World War I resulted in the formation of the League of Nations, which was meant to prevent the next global conflict. That attempt proved unsuccessful, but World War II led to the durable creation of the United Nations and of Bretton Woods institutions, namely, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. 

They helped to keep the global strategic and economic peace even amid the nuclear contest of wills between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Institutions matter in the preservation of international peace and stability following a period of intense conflict. 

China’s rise over the last three decades, capped off by the coronavirus pandemic, is one such period. True, COVID-19 is not conventional war. However, it is war nevertheless and has accelerated existing geopolitical trends. The pandemic has attacked nations at will, hardened economic and social borders among them and led to the threat of a general retreat from globalization. That was also the case in the two defining wars of the 20^th century.

In the 21^st, a virus has wrought social destruction comparable to the physical devastation produced by artillery, naval, air, biological and chemical attacks. While the enemy this time is not human, humans have suffered, and are suffering, from epidemiological violence comparable also to the 1918 influenza pandemic that scarred global society in its time. A century later, COVID-19 reminds us that war can take many forms. 

Peace calls for rapprochement, the rebuilding of broken bridges and the quest for new horizons and a new equilibrium. And this is where China comes in. 

COVID-19 originated in Wuhan. After an initial period of hesitancy, the leadership in Beijing decided to treat the new disease as not only an attack on a city or a province but also an attack on China and its place in a globalizing world. That decisive response has created a situation today in which China is faring largely well in its fight against COVID. Indeed, it is doing much better than some of its rivals in the developed world, including the United States. 

It is possible that the new COVID variant discovered recently could wreak havoc on China's slow but steady recovery, but that mutation would not be likely to spare America and Europe either. All in all, at least at this point of time, China is poised to rejoin the table of great powers on terms that are no less favorable to it than when the disease became an international epidemic last year. 

China’s rejuvenated leadership role should be manifested in the range of international institutions. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Agreement, which was signed in November last year, broadens and deepens ASEAN’s engagement with Australia, China, Japan, Korea and New Zealand. Together, these Asia-Pacific nations account for about 30 percent of the world’s gross domestic product and 30 percent of the global population.

The RCEP seeks to establish a high-quality economic partnership that will facilitate the expansion of regional trade and investment and contribute to global economic growth and development. Importantly, the grouping will support an open, inclusive and rules-based multilateral trading system. It is not farfetched to say that the agreement will put the Asia-Pacific institutionally at the heart of the global economy, where it deserves to be, because the world’s economic center of gravity has moved to this region.  

Clearly, no one wants China to subsume the other RCEP members to its national economic priorities. But the fear is misplaced, given that the other nations are not economic pushovers. Instead, China can bring its heft to bear on the organization’s prospects, so that all of its members can make their presence felt at the table of the economic powers, which include the US and the European Union. 

In the same spirit, China needs to be complimented for its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It is an infrastructure project of astonishing imaginative scope and logistical coordination. It combines a vast array of development and investment initiatives that would unite lands and peoples from East Asia to Europe and on to Africa. 

Again, fears and suspicions of malevolent Chinese intent are understandable but should be rationalized. Signatories to the project have not joined because China wants them to, but because these countries do benefit from their participation.

Surely there are risks, such as falling into a debt trap should economies over-extend themselves. But this calls for recipient countries to act more prudently; it is not an argument for rejecting Chinese leadership altogether.

What China is doing is giving globalization a boost on the ground by laying the extensive infrastructural basis of economic integration. This is exactly the sort of thing Beijing should be encouraged to do consistent with its emerging role. 

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) feeds into a global framework that is largely but not exclusively China-built by financing the infrastructure of the future. The AIIB’s emphasis on investing in infrastructure that is green, that is technology-enabled and that promotes regional connectivity is a source of hope for Asia as it seeks to meet the competing needs of growth and environmental stability.

China’s role in the RCEP, the BRI and the AIIB, along with its extensive bilateral relations with countries around the world, will not be lost on Asian nations as they emerge gradually from the economic depredations of COVID-19. 

The point is not to upstage the Americans or anyone else. Instead, the hope is that North America and Europe will be drawn closer to the Asia-Pacific in order to both complement and balance Chinese power in this part of the world.  

But for that to occur, China must show sustained determination in acting like a responsible regional leader to whom others look up, not with fear alone but with admiration. If that occurs, we will look back and see that this terrible period of the pandemic marked the beginning of a new, more constructive global geopolitical era, and one that better reflects the power dynamics between today’s great nations.

 ***

The writer is CEO of PT Lippo Karawaci Tbk and president commissioner of PT Siloam Hospitals Tbk

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