The year 2020 seems to be on a relentlessly challenging course- while Australia continues to grapple with the bushfire crisis, the Indo-Pacific region now has an even bigger tragedy unfolding in the form of the deadly coronavirus epidemic, which has claimed more than a hundred lives in China and is threatening many, many more. The SARS-like respiratory illness which originated in Wuhan, a city in southwestern China with a population of 11 million, is extremely contagious and spreading at an alarming pace; so far, Beijing has enforced a shutdown over 16 cities, effectively quarantining its residents. The disease has now been confirmed to have spread to other countries, including Australia.

Unfortunately, just like the 2003 SARS outbreak, the Chinese Communist Party’s response to the disease has been less than satisfactory. Moreover, recent reports reveal that local government officials were slow to react to the crisis and initially kept information about the outbreak under wraps. The high levels of secrecy and censorship have created ripe grounds for disinformation campaigns with several conspiracy theories circulating on social media. The coincidence of this disease with the Chinese New Year made the situation worse as there’s a lot of international travel at this time of year.

The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has reportedly expressed confidence in Beijing’s ability to tackle the crisis. At the time of writing, it’s being reported that China will allow a team of foreign experts to enter the country in order to help find a solution. Meanwhile, many countries have issued travel advisories urging citizens to avoid travelling to anywhere in China. Many nations are also planning to evacuate their citizens and diplomatic personnel from the epicentre of the outbreak.

Moving on, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Myanmar this fortnight, the first by a Chinese leader in 19 years, in what analysts see as a major strategic development. The two countries have signed multiple deals to accelerate existing infrastructure projects, including the all-important China Myanmar Economic Corridor, but no new projects were agreed upon. Most importantly, the two sides agreed to speed up the construction of a deep-sea port at Kyaukpyu in the Bay of Bengal, which would give China a critical gateway to the Indian Ocean, allowing it to bypass the South China Sea and the Malacca Straits.

Analysts say that Nay Pyi Taw is being particularly cautious about the Belt and Road Initiative, ahead of the upcoming election. Chinese projects in the Southeast Asian country have witnessed several pushbacks, particularly those caught in the crosshairs of the conflict between the army and the ethnic rebels in many areas. Moreover, officials are worried about the prospect of being sucked into expensive debt traps created by the BRI. Nonetheless, Xi proclaimed the heralding of a ‘new era’ of China-Myanmar relations during the visit.

Critics argue that the recent warming of relations between Beijing and Nay Pyi Taw are a direct result of the West’s pursuit of human rights justice for the persecuted Rohingya community of Myanmar, who have been driven out of their lands after a genocide. China has been largely supportive of Myanmar through this crisis and has been courting it for a long time, as a lynchpin of Xi’s Belt and Road ambitions.

Sticking to the theme of China and great power politics, this fortnight witnessed the culmination of the first round of US-China trade wars after the two sides signed a preliminary deal. The agreement will ease up the tensions to an extent, with Beijing promising to increase US imports by $200 billion above 2017 levels and agreeing to make intellectual property rules more stringent.

While US President Donald Trump is celebrating this as his victory, China also says it’s a win-win deal. Nonetheless, there’s realisation that this is just the beginning and that it will require several phases of negotiation to normalise trade relations between the two giants completely.

Moreover, critics are concerned about the conceptual design of the agreement which is likely to result in ‘unrealistic expectations and unfulfilled commitments.’ Furthermore, there are worries about the impact of this bilateral pact on the future of multilateral negotiations and the status of the World Trade Organization as the arbiter of such disputes. By doing so, critics argue that ‘this deal undermines the interests of the broader global community in favor of the arbitrary whims of great powers.’

For Trump, who’s currently battling impeachment proceedings against him in the US Senate, this deal with China couldn’t have come at a better time. Trump was impeached by the US House of Representatives in December 2019 over misuse of his office to solicit foreign influence to ramp up his chances in this year’s presidential election. Trump is accused of coercing the Ukrainian government to investigate his electoral rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter, in return for American aid. While his actions are clearly illegal and said to have been confirmed by former US National Security Advisor John Bolton in his upcoming book, it’s unclear and more or less unlikely that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will have enough numbers to get the impeachment bill passed in the Senate.

In another part of the Indo-Pacific, the Indian government, which has been facing unprecedented backlash over a new discriminatory citizenship law and toiling with a deep economic crisis, finally has some good news. This week, the government signed a peace accord with the tribal Bodo insurgent groups in the country’s northeast, which had been demanding separation and autonomy for decades and had carried out terror acts in the past. The accord accedes to several demands made by the Bodos, including creation of autonomously governed areas under their control and recognition of their language. In return, the Bodos dropped their demand for separation, ending decades of violent struggle against the Union of India.

Significance for Australia

The coronavirus epidemic potentially presents a significant challenge to Australia, already reeling under the bushfire emergency response demands. With regard to the bushfires, Prime Minister Scott Morrison outlined several important measures in his speech at the National Press Club yesterday- including augmenting the powers of the government ‘to allow prime ministers to declare national disasters and call in the Defence Force rather than waiting for the states to ask for assistance’.

The role of the Australian Defence Force in emergency response has come under renewed scrutiny during this season’s bushfires, particularly as prominent analysts have called for further institutionalisation of the ADF’s contributions in fighting climate emergencies. This has spurred a national debate as others argue against formalising or extending the ADF’s role as a first responder and prioritising the ADF as the defender of Australia’s sovereign interests against ‘external’ forces. The Morrison government called in 3000 army reservists to help with the bushfire response this year.

Morrison also signalled a shift in the Coalition’s policy on climate change and indicated that the Commonwealth will play a more active role in preparing for and dealing with climate emergency responses, keeping the country’s fiscal position in mind, of course.  

Coming back to China, the coronavirus episode underscores the dangers of living under an authoritarian regime that controls and censors information for the sake of maintaining ‘stability’. As Minxin Pei notes, ‘To maintain its authority, the Chinese Communist Party must keep the public convinced that everything is going according to plan. That means carrying out systematic cover-ups of scandals and deficiencies that may reflect poorly on the CCP’s leadership, instead of doing what is necessary to respond.’

What could’ve been contained and controlled in the initial stages of the first cases of the disease in early December has spiralled into a regional and potentially global health crisis because of the CCP’s reluctance to make information public. This episode further embeds distrust in China’s role as a global actor and makes working with China all the more difficult.

Finally, China’s consolidation of infrastructure projects in Myanmar will be viewed with concern Down Under, for Beijing’s propensity for creating debt traps for poor nations and also because of increasing Chinese access and influence in the Indian Ocean Region. It’s in Australia’s interest to work closely with like-minded partners, particularly India, to deal with any Chinese adventurism in the IOR.

AUTHOR

Aakriti Bachhawat is a Researcher with the Defence and Strategy team at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, and Research Assistant at the Griffith Asia Institute.