We now have excess death data for most of western Europe, until the end of June 2021. The peaks are all due to Covid19.

We can see clearly that the pandemic in Europe began simultaneously in Italy and Spain, and almost certainly in January 2020. While we are yet to even try to tell the story about how Covid19 got to these two countries, it is most likely to have been due to multiple incursions by air from China, possibly in some cases via Chinese territories such as Macau and Hong Kong.

In the case of Italy, it seems like to have been due to economic ties; in particular the area around Milan in Italy is that country’s technological and entrepreneurial hub. Travel to the World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alps city of Davos, may have been part of the story. Certainly, Covid19 soon got from the Milan area to the ski resorts in the Alps. And from these resorts – in the February school holidays – Covid19 got into northwest Europe.

In the case of Spain, it seems likely – in mid-late-January – to have been a preferred European destination for wealthy Chinese tourists and covid-evacuees. Indeed I understand that a Wuhan football team evacuated to the south of Spain. Portugal was not nearly as affected as Spain, initially. Covid19 travelled mainly by air.

I am guessing that England got the covid-bug both from the Alps, and from English people who live in the south of Spain; such British people travel frequently by air between Spain and England. In Belgium covid seems to have been brought in mainly by holidaying Eurocrats, and then unwittingly transmitted into the rest homes for the elderly.

The subsequent dynamic, for these countries, was mainly summer travel within Europe. We see that, from the three months ended October 2020, Portugal’s excess deaths closely match England’s. (In the period before that, Portugal’s inability to shake-off Covid19 was most likely linked to its relationship with Brazil.)

We also note that the early second wave in Spain is likely to have originated in England, which is a large country whose people enjoy flying to places like Spain and Greece; England still had more active covid than did other northwestern European countries when intra-European tourism restarted. Greece seems to have got Covid19 this way, although it’s 2021 experience seems to be more linked to its East Europe neighbours than to West Europe.

The later timing of West Europe’s second wave in Italy and Belgium looks to be linked to returning tourists. The second chart, below, shows France, Netherlands and Luxembourg peaking at the same time as Italy and Belgium.

The other important dynamic in West Europe’s second wave is the youth tourist wave from the United States. Young Americans have certain particularly favoured destinations: Barcelona, Paris, Amsterdam, Prague (in Czechia), and Switzerland. We see early beginnings of the West Europe’s second wave in France, Netherlands and especially Czechia. Czechia’s wave was the important link to the rest of East Europe. Czechia aside, it is Switzerland that easily suffered the most in West Europe’s second wave of Covid19. (Note that smaller tourist-oriented countries will generally show greater amplitudes of variation; the tourist impact in Switzerland is greater per capita than is the tourist impact in France.)

West Europe’s Third Wave

The third wave has begun, with England leading the way. The countries most affected by West Europe’s third wave so far are ranked (in the world, per capita), for the seven days ending 11 July :

• United Kingdom (9th for cases, 79th for deaths)
• Ireland (55th, 111st)
• Channel Islands (6th, 159th=)
• Gibraltar (19th, 159th=)
• Portugal (21st, 68th)
• Spain (15th, 95th)
• Andorra (18th, 159th=)
• Netherlands (14th, 133rd)
• Denmark (60th, 139th)
• Luxembourg (28th, 103rd)
• Greece (39th, 65th)
• Cyprus (3rd, 120th) [ may be connected to Russia]

Time will tell whether the death rates will rise dramatically in response to recent high case numbers.

The hope will be that the case-fatality ratios will be much less this time, thanks to the vaccination of older and more vulnerable people, and thanks to it being summer. Indeed, this phase should be the beginning of the end of the pandemic, because the seasonal intermingling of people – young people in particular – will give widespread immunity to the young unvaccinated population; including, crucially, the many vaccine resistant people in Europe.

The proof will be the coming northern autumn and winter. If this works out, Covid19 will become a variant of the common cold, as the ‘Russian flu’ of 1889-90 (most likely a coronavirus) became. I am sure that this summer intermingling of young people is the critical final step to the resolution of this pandemic.

The most probable reason why this optimal scenario may not happen will be if winter booster vaccinations are not provided to the already vaccinated population.

—————

Note: New Zealand and MIQ

New Zealand will need to have higher regular Covid19 vaccinations, given the likely substantially lower level of ongoing immunity in the younger population. Further, all is generally far from well in this southern Garden of Eden.

