Coronavirus geopolitics: how frontline countries dodged two pandemic waves?
Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and South Korea acted contrarily to the WHO recommendations, and successfully contained two coronavirus waves without lockdowns.
- Frontline countries that didn’t join China’s Belt and Road Initiative and historically had very complicated relationship with China, were able to implement drastic measures from the start of the outbreak.
- Countries that have strong political and economic ties to China were limited in their ability to implement strict measures in order to protect their own population from the coronavirus.
- Countries that followed the WHO travel recommendations have failed to react early enough to stop imported cases.
- Due to early measures taken to contain the virus, many frontline countries didn’t need strict lockdowns.
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Intro
After the coronavirus escaped China, crashed the crypto market and verged us into the global recession, I’ve decided to write a series of articles about the coronavirus and its global impact.
In the previous two articles we’ve debunked certain misconceptions about the death rate, and explained why developing countries such as India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Nigeria, Russia, Mexico, and Brazil, will be the most affected countries during the third global coronavirus wave.
In the end of May, after one month since the previous article, Brazil, Russia, and India had already entered the top-10 list of the worst-hit countries, marking the beginning of the third global wave.
Now it’s the time to analyze why certain countries were able to dodge a coronavirus bullet. Their experience is very important as many countries are reopening their borders and economies.
From Italy, the disease spread northwest across Europe, striking France, Spain, Portugal and England by June 1348, then spread east and north through Germany, Scotland and Scandinavia from 1348 to 1350. — bubonic plague
Sounds familiar? Stay with me and you will know why the history has repeated itself.
In order to understand the current pandemic, one should know a thing or two about geopolitics.
After containing the outbreak in February, the CCP started a massive propaganda campaign that the coronavirus has not originated in China, and that China’s authoritarian approach was more efficient at handling the outbreak than democratic approaches.
Firstly, we will debunk this narrative, showing that it’s possible to contain the virus in a relatively democratic way.
Secondly, we will explain how geopolitics played a crucial role in spreading the virus across the world.
Thirdly, we will look at the important things that are usually under-reported by the mainstream media.
Frontline Countries
Now let’s look at how different countries coped with the coronavirus, so we can have a better understanding of why governments around the world took very different approaches in managing the bio-safety risks in the first crucial months of Wuhan coronavirus outbreak.
All countries reacted in a different way, but there are two major groups:
- nations that implemented drastic measures from early January, because they realized the seriousness of the situation;
- nations that didn’t implement any serious measures to protect themselves from an outbreak, because they either believed China’s official numbers and followed WHO’s guidelines, or they were simply afraid to damage relations with Beijing.
Taiwan, Vietnam, and Hong Kong were hit by the first wave of the coronavirus and took drastic measures from the start. Both Taiwan and Vietnam didn’t join China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and they historically had very complicated relationship with China, so they weren’t afraid to damage relations with Beijing even further. Both Taiwanese and Vietnamese governments were more concerned about the safety of their own people.
Hong Kong is a bit different, because its government is controlled by Beijing, but even HK closed several ports with mainland China in January and February due to the heavy pressure from a medical community, which went on a strike for a few days.
What unites all these places is that they’ve been hit by the SARS outbreak from China in 2003 with a high case fatality rate of 10% (over 55% among elders), which traumatized the population.
Since people had a collective memory of SARS and how the CCP tried to cover it up, this time many neighboring countries started reacting long before Wuhan and other Chinese cities went on a lockdown in the end of January.
Proactive government
Taiwan tackled the outbreak better than any other frontline country, despite the large number of Chinese tourists and businessmen arriving daily to an island. Taiwan has successfully contained the first and the second global coronavirus waves with less than 10 deaths. As of June, Taiwan is not even in the top 100 countries worst-hit by the virus.
Why did Taiwan handle the outbreak much better than other countries?
- Since the CCP is bullying Taiwan to become a part of China, the Taiwanese government was not afraid to implement drastic measures that strained relations with Beijing.
