The coronavirus pandemic is a global menace that respects neither borders nor geopolitical dividing lines. It thus seems to demand greater U.S.-China cooperation in the near term, even as its longer-term effect will likely be to heighten the budding rivalry. There is in fact a long history of the U.S. working with geopolitical rivals to deal with global problems of common concern. But that history also reminds us of something else that is relevant in the current crisis: Ambitious authoritarian regimes don’t do anything for selfless reasons, and they often use good deeds as cover to perpetrate bad ones.
The most compelling call for U.S.-China cooperation on the coronavirus comes from dozens of former U.S. officials and foreign policy experts, who signed an open letter organized by the Asia Society and the University of California-San Diego. The statement is sober and sensible. It does not gloss over China’s dishonest and damaging initial response to the outbreak, or ignore the blatant untruths Beijing has spread about the origins of the virus. It argues that given the gravity of the crisis, geopolitical rivals must nonetheless work together “to eliminate this disease at home and abroad at a cost that is affordable to all.”
It also points out that America has conquered a vicious disease amid a vicious competition before. The United States and the Soviet Union cooperated to eradicate smallpox, one of the great killers of the 20th century, even as they waged a Cold War.