China's collectivist response and the strict authoritarian measures implemented to combat coronavirus cannot be understood as the product of a single ideological perspective. The Marxist-Leninist ideals that underlie Chinese government and the Confucian principles that permeate Chinese society can both be found in the superpower's Covid-19 response.

Just as the coronavirus crisis is set to peak in Europe, and is mounting in severity in the US, it looks as if it may be slowing down in the country where it started: China.  China’s role in the crisis has been subjected to a great deal of analysis in the past few weeks, ranging from awe at the building of a new hospital in Wuhan in the space of a week, and approval of the firmness of the lockdown in the city, to suspicions about how accurate the low mortality rate reported in China really is, and anger at attempts by Chinese social media influencers to imply that the source of the original infection came from the US.  On the virus, as in other areas – 5G technology, the development of a surveillance society, the climate emergency – China tends to generate apocalyptic stories in which it will either be the saviour of the world, or its destroyer.