- Taiwan was warning the WHO about potential human-to-human transmission since December, so the Taiwanese government understood that the Chinese state media was hiding the severity of the situation, because the Chinese government has a proven record of covering up virus outbreaks.
- Taiwan was hit hard by the SARS outbreak from China in 2003, so the population already had an experience of handling virus outbreaks through social distancing, self-isolation, and other safety measures.
Taiwan’s response was effective without massive lockdowns and other authoritarian measures. Taiwan proved that it was possible to contain the imported cases and prevent local transmission in a democratic way without human rights abuses and without destroying country’s economy.
In this article you can read in more details about the measures that Taiwan’s authorities took from December 2019, including monitoring of all individuals who had traveled to Wuhan, early travel bans, mobilizing soldiers to produce masks, fixing mask prices to avoid speculation, penalizing hoarding of medical supply to avoid shortage, proactive tracking and tracing of potentially infected people and their contacts, installing hand sanitizer dispensers in public places, and enforcing self-quarantine for all arrivals.
The general public was very supportive towards safety measures and actively helped the government. For example, people developed and updated an online map to track mask supplies in local pharmacies.
The World Health Organization
Apart from the previous experience with SARS outbreak, there is one more reason why Taiwan handled COVID-19 so well.
Here is a thing, Taiwan is not even a member of the World Health Organization (WHO), because China doesn’t recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state and historically used its influence, especially among developing countries, to block Taiwan from the membership in United Nations agencies.
Note: The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) is an equally representative body, meaning that each country gets one vote regardless of its population, so it’s possible to subvert the system by controlling the large amount of votes from many small countries.
As a result, the Taiwanese government and people of Taiwan didn’t follow the guidelines from the WHO, which eventually lost all of its credibility.
In fact, Taiwan was ahead of the game and warned the WHO about possible human-to-human transmission of then-called “Wuhan virus” back in December 2019, but the WHO ignored those warnings.
The WHO received lots of criticism because of its poor handling of the coronavirus outbreak, which eventually led to the pandemic. The organization downplayed the seriousness of the outbreak, delayed a declaration of a global emergency, criticized travel bans and called for resuming flights to China on February 4, and praised China’s efforts in battling the virus.
On January 14, the WHO assured that there were no evidences of a human-to-human transmission, ignoring Wuhan whistleblowers who exposed that the virus was human-to-human, and warnings from Taiwan about infectivity of the virus in December.
On January 23, the CCP completely locked down travels from Wuhan to anywhere else in China, but international flights were still allowed from Wuhan to other countries. At the same time, the personal protective equipment (PPE) from around the world was shipped to China, and the WHO continued opposing any travel limitations with China, which significantly increased the chances of the virus spreading all over the globe.
On February 11, there were 44,653 confirmed cases in China, and 481 known cases in many other countries across the world. However, the WHO didn’t use its authority to declare a pandemic and suggest strict travel bans. Instead, the WHO used valuable time and media attention to push for “COVID-19” name as a replacement for widely-used “Wuhan virus”. That was seen as an attempt to disassociate China from the virus in case of a pandemic, rather than an attempt to prevent an actual pandemic.
The WHO finally declared the coronavirus outbreak as a pandemic only one month later on March 11, when the total amount of cases outside of China surged to 45,422 (almost a hundred-time increase from February 11) and China accounted for less than 1% of all new daily cases worldwide. Basically, the WHO declared a pandemic, suggesting strict measures, including travel bans, only when the epicenter of the outbreak moved from China to Europe.
There are three main theories why the WHO reacted in such a way:
- It was risky to criticize the Chinese government, because it could have stopped sharing valuable data
- Incompetence
- Corruption
Here are a few things about Tedros Adhanom, Director-General of the WHO, that have been well-known in the HK-Taiwan community:
- Tedros was elected by secret-voting among all member states of the WHO, and replaced Dr. Margaret Chan of China, who held the position for over a decade. Beijing has taken on a more visible role in different international organizations over the last few decades, especially after China started rapidly growing its global influence with the Belt and Road Initiative.
