China has won PR war against US over Covid-19
Both countries are spinning tales full of falsehoods, but what is undeniable is that one side has the disease under control while the other is still waiting, in horror, for it to peak

SCMP Columnist My Take by Alex Lo

Published: 10 Apr, 2020

Wars are won by the side that makes fewer fatal mistakes. As Leo Tolstoy has argued in War and Peace, to the eternal chagrin of armchair strategists and military buffs, even the best-laid military plan goes up in smoke the minute the first shot is fired. All you have left is a cascade of failures, misunderstanding and incompetence leading to ultimate collapse. In other words, the victor wins by default, not by design.

In the propaganda war between China and the United States over the Covid-19 pandemic, China has already won. However, it’s not because it had a better plan, strategy or preparedness, but because the other side has been so extraordinarily incompetent, almost wilfully so.


It certainly does not mean China has a superior political system. What we are seeing, rather, is the systemic failure of the US under the Trump White House at a fundamental institutional level.

Many politicians and pundits have called on China and the US to work together during this unprecedented health crisis. But there is little chance of that. As in any war, both sides have already turned it into a fight for the hearts and minds of their domestic audience and international community. Both are trying to shape the global narrative. Both are spinning tales full of falsehoods.

But what everyone can see is that on the one side, the number of new cases has been declining steadily while the other is well on its way to become the worst-hit of all similarly developed countries, even though it is the richest and most powerful. Results speak for themselves. Blaming China won’t save American lives. It may, however, deflect responsibility.

But, to begin with, both sides were almost deliberately unprepared. Among others, respected researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention had warned their respective governments for years that a coming “plague” of global proportion was a matter of time.

Yet, when it hit, Chinese authorities suppressed information about the new disease while Donald Trump downplayed and denied its impact. The latter has fewer excuses, though, when many countries have already been hit. But the real difference is that Beijing eventually mobilised a whole-of-government response while Washington, even now, is still playing catchup.

Trump said on March 13: “I don’t take responsibility at all.” That’s why Beijing has won.

---30---

Alex Lo has been a Post columnist since 2012, covering major issues affecting Hong Kong and the rest of China. A journalist for 25 years, he has worked for various publications in Hong Kong and Toronto as a news reporter and editor. He has also lectured in journalism at the University of Hong Kong.