Despite having become an economic power house and having allies all across the globe; from Latin America to Mideast and South Asia, it would have been extremely difficult for China to replace the USA as the superpower or even becoming one.
Undoubtedly, China in last few years has been challenging USA’s influence in many regions, But the pandemic has catapulted China to a superpower league.
There are two ways of beating your rival, one is by developing your own competencies and through a fair competition defeating him. But there is another way often taken by rascals and that is PULL YOUR RIVAL DOWN and then occupy his position.
The pandemic has just enabled China to do that ; pulled down USA.
Now one can argue endlessly whether China used virus as a weapon or its spread was a genuine mistake but the data and the events that have unfolded in 2020-21 will not lie.
And so the fact is, that, China has almost replaced USA in many regions.
Lets examine this in slightly more details.
The pandemic has done immense damage to USA, It has lost three times more men than it lost in the Vietnam War. In addition, the economic crisis that pandemic has created is unprecedented in its scale: it has given a demand, a supply, and a financial jolt - all simultaneously. A Report published in Business today shows - US economy has contracted by 3.5% in 2020, sharpest since World War 2, as COVID-19 ravaged services businesses like restaurants and airlines, throwing millions of Americans out of work and into poverty.
On the other hand is China, which after struggling for a few months in late 2019 and early 2020 was back to normal. According to the information released by the National Bureau of Statistics, despite the impact of the epidemic on all walks of life, China's economy is still on a long‐term growth path and the GDP data shows the economy has almost normalized. As per a BBC report ; the Chinese economy remains on course and is the only major economy to have expanded in 2020. Yue Su, principal economist for the Economist Intelligence Unit. Stated that ; This momentum will continue, although the current Covid-19 outbreak in a couple of provinces in northern China might temporarily cause fluctuation.
He also said that the Exports have led the way. And the Data showed that Chinese exports grew by more than expected, as coronavirus disruptions around the world fuelled demand for Chinese goods. The economy grew 2.3% last year, despite Covid-19 shutdowns causing output to slump in early 2020.
A BBC report indicated that ; Strict virus containment measures and emergency relief for businesses helped the Chinese economy recover. Growth in the final three months of the year 2020 picked up to 6.5%. China's economy has seen a strong rebound, while the rest of the world struggles with anaemic demand, millions of job losses, and businesses shutting down.
China's economic engine roared back to life after a brutal lockdown that saw the Chinese economy contract by a historic 6.8% in the first quarter of 2020.
Another BBC report indicates that Post pandemic China has emerged as the EU’s biggest trading partner, overtaking USA in 2020. Trade between China and the EU was worth $709bn (€586bn, £511bn) last year, compared with $671bn worth of imports and exports from the US.
Although China's economy slowed down in the first quarter due to the pandemic, its economic recovery later in the year fuelled demand for EU goods.
As per a UN report released recently, China has also overtaken the US as the world's top destination for new foreign direct investment. It indicates that New investments into America from overseas companies fell by almost half last year, leading to the loss of its number one position. In contrast, UN figures show direct investment into Chinese firms climbed 4%, putting it at number one globally.
This clearly brings us to a point that post pandemic China’s influence on the world economic stage has grown exponentially.
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said in its report
that in 2019, US had received $251bn in new foreign direct investment while China had received mere half of it approx. $140bn whereas in 2020 China had $163bn (£119bn) in inflows last year, compared to $134bn attracted by the US,
The experts say that the figures highlight China's move towards the Centre of the global economy which has long been dominated by the US.
These figures also indicate as to what is likely to happen in near future. A UK-based Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) has predicted that the skilful management of Covid 19 has enabled China to boost its relative growth compared to USA and Europe in coming years and China will overtake the US to become the world's largest economy by 2028, five years earlier than previously forecast, a report says.
Although the reports indicate that by the end of this year US economy will regain the same level as it was during pre pandemic, but the fact still remains that pandemic has expedited or facilitated the Chinese catching up process.
The pandemic has also helped China to enhance its influence globally.
US and China who were battling for influence in Latin America till recently, the pandemic has helped China immensely to perhaps gain a Very strong foothold in USA’s backyard and USA will have to do something extraordinary now to regain its lost status in latin America.
A Feb21 report in Times says that ; As countries in the region grapple with a cascade of challenges to their developing economies, they increasingly look not to the North but to the East i.e. China
The report says that ; China has now emerged as the top trading partner of south American countries. In 2019, Chinese companies invested $12.8 billion in Latin America, up 16.5% from 2018, concentrating on regional infrastructure such as ports, roads, dams and railways. In the past four years, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Panama have each switched their recognition from Taiwan to China. Gaining these kinds of alliances in Latin America offered Beijing invaluable votes at the U.N. and backing for Chinese appointees to multinational institutions. Already, 19 governments across Latin America and the Caribbean have joined Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
One can assess the level of Chinese influence in the region from what they did in Panama. The United States created Panama and then built one of the engineering wonders of the world through which trade flows between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, it was virtually controlled by Washington for almost the entire century. In the 1940s, the U.S. Department of Commerce helped set up a free-trade zone in Colón, The Colón Free Trade Zone (ZLC) a city near the canal’s entrance ; however, 80 years later, Chinese companies dominate the ZLC. In 2017, China Landbridge Group got an order to build a new $1 billion deep water port and logistics complex on Panama’s Margarita Island, where the Panama Colón Container Port will take over land once occupied by a U.S. military base. Soon thereafter, the government of Panama switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, which ostensibly infuriated the USA.