- Tedros served as the Minister of Health and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia till 2016, when the country was ruled by a dictator, who jailed thousands of political activists and massacred hundreds of protesters. Ethiopia is a key to China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Africa and received huge funding from Beijing. Ethiopia is the 96th country in a global corruption index list alongside with Tanzania and Gambia.
- In 2017, Tedros tried to appoint a Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe as a WHO Goodwill Ambassador, which was seen as a way to return a campaign favor. His decision was widely criticized by WHO member states and international organizations.
- Tedros was involved in other scandals that include alleged cover-ups of three possible cholera epidemics in Ethiopia, and Hidase Dam controversy.
Unfortunately, in early days of the outbreak this knowledge wasn’t widely spread beyond Hong Kong and Taiwan communities.
On the contrary, many social media platforms added links to the WHO page to all videos and posts about the coronavirus in order to fight conspiracy theories and misinformation. The intention was good, but as a result even more people started using the WHO as a reliable source of information. People believed the official narrative that the virus was not serious, travel bans were unnecessary, and there was no need to wear masks, and that frontline Asian countries simply over-reacted due to panic.
However, if somebody is an authority, it doesn’t mean that what they say is truth.
Hong Kong and Taiwan community, on the other hand, was flooded with memes about the WHO because people knew about its ties to the CCP.
This knowledge saved them from the disaster. People in Taiwan and Hong Kong didn’t trust the WHO narrative, so they acted as if the coronavirus was already spreading in their local communities.
People’s power
Hong Kong is an interesting example, because its pro-Beijing government couldn’t implement draconian measures such as stopping all transport communication with mainland China, so the trains continued coming to HK during the whole time of an outbreak. As a result, Hongkongers fought the coronavirus in a very decentralized way, the same as during pro-democracy protests.
Here are some of the measures that were taken by the public:
- Medical workers went on a strike, demanding the government to close all the borders with China
- Hongkongers encouraged social distancing and the use of hand sanitizers
- Most people wore masks, except for some elders and *cough* western *cough* expats
- Political organizations and business owners gave away free masks
- Restaurant owners set up transparent plastic barriers to protect customers that share the same table
- Hongkongers shamed those, who didn’t follow safety procedures in public places, endangering the whole community
As a result, Hong Kong has successfully contained the first two waves with only 4 deaths.
The same as during pro-democracy protests, Hongkongers were very proactive in fighting the virus. Here is a viral video of a guy following a mandatory self-quarantine breaker to make sure that she doesn’t interact with anybody, and to find out her identity, so she can be reported to the police.
After the epicenter of an outbreak has moved from China to the Western world, the Hong Kong government was allowed to ramp up its efforts to contain imported cases. Here is how an arrival of new passengers looked like in the beginning of May.
Hongkongers even stopped mass protests due to the outbreak, until Beijing tried to pass the national security law, only then protesters came back to the streets.
By the way, here is some footage of a protest in the U.S. that clearly shows the difference in mindsets between both societies.
Noticed the difference? During Hong Kong’s protest everybody wore masks, but at the U.S. protest most people didn’t wear masks.
Such a high level of consciousness and solidarity among citizens saved Hong Kong from becoming a hotspot of the coronavirus outbreak, despite a constant stream of Chinese people from the mainland in the beginning of an outbreak. Hong Kong’s experience shows us that people can fight the virus in a very decentralized manner without relaying on a central government.
However, one can argue that both Hong Kong and Taiwan didn’t experience a huge outbreak, so their measures will be less effective in the countries that already have lots of infected people.
South Korea
South Korea is a great example of a country that experienced a sharp rise of new cases, but then successfully flattened the curve in a relatively democratic way with a very low case fatality rate.
The same as Taiwan and Hong Kong, South Korea implemented drastic measures from early January, so the number of coronavirus cases was relatively low, until they missed one super-spreader, who carelessly infected thousands of people. That incident spiked the number of infected people and made South Korea’s outbreak the largest outside of China in the end of February.
However, the outbreak was successfully localized within a few weeks without strict nation-wide lockdowns or curfews.
