NEW DELHI: As the Chinese coronavirus continues its unrelenting march across the globe, StratNews Global cast its eyes around the Indian subcontinent to see how the neighbourhood is coping. Much like India, these countries are densely populated, have poor health infrastructure and lack the wherewithal to deal with a crisis of this magnitude. Many are looking to India for help. Parul Chandra and Amitabh P. Revi detail the happenings in Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan, respectively.

Nepal: Desperation Of Migrant Workers Hoping To Return

“Nepalis are swimming across the Mahakali to get home”  ran a headline in the Himalayan nation’s leading English daily The Kathmandu Post on March 31, 2020. The story reported that nearly 500 Nepalese migrant workers were stuck in Darchula in India, as the Nepal government had closed the suspension bridge over the Mahakali river connecting the two countries. This was done to prevent the spread of the Chinese coronavirus.

The desperate swim of the three men on March 30 after waiting to be let into Nepal for four days, was a sharp reminder of the larger humanitarian crisis. The lockdown announced by India on March 23 — Nepal followed suit a day later — triggered the mass exodus of Nepalese migrant workers from India. It remains in force until April 7 unless Kathmandu extends it. Commercial flights are also suspended until April 15.  To the migrants’ relief, the Nepal government said on Sunday (March 29) that it would allow stranded workers to return but they would be quarantined for two weeks.

In a belated realisation of the plight of migrants stranded on either side of the Indo-Nepal border, the two governments have now agreed to take care of their food and shelter amidst the lockdown in both countries.  Nepal has been fortunate in that of the little over 900 tested for the coronavirus, there were only five turning up positive until March 29. But there are concerns that not enough people are being tested in Nepal.  The first person to be tested positive was as early as January 3.

The lockdown has resulted in Nepal’s tourism industry coming to a complete halt. The government’s signature ‘Visit Nepal 2020’ campaign to boost tourism numbers has been put off.  Earlier, the first ‘Sagarmatha Sambaad’, a multi-stakeholder summit-level dialogue to deliberate on issues of global and regional interest, had also been cancelled.

The scale of the coronavirus epidemic in Nepal remains unknown largely because of limited testing. It’s widely accepted that if the epidemic spreads, Nepal with its creaky medical infrastructure, would be hard put to cope.

Bangladesh: Sitting On A Time Bomb?

Bangladesh has seen six deaths from the Wuhan coronavirus so far with 54 testing positive. The numbers appear small but consider, this is among the most densely populated countries in the world with 165 million people crammed into a little over 147,000 square km. So, experts fear that the country could be sitting on a time-bomb.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government while stepping up measures to tackle the pandemic chose to declare a nation-wide holiday for 10 days beginning March 26 (as opposed to the lockdown that India and other countries have done). On Tuesday, while speaking to government officials across the country via a video conference, Sheikh Hasina warned that the holiday might need to be extended until April 9 to check the spread of the coronavirus.

A growing worry for health experts are the camps sheltering over a million Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar, in the south-east. Bangladesh could have a huge problem on hand if the coronavirus was to spread in these crowded camps. As a precautionary measure, the government imposed a lockdown in all the 34 Rohingya refugee settlements in Cox’s Bazar.

There are concerns about the availability of enough beds and ventilators if the virus were to spread. The Dhaka Tribune reported today that although the country’s capital has 816 ventilators, only 45 of them are available for coronavirus patients. The remaining it reported, were being used for patients being treated in ICUs of both government and private hospitals.

The army has been called upon to ensure social distancing measures in Bangladesh. Like the Indian army, it is also running two quarantine centres in the capital. The birth centenary celebrations of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rehman and Sheikh Hasina’s father which kicked off on March 17, have had to be scaled down in order to avoid large congregations of people.

