On December 8, 2019, authorities in the Chinese city of Wuhan recorded the first cases of a mysterious lung disease. Local officials initially kept this knowledge to themselves, the doctor Li Wanliang, who warned of the new disease and later died from it, was even reprimanded by the local police for “spreading rumors”.
Which in turn unsettled his colleagues, as the “Financial Times” writes: “In the first two weeks of January, confusion grew among doctors at the Wuhan Central Hospital about what information they should still pass on to the authorities.”
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At the end of January, however, the disease could no longer be denied. China therefore took drastic measures to contain the pandemic.
A year later, the country got the virus under control – while many nations around the world continue to fight against it – and many have died.
What is the current pandemic situation in China?
China recently reported only a few corona cases. Otherwise the virus appears to be under control. And that in the country with the world’s largest population and the world’s longest territorial external borders.
When new cases arise, as recently in Tianjin, Qingdao or Kashgar, this is it Virus imported from abroad The state-controlled Chinese authorities report that the Chinese are returning or foreigners who have entered China.
During the outbreak in Tianjin, the authorities blamed a knuckle of pork imported from Germany. Tests have found virus traces on the packaging of the frozen shank, it is said.
This was first imported from Bremen to Tianjin and sent from there to Dezhou. The German Federal Ministry of Agriculture considers this explanation to be “unlikely”. Eight people were infected in Tianjin. The authorities then ordered a mass test for one million people.
How did China achieve this success?
The example of Tianjin shows: As soon as a corona case occurs somewhere, the authorities react with a mass test obligation. When six new infections became known in the east Chinese city of Qingdao in October, almost ten million people had to be tested. According to the authorities, 13 other positive tests came to light.
Even if the state information cannot always be believed, another massive Covid-19 outbreak in China would definitely have become known. The government had taken rigorous measures after the first cover-up attempts in the spring.
The city of Wuhan was sealed off from the outside world from January 23 to April 7 and was subject to a curfew. People from Wuhan or neighboring Hubei Province were detained in their hotels and places of residence for 14 days. Likewise people with positive corona tests.
These quarantine measures as well as masks and temperature controls stopped the spread, the Corona app requirement enabled precise contact tracking. In addition, strict entry restrictions have been in place for months.
Those who are still allowed into the country find themselves in a strictly controlled 14-day quarantine. Oddly enough, in the early stages of the pandemic, China branded similar entry bans abroad for Chinese people, for example in Israel, as “racist”.
How is the economy doing in the country?
China’s economy has a problem right now. It’s a luxury problem: the People’s Republic simply has not enough containers to ship all the goods that Americans and Europeans are currently ordering. The export business in particular is doing so well that China’s container manufacturers are reportedly working extra shifts. They have been manufacturing 300,000 steel transport boxes every month since September.
And even that is not enough. Retailers in Europe are already concerned that the computers, bicycles and toys they have ordered won’t arrive in time for Christmas.
China’s exports rose by more than 20 percent in November compared to the same month last year: a figure that exceeds all forecasts. “The export boom is one of the biggest economic surprises this year in terms of the outlook for China,” said Zhou Hao of Commerzbank to Bloomberg’s financial agency.
Business in China is also back in full swing at home. The country’s largest online retailers, Alibaba and JD.com, sold goods worth the equivalent of 96 billion euros on Singles Day alone – more than ever.
China’s economy benefits enormously from the fact that there was no second lockdown.
China’s economy is likely to grow
The People’s Republic will therefore be one of the few countries in the world where the economy is growing this year. While Germany has to cope with a slump of around five percent, China is up by almost two percent.
The result: the world is becoming even more dependent on the People’s Republic, at least in the short term. “China will certainly contribute a lot more to global economic growth in the next year than it has before,” said OECD chief economist Laurence Boone recently in an interview with Tagesspiegel.
This means that the People’s Republic could also replace the USA as the world’s largest economic power faster than expected.
But China’s rapid recovery is also having consequences for Germany. For example, the local carmakers are more dependent than ever on the People’s Republic. While new car sales collapse in Europe and the USA, many Chinese are buying a new car again.
Even before Corona, the People’s Republic was an important sales market for German corporations, but Corona intensifies this even further. Daimler, for example, currently sells 36 percent of its sedans and SUVs in China. Germany still benefits from this because important parts such as gearboxes and engines are manufactured in this country and then shipped to the People’s Republic.
But that could change with the trend towards electromobility: For example, when battery cells are produced in China in the future.
On top of that, China has just signed a gigantic free trade agreement with its neighboring countries: This will lower the tariffs in the Asia / Pacific region and the People’s Republic will be able to sell its goods even cheaper in the 14 countries involved.
Can only an authoritarian system like China fight the pandemic successfully?
Chinese propaganda extensively celebrates its own government for successfully fighting the pandemic. She sees this as proof of the superiority of the Chinese political system. According to the narrative, it is only possible to effectively fight such a dangerous virus under “socialism with Chinese characteristics”.
Freedom-loving individualistic democracies, on the other hand, could not muster a similar effort. This view is not only shared by a large number of Chinese, it is also popular in western countries. Sometimes to distract from your own neglect or to apologize that you cannot fight the virus with the same methods.
It is forgotten that there is a living democracy like Taiwan in Asia, which responded so early and effectively to the virus in mainland China that so far only seven corona deaths have been reported. Other democracies such as Japan and South Korea have also acted very successfully against the virus.
In Europe, people like to apologize that these are all islands or peninsulas. But Vietnam and Thailand are no less successful in the anti-virus fight, despite their long territorial borders. And finally, in this country reference is made to the Confucian traditions in East Asia with a greater belief in authority.
But even Anglo-Saxon democracies like Australia and New Zealand have successfully fought the corona virus with strict measures – and are already celebrating concerts and parties again.
Perhaps one reason for the better response lies in the experience of this region with the Sars virus and avian flu. She was also better prepared. It is clear, however, that the successes in East Asia and Oceania will not only have economic, but also geopolitical consequences. Chancellor Angela Merkel said last week: “This will be another reorganization of the regions.”
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