As nations around the world enact measures to stop the spread of 2019 novel coronavirus, there is an additional factor shaping their response: China’s enormous economic clout.
While wealthy nations such as the US and Australia — both key trading partners of China — are barring entry to all non-resident travelers from China as the coronavirus spreads and fatalities rise, less developed nations that rely on Beijing are taking a softer approach as they balance public health concerns, the potential economic fallout and domestic political consequences.
Particularly in nations where China is the biggest trading partner and the largest source of inbound tourists, moves that restrict the flow of Chinese visitors could end up hurting growth.
Illustration: Lance Liu
Restrictive measures also risk angering officials in Beijing as they battle the outbreak and try to avoid further damage to China’s global image.
“Countries imposing travel restrictions on China will try to carefully manage any potential political tensions,” said Kaho Yu, a senior Asia analyst at risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft. “A serious pandemic threat — a potential outbreak in these countries — will have an impact on their domestic politics, such as elections, and would transcend geopolitics, but these countries are also very careful with how they present the travel restrictions, in order to avoid upsetting Beijing and having geopolitical consequences.”
China has already made its displeasure known over some travel restrictions, which have not been advised by the WHO.
The acting Chinese ambassador to Israel compared the nation’s travel restrictions on Chinese visitors to Jews being turned away at borders during the Holocaust. The Chinese embassy later apologized, The Associated Press reported.
After the US Department of State issued its highest do-not-travel alert for China — on a par with Iraq and Afghanistan — Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩) said: “The US’ comments and actions are neither based on facts, nor helpful at this particular time.”
At a news conference on Monday, Hua criticized the US for being the first to withdraw consulate staff from Wuhan and announce a travel ban on Chinese citizens.
“The WHO doesn’t approve of, and even rejects, travel and trade bans on China,” Hua said. “In the face of a public health crisis, countries should work together to overcome the difficulties, rather than resort to beggar-thy-neighbor practices — let alone take advantage of others’ difficulties.”
Some poorer nations with close relations with China, such as Cambodia, have explicitly emphasized the potential economic and diplomatic damage from a ban on Chinese visitors.
As Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) most reliable partner in Southeast Asia, the Cambodian government has attracted about US$8 billion of investment from China between 2016 and August last year, more than a third of total foreign investment, Xinhua news agency reported.
Banning flights to China would “destroy the kingdom’s economy and affect the good relationship between the two countries,” Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s office said in a statement.
Cambodians “who are currently working or studying in China, including those in Wuhan, have to remain there and join the Chinese people to fight this disease,” Hun Sen said in a speech in Phnom Penh on Thursday last week, Voice of America reported. “Don’t run away from the Chinese people during this difficult time.”
Pakistan, a key diplomatic and military ally of Beijing, canceled flights to China, but quickly resumed them after just five days in line with WHO guidelines, said Zafar Mirza, a special assistant on Health to Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan.
He added that China’s health plans were “the best” and, as a neighbor, Pakistan needed to “respect its policies.”
China has invested billions of dollars in and exports military hardware to Pakistan. The Muslim-majority nation’s government has repeatedly declined to comment publicly on the condition of China’s Uighur Muslims. As many as 1 million of them are detained in prison-like camps in China’s Xinjiang region.
Sri Lanka, a major recipient of Chinese loans and investment, even praised “great diplomatic relations” with China for allowing evacuations of its citizens.
For many dependent on China’s trade, investment and tourism there is an additional risk: Once a restriction is in place, it could prove very difficult to reverse it, and with the coronavirus predicted not to peak for months, that could have huge consequences.
“Once these measures are in place, they can be sticky — they can take a long time to rescind,” said Huang Yanzhong (黃嚴忠), who directs the Center for Global Health Studies at Seton Hall University in New Jersey and is a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations. “That can cause economic damage, not just to China, but to the countries that implement these measures — and it could be a lose-lose situation.”
While China has criticized the US response, including an entry ban on any foreign national who has visited China in the previous two weeks, several Southeast Asian nations have taken more stringent precautions.
The Philippines, which saw the first death from the coronavirus outside of China, is banning visitors from all of China, including Hong Kong and Macau, and also prohibiting its citizens from traveling to those areas.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said the move was to prevent the spread of the outbreak, while criticizing “xenophobia” from people blaming China.
“We are a community of nations — we cooperate,” Duterte told reporters on Monday. “China has been kind to us. We can only also show the same favor to them.”
Singapore on Friday last week suspended the visas of Chinese citizens wishing to travel to the city-state. At the same time, it imposed a similar restriction on any foreign national having recently visited China.
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) on Saturday last week said that the restrictions were “purely to protect our public health” and complementary to China’s border control efforts, Today Online reported.
He denounced anti-Chinese sentiment and said all nations must work together to stop the outbreak.
“We wish China well in their efforts to fight the virus,” Today Online quoted Lee as saying. “We have confidence that China and the other countries will work together to win this battle.”
Myanmar, which has no confirmed cases of the coronavirus, announced a temporary ban on all visitors from China, while also evacuating 59 students from Wuhan last weekend.
The government “always prioritizes the national interest, while trying to maintain our good relationship with China,” ruling National League for Democracy party spokesman Monywa Aung Shin said.
While Thailand on Monday remained one of the few Southeast Asian nations not to bar Chinese visitors, Thai Minister of Public Health Anutin Charnvirakul said at a news conference that his priority was to stop the spread of the disease.
“The economic standpoint is secondary,” Anutin said, adding that travel from China was already down by 80 percent and that there was no need to ban or curb visas for Chinese citizens. “We need to keep our house clean. If not, the economic impact could be devastating.”
The EU’s biggest banks have spent years quietly creating a new way to pay that could finally allow customers to ditch their Visa Inc and Mastercard Inc cards — the latest sign that the region is looking to dislodge two of the most valuable financial firms on the planet. Wero, as the project is known, is now rolling out across much of western Europe. Backed by 16 major banks and payment processors including BNP Paribas SA, Deutsche Bank AG and Worldline SA, the platform would eventually allow a German customer to instantly settle up with, say, a hotel in France
On August 6, Ukraine crossed its northeastern border and invaded the Russian region of Kursk. After spending more than two years seeking to oust Russian forces from its own territory, Kiev turned the tables on Moscow. Vladimir Putin seemed thrown off guard. In a televised meeting about the incursion, Putin came across as patently not in control of events. The reasons for the Ukrainian offensive remain unclear. It could be an attempt to wear away at the morale of both Russia’s military and its populace, and to boost morale in Ukraine; to undermine popular and elite confidence in Putin’s rule; to
A traffic accident in Taichung — a city bus on Sept. 22 hit two Tunghai University students on a pedestrian crossing, killing one and injuring the other — has once again brought up the issue of Taiwan being a “living hell for pedestrians” and large vehicle safety to public attention. A deadly traffic accident in Taichung on Dec. 27, 2022, when a city bus hit a foreign national, his Taiwanese wife and their one-year-old son in a stroller on a pedestrian crossing, killing the wife and son, had shocked the public, leading to discussions and traffic law amendments. However, just after the
The international community was shocked when Israel was accused of launching an attack on Lebanon by rigging pagers to explode. Most media reports in Taiwan focused on whether the pagers were produced locally, arousing public concern. However, Taiwanese should also look at the matter from a security and national defense perspective. Lebanon has eschewed technology, partly because of concerns that countries would penetrate its telecommunications networks to steal confidential information or launch cyberattacks. It has largely abandoned smartphones and modern telecommunications systems, replacing them with older and relatively basic communications equipment. However, the incident shows that using older technology alone cannot
RSS