Bhutan: Gross National Happiness Helps In COVID Fight

Having a Bangladesh trained doctor in Prime Minister Lotay Tshering following closely in the footsteps of a lead-from-the-front King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck has kept Bhutan’s positive cases down to 4. All four have come from abroad. Health Ministry figures put 3,503 people of the 750,000 population in home or medical quarantine with no deaths (as of April 1). The first case was a 76-year-old U.S. citizen who flew in from Assam and has been since med-evacuated back to America.

Wedged between the virus’s epicentre to the north and locked-down India to the south, Bhutan reacted quickly after the first case. Heavily reliant on high-ended tourism (website Trading Economics put it at $15.8 million in November 2019), the Himalayan kingdom restricted incoming travellers on March 6. The King announced the “drastic measure” of sealing the borders with China and India on March 23 and on March 31, quarantine facilities were extended from 14 to 21 days. All Bhutanese returning from abroad are also in compulsory quarantine. Bhutan has free healthcare and education for all.

The King personally oversaw the implementation of the response strategy after the first case was reported. In Phuentsholing, he also personally inspected the situation on the ground, after there were hiccups to India’s assurances of an uninterrupted supply of essential goods despite the closure of the border and the 21-day lockdown in India.

India has provided Bhutan with protective personal equipment and other supplies through the SAARC emergency fund while the Jack Ma Foundation & Alibaba Foundation have sent 1.7 million face masks, 165,000 test kits, protective clothing, ventilators and forehead thermometers.

While Bhutan’s Prime Minister is overseeing economic measures to tackle the effects of the pandemic including the hit to tourism and the supply of goods across closed borders, he has also told the country’s famous gross national happiness commission to rework the budget.

NEW DELHI: As the Chinese virus continues its unrelenting march across the globe, StratNews Global cast its eyes around the Indian subcontinent to see how the neighbourhood is coping. Much like India, these countries are densely populated, have poor health infrastructure and lack the wherewithal to deal with a crisis of this magnitude. Many are looking to India for help. Parul Chandra and Amitabh P. Revi detail the happenings in Pakistan and Afghanistan, respectively.

A Leap Of Faith For Pakistan

Pakistan is grappling with Covid-19, much like the rest of the world. But apart from the worries about inadequate hospital beds, limited number of testing kits and personal protection equipment (PPE), Prime Minister Imran Khan has to cope with the fact that faith can prove an obstacle in containing the pandemic.

On Monday morning, Pakistan’s leading English daily The Dawn reported that 27 of the 35 members of the Tableeghi Jamaat (Society for Spreading Faith) in Raiwind, a town near Lahore, had tested positive for the Coronavirus. They were part of a congregation of over 1, 000 clerics including 500 from abroad. They refused to heed pleas from authorities to cancel the meeting. When they did finally relent, the infection had spread, with local media reporting that nearly 200 clerics had been quarantined. Hardline Islamic clerics are also making it difficult for the federal and provincial governments to limit or ban gatherings for Friday prayers. Clerics have defied orders in many places, urging people to come for prayers.

By Tuesday morning, the number of Covid-19 positive cases in Pakistan had surged to 1,860 from just one case in February and the virus had claimed 25 lives with the government accused of being lax in its response to the pandemic. Khan also found himself undermined when army chief General Qamar Bajwa approved the deployment of troops across the country to assist civilian efforts to contain the pandemic. The orders were passed at the request of the Interior Ministry which is headed by Ijaz Shah, a retired brigadier from the ISI.

In a bid to contain Covid-19, the government has sealed borders with Afghanistan and Iran. It suspended all international flights last week. A large number of infected Pakistanis are believed to have contracted the virus in Iran, which with more than 2,600 deaths and 38,000-plus cases is waging a life-and-death struggle of its own.

Pakistan reported its first Coronavirus case last month (February 26), when a 22-year-old on pilgrimage to Iran, visited the cities of Qom, Mashhad and Tehran, and fell sick. Qom is a Coronavirus hotspot and the infection is believed to have travelled from here to many parts of the world.

Within Pakistan, Punjab province is the epicentre of the Covid-10 outbreak with 558 cases, while Sindh had recorded 481 cases. Covid-19 positive cases had also breached the 100 mark in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan, while the federal capital Islamabad reported 43 cases by Sunday.

