China has a chance to improve credibility with coronavirus outbreak response: TRU expert

KAMLOOPS — A professor in the Thompson Rivers University political studies department says China has a chance to learn from past mistakes in dealing with the novel coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak.

Dr. Robert Hanlon was in Taiwan during the SARS outbreak of 2003 and was in Hong Kong when H1N1 influenza broke out in 2009. His area of specialty focuses on eastern Asia.

Hanlon says China needs to demonstrate stronger leadership now than in those past crises — and to some degree, it has.

“One of the ways they have learned is we’ve seen those quick lockdowns of the cities. These quarantines… there was a bit of a delay but generally, it was quite quick,” Hanlon told CFJC’s Balance of Power. “But on the other hand, we see some of the same old disconnected political leadership happening between the local level politicians and the central government.”

Hanlon says it has been fascinating to see how different countries are treating travellers who have originated in China. He notes some may be reacting based on how they view the Chinese government, rather than on best practices around disease management.

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“Chinese tourists are the largest number of tourists in the world, in the outbound context. So we’ve had Singapore, for example, close their borders, we’ve had other countries close their borders to Chinese tourists,” noted Hanlon. “But then we’ve had others that have maintained open borders. Specifically… Cambodia has left their border open.”

“If you think of tourism as trade, these tourist dollars and this export of the economy, it certainly has… a tremendous amount of impact. And then, if you look at economies like Thailand and the Philippines, tourism is such a vital part of their economies. They’re feeling the hit right away from the lack of tourism.”

While the crisis is far from over, Hanlon says China can gain a great deal of credibility on the world stage if it handles COVID-19 properly.

“If they can maintain this control and demonstrate leadership during this crisis, there’s one way that they can come out ahead politically in the domestic context. If they mismanage it too much and, for example, fire some people — and they have been doing some of that — then it signals kind of a weak response and they haven’t been able to manage it.”

For this week’s full episode of Balance of Power, go here.