Эпидемии и изменяющийся мировой порядок: Китай и его восприятие западными наблюдателями в контексте глобальной истории

Abstract

The article is analyzed the place of China in a context of a global history of epidemics, representations of the western observers about the reasons of occurrence of dangerous infections in territory of this country, and changing role of China within the limits of a changing world order. The long period of history from the outbreak of the bubonic plague in Hong Kong in 1894 to the pandemic of coronavirus infection that began in late 2019 in Wuhan is considered. In the context of the global history of epidemics, China was long perceived as having poor governance mechanisms. In the first two decades of the 21th century, China confidently became a country with a powerful economy and an efficient administrative and political system. The article concludes that the current world crisis, which symbolizes this pandemic, will not only strengthen China's position on the international arena, but will contribute to changing the world order, where China will take its place as one of the main centers of power in the XXI century.