Despite the rapid spread of the virus, PM Khan has decided not to go in for a lockdown saying his country could not afford it. It would severely impact the poor that are already struggling with an economy that’s been in dire straits for some time. On Monday, addressing the people of Pakistan, he once again justified his decision: “A complete lockdown can bear no fruit where 25% of our population lives below the poverty line and 20% is standing at the verge of poverty.”(sic). He also announced the setting up of a PM Corona Relief Fund and a Corona Relief Tiger Force. The latter will comprise Pakistani youth who are expected to “join hands with the government and the army to aid the people of our country amid this pandemic.”

Earlier, to help his country tide over the crisis, which includes 200 billion Pakistani rupees to mitigate the suffering of the working class, tax refund for industry and concessionary loans for small and medium enterprises.

Pakistan’s all-weather friend China has rushed doctors, medical equipment and relief material with trucks ferrying supplies over the inhospitable Khunjerab pass. An aircraft carrying a team of doctors and medical equipment also reached Pakistan on Saturday.

Afghanistan: Testing Times

Sixty per cent of Afghanistan’s porous borders are with Iran and Pakistan, two countries massively hit by the Coronavirus. Add to that a cash-strapped healthcare system and the war with the Taliban, and you have a potential tinderbox.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates there are five million Afghans in Iran and Pakistan. Annually, over 500,000 return from the two countries. But between March 8 and 21, over 115,000 returned from Iran, through the western province of Herat.

These mass returns have sparked fears of a wildfire-like spread of the Coronavirus. The Health Ministry says it could potentially infect 70 per cent of the country’s 35.5 million people. It wants $100 million to fight the pandemic but has only $18 million in the kitty.

Herat is at the heart of the pandemic, reporting 131 of the 174 positive cases in the country (as of March 31), with 13 medical staff and four foreign troops also infected. Official figures show four deaths. India has even shifted its diplomats out of Herat and Nangarhar province bordering Pakistan, moving them to Kabul and then back to India.

President Ashraf Ghani, in regular cabinet video-conferences, has tasked the country’s 34 provincial governors to lead emergency committees. But a US $1 billion cut in aid ($15 million has been given to fight the virus) to press the peace process forward has come at just the wrong time. A Taliban-government prisoner swap is delayed, though the administration is separately releasing thousands of detainees who are not a ‘security threat’ to prevent Coronavirus outbreaks in prisons.

Kabul has pledged $1 million to the SAARC Covid-19 emergency fund while New Delhi has announced it will deliver 75,000 tonnes of wheat to Afghanistan to keep prices down. It has also promised other assistance including rapid reaction medical teams.

The Taliban has issued a statement saying the Coronavirus “illustrated an instance of Allah’s might with such a nanoscopic being”. But, it has also been quick to release videos of health teams and quarantine facilities in several provinces, something that has been welcomed by the Afghan Government.

DHARAMSHALA: As China is apparently recovering from the battle against the dreaded Covid-19 virus, Beijing has started an Information Warfare (IW) against the way the world perceives the Middle Kingdom. For several years, analysts have been predicting that IW would be an important part of any battle of tomorrow.

The first shot was fired by Zhao Lijian, one of China’s sharpshooters who was recently called upon to serve as one of the spokespersons of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing. Zhao is known for his nasty Twitter attacks (or counter-attacks) against China’s critics. Already in 2003, China’s Central Military Commission approved the concept of ‘Three Warfares’, namely: coordinated use of strategic psychological operations; overt and covert media manipulation and legal warfare designed to manipulate perceptions of target audiences abroad.

In recent years, Beijing has been intensifying its ‘media manipulation’. After losing a battle in Wuhan, Beijing decided to counterattack. The phone call of Wang Yi, China’s State Councillor and Foreign Minister to his Indian counterpart Dr S Jaishankar should be seen in this perspective. Wang phoned just to urge India not to use ‘China’ to describe the novel coronavirus, saying it would stigmatize the country and would be detrimental to international cooperation.

