China, “Authoritarian state management favored post-closure recovery. But without democracy. And world trust in Beijing has collapsed.”

After the pandemic China it is “a giant divided in half.” On one side is the population who, satisfied with the economic recovery, forgets the criticisms of the emergency shutdown. On the other hand, there is the international community that witnesses the frontal attacks of Donald trump and don’t believe in numbers contagion and deaths reported by Beijing. However, in the year of COVID-19According to estimates by the International Monetary Fund, the China will be the only major world economy to register a Pil growing by the end of 2020, while Europe and the United States are struggling, hampered by thresholds of contagion increasingly worrying. “The recovery, however, is a trend that affects the wholeAsia and it is important to remember that China I could trust the experience of Sars of the 2003 – Explain Giulia Sciorati, researcher at the Asia Observatory of Ispi and expert in China and international relations -. After that emergency they were investigated protocols health and economic management that for Covid were first a starting point and then an advantage in recovery times. Plus Beijing it had a faster reaction speed because it is an authoritarian state ”.

Precisely for this reason, the international community has expressed its doubts about the real figures of the pandemic in China, so much so that it has called for an independent investigation.
There were inconsistencies in victims, patients and tampons because, especially in the first weeks of the emergency, the counting patterns were changed several times. Changes that have contributed to the hypothesis that China has falsified the data. However, I think there will be an investigation by the WHO: the pressure is strong from the international community but also on the domestic front.

Aside from international criticism, has the government also been attacked by the Chinese?
On social networks, during the confinement, many raised their voices about the management of the health emergency. In the initial phase, for example, access to hospitals for symptomatic patients seemed arbitrary. We had doubts about the nuances of the Dpcm, but in his case it was clear: the confinement is to remain closed at home until further notice. It is difficult to capture the spirit of civil society in a country that has almost 1.4 billion inhabitants, but we can say that there is an economic recovery, especially in the manufacturing sector, and that the Chinese have faith in their government.

The United States and Europe are struggling to recover as China reboots, putting smaller measures in place than those to tackle the crisis in 2008.
Certainly, the post-Sars protocols had an impact, but the approach was very different: the 2008 plan had also been criticized by the current leadership. China is now targeting recovery with a strategy that is not the result of the pandemic, but rather a continuation of what had already been started. The line is to promote and support domestic consumption rather than exports, and Covid has made it possible to carry the ball. We will see what happens later this month, when the Chinese leadership plans the new strategy until 2035.

Where did the decision to focus on domestic consumption come from?
From the objective of being less dependent on the outside, also given the tariff war.

Many countries, mainly the United States, are trying to convince companies to return from China or at least change their destination. Is working?
Yes, especially the request from the United States that the companies relocate elsewhere, for example to Vietnam. The closures and locks experienced during the confinement also led to rethinking productions based on proximity. Asia over Asia, for example, in favor of regionalization. And today we are also more aware of the risks derived from dependence on a single country.

How did China’s geopolitical balances change before and after Covid? Do you have greater negotiating power today?
No. Internationally, you must show that you are trustworthy. In addition to the United States and Europe, there is all of Southeast Asia and, in particular, relations with Japan, which has recently changed leadership, and Taiwan.

The problem now is restoring credibility at the international level.
This is the most significant geopolitical legacy of the pandemic. China is no longer perceived as a trustworthy country, capable of delivering on its promises. Beijing, despite some sticking points, is doing everything it can to restore what it has lost. It did so with donations of medical supplies, from Europe to Africa, or by focusing on environmental sustainability. Topics in which it is proposed as the power that has more capacity than any other country.

And it has every commercial interest to do so.
Beijing has 7 years of investment in the New Silk Road behind it and wants the partnerships from Asia to Europe to continue. He wants to avoid, for example, what happened a few years ago in Malaysia, where the change in leadership halted investment, resulting in a large-scale waste of time and money.

Who is China’s main partner today?
Europe, even if there is resistance from the European side after the pandemic, also fueled by Trump’s invectives.

His attacks on China have been at the center of the presidential campaign for months.
We think of all the times that Trump spoke of a “Chinese virus”, even in front of the UN Assembly, which he practically used for a demonstration. Something never seen. In its rhetoric, China is “the bad guy” internationally. And in today’s media, it is as if Europe is being pressured to decide which side to take, whether to choose Washington or Beijing. But politicians know that we are in the midst of the presidential election confusion.

Who expects Beijing to be elected?
Until a few months ago Biden would have said, but he too was forced to adapt to Trump’s aggressive rhetoric. Of course, there are many differences with the China Politics of the president, but with the victory the dem candidate inherits an ongoing battle.

On what fronts is the battle between the United States and China played?
The pandemic entered the trade war that began in 2015 with the announcement of the Made in China 2025 program, a plan designed by Beijing to acquire global technological supremacy. A record that today belongs to the United States and is at risk. The human rights and political freedoms front has also joined the commercial and technological front, as the United States has entered the debate on Hong Kong and exposed itself on the Xinjang internment camps.

What is the United States afraid of?
Let China become the cornerstone of the international system.

And what is China afraid of?
May the West close the doors in your face, given the immense network of projects – infrastructure, technological, financial – that it has launched in many countries.

We know that the Chinese government controls all of its citizens through phones and apps. An aspect that the pandemic has exploded. How much does this strategy affect technology development in China?
Technologies in China are very widespread. With Wechat you can buy train tickets, chat and much more. With the QR code you pay at the market stalls. You can basically just leave the house with your cell phone and do everything. The consequence is that you are always mapped, everywhere. And the closure was the ultimate expression of how much technology, a sector for which China wants to be the international benchmark, is in the lives of the Chinese. We speak, I repeat, of an authoritarian government, while we are in a democracy. Beijing’s priorities are the stability of the state and parties and not democratic freedoms. Here too the advantage of authoritarianism was the management of the emergency, which for us was the real obstacle to overcome. The power of the government in China made it possible to return quickly. When Covid blew up with us, they were already in a downward phase.

Does the government emerge stronger from the pandemic?
Certainly internally, yes, and all the confidence derives from the economic recovery that is the basis of the legitimacy of the Chinese leadership and has also healed the criticism of the first phase of the lockdown. But internationally, Xi Jinping collapsed. Today China is divided in half.

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