Rhetoric and Reality of China’s Global Leadership in the Context of COVID-19: Implications for the US-led World Order and Liberal Globalization

Abstract

When President Trump-led America abandoned the global leadership, China casted itself as the global leader in response to COVID-19, placing challenges to the US-led world order and liberal globalization. China’s rhetoric, however, has not matched its actions in comprehensively providing global public goods and developing universally accepted values. As neither the US and China have taken the global leadership that most countries can trust and count on, the world is in the danger of moving toward the vicious power rivalry, hampering the multilateral responses to global crisis such as COVID-19.