No one knows when and how the pandemic will end. In the post-COVID-19 world, however, two things are certain: accelerated digitalization and a more confident China.
The 2008-09 global financial crisis was the first significant shift in power from the United States to China. During the current COVID-19 pandemic from 2020, China has been one of the only major economies to have posted growth and, as a result, Beijing is becoming increasingly confident that it is on an equal footing with the West.
On March 5, at the National People’s Congress held in Beijing, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang announced major goals for the 14th Five-Year Plan. The centerpiece of this new plan was the development of a digital economy. The plan aims to accelerate the development of digitization and to build a “digital China.”
China has been making full use of digital technology in its response to COVID-19. While several countries implemented contact tracing apps to combat the spread of COVID-19, such as TraceTogether in Singapore and COCOA in Japan, China implemented its Health Code app immediately after the COVID-19 outbreak to control the movement of people.
China’s next target is a digital vaccine certificate. On March 8, China launched a digital vaccine passport for international travel through Tencent’s WeChat messaging and mobile payment app. The digital certificate records and displays when and what type of vaccine doses its user has received, as well as its user’s negative COVID-19 test result.
The World Health Organization has taken a cautious approach to vaccine passports. The organization’s position is that “national authorities and conveyance operators should not introduce requirements of proof of COVID-19 vaccination for international travel as a condition for departure or entry” as there are still critical unknowns regarding the efficacy of vaccinations in reducing transmission.
Currently, yellow fever is the only disease mentioned in the WHO’s International Health Regulations, a legal framework on public health emergencies, to allow countries to require proof of vaccination for international travelers. The proof is known as a paper-based Yellow Card, which is not a passport per se. Travelers must hold both passports and yellow cards, where required.
Despite such warnings from the WHO, China is accelerating the implementation of its vaccine passport. Before China’s announcement, there had been similar initiatives. The World Economic Forum and a broad coalition of travel industries have been developing a certificate called CommonPass, while the International Air Transport Association has released documentation called IATA Travel Pass. China is trying hard to take the lead in developing digital vaccine certificates.
The control of COVID-19 is not the only area China aims at leading in the world. In the post-COVID-19 era, the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) will be the next field of global competition. As China moves forward with digitalization, there is a growing concern about the nation’s Digital Currency Electronic Payment, or the digital renminbi. China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China, began a feasibility study of digital currencies in 2014. In January 2020, the central bank announced that the basic design of its digital currency, industry standards and main features were completed.
China has taken the lead in becoming a cashless society. Four out of five payments are conducted by either Tencent’s WeChat Pay or Alibaba’s Alipay. These two payment services make up as much as 94% of China’s mobile payments industry and have more than 1 billion users each.
