As world grapples with COVID-19 fallout, China strengthens its economy: Alex Brummer

As the world is struggling with coronavirus pandemic, China, which has emerged from it strongly, is now back on its old tactic of exploiting the situation by using the crisis to its own advantage and further strengthening its economy.

Considering that the Chinese economy is back on track while the United States, Britain and other Western democracies are battling to hold back the tide of illness, death and economic destruction plunging them into a recession 'worse than the global financial crisis', according to the International Monetary Fund.

"What is becoming clear is that by ramping up production and driving recovery, China could be the big winner from the global downturn - and that is an alarming prospect,"Alex Brummer writes in the Daily Mail.

 

"The ability of its leader, Xi Jinping, to invoke the ruthless powers of the state to combat coronavirus and to make sure dissenting voices were silenced gave the Chinese a huge advantage,"Alex Brummer said.

There could be no doubt that China after battling its own coronavirus outbreak could exploit the worse conditions in the Western economies in terms of finance and greater global power, says Brummer.

He has also alleged that China had failed to alert the world when it first came to know that the new strain of the virus has been found that could kill more than 88,000 people so far and affect more than 1,.5 million people globally.

He says China let the virus "evolve in its unsanitary live animal markets; allowed the virus to incubate and spread for vital weeks before conceding it was a major public health issue; and which has by common consent been less than honest about infection and death rates."

Certain top government officials in the UK's have demanded a 'reckoning' and Brummer argues that "the international community must unite on this when the time is right. But it will be a challenge - for which we only have ourselves to blames,"

The broader, more depressing truth is that the acquiescence of the West to China's drive for manufacturing, economic and diplomatic domination leaves us handicapped.

Brummer says that currently, "China is responsible for 16 per cent of the world's output. It is the biggest exporter of goods, with a 12.8 per cent market share, against 8.5 per cent for the US and 8 per cent for Germany,"

Brummer feels that there have been missteps from the UK to anticipate China's further goals when China launched Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and the UK was the first Western democracy to become a shareholder, despite US' disapproval.

China unveiled its global ambitious plan with 'Belt and Road initiative' that many have dubbed as 'new Silk Road', which is the biggest infrastructure and development project that has so far received investments from 70 plus countries and international organisation as China claims, write Brummer.

Brummer writes that under 'Maritime Silk Road' which traces the old maritime trade link has got China the crown 'port champion', which was once held by the UK. China is building ports in West Africa and Sri Lanka and taking over the port of Piraeus in Athens from Greece's government.

Meanwhile, he also pointed out that the US National Security Council has been successful in identifying China and its companies as the biggest thieves of intellectual property and patents in the world, responsible for up to 80 per cent of such behaviour.

Before the COVID-19 outbreak, US was angry at British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who fights coronavirus in an intensive care of London hospital to give away contracts of UK's 5G communication network to the Chinese tech giant Huawei.

Brummer says, "China already has a foothold in the British tech industry having managed to wrest control of the Chinese operations of Cambridge-based Arm Holdings from its Japanese owners,"

He adds, "the UK cannot afford to indulge its complacency about the ruthless ambition of a totalitarian state that will stop at nothing in its efforts to dominate the world economy. A British and global fightback will be needed - and fast.