According to The Hindustan Times, “the Chinese government has lately argued that it might have been found first in central China, but there was no proof it originated there…Chinese diplomats have led a worldwide campaign to convince host governments not to use the phrase ‘China virus’.” In fact, Sun Weidong, the Chinese ambassador to India, recently tweeted that Dr. Jaishankar had agreed with Wang ion this point.

The stakes are high for Beijing: externally, it does not want to appear as the bad guy who spread the virus all over the planet with the consequences seen today (more than three billion human beings are under confinement and there are unpredictable and incalculable economic implications), but also internally, where the role of President Xi Jinping is being more and more questioned within the Party.

We shall come back to this.

In her Axios China newsletter, Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian commented: “The Chinese Communist Party has spent the past week publicly pushing conspiracy theories intended to cast doubt on the origins of the coronavirus, and thus deflect criticism over China’s early mishandling of the epidemic.”

The author saw Beijing emulating Russia’s disinformation playbook. She quoted Laura Rosenberger, director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund of the United States: who mentioned three main tactics used by Beijing in its IW campaign:

1.         The propagation of ‘multiple conflicting theories’.
2.    The amplification of conspiracy websites, or ‘gray sites’. Rosenberger said these are third-party sites that promote the same theories the State aims to boost.
3.          The coordinated use of diplomatic and embassy Twitter accounts and state-backed media to help boost the theories.

Apart from Zhao Lijian saying that it was US soldiers who brought the virus to China, the Chinese propaganda, amongst other arguments used the declarations of an Italian doctor affirming that the disease first appeared in Italy in November, before it appeared in Wuhan (though it has now been confirmed that the first case in Wuhan appeared on November 17).

The Mask Diplomacy

For Beijing this also translated by a ‘mask diplomacy’; for example, China sold US $467 million worth of medical supplies to Spain, which included 550 million masks, 5.5 million quick sets, 950 ventilators and 11 million gloves.

A few days ago, President Xi sent a message to President Macron of France to tell him that China stood ready to work with France to boost international cooperation in epidemic prevention and control and build a community of common health for mankind: “Xi extended his sincere sympathies on behalf of the Chinese government and people, to their French counterparts over the COVID-19 outbreak in the European country,” said Xinhua.

The issue has become so serious that the European Union’s top diplomat had to warn the other Europeans nations against China’s ‘politics of generosity’. This came “amid a growing sense of unease over Beijing’s targeted strategy to help certain European countries with medical supplies to fight Covid-19”, wrote The South China Morning Post which spoke of an unusual choice of language by EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell who called on EU countries to stand ready for a “struggle for influence in a global battle of narratives”.

Borell added: “There is a global battle of narratives going on in which timing is a crucial factor”. He further noted that the focus had shifted from Europe helping China, to the other way round: “China is aggressively pushing the message that, unlike the US, it is a responsible and reliable partner.”

The Real Issue

The objective of the entire IW exercise is to help the world to forget to look for the real origin of the virus. Interestingly, a group of Chinese scholars led by Botao Xiao of the South China University of Technology wrote a paper in February for the Natural Science Foundation of China; it dealt with “The possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus.”

After searching around the seafood market in Wuhan, said to be the epicentre of the outbreak, they identified two laboratories conducting research on bat coronavirus. The first one, the Wuhan Center for Disease Control & Prevention is located 280 meters from the market. The scientists found that “surgery was performed on the caged animals and the tissue samples were collected for DNA and RNA extraction and sequencing. The tissue samples and contaminated trashes were a source of pathogens.” It is not a proof, but a possibility to be studied fully.

The second laboratory, the Wuhan Institute of Virology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is located 12 kilometers from the seafood market. It has been recently in the news, when Dr Chen Wei, a Major General in the People’s Liberation Army, took over the management (this raises serious questions, considering that the lab is partially funded by the French Government).

