China's Response to COVID-19: Turning Crisis into an Opportunity

ON April 13, the number of the accumulated confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide surpassed 1.8 million, with over 110,000 deaths, according to the COVID-19 Dashboard by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

- TINA J. PARK

Governments around the world are struggling to contain the pandemic, taking measures ranging from total lockdown to travel bans, as well as financial injections to their respective economies. As public anxiety and paranoia continue to soar across the globe, experts predict a global recession in the near future.

While panic spreads across Europe and North America, China has not only emerged as a leader in containing the virus, but also took the opportunity to forge stronger ties with its allies like Italy. On March 10, Chinese leader Xi Jinping paid a visit to Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province, where the coronavirus outbreak began. On the day of his visit, there were only 24 confirmed new cases in China, a noticeable shift from thousands at the peak of the outbreak in February. Contrary to the trends in the European Union and North America, Chinese factories and restaurants are re-opening their doors again. Local governments in less-affected areas of China are relaxing travel bans and encouraging people to go back to work. Around 93 percent of the 83,597 Chinese people affected by COVID-19 are said to have recovered from the virus as of April 13.

The Chinese word for “crisis” (危机) also carries the meaning of opportunity. Instead of taking draconian measures under the cloud of fear and uncertainty, we can learn five lessons from China’s handling of the novel coronavirus outbreak and adopt similar measures to save lives.