Abstract
Despite being the official origin of the SARS-CoV-2 global pandemic, China has managed to recuperate with relatively minimal health and economic damages while the United States and other big global players in Europe are still grappling soaring cases and facing immense economic hardships. The current global hegemon—the United States—has suffered the severest damages in terms of human mortality and increased unemployment rates. Such hardships coincided with its gradual withdrawal from numerous international engagements. At the same time, China is deepening and expanding its global presence and visibility through foreign infrastructure investment and diplomatic ties both at multilateral and bilateral levels. Considering such, the paper discusses the likely impact of China’s early recovery on the future of the global order. The discussion demonstrates that China has utilised the pandemic to showcase its ability to become a global protector. The country has played a pivotal role in the supply of pharmaceutical equipment required to slow down the spread of the disease and has played a significant role in providing the information and advice regarding practical methods to prevent the virus from wide spreading. Economically, China has been the first big global player to register positive economic growth since the pandemic’s outbreak and yet did not provide any stimulus packages to support businesses as other big economies have done and are still doing. With such, many commentators suggest that China is likely to replace the United States as the new global economic superpower since the United States is receding from in its global engagements and suffering economic uncertainties. However, the author of this paper believes that, despite the adverse impact of the coronavirus on the world's leading economies, the shrinking US's interest in international affairs, and the global role of China during the coronavirus period—the roots of US's influence on the international scene are too deep to uproot as of now. The US remains robust militarily, economically, and politically abroad. Besides, the country has a chance to turnaround its international reputation should the November 2020 presidential election result in a new white house occupant.
 
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Highlights
The SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2) known as COVID-19 or novel coronavirus global pandemic that broke out in China in late 2019 has, in addition to causing enormous pressure on the public health and breakdown of many healthcare systems, left the world’s leading economies such as China, the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK), and other countries in the Europe Union in tremendous economic distress (Nicola et al, 2020)
The current hegemon—the United States, hitherto has a significant influence on the global political economy, it has recently begun to disembark from global affairs in several ways, while at the time when China is deepening its global engagements
China has achieved much in its pursuit for the global hegemony—a position currently occupied by the United States, it seems to be some steps backwards as compared to where the US was when it rose to the helm of the global leadership
Summary
The SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2) known as COVID-19 or novel coronavirus global pandemic that broke out in China in late 2019 has, in addition to causing enormous pressure on the public health and breakdown of many healthcare systems, left the world’s leading economies such as China, the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK), and other countries in the Europe Union in tremendous economic distress (Nicola et al, 2020). The confinement measures taken to slow down the spread of the virus have culminated in unprecedented economic damages (Baldwin et al, 2020) Countries such as the United States and several other states in Europe and across the globe have committed colossal amounts of financial resources on health expenditure and extension of social welfare services to boost their healthcare systems and support the economy. In a move to support the US's economy through this period, the Trump administration extended over USD 2 trillion as ‘virus-aid package’ (ibid) to businesses, workers, local governments and hospitals As it stands so far, the United States has borne the greatest burden in terms of loss of lives (198,754 deaths), and over 20.6 million jobs since mid-March, culminating in 14.7 unemployment rate (CIDRAP, 2020). According to IMF’s projections featured in the World Economic Outlook Report, April 2020, China is likely to record positive growth of 1.2 per cent in 2020 whilst other big economies like the US, the UK, Japan, Germany, Canada and France are expected to retrogress by above -5 per cent in the year 2020
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