Complex Event Analysis - Report
Key Focus
From implicitly seeking a political quid pro quo for supplying other countries with protective medical gear, to rejecting calls for an independent international inquiry into the virus's origins until a majority of countries backed such a probe, the bullying tactics of President Xi Jinping's government have damaged and isolated China's communist regime.
The backlash could take the form of Western sanctions as Xi's regime seeks to overturn Hong Kong's "one country, two systems" framework with its proposed new national-security laws for the territory, which has been wracked by widespread pro-democracy protests for over a yearIn fact, some Chinese commentators denounced calls for an inquiry as racist.
But once a resolution calling for an "impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation" of the global response to COVID-19 gained the support of more than 100 countries in the World Health Organization's decision-making body, the World Health Assembly, Xi sought to save face by telling the assembly that "China supports the idea of a comprehensive review." At the last minute, China co-sponsored the resolution, which was approved without objection.
The resolution, however, leaves it up to the WHO's controversial director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, to launch the review "at the earliest appropriate moment." Tedros, who has been accused of aiding China's initial COVID-19 cover-up, may decide to wait until the pandemic has come "under control," as Xi has proposed.
Make no mistake: the world will not be the same after this wartime-like crisisChina's diplomatic and information offensive to obscure facts and deflect criticism of its COVID-19 response may be only the latest example of its brazen use of censure and coercion to browbeat other countries. But it represents a watershed moment.
In the past, China's reliance on persuasion secured its admission to international institutions like the World Trade Organization and helped to power its economic riseNo momentum supporting factor found
Challenge supporting factors
(china, countries) (china, probe) (china, covid-19) (china, medical) (china, wracked) (china, world_health_organization) (china, world_health_assembly) (china, wartime-like) (china, virus)Work-in-progress supporting factors
(china, countries) (china, world_trade_organization) (china, watershed)