Combating COVID-19 Is a Chance for China-US Cooperation

Editor’s Note: Scholars from China and the U.S. expounded their views on bilateral relations from different perspectives at a webinar on March 12. They agreed that the two sides should be committed to benign and healthy competition, and there is potential for the two countries to work jointly in many areas and improve global governance.

The webinar, themed Reset and Reshape–China-U.S. Relations and Global Governance, was hosted by Beijing Review, an English-language news weekly and a subsidiary of China International Publishing Group (CIPG), with the participation of scholars from both countries. The following are scholars’ views on COVID-19 response.

Jeffrey D. Sachs–professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development, Columbia University

There are areas where cooperation is understood by the Americans and by Chinese as necessary. And clearly fighting COVID-19 is one of those.

Huiyao (Henry) Wang–founder and president of the Center for China and Globalization

To fight against the pandemic, the whole world should be united. We’re facing the common enemy of the mankind. We haven’t really gotten out of the woods yet. China and the U.S. can work on that. But also, we need to involve the EU and other countries.

So far, vaccination seems to be the most powerful weapon against the disease. As the world’s three largest economies, the U.S., China and the EU should convene a vaccine summit and establish a trilateral dialogue and coordination mechanism to advance cooperation in vaccine research, production and distribution under the coordination of the World Health Organization. All efforts should be made to prevent vaccine nationalism. We need to act quickly. That’s the only hope that we can get out of this crisis.

Peter Walker–author and speaker on U.S.-China relations and former Senior Partner with McKinsey & Co.

Biden is a fact-driven person. We’ve seen this in this approach to COVID-19 and the whole vaccination program. We’ve seen it is an approach to the areas of tension between the U.S. and China. What does he say? He has launched a whole series of studies on trade, on the military, on technology, on the transfer of human talent. What is positioning himself to do is to come back, armed with the facts, and basically say that we’re going to follow the facts and to use the Chinese phrase—a win-win mentality—towards China.

Rick Dunham–co-director of Global Business Journalism Program, Tsinghua University

Combating COVID-19 is an excellent chance for the two countries to get together and try to do things that will help globally, particularly with vaccine issues. Since the United States has effectively worked to have the vaccine available to Americans, there will be plenty of vaccine available for export by mid of the year.