World needs China to get fully back to work

**Editor's note: **Azhar Azam works in a private organization as a market and business analyst and writes about geopolitical issues and regional conflicts. The article reflects the author's opinions, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

The coronavirus epidemic, which has killed more than 3,000 people, mostly in China's city of Wuhan, infected over 90,000 and reached more than 64 countries, has been tackled strongly by the Chinese authorities who are gradually gaining control of the flu-like virus. Other than Hubei, the mortality rate of the virus is mostly below 1 percent with some seven provinces and regions not reporting a single death.

News of the closure of the first of the 16 specially-built hospitals – following a sharp fall in the new cases in Hubei Province and its capital Wuhan, which is at the center of the disease – established that China is making progress in its well-fought battle against COVID-19. A bold decision was taken after the hospital discharged its last recovered patients.

As China takes a dig at the pneumonia outbreak, there has been widespread criticism, especially in the U.S., about Chinese violation of human rights through the implementation of a mandatory 14-day quarantine, roadblocks, checkpoints and some lockdown gauges wrought as "cordon sanitaire."

But with the confirmation from the World Health Organization (WHO) and even by U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that people can catch infection from others, the vilification lost its legitimacy and proved that China, through such preventive measures, protected health, lives and human rights of other millions of people who were at the risk of falling victim to the disease.

Denigration lacked wit also because the restrictions are of course temporary and will be lifted once normalcy prevails in the country. In addition, the curbs should worry China more than outsiders since the coronavirus has suspended its economic activities and disrupted the routine life of ordinary Chinese people.

In actual fact, China isn't the only country that quarantined people to prevent the outbreak inflating. During the 2003 SARS outbreak, Canada too practiced "community quarantine" that successfully reduced transmission of the disease by one-third. The U.S. and Singapore had also isolated or quarantined people at homes and hospitals with suspected or probable SARS.

After Ebola went out of control in 2014, West African nations agreed to impose a cross-border isolation zone, "cordon sanitaire", after the WHO warned the outbreak could cause "catastrophic" loss of life and serve economic disruption if it continued to spread. CDC again found that the separation of sick persons and comprehensive contact tracing were the essential components of the Ebola response in Liberia.

The claims that China is gaining effective control of the epidemic are backed by the international health organization. In its report, the WHO suggested the world should follow China's lead whereupon detection of a cluster of pneumonia cases of unknown etiology in Wuhan, it launched the national emergency response.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), has praised China's efforts in combating COVID-19 on multiple occasions. /Xinhua

Explaining the declining COVID-19 cases in China, WHO assistant director-general and veteran epidemiologist Bruce Aylward snubbed the Western denunciation saying that the measures China took to fight the outbreak were all common to prevent the spread of disease. He also came down on the side of the lockdowns – to decry human rights violations – and revealed that only people in Wuhan and two or three other cities were confined and lauded Chinese efforts to protect its country and the rest of the world.

The comments coincide with agency's chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus' remarks that almost eight times as many cases were reported outside China as inside in the previous 24 hours. So as of now, the world needs China more because of its rigorous knowledge and experience of combating COVID-19 than Beijing would look toward global nations to force back the epidemic.

It is bluntly clear that China had no intention of limiting the human rights of its people; indeed it shielded humans themselves from the fatal consequences of illness. That is why hopes for the restoration of routine life and economic activities are ascending in the country as China witnesses a declining trend in new virus cases.

On March 3, Apple's supplier Foxconn announced it would resume normal production in China by the end of March. While more than half of its workers had already restarted work in the country, the decision by the world's no.1 contract manufacturer, to restart full-fledged manufacturing in China was an expression of unprecedented belief in the Chinese government's ability to knock out the virus and revive its economy.

China acknowledges that the coronavirus outbreak had a "negative impact" on its economy. Nevertheless, Beijing is committed to bounce back with the assurance of revitalizing the economy and achieving its economic and social goals for 2020. Over the years, China has faced similar outbursts that threatened its economy and culture.

This time again, China is determined to emerge successfully on the back of its stronger resilience, enormous domestic consumption of the world's biggest market, and the solid foundation of its economic and trade structure. In the past, China has recurrently demonstrated that it can do wonders after being struck down and there is no reason it can't do it once more.

As China has its system primed for rapid detection and quick response and its 30 other provinces managed not just to avoid but to reverse the outbreak, it is about time that the people of China should oust the fear and emerge with a stronger will to put the nation and the world on the path of development again.

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