Through Hiroshi Yuasa’s column in the monthly WiLL, this chapter examines how the Chinese Communist Party, damaged by the Wuhan-origin novel coronavirus, tried to present itself as the “winner” in virus control through mask distribution and medical-team dispatches. It questions the danger of dependence on China and the urgent need to rebuild global supply chains.

2020-03-27
In order to minimize the damage from a disguised state pretending to be the winner in public health, the international community will probably be forced to rebuild its supply chains.
The following is from Hiroshi Yuasa’s serial column, published in this month’s issue of the monthly WiLL, released yesterday and required reading for the Japanese people, under the title “We Will Give You Chinese Masks.”
Near the ticket gates of Tokyo Station during the morning commuting hours, there was a young woman handing out masks free of charge to passing businessmen.
She was wearing a black T-shirt with Chinese characters on it.
Her Japanese was unsteady, so one could tell at a glance that she was Chinese.
Nearby, an elderly man was handing her large quantities of masks from cardboard boxes.
She seemed like an agent for someone, and suspicious, so, on the contrary, few people accepted them.
The Chinese Communist Party, damaged by the novel coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, has now begun a major campaign throughout the world to present itself as the “winner in virus control.”
In China, they say the peak of viral infection has already passed, and they are appealing to the world that China is strong in a crisis.
It is a major propaganda campaign claiming that safety has returned, so that foreign companies will not withdraw from the continent.
American and Canadian mask manufacturers located in Shanghai have been placed under what is effectively an export ban, with the city of Shanghai buying up their entire production, and North America has been forced to struggle with shortages.
After scattering the virus, China is even tightening the global supply and demand of masks.
It is a troublesome thing indeed.
If China now releases the large quantities of masks it holds, it will be perfect for improving its image as a country contributing to the world.
Is this not the true nature of the “community of common destiny for mankind” advocated by President Xi?
In other words, this is an operation to transform China from the “loser of virus leakage” into the “winner in virus control.”
Even if China is poor at making policy failures transparent, as liberal nations do, a Chinese-style totalitarian state is very good at suppression through the exercise of coercive power.
The reason the Chinese Communist Party must be the victor in the virus war lies almost entirely in the economy.
The legitimacy of the Communist Party no longer lies in ideology or patriotism, but in guaranteeing an economy that makes people prosperous.
Yet, although China had brought the U.S.-China trade war to a “truce” in the form of a phase-one agreement, the Wuhan virus broke out and the Chinese economy stopped moving.
They were forced to isolate entire giant cities, and all factories also stopped operating.
They have already been forced to postpone the annual National People’s Congress, which had been scheduled to open on March 5.
If the spread of infection continues for a long time, the leadership must be trembling with fear that China will cease to be the “factory of the world.”
In order to keep foreign forces attracted to China, they must show success in virus control and the composure of having brought the infection to an end.
The distribution of large quantities of masks around the world is part of this, and so too is the dispatch of medical teams to Italy, which had the second-largest number of infected people, and to Iran, where the number also exceeded ten thousand.
Italy in particular is the only country among the Group of Seven major nations of Japan, the United States, and Europe that has been incorporated into the “Belt and Road” initiative.
If China does not somehow support it, President Xi’s precious “Belt and Road” could be damaged.
What the Xi Jinping administration now dislikes most is to be dragged back to the stage where, as the “loser of leakage,” it failed to contain the virus early, and to be criticized for that.
When that fault was sharply exposed by U.S. National Security Adviser O’Brien, they immediately flew into a rage.
Zhao Lijian, deputy spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, let slip on Twitter that “the U.S. military may have brought the virus to Wuhan.”
As expected, even Chinese people were astonished by this conspiracy theory, and critical posts followed one after another, asking, “Is what we should be doing now blaming other countries?”
In order to minimize the damage from a disguised state pretending to be the winner in public health, the international community will probably be forced to rebuild its supply chains.
More than ten years ago, a book by the American journalist Sara Bongiorni, A Year Without “Made in China,” in which she wrote about spending one year without buying Chinese products, attracted attention.
When Chinese products were given up, her children became sulky because they could not obtain toys, and her husband could no longer buy cheap pens or mobile phones, and it became clear that everything cost more.
At that time, however, the matter remained at the level of daily goods.
The present pandemic is serious because it concerns security at the level of life and death.
Masks and other medical devices, as well as many medicines at home, use Chinese-made materials and are processed in India.
Because of the impact of the Wuhan virus, many industries in China are in a state of suspension, and even India has taken measures to ban the export of pharmaceuticals.
When dependence on China has gone this far, it becomes necessary to change supply chains, or at least to build bypasses to reduce risk.
What can be heard from the trade war and the pandemic that began in Wuhan is the structural change called “decoupling,” which tears apart the two economies of the United States and China.