The fail West: They knew. They ignored. The reckoning, One year in. By Tomas Pueyo

‘Soon, over 1.5 million people will have died of Covid in Western countries. 1.5 million futile, needless deaths. 1.5 million wasted lives. Meanwhile, in a block of Asia-Pacific countries with a population over twice as big, they lost 18,000 people. 

‘For today, we’re going to expose the failures, expose the excuses, expose the lies, expose what we knew one year ago that we didn’t learn fast enough, and the true reasons why the West failed.‘

Read here (Uncharted Territories, May 6, 2021)

Nothing to learn from East Asia?

‘Although most East Asian economies have successfully contained the pandemic without nationwide ‘stay in shelter lockdowns’, many governments have seen such measures as necessary. But lockdowns are blunt measures, with inevitable adverse consequences, especially for businesses and employment. 

‘Many countries have thus imposed lockdowns, citing China’s response in Wuhan. But as the first WHO fact-finding mission to China noted, “The majority of the response in China, in 30 provinces, was about case finding, contact tracing, and suspension of public gatherings—all common measures used anywhere in the world to manage [infectious] diseases.

‘Lockdowns were limited to a few cities where contagion went “out of control in the beginning”. The key lesson from China was “all about…speed. The faster you can find the cases, isolate the cases, and track their close contacts, the more successful you’re going to be.”

Read here (IPS News, Jan 19, 2021) 

What social distancing reveals about East-West differences

‘In short, while the Chinese may not experience social-distancing anxiety as we Americans do, the pandemic seems to have brought out individualistic ways of thinking in some. Of course, divorce rates and rationales can only tell a small part of the sprawling story that is China. Still, might the globalization that has drawn East and West so much closer together physically also, via the pandemic, draw us ever so slightly closer together psychologically as well? It’s possible.’

Read here (Scientific American, June 6, 2020)

The West has lost its way, but China may not be the beneficiary, says historian Wang Gungwu

‘It did not help that the US as the leader of that West has made serious mistakes as the world’s sole superpower, including that of letting rampant capitalism dictate the globalisation process. The negative reaction among those in the US who turned against its liberal ideals has left the country’s allies in confusion and thus opened Western hegemony to question. But even if the West should be in relative decline, that does not mean that China will be the beneficiary. Much will depend on whether China’s alternative perspective is credible and attractive to those who are now more sceptical of what the West stands for.’

Read here (South China Morning Post, May 21, 2020)

Covid-19 & China: A View from Asia -- George Yeo

‘In China, national interest comes before human rights. In the liberal west, there is continuous tension between the two which is the source of western creativity from the time of Greece and Rome. It is interesting to compare the national reaction to two whistleblowers - China’s Dr Li Wenliang who first sounded the alarm in Wuhan and Captain Brett Crozier who publicised the deteriorating situation onboard USS Theodore Roosevelt. Both men came down with the virus.

‘In Dr Li’s case, he has been officially vindicated after his death and the dossier is closed by central edict. In Captain Crozier’s case, the debate will never cease whatever the White House might say. China and the US are built on different foundations, each having the weakness of its strength. Global cooperation requires each to accept the other for what it is.’

Read here (Brunswick Group, April 16, 2020)

Corona, East and West: Has Western-centrism mitigated against our well-being in the UK?

“That there is something special and distinct about Europe/the West, the ‘miracle’ view of Europe/West (Bhambra 2007; Sayyid 1997) are inextricably intertwined with othering views of the non-West. Such perceptions and views have contributed to narrow understanding of not just the West, but also the West’s understanding of ‘the Rest’. We need an examination of the extent to which such views and assumptions about the ‘West’ and ‘the Rest’ have come to shape the UK government’s reactions to the risks posed by the coronavirus.”

Read here (Discover Society, April 2, 2020)

Past pandemics exposed China’s weaknesses: The current one highlights its strengths

‘...[The] audience for Xi’s performance is as much global as domestic. Just as in the past, whether in the time of SARS or of plague, outside observers are assessing China’s governance by its capacity to manage its health. COVID-19 has become an important test for the virtues of authoritarian governance versus those of citizen empowerment. Aware of this high-stakes diplomacy, China is reframing the narrative to emphasize the success of its mass-containment measures and downplay concerns about its initial failures. China has shared its expertise with the European Union, pledged $20 million to the WHO in its fight against the virus, dispatched medical teams and supplies to Iran, Iraq, Italy, and Serbia, and promised to help African countries meet the crisis. All at once, Xi has begun to look more like a global leader committed to health for all...

‘The new coronavirus has revealed a fractured geopolitical landscape and reactivated old arguments about openness and efficiency. The virus has laid bare China’s strongman leadership, but it has also highlighted incompetencies within Western democracies. As governments of democratic states impose sweeping quarantine measures, China is hoping that its draconian style of epidemic management will prevail as the new global norm.’

NOTE: There is a mention Wu Lien-Teh in this story. ‘In 1910, as Qing rule crumbled, the British-educated, Penang-born physician Wu Lien-teh was sent by the Chinese government to curtail the spread of pneumonic plague across Northeast China. He enacted stringent containment strategies based on modern scientific teachings: postmortems, bacteriological investigations, and mass cremations, to name a few. Wu’s program was markedly different from the response to the bubonic plague just two decades prior, when endeavors to halt the contagion were left to local charitable organizations or to the foreign officials who staffed the Imperial Maritime Customs Service with minimal oversight from the viceroy at Canton.’

Read here (Foreign Affairs, March 7, 2020)