Xiao and his colleagues concluded: “Somebody was entangled with the evolution of 2019-nCoV coronavirus. In addition to origins of natural recombination and intermediate host, the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan. Safety level may need to be reinforced in high-risk bio-hazardous laboratories. Regulations may be taken to relocate these laboratories far away from city center and other densely populated places.”

All this means that more serious and independent studies need to be undertaken to find out more about the origin of the ‘international’ virus.

The Emperor May Lose His Clothes

It is what President Xi Jinping and his propaganda machine want to avoid at any cost, because the Emperor may lose his job. Let us not forget that dynasties in the Middle Kingdom go through cycles. The Emperor of a strong and just dynasty brings peace and prosperity to the people with the ‘Mandate of Heaven’. With time, the system becomes corrupt and the people start suffering. Disasters strike. The Emperor loses his mandate after a peasant (or people’s) revolt, leading to major changes, heralding a new era and the arrival of a wiser, fairer and more compassionate monarch or regime.

This is the second reason why China has started firing its first IW shots: Xi Jinping’s seat is highly insecure. Several serious websites such Radio France International (RFI), Deutsche Welle (DW) cited a WeChat posting calling for an “Emergency Enlarged Meeting of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) Politburo”. It appears that it spread like wildfire on Chinese social media. The meeting was to “discuss whether Xi Jinping is suitable to continue to be the President of the country, the CCP’s General Secretary, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission.”

It suggested the formation a three-person group with Premier Li Keqiang, Wang Yang, the Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and Vice-President Wang Qishan to start the process. Chinascope, a well-informed website operating from the US, explained: “Some media used the screenshot of a repost of the article by Chen Ping, the founder of Sun TV who lives in Hong Kong. Chen said that he just received the article and felt it rational and thus reposted it. He did not know who wrote it.”

Some rumours circulated that the letter originated from someone high in the Party’s hierarchy. It listed several topics for discussions, including the fact that China had recently made too many enemies in too many countries and asked, “should China return to Deng Xiaoping’s policy of maintaining a low profile?” Some of the other questions were: “Is the CCP higher or is the law higher? Can the ruling party be above the Constitution? Should private companies be the main economic force in China or the state-owned enterprises? Should citizen’s rights be sacrificed for the government’s stability maintenance? Can the private sector run media? Should the judicial system be independent (from the CCP)? Can citizens criticize the government?” These were some of the questions.

Some media have also linked this article to another piece criticizing President Xi. Before disappearing, Ren Zhiqiang, a former real estate tycoon, who used to represent Beijing at the CPPCC wrote: “A Clown Who Stripped Naked and Insisted on Continuing to Be an Emperor.”

One understands that the apparition of the virus on the world scene has larger implications, it is the ‘peaceful rise of China’ and perhaps more crucially the continuation of the Chinese Communist Party, which seems at stake.

In the weeks to come, the present regime will not spare any effort to show the world that the coronavirus has no particular link with China and that the world should be grateful to the Communist Party. It is however doubtful if Beijing can succeed … but if it fails, there will be implications inside the Middle Kingdom.

(The author writes regularly on Tibet, China, India and Indo-French relations. Views are personal.)

NEW DELHI: The Chinese Coronavirus pandemic is not only a test of a nation’s resolve, but in some cases, also exposes the true face of its society, military and institutions. While, in India, its armed forces are taking a lead in the fight against the invisible enemy, the Pakistani Army is busy shifting COVID-19 affected citizens to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK), Gilgit-Baltistan and Balochistan, the most marginalised areas under Pakistani occupation. This move has laid bare the indifference of the Pakistani military towards its “occupied territories”.

As the pandemic spreads and COVID-19 confirmed cases crossed the 1000 mark, the Pakistani Army and the Imran Khan government came head to head, reported the New York Times on March 26, 2020. The report said that, “the extremist clerics who often heckle or march against the civilian government, with the tacit approval of the military, are refusing to help. They largely ignored Mr Khan’s call to limit Friday prayer gatherings”. Clerics across Pakistan had called on citizens to attend Friday’s congregational prayers, in spite of the ongoing pandemic.

