Who is winning the China-US race to run the world amid the Covid-19 pandemic?
- Crisis has brought potential to redraw the map of global power and influence, but there is ‘deep-seated mistrust’ of Beijing
- While the US has ‘spectacularly failed to lead’, China is under mounting pressure and the WHO has become a political football
This is the fifth in a series exploring the global backlash that China may face as a result of its actions and rhetoric during the coronavirus pandemic. This story examines how global organisations have been affected by the crisis.
In 2018, President Xi Jinping said China would “take an active part in leading the reform of the global governance system”, as part of an effort to build “a community with a shared future for humanity”.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has been at the forefront of that debate – and become the political football – given its frontline role in coordinating the fight against the disease. Critics – US President Donald Trump prominent among them – were not impressed by the WHO, saying it praised Beijing’s response to the outbreak while glossing over its delayed action when the coronavirus first appeared in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
The conflict between Washington and Beijing over the WHO’s conduct has been thrown into sharp relief because the pandemic has killed more than 217,000 people and infected over 3 million, with an especially large toll in the United States. Yet, it is just emblematic of the much broader struggle for hearts and minds playing out between the two powers, which is now raising another question: who is winning?