The big scandal at present is the paucity of places in MIQ (managed isolation and quarantine). On the surface the government has taken a rather cruel approach to people who need to travel to New Zealand, and to people in New Zealand who are not deemed to be permanent residents.

While the word ‘cruel’ is probably apt, in an important sense the government may have been ‘hoisted by its own petard’. The present single-party government of New Zealand practices the ideology of economic nationalism – a closely related dogma to that of mercantilism – which means that it is philosophically opposed to immigration. The problem is that the government’s MIQ program is hamstrung by a labour shortage; a shortage that can only be resolved, in the short and medium term, by immigration. We need to expand MIQ before we can expand MIQ; Catch22.

Fiji’s opposition SODELPA leader Viliame Gavoka has condemned Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama and Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum for their “unimaginable recklessness” over the country’s covid pandemic crisis.

The politicians should know “they are held responsible for every covid-19 death for not listening and not doing what is right,” Gavoka said.

Fiji has reported a record 636 new positive covid-19 cases and six deaths in the last 24-hour period ending at 8am today.

Gavoka said: “To the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General, this is the message — health first.

“The economy is second and will rebound.

“There is no balancing act between the two, as clearly evident by the disaster we have today.”

Gavoka said “the disastrous situation with covid-19” was because of the “we know best attitude” and the recklessness on the part of the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General.

“The current situation could have been avoided if the Prime Minister and Attorney-General listened to repeated calls for a national lockdown to contain the virus within a zone or border and carry out mass vaccination,” he said.

“Instead, the government decided to allow people to travel through borders bragging about its protocols, recklessly taking huge risks at a time when cases were spiking. The permanent Secretary for Health keeps saying, “when people move, the virus moves”.

Sayed-Khaiyum and Bainimarama did not respond to the statement made by Gavoka after a copy was sent via email yesterday.

Litia Cava is a Fiji Times reporter. This article is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A mad race to produce a vaccine against covid-19 has begun with the world’s superpowers leading the pack. At stake are millions of lives and billions of dollars.

Among the frontrunners is the United States with its futuristic-sounding Operation Warp Speed. Europe and China also have their own leading candidate vaccines.

As the race heats up, cheering and waiting on the sidelines for the crumbs are the less developed Asian, Asia-Pacific, African and South American countries, where most of the clinical trials for the vaccines will be or are being conducted already.

READ MORE: PNG bans covid ‘vaccination – orders probe into Chinese worker claim

Normally, it takes at least four years to develop a vaccine before it is marketed. But in the covid-19 age, health experts are optimistically predicting a vaccine in one year or less.

There is a sense of urgency and we hope for an early breakthrough.

Meanwhile, at the head of the line waiting for the vaccine, expected to be ready by the end of the year, are the populations of the Western countries. They are, of course, the priority for their governments which funded the research in the first place.

Developing world as trial labs
Poor Asian countries and the rest of the developing world, unfortunately, have to wait at the end of the line. That is why some of them have agreed to be guinea pigs for the vaccine trials in the hope that they will be given preference when the vaccines are rolled out for use. Beggars cannot be choosers.

Mid-August President Rodrigo Duterte committed the Philippines to participate in the phase 3 trials of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine. Joining the Philippines in the clinical trials are Saudi Arabia and the UAE. However, the Philippine President’s rash acceptance of the Russian offer of clinical trials in the country might be a catastrophic mistake because the Russian project is suspect.

Indonesia has started a late-stage human trial of a Chinese-made covid-19 vaccine that will involve as many as 1,620 patients. No less than the Indonesian President Joko Widodo launched the trial at a ceremony in Bandung, West Java, in mid-August.

The Indonesian decision to be a clinical trial partner with China might be a better bet because China is a leader in the race to produce a vaccine.

The vaccine candidate produced by Sinovac Biotech is among the few in the world to enter phase 3 clinical trials, or large-scale testing on humans — the last step before regulatory approval. CoronaVac, is undergoing a late-stage trial in Brazil and Sinovac expects to test it in Bangladesh also.

Asia is the favourite destination of drug manufacturers for clinical trials for several reasons. Among them are medical expertise in specific therapeutic areas, availability of vast patient pools, excellent laboratories and infrastructure, comparable quality and lower costs. Another factor is comparable incidence and prevalence of Western diseases. (1)

There is likewise worldwide data acceptability. Data from clinical trials in Asia are routinely accepted by the regulatory agencies — US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA). Also, the costs in Asia for procedures, diagnostic tests and visits are generally 30-40 per cent lower than in the US and Europe.

