Known as an expert on Chinese issues, Peter Navarro is also a typical representative of American hawks toward China. As a senior official of Trump’s government in America, he was once a university professor and is now the Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy. During the COVID-19 outbreak, Mr. Navarro has made many negative comments about China’s control of the epidemic.
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But in fact, the transparent information sharing and effective measures made by the Chinese government during the COVID-19 outbreak have not only been recognized by the WHO and many international organizations, but also emulated by them. How much will a new virus affect human society? Should cities be sealed off? When and for how long should cities be sealed off? China is the first country that had to make these choices, with no international experience for reference. But the outbreak in America occurred a full two months after the outbreak in China. During this period, the lessons and experience that the Chinese government learned from dealing with the virus became widely known, but what preparations did the American government make against the virus?
After the outbreak, China’s economy and even the global economy and financial system have suffered severe shocks. From the perspective of the real economy, national governments have taken such measures as “city lockdown” or even “country lockdown” due to the successive outbreaks in countries around the world. Workers have stopped working and companies have stopped producing. Without production, where will the GDP come from? Regarding the financial system, the American stock market has been suspended four times in succession, so the government had to restart the policy of quantitative easing, costing USD 2 trillion. The stock markets of other countries have also crashed one after another, reflecting the deepening economic and financial integration globally. Even so, Mr. Navarro still insists on not removing import duties against China. Not only will Chinese companies be affected by the tariffs, as he intends, but the companies and people of America will also have to pay for them. Historically, the tariff policy used by America to protect domestic companies barely bore fruit, but instead led to deterioration into economic crisis and triggered the risk of war.
The COVID-19 outbreak is an unexpected shock to the functioning of the global economy. Facing the global decline in economic growth, America should have played the role of an engine and led other countries out of the crisis as the largest country in economic scale. If the American government cracks down on Chinese products through these tariffs, as Mr. Navarro has said, and even readjusts the global supply chain to take advantage of the epidemic and undermine China, then it has greatly underestimated the industrial power that China has accumulated from its development over the past 40 years. During the outbreak, Chinese companies producing anti-epidemic supplies are at full throttle and striving to expand their capacity, and Chinese workers have been working overtime to produce as many supplies as possible and provide them to other countries, including America, through various means. It is imaginable that there would have been more victims of the epidemic worldwide without the hard work and sweat of Chinese workers, and the efficient production of Chinese companies.
To quote Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the pioneer of the New Democratic Revolution in China, “Worldwide trends are enormous and powerful; those who follow them prosper, and those who resist them perish.” Mr. Navarro, we hope that you will make a little contribution to the deep integration of the global economy instead of obstructing historical development.
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