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Can China recover faster and better after Coronavirus ?

By keith K C Hui on April 20, 2020 • ( 2 )

Photo captured from Euronews dated 03/02/2020, Copyright AP

The Plague of Athens (429-426 BC), probably an outbreak of smallpox or typhus after the arrival of a ship from Ethiopia, claimed between 75,000 to 100,000 lives in the city-state.

Yet, Athens managed to survive after the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC) against Sparta. After Socrates’ death in 399 BC, Plato (424-348 BC) laid down the foundation of Western philosophy, making Athens immortal.

The damages caused by the Coronavirus Crisis are devastating medically, economically, socio-psychologically, and of course politically, worldwide.

Furthermore, the international relations between China and all other countries will be reshaped to different extent respectively.

While some people or nations will surely play the blame game (victory is not difficult to obtain), what really matters is who can outrun others in recovering from its domestic mess and how good the recovery can be.

The speed and quality of the recovery of national strength are the two major hammers that reshape the post-Coronavirus world order, not the pointing fingers.

The speed of recovery, everybody knows, is determined by various factors, ranging from leaders’ efficient and timely co-ordination, to the citizens’ (or at least the majority’s) collaborative commitments to take concrete actions.

It will be a contest between the top down technocratic approach in China and the bottom up market-oriented approach in the West. Enjoy the show. Some analysts have already made a guess: this Fortune April 19 article ponders “Why China will recover faster from coronavirus pandemic than the US”.

The quality of recovery can be a game-changer. The coronavirus pandemic has exposed many unimaginable weaknesses in the supposedly advanced countries. One noticeable example is that while these nations possess the best technologies in the medical sector, they are so ill prepared for a contagious disease at the grassroots level.

A recent news that hundreds of elderly people died (many died unnoticed) in nursing homes in Spain, Italy, France, Canada and the US is shocking (and the Residence Herron case in Montreal is beyond tolerance in such a wealthy country).

The consumption-led and market-oriented model is no longer reliable. As early as in 2016, the IMF had rejected Neo-liberalism for its policy in future. It is the best time to test China’s savings-oriented approach to see whether it can provide steady, solid and caring growth for common people.

The opinions expressed are those of the author, and not necessarily those of China News.