Science must trump politics
As the race heats up, a word of caution is in order. Scientists must not sacrifice scientific integrity for politics but should follow the strict protocols for scientific research and production. Governments must put science over politics in the race to the vaccine.

“Scientists must not sacrifice scientific integrity for politics but should follow the strict protocols for scientific research and production.”

– Crispin Maslog

Safety and effectiveness are crucial to vaccine development. A blunder in the clinical trials caused by rushing procedures, for example, could lead to deaths that will set back research and development by many years.

As it is, there is already “vaccine hesitancy” among the public everywhere, especially among the uninformed. Polls show that US citizens have become less confident about the safety of vaccines.

Polling by the opinion and data company YouGov in May found 55 percent of US adults saying that they would get a covid-19 vaccine. By the end of July, that figure had dropped to 41 per cent — well below the 60—70 percent experts think will be needed to achieve “herd immunity”.

There is also substantial scepticism against vaccines in other countries, according to a recent study by the Wellcome Trust. In France, less than half of people believe vaccines are safe. In Ukraine — the most sceptical country in the world — the figure is just 29 percent.

Let us not feed this vaccine hesitancy with instances of failure.

Who gets the vaccines first?
As the superpowers rush to the finish line, the rhetorical question arises: who gets the vaccines first? Rhetorical because, unless an international body intervenes, we know the poor will get it last.

Some Asian and African countries have negotiated agreements, but not most of Asia and Africa. And even for those who negotiated for agreements, there are no guarantees, and whether the amount of doses that will be obtained will be enough to cover the majority of the population.

Unless governments subsidise the vaccines partially or fully they will be unaffordable for the poor. Early reports say the Chinese vaccines will cost US$145 per shot in the open market, while those from Oxford, UK, will only cost US$4-10 because they will be subsidised.

Some countries plan to provide free vaccinations, and even pay people to be vaccinated to ensure herd immunity, about 70-90 per cent of the population.

There is hope on the horizon via COVAX, a consortium of 172 economies now being organised and “working with vaccine manufacturers to provide countries worldwide equitable access to safe and effective vaccines, once they are licensed and approved”. (2)

“It is the only global initiative that is working with governments and manufacturers to ensure that covid-19 vaccines are available worldwide to both higher-income and lower-income countries,” say the organisers in a news release. (2)

Richard Hatchett, CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, one of the organisers of COVAX, says: “In the scramble for a vaccine, countries can… come together to participate in an initiative which is built on enlightened self-interest and also equity, leaving no country behind.” (2)

This is a welcome development and we hope it succeeds. May the best developed vaccines and humanity win. No shortcuts, please.

Dr Crispin C. Maslog is a former journalist with Agence France-Presse, is an environmental activist and former science journalism professor at Silliman University and the University of the Philippines Los Baños, Philippines. He is a founding member and now chair of the board, Asian Media Information and Communication Centre, Manila. This article was produced by SciDev.Net’s Asia & Pacific desk and is republished by the Pacific Media Centre with the permission of the author.

References
1. Asia: Preferred Destination for Clinical Trials: A Frost and Sullivan White Paper.
2. COVAX News Release Geneva/Oslo, 24 August 2020

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Thirty five years ago today the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior was bombed in Auckland’s Waitematā Harbour by French secret agents in a blatant act of state terrorism, killing a photojournalist.

People’s campaigns have moved on since then from nuclear tests and refugees to climate justice – and future Pacific refugees.

The environmental campaign flagship was bombed on 10 July 1985 just weeks after it had been in the Marshall Islands carrying out four humanitarian voyages to rescue more than 320 Rongelap atoll villagers from the ravages of US nuclear tests and take them to a new home, Mejato island on Kwajalein atoll.

READ MORE: Eyes of Fire – Thirty Years On
LISTEN: David Robie reflects on the Rainbow Warrior on RNZ’s Crimes NZ programme

They were nuclear refugees seeking justice, relief and a healthy life far from the dangerous legacy left from 105 tests on Bikini and nearby atolls.

Ironically, the bombing in Auckland and mounting Pacific opposition led to a massive wave of New Zealand and Pacific anti-nuclear solidarity and ultimately to the halt of French nuclear testing at Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls in 1996 after 193 blasts.

The bombed ship’s pioneering environmental work has since been carried on by Rainbow Warrior II and the state-of-the-art eco campaign ship Rainbow Warrior III.

