As Covid-19 wreaks havoc across the world, the effects go beyond its case numbers of over four million or the grim death toll of more than 80,000 in the United States, the highest worldwide. With each passing day, as jobs are lost, businesses fold and more families are plunged into poverty globally, it is quite clear that the deadly virus is more than just a public health threat.
As the socioeconomic effects of this disease spread and intensify, what can be done about it? Aside from stepped-up efforts on the scientific front, reason and civility need to be maintained as nations confront the challenges posed by Covid-19.
What is most unhelpful is the recent spate of jingoistic remarks, motivated by selfish political calculations, that are aimed at stigmatising others while shirking responsibility for one's own failure to contain the virus on one's home ground. This effort is evident in the push to heap blame on China, which happened to be the first country to report cases of the virus. But being the first to report should not be equated with being the original source of the virus.
To use the tragedy of the pandemic as a stick to beat others is nothing short of disgraceful. To seek scapegoats to divert domestic dissatisfaction is extremely counterproductive. All these efforts only bring about hatred and confrontation.
A better response would be to consider the essential nature of the Covid-19 virus. It does not recognise national boundaries, does not play zero-sum games nor is it swayed by talk of Thucydides traps, tech wars and trade wars. A heated war of words and threats of decoupling leave it cold. Mankind's implacable adversary requires a collective and united response. Just as the human misery it causes knows no frontiers, neither should human solidarity.
Many brilliant minds are fully aware of the importance of global solidarity, especially between the world's two largest economies, for renewed cooperation to fight the pandemic. This can be seen in open letters last month by 100 Chinese academics and by around 100 former high-ranking government officials and other elites in the US strategic community. Both stressed that no effort against Covid-19 will be successful without cooperation between the two countries.
The United Nations, World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Extraordinary Group of 20 Leaders' Summit, among others, have all called for global solidarity in the battle against the pathogenic enemy.
Over the past four decades, the international community, especially China and the US, has together overcome various challenges. China and America work together because they have shared interests and responsibilities. On March 27, their heads of state agreed in a phone call to enhance sharing of information and experience in epidemic prevention and control, and to accelerate cooperation in scientific research against the disease. If the Trump administration follows through with concrete steps, global cooperation would be very much enhanced.
In this war of humans against the virus, China stands firmly with the world to roll back the scourge.
China has provided substantial support and assistance to over 140 contagion-affected countries, despite its own high demand for medical supplies at home as it grapples with returning the economy to normal while guarding against a resurgence of Covid-19.
China has also been supportive of the leadership of the WHO, of stronger international cooperation, of intensified global governance and greater assistance to developing countries with weak public health systems. On top of paying its assessed contributions to the WHO on time and in full, China has donated US$20 million (S$28 million) to the WHO, followed by another donation of US$30 million announced last month. China will also provide financial support to the UN's Global Humanitarian Response Plan, and do everything within its capacity to lessen the debt burden on African countries and help them in boosting anti-epidemic capacity.
Why is China helping? It is reciprocating the kindness and friendship extended to it in its darkest hour fighting the coronavirus. It is also acting in line with international humanitarianism, and in its belief in building a community with a shared future for mankind. It has nothing to do with ideological agenda or geopolitical interests.
Consider China's interactions with the US on Covid-19. It shared information with the US at the earliest possible time. Since Jan 4, the day after China briefed the WHO about the virus, government agencies and the two countries' centres for disease control and prevention have been in close communication. By April 29, China had provided, according to its customs figures, more than four billion masks to the US, or roughly 14 for every American on average.
Even though the case of Huawei's Meng Wanzhou has not been resolved, the company has donated a large amount of medical supplies to the worst-hit state of New York, including 10,000 N95 masks, 20,000 protective suits, 50,000 sets of goggles and 10,000 gloves.
All these are testimony to China's empathy for the difficulties faced by Americans. Clearly, the relationship between China and the US is as much about ties between the two societies and peoples as it is between the two governments. The time-honoured friendship of the two peoples has always been an inherent driving force for a stable bilateral relationship.
There is no single, simple key to any challenge, no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. The final success must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. In order to deal effectively with this unprecedented challenge, measures to address immediate concerns must ultimately be coupled with a global collaborative vision and programme as well.
What would also be helpful in overcoming the Covid-19 crisis:
• Stop the blame games. The global community is ill served by more finger-pointing and the distractions, tensions and divisions that arise from politicising the pandemic. Far better to focus on intensifying international collaborative research on treatments and vaccines and sharing best practices in containing the outbreak.
• Stand firm by multilateralism, by supporting the WHO as the central player in coordinating the global response. Do not forget that everyone stands to gain if all nations work together to enhance global public health governance.
• Strive to jointly fire up the engines of the world economy. This would require strengthening coordination on macroeconomic policies and working together to keep global industrial and supply chains functioning.
• Share and learn from one another. This calls for helping developing countries and the world's most vulnerable populations as well as encouraging an ethos of sharing of expertise and experience that will enable all countries to adapt the available knowledge to their specific needs.
The present circumstances may be grim but human beings have surmounted many daunting challenges in the past and will continue to do so with Covid-19.
What's important is that when life eventually returns to normal, we must not forget the lessons learnt. And a key takeaway is that the sudden and massive blow dealt by Covid-19 is a reminder that whatever our nationalities, our interests are closely entwined and so are our futures. What we share is much more powerful than what keeps us apart. Fundamentally we are fighting for the same cause.
• Dr Li Jie is a senior expert in international studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, China.
