COVID-19 AS THE MAGNIFYING GLASS OF CHINA’S FOREIGN POLICY FOR A NEW ERA

The COVID-19 pandemic functioned as a catalyst for the already tense relations between the People’s Republic of China and its major Western partners. It also made room for the global span of China’s ‘wolf-war diplomacy’ and ‘mask-diplomacy’ as two simultaneously exposed faces of its foreign policy. This analysis focuses on China’s foreign policy apparatus’ performance during COVID-19, and its effect on China’s domestic and foreign economic and political agendas. Starting from the theoretical point that China’s forceful foreign policy derives from its domestic political dynamism, the analysis shows that such effects were modest. It claims that China’s posting will continue to be resistant to the surroundings’ impact as long as it serves as a good tool for fulfilling domestic stability and security goals.