Today the focus is on climate refugees, the lack of adequate health compensation for the Polynesians who suffered radiation and failure to provide proper clean-up of the French nuclear testing zones that are still off-limits after almost a quarter century. Tests were carried out by balloon, derrick, in the lagoon and in a series of underground shafts which have threatened the stability of the 60 km long atoll, leaving it fractured “like Swiss cheese”.

Landmark ruling
In January this year, in a landmark United Nations ruling, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, governments have been told not to return people to countries where their lives might be threatened by climate change.

Climate action activists have greeted this ruling as a potential game changer for both climate refugees, or migrants, and for advocates for global climate action.

The UN Human Rights Committee ruled in the covenant that “without robust national and international efforts, the effects of climate change in receiving states may expose individuals to violations of their rights”.

The ruling applied to a humble New Zealand vegetable farm foreman, Ioane Teitiota, from the island nation of Kiribati, who had become a poster boy for climate refugee legal advocates even though he had little understanding of this concept.

Five years earlier, his lawyers had applied for protection for him in New Zealand after presenting a legal argument that he and his family’s lives were at risk from the impact of climate change and rising Pacific Ocean level in Kiribati as one of the “frontline states” facing global warming.

Although Teitiota and his lawyers lost the case because the threat to Kiribati was not deemed to be an imminent risk, the ruling opened the door to recognition of the existence of climate refugees and the possibility of legal refugee protection.

Climate change will force tens of millions of people to leave their homes in the next decade, according to a report by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF). And this would include many on low-lying atolls in the South Pacific.

‘Humanitarian visa’
In October 2017, New Zealand’s Climate Minister James Shaw announced that the incoming government was planning an “experimental humanitarian visa” category for Pacific Islanders forced to leave their homes. Partially inspired by the Teitiota case, it was envisaged that up to 100 people a year might settle in New Zealand under this scheme.

However, this humanitarian plan was quietly shelved because Pacific Islanders generally do not want to leave their homes. They prefer support for adaptation and mitigation for their continuing lives on ancestral land with refugee status as merely a last resort.

The Rainbow Warrior had visited Kiribati and Vanuatu on the voyage to New Zealand after the Marshall Islands mission. Crew members saw at first hand some of the climate pressures already apparent back then.

Cancer sufferers seeking nuclear compensation from the French government under the controversial Morin law received a boost last month when a man who had developed bladder cancer as a result of the nuclear tests was awarded almost US$180,000 by the administrative court.

This news was welcomed by both health advocates and activists.

According to the local news service Tahiti-Infos,  an earlier application for compensation had been turned down by the authority dealing with the case.

The compensation law has been tightened up again after being earlier relaxed with most claims being rejected between 2010 and 2017.

Uproar in Tahiti
In May, there was an uproar in Tahiti when the French National Assembly attempted to include a clause about compensation over nuclear weapons testing into generic covid-19 legislation while the French Polynesian representatives were absent from the chamber because of the pandemic travel bans.

Tahiti’s Moetai Brotherson, one of the two French Polynesian representatives, described this move as a “scandal” and two nuclear test veteran advocacy groups, Moruroa e Tatou and Association 193, were also angry, reports RNZ Pacific.

During the three decades of French tests, the early atmospheric explosions had dusted atolls and islets with radioactive fallout.

Brotherson expressed disappointment that the French state had demonstrated yet again that it “detested” the Tahitian people. Moruroa e Tatou’s Hiro Tefaarere said he was “outraged” but not surprised because all French presidents from de Gaulle to Macron “couldn’t care less” about Polynesians.

During 2019, the French Polynesian social security agency CPS reported that it had spent US$770 million on health care costs for radiation-induced illnesses. The CPS, responsible for medical expenses and pension payments, has struggled with its budgets and wants France to take responsibility for compensation.

However, French authorities do not accept liability for test-related illnesses, claiming the nuclear blasts were “clean” unlike the earlier US and British tests in the Pacific.

The nuclear tests have rarely been an issue outside French Polynesia and independent Pacific nations. But some consciences are occasionally pricked.

A French Watergate?
Five years ago, the unmasked French bomber who sank the Rainbow Warrior in 1985 made some revealing comments during his interviews with the investigative website Mediapart and TVNZ’s Sunday programme, none more telling than that “the first bomb was too powerful, it should have ended as a Watergate” for French President François Mitterrand.

Mitterrand stayed in office for 14 years – a decade after the bombing and before he finally stepped down when his second presidential term ended in May 1995, the year before nuclear tests ended.

The bomber, retired colonel Jean-Luc Kister, added that had Operation Satanique – the sabotage plot – involved the United States, “more heads would have rolled”.

