"Here’s a Q&A with Martin Jacques."
"Here’s a Q&A with Martin Jacques."
Here’s interesting insights from an interview by the Global Times with Martin Jacques, a senior fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University in the UK and Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing, and Fudan University, Shanghai. Here, Jacques argues that China has dealt with the coronavirus epidemic far better than Western governments. Excerpts:
Q: After more than a month since the outbreak of the coronavirus in China, the epidemic has been largely brought under control inside the country. How do you evaluate China’s efforts in the fight against the epidemic?
A: Judging by the situation now, China seems to be on top of it, with the number of new cases declining. By and large, it looks as if China has managed to restrict the worst of it to Wuhan in Hubei Province. I think that the situation looks encouraging.
Q: Some people view the epidemic control work as an assessment of different political systems. How do you evaluate the measures taken by different countries such as China, Japan and South Korea?
A: I think there was a lot of criticism in the West at the outset for a month or two, and it’s still there. You can read that somehow China has made a big mistake, and it is a reflection on the political system and so on. But that position is losing traction since China has clearly been extremely effective in dealing with the coronavirus. That position also fails to recognize the huge problems in two senses: one, it was a very big outbreak, and two, from the outset, China did not know what it was—a completely new virus, which was previously unknown to humanity. There clearly were some mistakes early on. We don’t really know yet because we don’t know the chronology of the narrative, but clearly the problem was concentrated in Wuhan. There was slowness in realizing the dangers that were involved, an attempt to delay action, an unwillingness to be open with the public. That was bad. But we must also remember that this was a new virus that no one knew anything about. China was, if you like, the guinea pig. China’s problem and everyone else’s problems were fundamentally different. China was faced with a new virus. Everyone else can learn from China. Because of China they know what the coronavirus is. They don’t have to start all over again.
But once the Chinese government got into gear on the question, realized how dangerous it was, then China offered a textbook handling of the situation. I think the capacity of the state in China to deal with emergencies of this kind is far more developed and far more capable than could be achieved by any Western government. The Chinese system, the Chinese government, is superior to other governments in handling big challenges like this.
And there are two reasons: First of all, the Chinese state is a very effective institution, able to think strategically and mobilize society. And the other reason is that the Chinese expect the government to take leadership on these kinds of questions and they will follow that leadership.
We have to bear in mind that this was a completely new virus. Of course, mistakes are always made in such circumstances. Most Western countries, probably all, are ill-prepared for what is now happening, despite what China’s experience offered them. They are too slow. They are greatly underestimating the number of cases because testing is far too limited.
Q: Some politicians, such as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have politicized the epidemic and attacked China’s political system and the leadership of the Communist Party. What’s your comment?
A: Disgraceful. Absolutely disgraceful. Too many Western politicians and the Western media responded to what was a grave medical health crisis in China in a way that was completely lacking in compassion and simply used as a stick to beat China. And in doing so also explicitly or implicitly, they encouraged a certain kind of racism against the Chinese, not just the Chinese in China, but Chinese everywhere. So the Chinese have had a hard time in relation to this.
Q: Talking about racist remarks, one article in the WSJ (Wall Street Journal) called China “The Real Sick Man of Asia.” And some European media outlets said the virus was “made in China.” Why has racism risen amid the epidemic?
A: There’s a long history of disease being associated with races and ethnicities. This goes back a very long time. HIV was a classic example. It was associated with two groups, gays and Africans. It was called the gay disease. and all sorts of things like that. So I think that is not new. Down the ages, that has been symptomatic of the way in which people react to a disease. It was unfortunately fostered and nurtured and encouraged by parts of the media in this attitude. Of course, people get frightened. They stopped going to Chinese restaurants, for example, because they thought any Chinese they might meet could be suffering from the coronavirus.
Q: What kind of experience and lessons can this epidemic offer the world in terms of public health systems, urban governance and international cooperation?
A: I think the great lesson is going to be that disease knows no barriers. There are no borders. It can and does go anywhere, everywhere. The initial reaction was to say this is a Chinese disease, which is absolute nonsense. But now as it spreads around the world, we can see we’re all in the same boat. We have to learn from each other, and it is one of the great humanitarian issues. We’re all human beings. We share the same problems. We all get ill. We all have the same fears of getting ill. So this is an issue that essentially is not a political issue. It’s a humanitarian issue, and as such it requires cooperation, collaboration, and pulling together.