Advertisement
Six ways the coronavirus crisis will change China’s relations with the world
- The Covid-19 epidemic is disrupting the global economy, supply chains and diplomatic events. Beijing likes to say that any event within its jurisdiction is an internal affair, but that clearly doesn’t apply in this case
Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
Viruses and epidemic diseases might originate in one country, but they have neither nationality nor loyalty. Instead of confining themselves permanently to one breeding ground, they travel far and wide, crossing one border after another. And globalisation helps them travel further, and faster.
Advertisement
This is why we have seen the novel coronavirus, which originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan and causes the disease now officially known as Covid-19, spreading wildly across the globe.
This is also why we see the whole world sharing the price of the epidemic with China, whether it is in human casualties, economic losses or societal fallout, as a local health scare develops into a pandemic on a nationwide – and even worldwide – scale.
How the epidemic unfolds will impact the world, and reshape China’s relations with the outside world in a number of areas.
The first casualty will be the world economy, due to severe disruptions of economic activity in large parts of China and global travel restrictions. A sharp slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy, which is also a chief engine of global growth, will drag on the world economy, which is operating dangerously close to stall speed.
Advertisement