By: Azhar Azam
*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)":
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-04-14/U-S-catty-and-splenetic-behavior-detrimental-to-global-cooperation-PG2Ca0CcA8/index.html
The Covid-19 is such an enormous threat to the mankind and global economy that it obliges all rivals to shelve the rivalries, all nationalists to forego nationalism and all the protectionists to suspend the protectionism at least temporarily and embrace a stronger, unvarying international cooperation for the protection of their citizens and economies.
Despite populist backlash from some Western quarters, it is still an era of breakneck globalization that has lifted the living standards of millions of people. While the phenomenon continues to connect people and make them dependent on each other for their economic and technological growth through multifaceted cooperation, it also prevents some aggressive and dominance-seeking countries to assert their hegemony or impose the totalitarian decisions on other sovereign nations.
The global cooperation, by pooling the wisdoms and sharing the experiences, is therefore the one-stop solution for international community to put forward a concerted and determined international response – in an open and transparent manner through mutual understanding, trust and support – to the novel coronavirus outbreak.
A report titled “Strengthening multi-level cooperation to fight the pandemic” published by the Center for China and Globalization (CCG) noted as the Covid-19 transforms into a global crisis affecting virtually every country, its impact on public health would have far-reaching implications ranging from individual livelihoods to political and economic structures.
It summarized China’s experiences – from implementation of the orthodox coordinating, mobilizing and communicating techniques to introduction of inventive big data, mobile apps and artificial intelligence applications – to control the disease and provided valuable suggestions on global cooperation to fight the virus and its economic fallout.
Of course, the objective of sharing Beijing’s experiences was not to urge global nations to follow Chinese method of handling the disease but to help them better understand how it fought and defeated the virus, enabling governments better analyze and contrive an effective Covid-19 strategy in accordance with their legal and political backgrounds.
Based on its findings, the report lined up a series of recommendations including activating multilateral platforms such as G-20; supporting the World Health Organization (WHO), allowing it to play a greater role in global cooperation and establishing a governance mechanism for international coordination on public health measures; and protecting global value, supply and industrial chains.
Recommendations also urged China and the US to strengthen dialogue and reach consensus on trade in medical supplies, support the World Trade Organization (WTO) to play an effective role in responding to the epidemic by promoting trade facilitation for emergency goods and cooperation across supply chains and support multinational cooperation on drug and vaccine development.
Although the US President Donald Trump lately scorched WHO labeling the international health body “Chinese centric” and accused it for giving “faulty recommendation” and is again threatening to withdraw from WTO over losing “so many cases” – the role of both the institutions is crucial in protecting the human lives initially from the pandemic and then from the economic consequences in post-coronavirus world.
While Trump’s criticism on the WTO is a blunt effort to influence the organization and coerce its appellate tribunal to resolve cases in the US favor – his disapproval of the WHO and the accusations on China for camouflaging the numbers by some other US officials, lack both evidence and prudence.
In an interview, the Republican Senator Rick Scott claimed that the American public will want to boycott Chinese goods after the pandemic as they “clearly killed Americans with their actions.” In his prior article, he called for congressional investigation into the WHO for serving “as a puppet to for the Chinese Communist Party.”
The US officials’ reproof on China and the WHO is detrimental to global cooperation in defeating the Covid-19. They are overtly trying to politicize the outbreak by deliberately overlooking the fact that China so far is the only country that has effectively controlled the pandemic and prevented its resurgence albeit being terrifically gripped by the virus.
Since the start of the outbreak, the WHO too has worked hard by supporting the countries to build their capacity to prepare and respond, has provided accurate information and fought the “infodemic” through issuance of technical guidance, arranged training and mobilization of the health workers, accelerated research and development and is ensuring the critical supplies to reach the frontline health workers.
Former Jennings Randolph fellow at The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) and professor of political science at Georgia State University Dr. William Long acknowledged “China, for its part, gave more timely notice of the outbreak” and the WHO too “made a timely finding” of the disease. He also believed that the spread of the infectious diseases can foster opportunities for international cooperation.
But Washington’s ostensible belief that it is the so-called custodian of the world and thus has the right to dominate all the countries and international organizations is the real hitch in the fruition of the global cooperation. Though the Trump administration has long been wary of trade deficit with China, it now seeks Beijing to direct all the medical supplies to Washington.
The attitude shows that for the US, the life and health of its people is important than those who live in Africa, Asia and even Europe. But for China, it tantamount to racism and the protection of people across the world was equally vital. Chinese donation of medical items, which to date reached to a total of 127 countries and four international organizations, emphasizes its uniform approach to shield all the nationalities without any favoritism.
In addition to this, the cooperation between China and world during the pandemic including the deployment of 13 medical teams to 11 countries and the commercial procurement of RMB 10.2 billion of anti-epidemic supplies by 58 countries and regions, spelled out the importance of global cooperation and the utility of globalization.
While some US politicians, governors and congressmen cried out about acute shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) for doctors and nurses, it is imperative to know that China’s industrial capacity has already exceeded the pre-pandemic production of manufacturing 200 million masks daily. This imbalance in demand and supply can only be achieved through bilateral cooperation.
By the way, it is the US tariffs on the Chinese masks, gloves, goggles and thermometers that hampered the healthcare industry in China. The people and politicians in the US should first question the Trump administration – which still maintains tariffs of about $360 billion on all Chinese goods, slightly lower than the prior $400 billion – as why it ignited a trade war that earlier directly impacted the US farmers and importers and now indirectly is overawing the American people.
The scale and unforeseen consequences of the Covid-19 can only be contained through altruism and global cooperation among all nations and international institutions however the cause as big as the coronavirus necessitates the US to abandon its catty and splenetic behavior toward China.
