By Ahmed Bilal Mehboob
When
US President Donald Trump recently called Prime Minister Imran Khan and offered
to send some ventilators to Pakistan to help it cope with the coronavirus
pandemic, it was clear Washington was reaching out to Pakistan and other
countries in a bid to retain its global leadership and influence– which has
lately been seriously challenged by China.
This challenge was not limited to the provision
of medical goods and equipment only, as the ability to efficiently manage the
coronavirus pandemic has become the latest touchstone for the quality of
systems practiced by each country. And China, which practices its own brand of
socialism and a somewhat controlled democracy, has apparently successfully controlled
the pandemic which had originated in its industrial city of Wuhan.
Initially, Chinese authorities seemed confused
about the nature and scale of the epidemic for about three weeks and many
countries blame Beijing for even concealing and suppressing the truth about the
infection. But after this initially disastrous delay, Chinese authorities
decisively enforced a lockdown initially in the city and later for the entire
Hubei province, which affected some 57 million people. The Economist called
this a lockdown of ‘breathtaking scope and severity.’
The World Health Organization (WHO) commended
the move, calling it ‘unprecedented in public health history.’ The 77-day
lockdown broke the infection chain and within days of lifting the lockdown,
China announced that its hospitals in Wuhan had no COVID-19 patients. But that
was after 82,830 persons suffered from the infection and 4,633 died.
As soon as China controlled the infection, it
started sending out medical supplies and equipment to other affected countries.
A train load of such medical goods was dispatched to Spain, with Chinese
corporations such as Alibaba Group and Huawei shipping medical supplies to
several countries across continents including the US.
China’s ability to
swiftly contain the deadly infection was in contrast to the indecisive and
confused pronouncements and reluctant steps taken by President Trump. The US is
currently leading in the total number of affected persons, which now stand at
over a million with 56,000 fatalities– all rising by the hour.
Other countries with the highest fatalities include Italy (26,644), Spain
(23,190), France (22,856) and UK (20,732). They are all blamed for not taking
timely action to contain the spread of the infection. Their situations on
ground have led to the debate that the Chinese system of governance which is
not based on liberal democracy is better than the countries with liberal
democracy in managing the pandemic. This conclusion, however, might be flawed
as several countries with functional liberal democracies have done very well in
managing the pandemic.
South Korea, for example, swiftly took the steps necessary to control the
infection and confined its fatalities to just 243 people. Not only that, South
Korea also organized its parliamentary elections right in the middle of the
pandemic with the highest voter-turn-out of 66.2 percent since 1992. New
Zealand, another liberal democracy, also performed very well with just 19
fatalities and the spread of infection successfully controlled.
Democracy and
federalism in Pakistan led to open differences of opinion among provinces and
between the provincial government of Sindh led by PPP and the federal
government ruled by rival party PTI about the extent and severity of
lockdown.
The federal government led by Prime Minister Imran Khan favored a ‘smart
lockdown’ which allowed some economic activity and livelihood for the poorest
segments of society including daily wage-earners. Sindh province, by contrast,
advocated and practiced a strict lockdown. India, another democracy, imposed a
strict lockdown in the entire country. Although the jury is still out and
experts forecast a peak of affected persons including fatalities by the end of
May in both countries, the fatalities so far have been well below the high number
of fatalities reported in countries like US, Spain, Italy and UK.
Despite the fact that authoritarian systems allow for the ability to swiftly mobilize people and resources, the example of China does not conclusively prove that liberal democracies are unable to manage disasters and pandemics. A closer examination will reveal that more than the political system prevalent in a country, it is probably the quality of leadership which determines the quality of response to such disasters. This is the reason, liberal democracies ranging from the US to South Korea to UK to New Zealand showed different results while attempting to manage the pandemic.
(Ahmed Bilal Mehboob is the president of Pakistan-based think tank, PILDAT.)