South Korea developed and ramped up the production of its own test kits early enough, so the government was able to conduct more tests per person than any other country at that time. After South Korea has flattened the curve a Seoul-based diagnostic company, Seegene Inc., started exporting its testing kits to other countries.
South Korea showed us that it’s possible to localize and contain the virus even after the local transmission has exploded.
Gateway to Europe
Now let’s look at the countries that didn’t do so well.
The next affected countries after China and South Korea were Iran and Italy.
What do we know about these two countries? Both Iranian and Italian governments have close ties to the CCP and joined its Belt and Road Initiative (the New Silk Road).
We don’t know much about what actually happened in Iran, because the country has been in international isolation for decades and the Iranian government covered up the outbreak.
Italy, on the other hand, is a much more transparent country, so we know that Italy’s pre-pandemic economy was highly dependent on the millions of Chinese tourists, students, and businessmen. Italy is also full of Chinese-run clothing factories that outcompeted local clothing manufactures a long time ago through cost-cutting (e.g., by using illegal migrant labor, ignoring health and safety rules, and evading taxes). That allowed Chinese-run factories export low-cost garments with the “Made In Italy” tag. We also know that Milan, the capital of the worst-hit by the coronavirus region Lombardy, is an important international fashion center with the major Italian fashion brands headquartered in the city.
Thus, it’s reasonable to assume that due to both economic concerns and political pressure from the CCP, the Italian government was simply afraid to implement strict travel bans and other drastic measures early enough to protect its own citizens from the virus.
For example, Taiwan implemented inspection measures for flights from Wuhan as early as 31 December 2019, three weeks before the first case of the novel coronavirus has been reported in Taiwan. By January 5, the Taiwan CDC began monitoring all individuals who had traveled to Wuhan within last 14 days.
The Italian government, on the contrary, did nothing until the first two cases of COVID-19 were reported in Rome on January 31. Only then all flights to and from China were suspended, but by that time it was too late, because there were already enough imported cases to seed a rapid local transmission.
As a result, Italy became the first western country to experience a massive outbreak, which then spread to other countries due to EU’s open borders.
In the 14th century, bubonic plague, often referred to as the “Black Death”, used to spread from Asia along the Silk Road and entered Europe via Constantinople, Sicily, and the Italian Peninsula, eventually killing somewhere between 75 and 200 million people worldwide. The Northern Italy’s international merchants played a key role in transmitting plague to the rest of Europe.
Seven centuries later the history has repeated itself, except this time airplanes were flying directly from Wuhan to Milan, two important transport hubs in Asia and Europe.
Conclusion
A valuable experience of many frontlines countries showed us that it’s possible to contain the coronavirus without strict nation-wide lockdowns that destroy economies and put the poorest people at risk of starvation. This knowledge is extremely important as the third global coronavirus wave is rapidly accelerating, and many places such as the US facing a strong second local wave.
The most essential measures against the virus are well-know, and yet often being ignored by some nations. Stop imported cases from other countries/states/cities, encourage social distancing, provide masks and hand sanitizers for all, and don’t trust data coming from authoritarian states.
The third global pandemic wave have already started, so it’s not time to relax yet.
One can argue that stopping imported cases is not effective anymore, since most affected countries already have enough cases for local transmission.
Firstly, there are countries that successfully suppressed the local transmission, but they might have another outbreak if they open borders without enforcing mandatory testing and strict 14-days self-quarantine rules for all arrivals.
Secondly, it’s possible to “close the borders” within a country. For example, India’s clusterization method is an attempt to implement the experience of frontline countries within one country. Basically, each state, city, and even district can be managed as a separate country with closed or open borders depending on its coronavirus status: red, orange, or green. The transport communication between green zones can be allowed, while red zones stay sealed. The status of the zone is determined not only by the amount of confirmed coronavirus cases there, but also by the amount of performed tests per capita. Travelers between different states/cities have to quarantine themselves in government-provided hotels.
That’s all for this article, in the following articles we will talk more about the third wave, the economic impact of the pandemic, and how the coronavirus has influenced the crypto market.
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