Prime Minister Imran Khan’s weak position vis-à-vis religious extremism is a reflection of Pakistan’s decades-old-policy of giving primacy to the role of religion in managing state affairs and has also led to the botched response in tackling the coronavirus outbreak. In early March, a religious gathering near Lahore of the Tablighi Jamat, one of the world’s largest proselytizing groups, went on for days and attracted people from more than 90 countries. It was identified as the link to the spread of the virus.

As reported in the Pakistani press, more than 250,000 people were congregated in camps, sleeping and eating in close quarters, infecting indeterminate numbers of people.  At least 12 local cases were detected. Add to that, two Kyrgyz citizens and two Palestinians who were at the gathering, flew home and spread the virus there.

It was probably under these circumstances that the Pakistani Army started shifting all coronavirus infected people to Mirpur in PoK, a move that caused strong protests from the locals.

Pakistan army shifting COVID-19 cases to PoK

PoK residents led by political activist Dr Amjad Ayub Mirza, have alleged that special quarantine centres have been set up in Mirpur and other major cities in the occupied regions.  The inmates comprise residents of Punjab and other provinces as the army’s top brass has ordered that no coronavirus positive case should be anywhere near army facilities and army family housing.  Incidentally, until recently, PoK had only one case of the Chinese coronavirus, which is now estimated to be in the hundreds.  The Pakistan Army’s heavy-handedness has prompted PoK citizens to appeal to the Indian government for medical assistance.

Baloch leaders have also accused the Pakistan Army of ignoring Balochistan amid the COVID-19 crisis. Allah Nizar Baloch, leader of the Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF), said there are hundreds of pilgrims recently returned from Iran, who are confined in a coronavirus quarantine centre at the Baloch town of Taftan, near the Iranian border.  It is run by the Pakistan Army but medical care is lacking and facilities are poor, which has aided the spread of the virus.

“We believe that the Pakistan Army is using the coronavirus pandemic to extend its occupation over Balochistan while proceeding with its barbarities and genocide on the Baloch people,” the Baloch leader was quoted as saying by Sangar Publication, a mouthpiece of the movement.

SAARC fund for Coronavirus

The Pakistan government’s indifference to the virus was obvious during the televised emergency meeting of SAARC leaders in March.  While seven member countries were represented by their respective heads of states, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan deputed his Special Assistant on Health Dr Zafar Mirza. The reason was obvious, Mirza focused on J&K, forcing the Indian government to dismiss his remarks as “churlish”, and deprecated his attempt to politicise a humanitarian issue when the focus was to chalk out a joint strategy to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

The Pakistani government is yet to contribute towards the SAARC COVID-19 Emergency Fund, which has already received commitments worth $18.8 million to tackle the pandemic. While even a country such as Afghanistan, with its limited resources and budgetary constraints, has pledged $1 million, an indifferent Pakistan sought “clarity about the fund’s utilisation”.

Army’s backdoor entry into civilian governance

According to scholar and commentator Ayesha Siddiqa, the pandemic has given the Pakistan Army the perfect window to enter into a civilian role by invoking Article 245 of the 1973 Constitution.  This is about the military’s assistance to civil power, which then boosts its legitimacy in the public eye and diminishes the role of the elected civilian authority.

“It is almost a reminder of and a variation on the 1958 martial law. Then the military came, on the asking of a civil-bureaucrat-turned-politician and stayed on for longer,” stated Siddiqa adding that “this legal blanket to get involved in governance, even more than before will only enhance control of the state by the armed forces without fear of repercussions for the Army.”

So, while the Chinese coronavirus pandemic will fade over time, there’s little likelihood of the Pakistan military loosening its grip on the levers of power in the country.

