By Mahwish Bakht
As hitherto seen, the role of Chinese government’s aggressive policies to control the COVID-19 on domestic level is significant indeed among the international community. The rise of Corona virus in China at the time, when China is defeating the major world powers and is in a leading position of creating its economic hegemon against the US, has severely hit its economy and image across the globe.
Although Chinese medical association and its government have formed a joint venture against Novel Coronavirus, there are other factors that have played a vital role in the spread of this disease that engulfed China into unpredictable crisis in the era of massive technological advancement and economic warfare.
One of the most important factors that has gained popularity among international community and media is the illicit trade of wildlife animals in China. China has legalized the promotion of large scale illegal trade by formulating a Wildlife Protection Law in 1989 that allowed the trade and transit of wildlife animal in Wuhan, Guangzhou. According to article three of the law, wildlife animals are also part of the natural resources, thereby can be utilized and consumed in the larger interests of the state.  The manipulation and exploitation in law is further endorsed by the Article 17 that demonstrates the breeding and domestication of wild animals.
Wuhan, the enormous market flourishing and shielding the large scale animal trafficking where large number of wild animals including bats, snakes, rats, pangolins, black or brown bears, alligators are properly kept for trade, transit and live slaughter. Animals of similar species are placed in cages one above the other, where the frequent exchange of all types of fluids like puss, secretions and blood takes place. Moreover, if any of them is infected with any virus or other types of microbes, they are not only easily transferred from animals to animals, but also, from animals to humans during the process of administration, slaughtering and packaging.
Furthermore, the evidence of Wuhan wildlife market as the prime source of Novel Coronavirus is supported by the research of South China Agriculture University, Guangzhou: “99 % similarity index exists between the genetic makeup of virus present in pangolin and spread in infected people.” The wildlife animal trafficking, impractical laws for the supporting wildlife animal trade, and lack of strict government policies against the wildlife market progression comprise the major factors of spreading the disease.
The Chinese government, however, has undertaken magnificent steps for preventing the new virus through ancient and modern techniques. The most integral element that has been focused by the Chinese government during this health crisis is the rapid recovery of its infected individuals. Within a limited time, they have introduced medical and non-medical techniques to save their population from disastrous situation.
They have established various free tests and treatment centers in hospitals for taking test samples of all those concerned individuals that exhibit symptoms of the new virus. A large number of individuals have rushed to hospitals, which helped the Chinese government segregate the infected population and healthy population. It has assuredly brought a ray of hope for local government and its population about the less possible spread of the virus in Hubei province. Moreover, they have properly established the chain of fever centers and more than 20,000 of its medical staff from other cities voluntarily provided their tireless services in these centers.
Medical authorities have prescribed three month courses to patients instead of one month course to control the infected patient proportion. To facilitate the commons, they have promptly introduced the online system for prescription receiving, launched an automated system to deliver fast medical help and Wechat app for direct access. Besides, government has also successfully maintained social distancing and restricted the movement of its population and vehicles inside and outside the crisis city. It has further shifted the destination of flights from Wuhan to other cities and immensely tighten the screening policies for new entries on ports.
On domestic level, the government has invariably spread the alerts for explicit awareness among its nationals about the infectious disease and when to intentionally seek medical assistance. All these measures of lockdown, limiting human interaction and fast medical assistance have helped China to recover in less time than such viruses usually take. It has been accurately observed through the consistent efforts of China in this crucial time when US and other states are experimenting and merely thinking for strategies against the new virus while China has contained epidemic and its draconian consequences as its national priority.
Moreover, it has further sensitized the Chinese local government and central authorities to learn the lesson from its own mistakes of supporting wildlife illegal trade. This illegal transit of the wild animal and sea food trade has deep rooted in other historical health catastrophes and plagues spread by SARS and Ebola viruses in China but those were not as deadly as the new virus. Due to the severe criticism from international community on China towards the unchecked transit of wildlife animals across the border and domestic market, it has been banned by Chinese government for an indefinite period of time.
The origin of health crisis and its outbreak has caused negative and harmful impacts on the Beijing economic corridors. It is a reality that China is close to recover its state from deleterious effects of the new virus but the existence of risk can never be neglected when life slowly becomes normal and schools, universities, offices, tourist sites, bars, steel industries, supermarkets and restaurants, trade activities and individual movement begins. The policymakers are working hard by keeping in mind the potential threat of social instability and economic disruption on reopening the business and factories in crisis zone. They are conscious about the job security of local population by accommodating them with the provision of loans, aids and subsidies.
To support and revive the fragile economic conditions of local catering industry in Gansu, landlocked small province in north-west of China, after the crisis period were given 200 yuan ($28.25) per person on weekly basis by Beijing to recover the loss of the respective industry. According to the report of Bloomberg Economics, the GDP growth rate in China in the first half of year 2020 reached up to 1.2%, the lowest and weakest point in record. It is essential for China to restart its economic projects on faster pace at national and international level to stable its economic position. While competing with the internal challenges and resuming the business activities within the state and across the borders, the ongoing blame game between US and China is further aggravated during the state of crisis and fueled the trust deficit issues in both the states, thus inviting the political rivalries and diplomatic clashes in their already dilapidated bilateral ties.
The new virus has also transformed the globalized world into isolated one, where free movement of human, vehicles and ships are strongly prohibited. It has suspended the trade activities and restricted the people to people connectivity. It has compelled the states to promote border closure, halt their air, land, sea transportation across the boundaries and on inter or intra-regional level. Along with this, it has introduced the wave of fear and uncertainty among nations and involved the global world into the psychological warfare. According to realist perspective, states are now striving hard in this challenging situation in order to beat others for inventing the vaccine against COVID-19 by utilizing all their available resources and technological assistance in medical and biological sciences. The successful state(s) can utilize this vaccine as its strong tool of transforming power dynamics that can further monopolize the international system and economy within the evolving context of their own interests and expansion of their markets internationally. As of now, we can speculate that who takes the lead in developing the vaccine will have the edge over the new world order.
Learning from the Chinese policies against Corona virus, South Asia should take serious steps by involving all medical associations, academicians, policy makers and government officials to control the widespread of the new virus to safeguard their already fluctuating economies.  Due to scarcity of resources, lack of medical assistance and highly competitive environment for gaining protection against the countless consequences of corona virus, it could also be served as an opportunity for them to develop a cure that would help them to pass through the crisis without much damage to the lives and economy.
The aforementioned crisis can also provide the avenue for alliance formation among the nation states of South Asian region. It is solely the responsibility of political leadership and diplomatic communities to realize the need of the hour by observing all their potential challenges and hindrances in fighting against corona virus. It is necessary for all of them that they should divert nature of their relations from rivalries and clashes based upon the burning issues and conflicts into interdependency. This will help the states to approach and access each other’s resources and technical assistance for the mitigation of epidemic and successful treatment. In the meanwhile, the close cooperation and diplomatic tactics can also open the corridors for deadlock in conflicted zones and bring fruitful results for peacekeeping process in the region especially in the case of Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan.
The author is a Lecturer in Department of International Relations, National University of Modern Languages (NUML), Islamabad, Pakistan. She can be reached at mahwishbakht04@gmail.com
