Dr. Kenneth Dekleva served as a Regional Medical Officer/Psychiatrist (including 5 years at the U.S. Embassy Moscow, Russian Federation) with the U.S. Dept. of State and is currently Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Director, Psychiatry-Medicine Integration, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX. The views expressed are entirely his own and do not represent the official views of the U.S. Dept. of State, or UT Southwestern Medical Center.
OPINION — Coronavirus was first detected in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China in late 2019, and on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a “pandemic, stating that it’s “not just a public health crisis, it is a crisis that will touch every sector … so every sector and every individual must be involved in the fights.” The global public health threat posed by COVID-19 remains significant, making it both a leadership challenge and a potentially disruptive force world-wide.
In dealing with COVID-19, China’s President Xi has – after initial missteps – taken advantage of the disruption to showcase both his (and the CCP’s) domestic and international leadership in managing this crisis. China has at present appeared to contain the pandemic, with no new cases of COVID-19 announced during the past week. This happened as a result of its aggressive quarantine and social distancing policies. Such Chinese policies – criticized a few weeks ago as excessive and authoritarian – are now being copied by Europe and the US, now the epicenters of the pandemic. While many experts have written that Coronavirus represents a crisis, Xi and the Chinese leadership have embraced a huge opportunity. At a time when the US has ignored its European and other allies, Xi has diplomatically reached out to leaders of many countries (such as Spain, UK, Cuba, Chile, Iran, South Korea, France, Germany, Egypt, Russia, Serbia, UAE and Ethiopia) impacted by COVID-19, showcasing himself as a responsible global leader in a multi-polar, world-wide effort to combat the scourge of COVID-19. Xi has managed to pull this off in spite of a very unpleasant propaganda war between the US and China, in which certain Chinese interlocutors – Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijuan being the most prominent - have spread disinformation that the US started the COVID-19 pandemic, following a site visit to Wuhan in mid-2019 by an American military delegation, and in which America’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and others (including President Trump) have incorrectly referred to COVID-19 as “the Wuhan virus,” or as “the Chinese virus.”
The coronavirus pandemic paradoxically highlights China’s ambitions, dovetailed with Xi’s soaring “great dream of rejuvenation of the Chinese people.” But singular challenges remain. COVID-19 has already upended and disrupted global supply chains, which have begun to necessarily diversify. As economies have slowed – and this represents an enormous risk to Xi’s and the CCP’s power and legitimacy – the threat of a world-wide recession looms on the horizon. But COVID-19 has also begun to show an accelerant, beneficial effect upon numerous industries (including several which are key to China’s ‘Made in China 2025’ strategy) such as AI, robotics, biomedicine, healthcare, online education, retail, and remote work. But one should not forget the potential dark side and negative psychological impact of such novel technologies, including surveillance and loss of privacy - already present in Xinjiang - but now accelerated by COVID-19 throughout China.
COVID-19 may also be – depending upon steps taken by leaders in Europe, America and China – the harbinger of a new Cold War between the US and China, with COVID-19 representing a ‘Sputnik’ moment. COVID-19 has already changed the nature of diplomacy and intelligence for national security purposes, and competition as well as cooperation between nation states can be expected to evolve dramatically in the next decade.
Xi Jinping’s leadership style continues to evolve as COVID-19 disrupts the rhythms of daily life around the world; recently, he even conducted a virtual meeting with 175,000 CCP cadres! As Xi continues to exhibit leadership resolve and to highlight China’s successful response to COVID-19, it would be easy for western observers to become discouraged, and to once again – with shades of the 2009-2010 crisis – become overly enamored of ‘the Beijing Consensus.’ But there are reminders of hope and optimism, and while COVID-19 is a disruptor, our leaders need not be so. America and its allies have the capacity to lead, as they did during World War 2, the Korean War, the Cold War, 9/11, and earlier global epidemics (such as Smallpox, AIDS, and Ebola). President George Bush’s singular response to AIDS (e.g. PEPFAR) is credited with saving over 17 million lives in Africa; similarly, President Barack Obama’s response to Ebola saved countless lives. So President Xi, President Trump, and other world leaders face a stark choice. They must – and can – work together to combat COVID-19 and similar future pandemics, or they risk consigning themselves to the dustbin of history. COVID-19 has many lessons for leaders, and it’s a leadership crucible, and a stark reminder that effective national and international leadership, when utilized properly, saves lives.
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