Brice Couturier is a journalist, author of 1969, the fateful year (Éditions de l'Observatoire, 2019).
FIGAROVOX.-You explain in your book that China bears an immense responsibility in the spread of the pandemic. Will it not nevertheless assert itself as the paradoxical winner of this crisis?
Brice COUTURIER.- China bears, indeed, an enormous responsibility in the triggering of this epidemic. Its leaders concealed for several weeks the existence of COVID-19, underestimated its dangerousness and, they lied about the number of victims it caused on their territory.
In the hyper-authoritarian regime installed by Xi Jinping since 2012, the bearers of bad news are considered responsible for the malfunctions and the whistleblowers as unwelcome. Summoned by the police, threatened, they are ordered to retract and apologize. This is what happened to the head of the emergency department of Wuhan hospital, Dr. Ai Fen, as well as to the young ophthalmologist, Dr. Li Wenliang, who became a popular hero in China, during the brief period when censorship seems to have been strangely relaxed on social networks.
Under the communist regime, appointments to positions of responsibility are based on loyalty to the Party and not on functional skills.In addition, as is the rule in the Communist regime, appointments to positions of responsibility are based on political loyalty to the One Party, not on functional skills. The head of the health commission of Hubei province, dismissed during the crisis, had no training or medical experience in the field of public health.
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Hong Kong’s generally well-informed newspaper South China Morning Post reports that the first COVID-19 infection was reported on November 17… Beijing has been slow to warn the rest of the world of the outbreak of the epidemic in Wuhan: in his speech on December 31, Xi Jinping did not even mention it. On the same day, however, the government of Taiwan launched an alert to the WHO in Geneva. But the latter did not disseminate the information, to spare Beijing. China has obtained the exclusion of Taiwan, whose experience in combating the epidemic would have been precious for the rest of the world…. Its management of the crisis makes it a true model, democratic and high tech.
Precious time has been lost due to the cover up of the PRC.On January 15, China finally recognized the existence of the coronavirus, but considered the possibility of human-to-human transmission “weak”, when it had proof to the contrary. So, yes, precious time was lost because of the PRC cover-ups.
According to former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt: " If the Chinese authorities had publicly acknowledged the threat, and reacted correctly only three weeks earlier, the spread of Covid-19 could have been reduced by up to 95%. But because of the neglect, ignorance and censorship that prevailed at this crucial time, the whole world is paying a heavy price today. ”
According to you, China has waged a "formidable disinformation campaign". Are Liberal States necessarily disarmed to wage an information war against authoritarian regimes?
Faced with consternation of opinion worldwide, Beijing sought to impose its own account of the crisis. Xi Jinping launched a formidable campaign of disinformation and intimidation against all those who dared to say that the regime had lied and delayed in taking the necessary measures to limit the spread of the virus.
It went through "mask diplomacy", supposed to demonstrate that we could count on Chinese aid, while the United States had renounced leadership. Also by intimidation: daring to say that the virus was born in China, probably due to the coexistence of live animals in certain markets in China was qualified as "racist". However, the “Wuhan virus”, the official Chinese name, has long been referred to as “Wuhan pneumonia”.
Chinese authorities have even claimed that the virus originated in Italy.Stronger: the Chinese authorities claimed that the virus originated in Italy, implicating the Institute of pharmacology in Milan. Then that it was brought to Wuhan by the American team, during the world military games of October 2019 ... We saw amazing things, like the spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Zhao Lijian who counts 618,000 subscribers on Twitter relayed conspiracy sites there while the social network is prohibited in his country…
Read also: Coronavirus: the great Chinese lie
Some observers and countries are calling for China to "pay". Is it not illusory?
The United States, Great Britain, Australia, among others, believe that the country which is at the origin of an economic crisis whose results are expected to be far more damaging than the subprime financial crisis, should contribute financially to the recovery programs it will make necessary. But when the Chinese leaders react by affirming that "the expansion of the epidemic in the United States has nothing to do with China, but with the American incompetence in the control of the virus" , we understand that China has which we have to do today is no longer that of Deng Xiao Ping, who advised his successors to keep a low profile. It is a new China, too self-confident, arrogant, even threatening.
Are we irreparably moving towards an international order characterized by Chinese hegemony? Is this country not undermined by structural weaknesses which could ultimately turn against it?
What is certain, that we will witness the acceleration of the "decoupling" initiated by Donald Trump between his country and China. "Chinamerica" is over! But what also struck in this crisis was the absence of American leadership. George W Bush, then Barack Obama, coordinated the stimulus programs in 2008. This time, it was everyone for himself.
China gets hold of strategic European companies.Even within the EU. The great risk for us Europeans would be to find ourselves caught in the cold war which is beginning. Because China knows our weaknesses. It began to create "clients" among the over-indebted states, by promising credits. Be careful not to fall into the “debt trap” by which certain countries of the South had to abandon entire parts of their territory - ports, mines, logging operations… China gets hold of strategic European companies. In full containment, a large Chinese company, CITIC, has acquired a key player in the Czech media, Medea. Political leaders, such as Minister of Foreign Affairs Luigi di Maio, are notoriously in favor of Chinese expansion plans in Europe.
Should the failure of multilateralism in its liberal form, the obvious absence of European solidarity and the assumed refusal of American leadership not encourage France to turn the page on happy globalization, to rearm strategically and to conduct a policy power?
The crisis has exposed the vulnerability of production chains and our dependence on China in essential sectors, such as the pharmaceutical industry. So yes, you have to become more independent to be more resilient. But each of our small trading republics is ill-equipped to negotiate face-to-face with the two great rival powers of the world today. It is together, as a European Union, that we can defend our interests and our values. As for globalization, it will take another, more regional form. We should pay more attention to the Mediterranean basin.