Why Trump and Xi might both lose the corona wars

The Covid-19 pandemic came along just as Cold War II was getting under way between the United States and the People’s Republic of China — the superpowers of our time — with the European Union and a good many other US allies quietly hoping to be non-aligned. Far from propelling Beijing and Washington towards détente in the face of a common enemy, the new plague has only intensified the Cold War. For the first time, China’s campaign of disinformation has been on a Russian level, with wild anti-American conspiracy theories being disseminated by senior Foreign Ministry officials. As is well known, President Donald Trump retaliated by calling Sars-CoV-2 (the pathogen that causes the disease Covid-19) the ‘Chinese virus’ until persuaded to desist by his son-in-law Jared Kushner and the Chinese ambassador to Washington.

To some naive observers, China is going to win the corona wars. Yes, the virus may have originated in Wuhan, perhaps in one of the local ‘wet markets’ where live wild animals are sold for their meat or in one of two biological research laboratories located in the city.