Author: Cai Fang, CASS

In February 2020, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged countries around the world to use the window of opportunity provided by China’s quick action, on realising the nature of the problem, to ramp up preparedness for the arrival of COVID-19. Many sadly missed the opportunity and the disastrous pandemic gathered force As Henry Kissinger points out in his recent Wall Street Journal essay, to argue now about the past only makes it harder to do what has to be done. Moving forward, there are lessons from China’s response COVID-19 that can still be learned.