NEW DELHI: As the world grapples with the coronavirus pandemic, troubling questions are being asked.  Was there any way the infection could have been stopped from spreading?  With prior information, could the number of those dead worldwide have been reduced?

Some of these questions centre on the role of the World Health Organisation (WHO) which, critics say, delayed the announcement of the pandemic for apparently “political” reasons (Director-General Tedros of Ethiopia is reportedly close to China).  Only an objective inquiry can determine whether WHO was remiss in its duty.  But some of the information publicly available, raises doubts and suspicions.

Take a look at this tweet by the WHO dated January 14, which said: “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus identified in Wuhan, China.”

But we learn from the Chinese media that President Xi Jinping held a meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee one week earlier, that is Jan. 7, and it is well known that this body (like India’s Cabinet Committee on Security) meets only when required, or during emergencies.  The Communist Party journal Qiu Shi, carried a long commentary of what Xi Jinping said in its issue of Feb. 15.  The details are revealing.

In the president’s own words, it documents meetings on the virus he chaired on Jan. 7, 20th, 22^nd and in the first week of February. Xi is quoted as saying, “I made requests for the prevention and control of the novel coronavirus pneumonia … take measures to resolutely curb the spread of the epidemic … requested Hubei province to implement comprehensive and strict control over the outflow of personnel.”

The commentary underscored the urgency of the situation facing the country with Xi detailing the many meetings of the Communist Party Central Committee, the need to involve the army and the launch of a “people’s war” for epidemic prevention and control.  He also said, “The situation is constantly changing and all work is facing new situations and problems,” underscoring the need to stabilize Hubei province and Wuhan in particular.

The question which arises here is whether the sense of urgency was communicated to the WHO?  The WHO tweet does not reflect that, which suggests two disturbing options: Either China was economical with the truth while interacting with the WHO, or the WHO lied.  The former seems more plausible while others say the role of WHO chief Dr. Tedros needs to be probed owing to China backing him for that job.  This line of criticism accounts for the WHO’s big pat on the back for Beijing’s role in tackling the virus (which to be fair was effective domestically).

Was the WHO late in declaring the virus a pandemic on March 11, when it had already spread to 114 countries, had infected 114,000 people and resulted in more than 4,000 dead?  In this context, Dr. Tedros’ statement can only be termed strange. He said, “We expect to see the number of cases, the number of deaths and the number of affected countries climb even higher.”

Considering that the WHO’s parent organization the United Nations, recognizes 195 countries as sovereign nation-states, that left only 81 countries untouched by the virus.  With continents under lockdown, what prevented the WHO from declaring it a pandemic earlier? Was it Chinese pressure, one can only speculate. What could China have possibly gained from this? Possibly more time to bring the epidemic under control on its territory and distance itself from the overseas spread?

Note China’s response to the virus, which was slow. The first death from the coronavirus was recorded in Wuhan on Jan 11.  The Wuhan Wholesale Seafood Market where the virus was traced, had been shut down on Jan. 1.  A day earlier, health officials informed the WHO of the outbreak of a suspected “vertebrate to human” transmitted infectious disease.  Given that the infection is reported to take 2-14 days to incubate, it means the outbreak could have begun sometime in the middle of December.  Do also recall that earlier alerts sounded by Chinese doctors had been disregarded, and their voices were suppressed.

The first confirmed coronavirus case outside China was reported in Thailand on Jan 13, followed by Japan three days later. By Jan 17, nine countries including the US, South Korea, Nepal, France and so on were reporting cases. By Jan. 22, European airports were stepping up checks on flights from Wuhan and the very next day, that city was under lock down.  Yet the WHO insisted on Jan. 23 that there was “no evidence” of the virus spreading between humans outside China.

The WHO declared it a “global emergency” on Jan. 30, when the number of cases in China jumped to over 7,000 and it was being reported from all of the 31 provinces. From that date until March 11, the WHO appeared to be watching the chaos unfold with yogic calm. So, when Prime Minister Modi called for reform and strengthening of the WHO at the G-20 video conference a few days ago, it could be seen as an indirect reference to the agency’s functioning at a time of unprecedented global crisis.