*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)":
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-04-14/U-S-catty-and-splenetic-behavior-detrimental-to-global-cooperation-PG2Ca0CcA8/index.html
The Covid-19 is such an enormous threat to the mankind and global economy that it obliges all rivals to shelve the rivalries, all nationalists to forego nationalism and all the protectionists to suspend the protectionism at least temporarily and embrace a stronger, unvarying international cooperation for the protection of their citizens and economies.
Despite populist backlash from some Western quarters, it is still an era of breakneck globalization that has lifted the living standards of millions of people. While the phenomenon continues to connect people and make them dependent on each other for their economic and technological growth through multifaceted cooperation, it also prevents some aggressive and dominance-seeking countries to assert their hegemony or impose the totalitarian decisions on other sovereign nations.
The global cooperation, by pooling the wisdoms and sharing the experiences, is therefore the one-stop solution for international community to put forward a concerted and determined international response – in an open and transparent manner through mutual understanding, trust and support – to the novel coronavirus outbreak.
A report titled “Strengthening multi-level cooperation to fight the pandemic” published by the Center for China and Globalization (CCG) noted as the Covid-19 transforms into a global crisis affecting virtually every country, its impact on public health would have far-reaching implications ranging from individual livelihoods to political and economic structures.
It summarized China’s experiences – from implementation of the orthodox coordinating, mobilizing and communicating techniques to introduction of inventive big data, mobile apps and artificial intelligence applications – to control the disease and provided valuable suggestions on global cooperation to fight the virus and its economic fallout.
Of course, the objective of sharing Beijing’s experiences was not to urge global nations to follow Chinese method of handling the disease but to help them better understand how it fought and defeated the virus, enabling governments better analyze and contrive an effective Covid-19 strategy in accordance with their legal and political backgrounds.
Based on its findings, the report lined up a series of recommendations including activating multilateral platforms such as G-20; supporting the World Health Organization (WHO), allowing it to play a greater role in global cooperation and establishing a governance mechanism for international coordination on public health measures; and protecting global value, supply and industrial chains.
Recommendations also urged China and the US to strengthen dialogue and reach consensus on trade in medical supplies, support the World Trade Organization (WTO) to play an effective role in responding to the epidemic by promoting trade facilitation for emergency goods and cooperation across supply chains and support multinational cooperation on drug and vaccine development.
Although the US President Donald Trump lately scorched WHO labeling the international health body “Chinese centric” and accused it for giving “faulty recommendation” and is again threatening to withdraw from WTO over losing “so many cases” – the role of both the institutions is crucial in protecting the human lives initially from the pandemic and then from the economic consequences in post-coronavirus world.
While Trump’s criticism on the WTO is a blunt effort to influence the organization and coerce its appellate tribunal to resolve cases in the US favor – his disapproval of the WHO and the accusations on China for camouflaging the numbers by some other US officials, lack both evidence and prudence.
In an interview, the Republican Senator Rick Scott claimed that the American public will want to boycott Chinese goods after the pandemic as they “clearly killed Americans with their actions.” In his prior article, he called for congressional investigation into the WHO for serving “as a puppet to for the Chinese Communist Party.”
The US officials’ reproof on China and the WHO is detrimental to global cooperation in defeating the Covid-19. They are overtly trying to politicize the outbreak by deliberately overlooking the fact that China so far is the only country that has effectively controlled the pandemic and prevented its resurgence albeit being terrifically gripped by the virus.
Since the start of the outbreak, the WHO too has worked hard by supporting the countries to build their capacity to prepare and respond, has provided accurate information and fought the “infodemic” through issuance of technical guidance, arranged training and mobilization of the health workers, accelerated research and development and is ensuring the critical supplies to reach the frontline health workers.
Former Jennings Randolph fellow at The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) and professor of political science at Georgia State University Dr. William Long acknowledged “China, for its part, gave more timely notice of the outbreak” and the WHO too “made a timely finding” of the disease. He also believed that the spread of the infectious diseases can foster opportunities for international cooperation.
But Washington’s ostensible belief that it is the so-called custodian of the world and thus has the right to dominate all the countries and international organizations is the real hitch in the fruition of the global cooperation. Though the Trump administration has long been wary of trade deficit with China, it now seeks Beijing to direct all the medical supplies to Washington.
The attitude shows that for the US, the life and health of its people is important than those who live in Africa, Asia and even Europe. But for China, it tantamount to racism and the protection of people across the world was equally vital. Chinese donation of medical items, which to date reached to a total of 127 countries and four international organizations, emphasizes its uniform approach to shield all the nationalities without any favoritism.
In addition to this, the cooperation between China and world during the pandemic including the deployment of 13 medical teams to 11 countries and the commercial procurement of RMB 10.2 billion of anti-epidemic supplies by 58 countries and regions, spelled out the importance of global cooperation and the utility of globalization.
While some US politicians, governors and congressmen cried out about acute shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) for doctors and nurses, it is imperative to know that China’s industrial capacity has already exceeded the pre-pandemic production of manufacturing 200 million masks daily. This imbalance in demand and supply can only be achieved through bilateral cooperation.
By the way, it is the US tariffs on the Chinese masks, gloves, goggles and thermometers that hampered the healthcare industry in China. The people and politicians in the US should first question the Trump administration – which still maintains tariffs of about $360 billion on all Chinese goods, slightly lower than the prior $400 billion – as why it ignited a trade war that earlier directly impacted the US farmers and importers and now indirectly is overawing the American people.
The scale and unforeseen consequences of the Covid-19 can only be contained through altruism and global cooperation among all nations and international institutions however the cause as big as the coronavirus necessitates the US to abandon its catty and splenetic behavior toward China.