How China’s COVID-19 recovery could bolster its global influence

In the fight to contain COVID-19, one thing has become clear: prematurely claiming victory can prove costly and embarrassing.

But China may have won a certain amount of bragging rights. While it was home to the first detected cases of the coronavirus and suffered dearly in terms of loss of life, economic impact and reputation, the country has since turned the tables by gaining a measure of control over the outbreak – even drawing people from the West in search of safety. Now, a relatively steadied China is sending coronavirus-related aid abroad in the form of doctors, masks and ventilators, in a display of soft power that could hasten a tipping of geopolitical scales in its favour.

Other countries, including Singapore and Australia, have also won plaudits for managing the outbreak relatively well. Even in Italy, where the cumulative death toll has now topped that of China, there are positive examples of proactive containment. Meanwhile, in the US, where public officials were suggesting as recently as late February that the country had contained COVID-19, the number of confirmed cases has spiked.

Even though the virus was initially linked to China, the world’s second-biggest economy may well become more closely associated with measures that are now helping to curb its spread.

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