NEW DELHI: COVID-19, or more appropriately the Chinese virus, has thrust one man into the world spotlight: Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus or more simply Tedros, as he prefers to be known. Appointed in May 2017, Tedros who is the eighth director general (DG) of the WHO, has an unenviable task before him – dealing with what is one of the greatest modern-day crises facing humanity today.

While some have lauded the man for responding in a “robust” and “responsible” manner, a little digging into his background reveals anything but.  The reason for that can be summarised in one word: Beijing.  As critics point out, Tedros’s close ties with China blinded him to the seriousness of the crisis, an error the entire world is paying for today.

Controversial Figure

Through his career, Tedros has remained a controversial figure. A former health and foreign minister of Ethiopia, Tedros belongs to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which has been accused of human rights abuses in the country. The outrage among Ethiopians was so high that several members of the Ethiopian diaspora protested outside the WHO’s headquarters even as he was being selected and elected.

Human rights aside, let’s come to matters to health. According to the New York Times Tedros was accused of covering up at least three cholera epidemics when he was health minister. When questioned on this, he retorted that his accusers had a “colonial mindset.”

Tedros’s China Connection

But what remains most interesting is the WHO DG’s China connection. While he was minister, Tedros ensured that his country remained at the mercy of Chinese business and investment. As a Facebook post of his dated four years ago revealed most tellingly, “Under the “Go Global” program of #China, we expect increased Chinese investment flow to #Ethiopia . The 8 industrial parks identified throughout #Ethiopia, some already under construction, will facilitate the migration of Chinese companies to #Ethiopia.” The post summed it up: Tedros was Beijing’s man.

The China relationship continued post Tedros’s ministership as Beijing lobbied hard to get Tedros the coveted post of director-general of the WHO. As British journalist Rebecca Myers pointed out in an article in the Sunday Times in October 2017 “Beijing’s financial clout and opaque aid budget was used to build support for him among developing nations.” The victory for Tedros not only cemented China’s ties with African nations but also was a source of pride for China’s President Xi, as it underscored Beijing’s clout. But more important, Tedros was expected to return the favour which he soon did.

Payback Time

The WHO DG immediately got to work to repay China. His bid, later withdrawn, to appoint late Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe as the UN Goodwill Ambassador in October 2017 was a step in this direction. It was a win-win situation for both Tedros and Beijing. At the time of Tedros’s appointment, Mugabe was the head of the African Union (AU) bloc which had endorsed him, and Tedros needed to repay the favour. Mugabe too was an important man for Beijing. China-Zimbabwe ties had prospered under the late dictator to the extent that President Xi, in a trip to the country in 2015 had called Zimbabwe an “all weather friend.” India, Indians and the world at large will be only too aware of what that means.

Part of the China narrative                      

This by now well-established China connection explains Tedros’s hurried bid to give China a pat on the back in its handling of the pandemic.   Despite China’s now very well-known silencing of whistleblower Li Wenliang who had raised concerns about an unknown virus in early December, Tedros was in a hurry to exonerate Beijing. “China is actually setting a new standard for outbreak response,” he said in a statement on January 30.  But what emerged later was something quite different. According to the New York Times seven million people left Wuhan in January, spreading the virus all over China and over the world, before China finally restricted travel to Wuhan on January 22.

Prior to this too, the WHO had also endorsed China’s contentions now found to be false. “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China,” the WHO had tweeted on Jan. 14.  This complacency, lack of action and urgency cost the world valuable time in which to tackle the Chinese virus. According to some studies, if the world had had this time several lives could have been saved.

Looking Beyond Tedros             

With the pandemic having slid out of control, Beijing has now needed to go beyond the ambit of Tedros and the WHO.  This is not to imply Tedros is of no further use.  All signs point to a growing backlash against China, and Beijing will need the services of people (like Tedros?) who are seen to have served it well in the past.