AT the time of writing, China has placed the Covid 19 pandemic in Wuhan under control, if not the whole of the country. This is quite a feat for a population of 1.3 billion, that has only begun ending it’s serious lockdown of Wuhan, a city in Hubei province.

China, arguably, should be complimented. But how China is praised should also be done in the spirit of critical scholarship. In other words, flaws in China’s earlier responses should be flagged. 

Only in this way, can one understand the extent to which China can save the world or not, Malaysia included, as China embarks on an ambitious global health diplomacy to help other countries “flatten the curve”.

First of all, China has done a good job of quarantining its population between January 23 and the end of March. But one should remember it was only Wuhan, followed by other provinces, that were on full lockdown, not the whole of China. For the lack of a better word, lockdown is effective when there is a localised outbreak of Covid-19, and not a nationwide epidemic per se. To the degree China can advise countries on how to carry out a localised, rather than a nationwide lockdown to handle Covid-19, then China has begun the steps to be a real hands on actor in the world. Barring the understanding of this refined approach, countries with an authoritarian streak will go berserk in imposing nationwide lockdowns by pointing to China as an example. The result is a lose-lose proposition. The lessons of China are lost, and the world careens into an authoritarian dark hole.

Secondly, China has taken an attitude of dismissing a huge hoard of conspiracy theories that this was the act of some biological warfare to attack the growing economic clout of China. A conspiracy theory that is credible, although concurrently incredulous too. If Covid 19 is launched by the West, the latter should be standing. It is not. Covid 19 has now ricocheted to hit US and members of the European Union (EU), especially Spain and Italy, not to mention the United Kingdom and France, very seriously too. China can save the world if the leadership in Beijing focuses on solving the problem of Covid-19, now spread across the world, rather than fan its own society into a frenzy of why the West has tried to pull the carpet from under the feet of China once again. So far, while the Chinese social media has not stopped speculating on a biological war from the West, it is admirable that Chinese leadership has not indulged in it. 

Thirdly, China has released the genome of the Covid-19 virus as early as the third week of January to allow scientists from around the world to study the pathogen that causes the disease, but somehow the disconnect between the scientists and the decisionmakers in the West, especially the latter, has delayed a robust response.

However, having praised China, it is vital that one holds China to account for not alerting the World Health Organisation of the serious nature of the Wuhan outbreak. When historians look back at the start of the pandemic in 2020, many scholars will wonder why didn’t China alert the world to the dangers of this outbreak as early as November 2019?

Indeed, if only China allowed Taiwan to speak up at the WHO, or Hong Kong, both of which have had experience of tackling the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (2002), the world would have taken this problem more seriously. Especially if Dr Helen Chan, the former director general of WHO, who had handled SARS successfully been allowed to be the key person to speak of the danger. 

Yet to this day, Dr Chan has remained reticent. She did not explain why the pandemic has not been flagged earlier to the rest of her medical colleagues across the world.

Moreover, some of the test kits with which China had sent to the European Union (EU), or, imported by various countries, had not been brought to book by Chinese authorities themselves. Even the rapid test kits offered by China to Malaysia proved unreliable, which consequently forced the hand of the Health Ministry to get them from South Korea according to the Director General of Health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

China can save the world if it not just sends medical workers abroad, but to do a serious audit of its own shortcomings in tackling Covid-19. In other words, to find “truths from facts”, as the late Deng Xiao Ping, China’s paramount leader, once advocated. When Covid-19 struck, countries refused to test, treat and trace their patients aggressively, which Malaysia is doing. To defeat Covid-19, the lack of any truths across the world, starting in China, will lead to severe a data deficit to understand the scientific treatments that can be best deployed.

China should explain why it closed its borders to the rest of the world, only to ask various countries to keep them open? Such as urging the likes of Vietnam, South Korea and Cambodia, at one stage, to maintain their business as usual. It is only lately that China has encouraged various countries to shut down their societies to break the chain of transmission.

China can save the world, just as China has saved itself, by doing a proper historical, indeed scientific audit, as to why the pandemic began in China only to quickly disseminate to the rest of the world in less than two to three months. The West and the whole of Asia have to do their own honest accounting too, without which they too will wallow in a pandemic that will become endemic. China can save the world, nonetheless, by setting a good example of establishing the scientific time of their first cases, which some Chinese doctors have done by publishing in medical journals. But it helps for Chinese leadership to speak up, why did they allow the Chinese scientists to warn their fellow scientists across the world, and not the Chinese leaders themselves ?

Meanwhile, as of yesterday, globally, the numbers continue to soar: 1,000,036 infections have been reported with 51,178 deaths, according to an AFP tally.

In Malaysia, the tally stood at 3,116 infections with 50 deaths. What is worrying for Malaysia is that some experts have predicted that the spread will peak in Malaysia in mid-April, the end of the second movement control order (MCO). Are we looking at a third extension of MCO to break the transmission chain ? – April 3, 2020.

* Rais Husin reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.