. needs to work with other countries to address them.
China is a communist-led country, but it is the second largest economy and a promising nation to rise to the first-class world power. It is wise for the United States to work with China and other countries rather than decoupling on the issue of global governance. Now it is the time for all nations of the world to work together in the fight against the global virus and eventually prevail over it. For sure, there is no an easy solution.
Recently, scholars and experts have tried to rescue the world from the anarchy and confusion. Since the post-Cold War, America has pursue a unipolar world order, in which the U.S. security strategists refused to recognize the concept and practice of the geopolitical sphere of influence. For example, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared that “the United States does not recognize spheres of influence.” Secretary of State John Kerry proclaimed that “the era of the Monroe Doctrine is over.”Such pronouncements seem right in that the time and the actors have been reshuffled; yet, they are wrong about the ability and ambition of other powers to demand deference from other states in their own regions or exert predominant control there. Now, with its hegemony fading, the United States has awakened to what it calls “a new era of great-power competition,” with China and Russia increasingly using their power to assert interests and values that often conflict with those of the United States. But American policymakers and analysts are still struggling to come to grips with what this new era means for the U.S. predominant role in the world. Or uni-polarity is over, and a multi-polarity world order might come out.
It is sure that China is not interested in the new era of the sphere of influence, alongside the concept of the Thucydides trap. In contrary, in order to realize the mission of creating a community of shared destiny, at the moment China will continue to use the entire country’s resources and strength into tackling the issue, which is an advantage of China’s socialist system. About 42,600 medics were dispatched to the center of virus from across the country. Academicians, leading experts on respiratory illnesses and infectious diseases, and one-tenth of the country’s intensive care specialists were all called in to the epicenter, according to the National Health Commission. During his recent inspection-trip to Wuhan, Xi said all prevention and control measures have been taken by the CPC Central Committee with the primary focus on preventing more people from being infected and saving more patients’ lives.
Due to the fact that viruses respect no borders in the global village, China has actively cooperated and exchanged information with the WHO and other countries, quickly sharing with them the full genome sequences of the new virus. To help the global fight against the virus, China made a donation to the WHO, provided masks and protective gowns to the Republic of Korea, sent testing kits to Pakistan, Japan, Iran and the African Union, and dispatched experts to Iran. As Xi reiterated that China adheres to the concept of building a community with a shared future for humanity as it actively contributes to safeguarding global public health while going all out to protect its people’s life and health.
In light of the nature of virus and the horrible consequences, it is a global war against the common non-conventional threat to the world. No one can survive alone, but together all nations never fail.