However, while the “innocent death” of Portuguese-born Dutch photographer Fernando Pereira has clearly played on his conscience for all these years, Kister’s sincere apology wasn’t without a hint of trying to rewrite history.

The claim that the secret sabotage operation never meant to kill anybody is unconvincing for anybody on board the Rainbow Warrior on that tragic night when New Zealand lost its political innocence and the crew lost a dear friend.

In 2005, two decades after the bombing and nine years after Mitterrand’s death, Le Monde published a leaked document revealing that the late president had personally approved the sinking of the ship.

The newspaper obtained a handwritten account of the operation, written in 1986 by Pierre Lacoste, who was sacked as head of the secret services.

The Democracy Now! report – Rainbow Warrior and President François Mitterrand. Video: Democracy Now!

‘Neutralise’ the Warrior
He had testified that he had asked President Mitterrand for permission to “neutralise” the Rainbow Warrior at a meeting two months before the attack and would never have gone ahead without the president’s authorisation. 

The so-called nuclear “war” in the Pacific dates back to the US bombing of Hiroshima and

Nagasaki in 1945. The bombing was followed by  atmospheric nuclear testing by the United States in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958, arguably the “dirtiest” nuclear testing.

The first so-called nuclear refugees in the Pacific were the Bikini atoll islanders who were relocated into “exile” for the first US weapons tests in 1946.

Then came the British tests at Christmas Island (now Kiribati) and in the Australian outback; the start of the French testing at Moruroa in 1966; more US tests at Johnston Atoll in the early 1960s; flight testing of ICBMs, anti-satellite weapons; and more recently “Star Wars” technology at the Kwajalein Missile Range in the Marshall Islands.

As the late Steve Sawyer, Greenpeace campaign coordinator on board the Rainbow Warrior and whose birthday was being celebrated on board the night of the bombing, noted, “the displacement of local populations and adverse health effects as a result of these programmes has not been without opposition.

“But that opposition has been so scattered and unorganised until recently that it has been little felt in Washington and Paris.”

And the Rainbow Warrior Pacific voyage was planned to make a global difference. It did, but one that shook the world and ended in tragedy.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

These two charts show the total number of cases and deaths, by country, over the seven days ended 2 May 2020. In these charts a number of countries with populations below 50,000 have been omitted; countries which have shown in earlier charts.

The first chart is sequenced by death rates (orange). Generally it shows the countries that have featured in the past, suggesting that the pandemic continues to be concentrated in the same places – the economically developed countries that were too slow to act. We note that, when we extend the United Kingdom to the British Isles, that Ireland and the Isle of Man make strong appearances reflecting their interconnectedness. Further, the Channel Islands and Bermuda – functionally part of the United Kingdom – match these British territories.

We also see the appearance of Latin American countries: Ecuador, Peru and Brazil.

The second chart shows the reappearance of Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, UAE; also, Singapore. And the inclusion of Saudi Arabia with them. These six countries continue to have low death rates. It seems likely that the Arabian countries will generally share the experience of Singapore; in many ways they are similar societies with similar economies. Also of note is the far-flung French enclave off the coast of Africa, Mayotte; the high-end tourist resort country, Maldives; a shipping, financial and tax avoidance centre in Latin America, Panama; and an ex-Soviet country which had previously pretended the problem did not exist; Belarus. And Russia. And another large Latin American country, Chile.

Here we see the incidence of Covid19 victims in hospital, classified as serious or critical. This is a good ‘flow’ measure of recent cases; contrast total cases and total deaths for which in many countries the data are now dominated by earlier cases. For this chart, I have excluded countries with less than 200,000 people.

Again we see the dominance of the usual suspects. Moldova, however, makes an unexpected appearance, suggesting an outbreak previously disguised by low testing. Indeed there are some other Eastern European countries that will probably appear on these charts if I repeat them next week.

Iran – an established Covid19 country – shows up here, suggesting that both its case count and death count are underreported. Brazil also shows up strongly, reflecting its status as a country that has underplayed Covid19. And Guadeloupe is a French outpost in the Caribbean, a region with a high Covid19 caseload, especially among the smallest Dutch, French and British outposts there. A number of the countries excluded because they are too small are in the Caribbean.

Finally, Canada is a country that features in all three charts. I am concerned for Canada. I was travelling through Canada at this time last year, and am somewhat distressed by Canada’s similar to the USA inability to manage the pandemic in time. Quebec and Ontario in particular reflect the high incidence of Covid19 in the northeast of the United States.

