InAsia

Covid-19 and China's Soft Power

April 29, 2020 The Asia Foundation
InAsia
Covid-19 and China's Soft Power
Show Notes Transcript

Prior to the pandemic, China was already positioning itself to provide leadership on global issues. Covid-19 may have given China a new opportunity to realize these ambitions.

We interview Senior Director for International Development Cooperation Anthea Mulakala on her InAsia blog "COVID-19 and China’s Soft-Power Ambitions." 

Read the full article at https://asiafoundation.org/2020/04/29/covid-19-and-chinas-soft-power-ambitions/ 

John Rieger (00:00):

Welcome to InAsia. I'm John Rieger.

Tracie Yang (00:02):

And I'm Tracie Yang.

John Rieger (00:03):

COVID-19 and how the People's Republic of China has responded to the pandemic is the subject of the thoughtful essay this week from the Asia Foundation's Ji Hongbo and Anthea Mulakala, part of our editorial collaboration with DevPolicy. Anthea joins us today from Malaysia to share some further thoughts. Anthea, welcome.

Anthea Mulakala (00:21):

Hi, nice to be with you today.

John Rieger (00:23):

Anthea, China's international response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been, in your words, quick and comprehensive. Has China shown the world something new about itself?

Anthea Mulakala (00:33):

No. I don't think China's shown the world something new in particular. China has a very long history of South-South cooperation, cooperating with other countries and as well on humanitarian assistance. And humanitarian assistance is in fact embedded in China's history and culture and this dates back to the days of Confucius.

Anthea Mulakala (00:56):

If we look more recently in this century China's responded to many international crises, including the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2003 SARS epidemic, the devastating earthquake in Nepal in 2015, as well as the two Ebola outbreaks in 2014 and 2018. However, I'd say that what's notable about the COVID-19 response is the diversity of channels that China, as a nation, not just the government, but the nation as a whole has deployed and encouraged to address a crisis of this magnitude.

Anthea Mulakala (01:34):

Just a couple of examples, the private sector got heavily engaged. So we may have read about the Jack Ma and the Alibaba Foundation contributing a lot of masks and other supplies to countries. The government, of course, was very involved. Civil society in particular was very involved. The China Red Cross Foundation mobilized funding from the Chinese public to support Chinese medical teams working in other countries.

Anthea Mulakala (02:02):

Similarly, the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation, which is one of China's largest NGOs, implemented programs in several of its partner countries to support COVID-19 response.

Anthea Mulakala (02:15):

China used multilateral channels, loans, grants to the UN, loans through the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank. China is the major stakeholder in that bank and there was also collaboration at the provincial level. So you saw provincial governments in China partnering with countries, particularly in the Asian region, to send medical teams and supplies.

Anthea Mulakala (02:36):

We've also learned from the COVID-19 response that China does a lot more than just build stuff, infrastructure, bridges, roads. In fact, we've seen equipment, masks, medical teams, online learning and medical platforms, vaccine research, as well as loans and financial aid.

Tracie Yang (02:57):

You called the world's reaction to China's pandemic assistance mixed. How so?

Anthea Mulakala (03:02):

Well, aid of any sort is political and it is an extension of a country's foreign policy and also it's a tool for soft-power diplomacy. This isn't any big secret. China and the U.S. were already battling it out on the trade front and COVID-19 has become another factor in the competition between the U.S. and China over who is the better global citizen. And I have to say if you read the reports that come out in the press it's become quite ugly. The daggers are definitely out.

Anthea Mulakala (03:35):

Like in the U.S. there's also internal debate in China. So on WeChat, for example, which is China's mammoth social media platform, citizens are debating China's so called mask diplomacy. They're also debating whether Fang Fang, the ... I think she's a blogger, was right or wrong to open her Wuhan diary to the world. And also whether the foreign ministry spokesperson who seeded ideas on Twitter about the U.S. military conspiracy around the origins of the virus, whether or not he was right to do that.

Anthea Mulakala (04:11):

So there is active debate, engagement and highly controversial in China as well as we see in the international media. However, if you look at the perspective from partner countries or recipient countries that have been on the receiving end of Chinese humanitarian assistance during COVID-19 the response generally has been quite positive. Cambodia is a longstanding partner and friend to China and it has received medical teams and supplies from China as well as textiles to keep garment factories that China runs and operates in Cambodia open.

Anthea Mulakala (04:50):

So public sentiments are generally positive. There's also collaboration between Cambodian and Chinese doctors and Cambodia sees this as an opportunity to build the capacity of their own doctors and healthcare professionals through this response.

Anthea Mulakala (05:05):

Pakistan also is another long time partner of China, even though there are concerns in Pakistan around the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and its impact on Pakistan's debt. Chinese contributions are 80% of Pakistan's COVID-19 aid and this also includes things like medical teams, masks, test kits, ventilators. And generally we see the perception has been positive.

John Rieger (05:32):

So you say generally the perception has been positive.

Anthea Mulakala (05:35):

Well, what we know and what we've read from the press in those countries and we have some anecdotal evidence from conversations we've had with our country offices in partner countries with China that generally the aid from China has been well received but I think the point is, why wouldn't it be? Countries in Asia are not going to be critical at this time of need. They're going to receive very gratefully the humanitarian assistance from China.

Tracie Yang (06:05):

What about the Belt and Road Initiative? Does the pandemic in some sense represent an opportunity for China?

Anthea Mulakala (06:12):

The Belt and Road Initiative or the BRI is a massive undertaking. China's own economic slowdown has caused it to take a pause and consider the projects and loans that it has initiated much more carefully. And this is even before COVID-19. But as a result of COVID-19 you see that several projects are at a standstill. Much of the Chinese workforce has been repatriated and with several economies spiraling downwards partner countries are really struggling to finance existing debt burdens.

Anthea Mulakala (06:48):

There are 70 countries that are part of the Belt and Road Initiative and China has used its BRI network to extend support to its partner countries. Italy was one of the most recent European countries to join the BRI and China was the first responder to Italy's COVID-19 crisis. Partner countries, as I mentioned earlier, have been grateful for China's support but why would they be critical of aid during a humanitarian crisis?

Anthea Mulakala (07:19):

What China does next is really key. So around the BRI there are big concerns about debt. So will China forgive or restructure debt to reduce the burdens on partner countries? Will they do things like shift to hiring more local labor, do more capacity building of local labor, of local experts, of local firms? Will they build on the pandemic response to [inaudible 00:07:45] partnership in other areas or expand partnership in areas like health and disaster management? Partner countries will have these expectations. They'll want to see what China does post-COVID-19 in relation to the BRI.

John Rieger (07:59):

Anthea, peering into the future, when the pandemic has receded what changes do you foresee in the international development space?

Anthea Mulakala (08:06):

COVID-19 has shifted the logic of aid by presenting a global challenge that requires pooled resources and collaborative action. The notion that aid flows from north to south or from developed to developing countries, rich to poor, has been upended during this crisis. Suddenly the terms like global public goods, global development goals, they make sense and so we should rethink aid in terms of global public investment. This was a term that was coined by Jonathan Glennie, a development writer and researcher.

Anthea Mulakala (08:46):

For this narrative to succeed multilateralism is critical and COVID-19 has revealed disturbing trends in the opposite direction. Much of these are coming from the U.S. and as the U.S. retreats from multilateralism, this was happening before COVID-19. COVID-19 just accelerated this trend. China is stepping in and is stepping up. This situation isn't ideal either, replacing one dominant power with another and the tension between the two really undermines the multilateral system's ability to act.

Anthea Mulakala (09:20):

We really need leadership and partnership from others. We need everyone to sit at the table to collaborate on crises like this but also to ensure that the multilateral system works. And for now, when the system is in a bit of a crisis we can look to regional cooperation examples to help leverage more stable multi collaboration, multilateral cooperation going forward. And there are some good examples out there.

Anthea Mulakala (09:45):

You see ASEAN Plus Three collaboration. You see attempts within the South Asia region for SAARC to start working together on COVID-19, the G20. There are also interesting collaborations between technical groups, between scientists, between engineers, people that are working on vaccines. So at a point where the multilateral system is in crisis we can look to these regional or technical collaborative examples to get some inspiration for the future.

John Rieger (10:16):

Anthea, thank you so much for joining us.

Anthea Mulakala (10:18):

Thank you, it was my pleasure.

John Rieger (10:19):

The article is, COVID-19 and China's Soft-Power Ambitions and you can read it this week in DevPolicy and right here on InAsia blog. I'm John Rieger.

Tracie Yang (10:29):

And I'm Tracie Yang.

John Rieger (10:30):

Join us again next time.