While leading nations of the world, blessed with an abundance of resources seek to achieve supremacy gradually. The PRC on the other hand eager to emerge as a superpower has a history of expediting within an unrealistic time frame starting with the disastrous Great Leap Forward (1958-1962) that witnessed the death of around 30-50 million people. Mao’s grand strategy for industrialisation and outstripping the leading nations including the former U.S.S.R. not only failed but also witnessed the complete destruction of human lives, infrastructure, and the gruesome murders of dissidents including Peng Dehuai the then Minister of Defence and a personal friend of Mao who was shamed as a ‘rightist’.
Fast forward to 2021, the unrestricted biological warfare unleashed by Xi Jinping is reminiscent of his predecessor’s eagerness to turn the PRC into an overnight superpower sensation. Realising that the PRC could not compete with the rest of the world despite its incessant cheque-book diplomacy and periodic threats a non-conventional pathogen could aid its dreams. However just as Mao failed to deliver and ended up committing dozens of errors, Xi Jinping too errs on more than one occasion.
Pathogens don’t make superpowers
While states in their quest for power do experiment with non-conventional armaments for the purpose of credible deterrence, they exercise extreme caution. Biological weapons on the other hand are extremely volatile, can spread rapidly, and cannot be contained easily. In their quest for power, the PRC involved itself in a spree of experiments ranging from isolating the dreaded Wuhan virus from the genus and awarding it with dangerous levels of potency. Reports first emerged that from an abandoned mine in the PRC in 2012 some miners were infected from bats however if the pathogen was indeed originally that destructive the pandemic should have occurred in 2012 itself. The sheer havoc wreaked by a single pathogen from Wuhan explains why this could be the PRC’s biological weapon.
After turning the WHO into a mouthpiece for Beijing, it completely restricted a thorough investigation by the WHO into the origins of the virus, and when it did happen the reports whitewashed the PRC suggesting that the outbreak occurred in the Wuhan wet markets. However, quite a lot of scientists argue that the WHO was arm-twisted by Xi Jinping to toe its line and a lab leak from Wuhan is indeed possible. Notably renowned immunologist Nikolai Petrovsky, Chinese virologist Dr. Li-Meng Yan and Professor Guiseppe Tritto a world-renowned expert in biotechnology argue that the virus was genetically sequenced and modified in the Wuhan labs lending it the credentials of an extremely hazardous biological weapon.
To start with, the PRC refused to report the rising cases of the Wuhan virus back in the end of 2019 and even went as far as convincing the WHO to tweet on the 14th of January 2020 that there was no evidence of human to human transmission. At the behest of Beijing, the WHO also advised banning travel from the PRC while the Director-General Dr. Tedros publically lauded the PRC’s efforts in ‘containing’ the virus. He also remained silent on the death of Dr. Li Wenliang and the silencing of Dr Ai Fen who was severely reprimanded by authorities for discussing the outbreak of the virus. The WHO also downplayed the origin of the virus in Wuhan uttering taxonomical concerns but the same concerns disappear when it comes to the MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) and the Spanish Flu.
Potent Superpowers don’t act infantile
The failure to capitalise on the pandemic, outright lies, and refusal to cooperate, showcasing its ugly territorial designs with an unabated expansionist methodology, censoring all forms of criticisms to actually engaging in skirmishes with India, Xi Jinping has not only lost the plot but has reversed years of careful planning. Prior to the Wuhan virus pandemic, the PRC has engaged in a trade war with the U.S. sustaining losses. However, globally it had made its mark from Latin America to Africa. In fact, the PRC became the dominant manufacturing power, and years of ‘investment’ in R&D, soft power, cheque-book, and debt-trap diplomacy did work well to its advantage. One may even agree that the U.S. was receding ground (especially in Latin America with the edifice of the Monroe Doctrine collapsing), Russia played ball while India still required time to catch up. So far the PRC’s strategy was economic and diplomatic domination, frequent territorial clashes, and posturing while creating a global narrative favouring it. However, Potent and present superpowers do not act infantile.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the PRC has been on a blitz mode to primarily absolve itself off all sins, to control and guide the narrative, discipline critics, and lend credence to its grand expansionist designs. From silencing critics to muzzling discussions on social media and from ensuring that platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube adhere to Beijing’s musings the PRC has stepped up the information war blitz. Primarily it has been at a war of words with Australia which called for an investigation into the origins of the virus. Matters soon escalated into a trade war but the Morrison-led government refused to back down. One may also remember the clashes between the Indian Army and the PLA at Galwan in 2020 in which the PLA suffered a bloody nose. Subsequent boycott of Chinese products and banning of Chinese apps led to a furious reaction from Beijing. Joining the call for an investigation even the EU, the US and other nations urged the PRC to come out with the truth.
The reaction from Beijing was nothing surprising, surpassing Mao’s legacy Xi Jinping not only obfuscated a proper investigation but later on allowed a ‘guided’ investigation by the WHO that has the world in disbelief. It then went on to not only threaten Japan, The Philippines, Bangladesh, the US but also Palau. China’s outrageous territorial claims ranging from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, India to the entire South China Sea (Southeast Asian sea) to even venturing out for ‘fishing expeditions’ to the Chilean and Argentinian coastal waters exhibit why the PRC is losing the plot. It also repeatedly threatened and provoked Taiwan and European states that discussed the ongoing genocide in Xinjiang. Perhaps the most infantile act was an angry demarche sent to BJD MP Mr. Sujeet Kumar for attending a virtual meeting of the Formosa Club where he batted for better ties between India and Taiwan.
Its debt-trap diplomacy has backfired with many states now realising its unsustainable manner. Notably many African and Latin American states are now wary of Beijing’s intentions. Most complained of substandard Chinese medical equipment and Latin American states even have second thoughts of the Chinese vaccines. States have now begun to realise that they need to not only corner the PRC on the origin of the virus but also work their way out on creating alternative supply chains negating the Chinese hegemony. Unfortunately, as the world reels under waves of the Wuhan virus the distasteful attitude of the PRC ranging from comparing a rocket launch with funeral pyres in India (posted by the Communist Party’s Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission) to organising a music festival in Wuhan and showcasing its might, the PRC has yet not realised that its propaganda blitz is distasteful in nature.
In this context it is imperative to recognize that despite differences the Soviet and American leadership averted a major clash in 1962 in the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Post-Cold War era which is increasingly turning multipolar, a more subtle and benign approach is required by aspiring states. The PRC’s obsessions with power ranging from the thoughts of Mao to Xi Jinping reeks of utter schadenfreude. Not only has the PRC been unable to hide the origins of the virus in Wuhan, but its bullying and belligerent attitude have invited a record number of backlash from the international community. Whereas some like the Filipino Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin fired an explitive laden salvo over Chinese incursions, others like former President of the US Donald Trump and President Bolsonaro of Brazil have openly criticised the regime for the pandemic. While Trump called it the China Virus, Bolsonaro called it biological warfare. Even Turkey and Pakistan which were warming up to the PRC seem to have some degree of aversion.
Hence, Xi Jinping is under immense pressure to perform and salvage the situation, and in an infantile way social media is muzzled, diplomats attacked and the PRC goes on a spree to sacrifice years of investment, diplomacy, soft power and goodwill by unleashing biological warfare. What Xi Jinping expected was sympathy and the opportunity to come out as a knight in shining armour, instead the more the PRC muzzles and threatens the severe the reactions it faces. A short note of caution should be the 1962 war which was a cover-up by Mao to disguise his failure in the Great Leap Forward, similarly, the world should be aware of the PRC as Xi Jinping attempts to outdo Mao.
