Minxin Pei says when the pandemic is “finally over,” people across the globe should not forget the deadly cover-up, which took place within the Communist Party of China (CPC) on COVID-19. The virus was identified as having highly infectious qualities in November, when some 260 people contracted it and came under medical surveillance . Instead of alerting the world of the novel virus, there was a crackdown on information about it in Wuhan. Health authorities issued orders to suppress the news, allowing the virus to spread across the country and beyond.

Since its outbreak, countries all over the world struggle to fight an invisible enemy. Meanwhile, China has declared victory over the virus, and since then positioned itself as a global benefactor in public health, shifting its “propaganda machine into high gear,” hopping to change the narrative” of the crisis of its own making, and “encouraging the spread on Chinese social media of exaggerated or outright false stories about Western democracies’ “inept responses” to the pandemic. However, the international community will “remember what China did, not what it said.”

The author points out the high price Beijing had to pay “when it placed at least 760 million Chinese under varying degrees of residential lockdown.” So far few countries are eager to replicate this containment strategy, given the risk of an economic meltdown. Such a scenario would pose a threat to the Communist Party’s legitimacy, which rules on the promise of economic prosperity. “First-quarter GDP is expected to plunge 9%. Should a second wave of infections strike, as is likely, repeating the same strategy would lead to economic ruin.”

It is imperative that Chinese leaders learn from the 2003 SARS and the current COVID-19, weighing “the costs of censorship and reconsider the appointment of unqualified party members to key public-health positions.” They should also be looking to Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, that “managed to contain the COVID-19 outbreak without incurring the high costs.” Their crisis response seems “smarter,” by striking a “better balance between protecting public health and sustaining economic activity.”

The flattening of the curve seems allow China to trumpet that defeating the virus is an evidence that its “strong centralized leadership” proves “more effective than democratic governance.” Now Beijing “is sending humanitarian assistance – including health-care workers and medical supplies – to hard-hit countries like Iran, Italy, and the Philippines.” Chinese leaders are hoping to project the kind of soft power they need at a time of intensifying US-China rivalry and scrutiny of Chinese influence around the world.

The author says President Xi Jimping is “likely to be sorely disappointed. For starters, the world is nowhere near ready to forget the role that its initial cover-up” played in this global crisis. The “prevailing view outside China today is that, had the country’s leaders taken decisive action immediately and transparently, the current pandemic may have been avoided. The CPC can challenge that narrative all it wants, but it cannot force international media to do the same…..indeed, most of the CPC’s previous attempts to influence international public opinion have fallen flat.”

No doubt the coronavirus has damaged China’s global image, and its “humanitarian efforts will do little to repair its reputation.” The author urges China to “do a lot more to bolster public health globally – beginning with sharing the massive amounts of data and knowledge it has gathered on the virus.” Beijing could also step up the production of protective equipment, “especially hazmat suits and surgical masks.”

Since China gives the impression that it has contained the virus, and as a manufacturer of “half the world’s surgical masks before the COVID-19 outbreak, and it has since expanded production nearly 12-fold,” it should increase its donation of life-saving equipment to those “hard-hit” countries, facing severe shortages.

The author believes a “major donation – say, one billion surgical masks and one million hazmat suits (ten days of supply for 50,000 health-care workers)” – to the US could help “ease tensions between the two countries just enough to enable them – together with the European Union and Japan – to pursue a coordinated response to the pandemic.”

This would require world leaders, especially Trump and Xi, to put aside jingoistic ambition and national interests - the source of their trade war - and take “action to shore up the global financial system and major stimulus packages to stave off a depression,” just as what George W. Bush and European leaders did in 2008/2009 after the global financial crisis.