economist | Perhaps, though, China is less interested
in running the world than in ensuring that other powers cannot or dare
not attempt to thwart it. It aims to chip away at the dollar’s status as
a reserve currency (see article).
And it is working hard to place its diplomats in influential jobs in
multilateral bodies, so that they will be in a position to shape the
global rules, over human rights, say, or internet governance. One reason
Mr Trump’s broadside against the WHO is bad for America is that it makes China appear more worthy of such positions.
China’s
rulers combine vast ambitions with a caution born from the huge task
they have in governing a country of 1.4bn people. They do not need to
create a new rules-based international order from scratch. They might
prefer to keep pushing on the wobbly pillars of the order built by
America after the second world war, so that a rising China is not
constrained.
That is not a comforting
prospect. The best way to deal with the pandemic and its economic
consequences is globally. So, too, problems like organised crime and
climate change. The 1920s showed what happens when great powers turn
selfish and rush to take advantage of the troubles of others. The
covid-19 outbreak has so far sparked as much jostling for advantage as
far-sighted magnanimity. Mr Trump bears a lot of blame for that. For
China to reinforce such bleak visions of superpower behaviour would be
not a triumph but a tragedy.