ANALYSIS: By Haiqing Yu of RMIT University and Michael Keane of Curtin University

China has gradually emerged out of its shadow of despair as the epicentre where the coronavirus pandemic started. Now, there is face saving required – as well as agenda-setting in the global power play.

China played a decisive role in combating the invisible enemy. Chinese officials and academics are taking this opportunity to rescript the narrative and place China as the new world leader.

In the quest for this leadership, China seems to be playing the game of “white face” (friendly face) and “red face” (hostile face). Similar to the Western concept of good cop/bad cop, white face and red face uses seemingly opposing actions to achieve a singular goal.

READ MORE: Do homemade masks work? Sometimes. But leave the design to the experts

The red face is Zhao Lijian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman who suggested the virus originated in the US and was brought to Wuhan by American soldiers.

The white face is providing medical supplies to countries now battling the pandemic, gestures of goodwill described as “mask diplomacy” or “medical diplomacy”.

By understanding the context for these donations, we can understand a lot about how China embeds symbolism within its soft power diplomacy.

Guarding life
Chinese people have a long history of wearing masks as protection from disease, chemical warfare, pollution, and severe weather. As early as the 13th century, court servants would cover their noses and mouths with a silk cloth when bringing food to the emperor.

As China increasingly encountered foreign powers through Treaty Ports at the turn of the 20th century, disease control became a critical concern. Despite the long legacy of traditional medicine, China was seen as an unhygienic place by the Western occupiers of these ports.

China’s opening to the West in 1978 led to a greater awareness of hygiene. The Chinese word for hygiene weisheng (literally “guarding life”) was incorporated by health reformers in numerous applications, from wooden disposable chopsticks to toilet paper.

In China, not wearing masks in the current health crisis is seen as unhygienic, irresponsible, and even transgressive. Punitive measures are taken by authorities, with non-mask-wearers publicly shamed and humiliated on Chinese social media.

In the West, masks have been widely viewed with suspicion. The official advice from Australian health authorities is if you are not sick, don’t wear masks.

This has lead to anxiety and discontent among Chinese Australians, frustrated by what they see as bad advice. The general public attitude toward mask wearers compounds the problem as Chinese Australians are unfairly targeted with racist slurs.

International diplomacy
At the height of the Wuhan outbreak, government, private companies and individual citizens in Japan donated thousands of masks. But more significant than the masks was the symbolism. Emblazoned on cargo boxes from the Japan Youth Development Association were Chinese characters reading “Lands apart, sky shared”, a line from an ancient Chinese poem.

A month later, the Jack Ma Foundation reciprocated with a large donation of masks to Japan, with a quote from the same poem: “Stretching before you and me are the same mountain ranges; let’s face the same wind and rain together.”

Millions of masks and thousands of testing kits are being sent overseas, coordinated and endorsed by Chinese government organisations and taking place at the government-to-government level; by the private sector through companies and charity foundations; and by individuals helping their overseas friends.

Mask diplomacy is part of China’s new dual level power play: aiding to foreign countries to regain face and demonstrate its role as a responsible global power; and sharing conspiracy theories about the origins of the virus to attack the opponent.

China is being aided in this messaging by inefficiency of the US in handling the crisis. By finger pointing at the US, some say China is hoping to “distract from domestic government incompetence.”

This effort to rewrite the virus narrative through mask diplomacy is a strategic gambit to claim the moral high ground and assert international power.

Changing faces
Perhaps a clue to what is now unfolding comes from the world of theatre.

In Chinese Sichuan opera, the performer magically changes masks. A skilled performer can accomplish ten mask changes in 20 seconds. This is one of the great accomplishments of Chinese culture, part of its soft power arsenal. The term used in Chinese, bianlian (literally “changing face”), however, is also a synonym for suddenly turning hostile.

China may have dodged a bullet. But if the pandemic spirals further out of control, China will have a lot more work to do to deliver its charm offensive.

The next few months will be crucial. Much of the global leadership in this global warfare will depend on the US, with its own president appearing to change face at any moment.

Power in the age of global contagion requires more than the dual faces of white and red. The world needs healing, and so the Chinese government will need to carefully moderate its propaganda. Triumphalism over the success of its own military-style control strategies and finger pointing at others may evoke blowback in the theatre of geopolitics.

Dr Haiqing Yu is associate professor, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University and Dr Michael Keane is professor of Chinese digital media and culture, Curtin University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz