How Has Covid-19 Impacted China’s Geopolitical Strategic Communications?
How Has Covid-19 Impacted China’s Geopolitical Strategic Communications?

Author(s): Aurelio Insisa
Subject(s): Government/Political systems, International relations/trade, Security and defense, Political behavior, Health and medicine and law, Geopolitics, Peace and Conflict Studies
Published by: NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence
Keywords: COVID-19; China; Geopolitics; Taiwan;
Summary/Abstract: Crossing the shatterbelts of Eurasia and the commercial sea-lanes of the Indo-Pacific, the Belt and Road Initiative has put the distinctively geopolitical outlook of China’s strategy into the spotlight. Beijing articulates this strategy through the deployment of multidimensional diplomacy, Leninist ‘propaganda work’ and ‘united front work’, economic statecraft, and deterrence signalling. By framing the deployment of this vast array of tools as a strand of ‘geopolitical strategic communications’, this chapter examines the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on Beijing’s attempt to shape the perceptions and choices of foreign countries’ decision-makers and public opinions. The chapter explores how the pandemic has both expanded and created avenues for influence, with a focus on the Global South. At the same time, it examines how Beijing’s concern for regime security and diverging national strategies in containing the pandemic have emboldened China’s geopolitical strategic communications vis-à-vis other regional and global powers.

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