Global News Insider

After the outbreak of coronavirus which is reported to have started in the Chinese province of Hubei, Wuhan city, the international community has carefully monitored the situation there on a daily basis. Many countries and individuals tried to help Chinese people infected with the new type of coronavirus by sending medical material to China or simply symphatize with them by publicing messages like “Wuhan GO! China GO!” on the social networks. But as the virus has spread all over the country, it has become clear that this virus would shortly become a global problem. And when WHO admitted that global community is facing new pandemy, many understood that somebody has to take the responsibility for what happened and would happen, even if such responsibility would be taken in years ahead. Apart from the death toll from coronavirus, there are great economic losses to the global economy which are difficult to estimate now. The bankrupcies of many companies, higher unemployment, closing borders, spark of nationalism, psychological problems are already becoming the reality and we are not sure how significant the virus will change our lives.

When the virus just emerged in China, there were broadly three groups of people on our planet who monitored the situation with virus in China. First group of people didn’t take much attention to the virus or simply ignored it. The second group of people was carefully monitoring the development of the virus epidemy in China practically on a daily basis. This group of people included analysts, businessmen, people working in or with China, diplomats, politicians. The third group of people was also monitoring the situation, but the people of this group still hoped that the problem is rather the problem of Chinese people and Asia and that the epidemy would be sooner or later overcomed as happened few years ago with the swine flu epidemy. But it is more than clear that at that time (when the epidemy was lockdowned in China and has not yet spread to other countries in the world) that nobody from these three groups of people had any doubt about the origin of the virus: it was the wild animal market in the city of Wuhan where the virus was born and it was due to the total disobedience of hygienic rules there. This was the narrative of those days, but there is no evidence which could definitely prove this narrative. But we know for sure, that shortly after the first infected with COVID-19 emerged in Wuhan, the local authorities closed the wild animals market in Wuhan.

As the epidemy was slowly spreading to other countries, the global community started to consider the issue of coronavirus as a serious and imminent danger and new doubts arised. Many asked whether the virus could have an impact on other countries. With the first deaths of people infected with coronavirus in Europe it became clear for the officials in China, that this issue is no more only a Chinese problem, it became a global challenge with possile catastrophic consenquences. Understanding the seriousness of the issue, the time has come for some influential groups to initiate new narratives about who should be blamed for the outbreak of the virus and who should bear the responsibility? The spokeperson of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs even mentioned in one of his statements that the virus might have come to Wuhan from the US soldiers who took part in last October World Military Games in Wuhan. (See more on this issue here.) Although this is a new narrative in the Chinese diplomacy (still there is no evidence confirming such theory), his statement become viral all over the world and especially in China. Even Russian broadcasting canals and newspapers came with numerous news which speculate on the possibility of the USA soldiers to be responsible for bringing the virus to Wuhan. The next step is the spreading of this theory through fake trolling acoounts on Facebook and other social networks as well as on fake news platforms, which are very popular globally. Neglecting the evidence or the lack of evidence for such very straighforward and hardly defendable theory, the way Russia and China use this narrative reflects the power of their “smart diplomacy”. Russians and Chinese in numerous political shows (like The Evening with Vladimir Solovjev on the Russian “Rossija 1” canal) even ask the audience, why should China bear the responsibility and apologize to the world if there is no evidence that the virus comes from China. Some politologists even claim that the USA has not apologized to the world for the H1N1 epidemy, so why China should do that?

The massive spread of this narrative (that the real responsible party for the outbreak of the virus is not China, but possibly the USA) comes along with the spread of new cases of COVID-19 all over the world. What is more, in a situation of a total lack of chirurgical masks, respiratory masks and other medical material in the world, the only country which stocked up necessary amount of such material and which is able to sell it abroad is China. In many EU member countries (Italy, Czech Republic, Portugal) getting medical help from China is seen as readiness of China to help European countries whereas the EU leaves national countries to cope with its problems by themselves. This is a very simple understanding of the actual situation and is far from truth, nevertheless the recent Russia’s sending military doctors and medical help to Italy nurtures the theory of good China and Russia and bad EU. The real problem is that the EU is slow in taking measures and is possibly ineffective in its fight against propaganda narratives from China and Russia. This makes EU more fragile and therefore the Brussels has to fight on two front lines at the same time. But there are also other countries which officialy stated that in the extraordinary situations the EU could be not relied upon, like we have seen lately in Serbia. The Serbian President in his official statement thanked Xi Jinping for help in hard times and criticized Ursula Von Der Leyen for inaction. China not only did not lose its face against the bacground of the outbreak of the coronavirus at home, it made a tough grip on many other countries by “medical diplomacy” and even strenghtened its influence on them. In order to restore the good relationship with other European countries (whether they are the EU member states or not), the EU has to be more proactive and demonstrate all its leverages to win over the newest unconfirmed narratives from China and Russia, otherwise it may lose its influence on the continent. The overall situation is being complicated by the statements of some US officials who blame China for the outbreak of the coronavirus and late measures of Beijing to control the spreading of virus. These statements are far from productive, as the pandemy is a global problem and the global community has to cope with it by common efforts and not looking for the one who should bear the responsibility…