The bilateral trade of Brazil, the largest economy in this region, with China rose from $2 billion in 2000 to $100 billion last year and according to Inter-American Dialogue, it is the world’s top importer of Argentine soybeans and beef.
China is also now a preferred lender across the region. China’s clout in renewable energy has also won it many advantages. In Brazil, China’s State Grid Corp. is the largest power-generation and -distribution company, while China Three Gorges (CTG), the world’s largest hydropower provider, controls 17 out of a total of 48 hydro plants as well as 11 wind farms. China has thus won influence deftly by distributing carrots and not by wielding sticks.
Although U.S. ties run deep across Latin America, and so all this, Particularly what happened in Panama must have surprised USA. In 2018, the U.S. woke up to what was happening in its backyard and began intensifying the pressure on Panama. In June 2019, the U.S. Financial Action Task Force added Panama to its “gray list” of countries not sufficiently tackling money laundering. Finally when the new government took office in Panama, it adopted a tough stance towards China. The U.S. might have succeeded in putting a check on the growth of Panama-China ties, but these kinds of setbacks won’t deter China from further interference. More importantly, what helped China was US behavior towards the countries of this region. The earlier Govts slept and Trump could only see this region through the prism of competition with China,” said Gedan, of the Wilson Center and Trump’s more controversial moves also had deleterious side effects, as Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández in 2018 criticized U.S. cuts to Central American aid over migration policy, while saying he welcomed the “opportunity” China presented.
In view of all that has been happening in Latin America, in past few years, COVID-19 presented a big opportunity to Chinese. It opened up new avenues for China in the struggle for influence. “The pandemic has provided a diplomatic opportunity that China did not have before,” says Benjamin N. Gedan, a former South America director on the White House’s National Security Council, now with the Wilson Center.
So, as per reports, By late October’20, China had provided over 179 billion masks, 1.73 billion protective suits and 543 million testing kits to 150 countries and seven international organizations around the globe.
Latin America and the Caribbean have only 8.2% of the world’s population but, as of late January, 18.2% of COVID-19 cases and 26% of fatalities. Shipments of Chinese aid have elicited flattering praises from previously China-skeptic leaders like Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández, who wrote a letter in January thanking China for supporting Argentina’s fight against COVID-19 and backed “building a community with a shared future for mankind, a notion put forward by Xi,” according to China’s state newswire Xinhua.
The vaccine itself is now being increasingly used by all for geo political purposes. China is using it to further its influence in various regions. WHO chief Tedros warned that “ The world is on the brink of a “catastrophic moral failure” over Covid 19 vaccine distribution …”
China, like USA also declined to join WHO launched initiative COVAX, for the supply of vaccines to poor countries, but it is instead using vaccines to build bridges where it feels most valuable. In September, Brazil’s federal government had agreed to buy 60 million doses of vaccines from China, later telling reporters it “is the safest, the one with the best and most promising rates.” Peru’s President Francisco Sagasti announced the purchase of 38 million vaccine doses from state-run Chinese firm Sinopharm. Mexico has also signed an advance-purchase agreement with another Chinese developer. Pakistan’s Foreign Minister also revealed that China has agreed to provide his nation with half a million doses of Chinese vaccine free of charge, with further supplies promised.
Admiral Craig S. Faller, who leads the U.S. military’s Southern Command, told a video meeting with members of the Defense Writers Group in December that China is actively making “deals to try to get the vaccine deployed and employed” around the globe, while Washington’s Operation Warp Speed is “looking at taking care of the U.S. first.”
Lets be sure, that this generosity on the part of China is not purely for humanitarian purposes but it won’t go ignored in Latin America as well as in other regions as the human and economic toll from the pandemic continues.
One can easily assess the importance of this humanitarian aid from the statement of an opposition Senator in Paraguay who accused the country’s government in local media of bowing to U.S. pressure in rejecting offers of vaccine support from China. He said “We must overcome political and ideological barriers if we’re going to fight the evil of the pandemic,”
This is not simple geopolitics, but an indicator of the emerging world order. He further stressed that “The Berlin Wall fell, the Cold War finished, In this globalized world, we don’t want to be any country’s(USA’s) backyard.”
This is how exactly things have fanned out in other regions as well for China. While all countries are looking inwards focusing on domestic coronavirus problems, China is looking outward.
Conclusion
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Is it all happening as per a well thought out plan or it’s a case of mishandling the out break , no one has an easy answer. May be Trump was right or may not be.
However, the manner in which China has gone about doing things ; first Tedros backed by China becomes the WHO President, hiding the spread of virus behind the shield of the WHO for more than two months and then allowing their air lines to continue flying abroad while closing domestic flights indicates that they could have easily kept the virus in Wuhan, the ruthless handling of virus at Wuhan, the attempts to suppress the whistleblowers, now using humanitarian aid to enhance influence, the ingress in Ladakh, (which India knows was a well thought out plan), thereafter South China sea, now strengthening its hold in Hongkong, the research work that indicates the ability of covid 19 virus to bind tightest with human cells than any other species tested , all this prima facie appears to be in accordance to a plan.
It also now appears that the lines of a new cold war are gaining definition: the U.S. Europe, India and Pacific allies on one side and China led alliance with Russia, Pakistan and Central Asia on the other.
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