Daily Times

Even as the pandemic Covid-19 is raging across the world, it has developed its own geopolitics, with all sorts of conspiracy theories circulating everywhere. China, where the virus struck in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people, took its own time to acknowledge its reality. Indeed, when a young Chinese doctor in a Wuhan hospital sought to raise alert about a new virus circulating, the local authorities forced him to deny it and put him in home detention of sorts.

The tragedy of it all is that the young doctor himself contracted the virus working in his hospital and, he became a martyr of sorts, paying with his life.

The virus spread fast, the authorities realised the gravity of the situation, locked down the city of 11 million, and then extended it to the entire Hubei province, and between regions. China managed to bring the situation under control after more than 3,000 fatalities, and over 80,000 people infected.

But it is by no means over. New cases of coronavirus are emerging all the time in China, mainly from those returning from abroad, and from asymptomatic patients. However, the situation is not as dire as before.

No matter how much China might want the world to forget that coronavirus started there, it might not be that easy

Even as Covid-19 was raging in China, the Internet was swarming with conspiracy theories. One was that it was a population control scheme as we (humans) are too many on this earth. It was not clear who actually was behind this “population control.” That is the “beauty” of conspiracy theories. They just seem to float on their own.

There was also the one, which traced it to a Chinese biosecurity laboratory, not far from Wuhan, as part of some bioweapon under development. Another conspiracy theory, though debunked by the British authorities, attributed it to China’s 5G rollout in Britain.

As we know, as far as is possible, the virus jumped from wild animals into humans, likely in late 2019, in the popular Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market of Wuhan. Chinese sources allege that the virus was brought to Wuhan by the US military. It is not clear how it was done. But in the world of conspiracy theorists, one outlandish theory is as good as another.

In the Trump world, when he finally realised the enormity of Covid-19, with the US becoming a major pandemic centre, overtaking China, it is simply a “Chinese virus.” When pointed out its racist connotation, he said that it came from China, and he was stating it as a simple fact.

In the meantime, having managed the crisis, China is feeling confident enough to use it as a tool for soft power diplomacy. It has sent facemasks, protective gear and other stuff to seriously affected countries like Italy. Its significance should not be lost because it was the US and Western countries, with huge resources, that used to help in times of epidemics in poorer countries.

With the US now, seemingly, in a huge health crisis, and needing help from others-it must be galling to see China sending supplies to help the worst-stricken state of New York-China would appear to have overtaken the US, at least in regard to the coronavirus crisis. China is reported to be making deliveries of medical equipment such as facemasks, protective equipment, coronavirus test kits to 80 countries; some of these test kits have been found to be defective though.

No matter how much China might want the world to forget that coronavirus started there, it might not be that easy. Elements in the West wouldn’t let it be forgotten. It will be another exercise in power politics with the US and its allies putting China on the spot. At the same time, on the Chinese side, the US would continue to be blamed for starting it in the first place. And the partisans on both sides will keep pushing their respective narratives.

For instance, the conservative London think tank, The Henry Jackson Society, believes that China should be sued under international law for at least 3.2 trillion worth of British pounds for trying to cover up the epidemic initially. The cover-up caused so many deaths and damaged the economies of the affected countries, with their governments trying to spend billions of dollars to keep the economic life, however tenuous, going, hoping for better days.

On the Chinese side, as pointed out earlier, some senior people have endorsed the claim that the virus was imported to Wuhan by the US military. China is projecting its relative success in containing the virus as an example of the effectiveness of its system to deal with emergencies and following it up with an efficient delivery of medical equipment to affected countries.

The respective narratives on both sides will continue to be pursued with vigour, thus preventing cooperative action to deal with the tremendous problems in the health sector and economies that might sink into recession, and even depression.

The writer is a senior journalist and academic based in Sydney, Australia