Mohamed A. El-Erian , Columnist

China Tests Global Diplomacy and Economy

The country risks nations’ pushback as it moves ahead with its ambitions under the cover of Covid-19.

May 22, 2020 at 4:48 PM UTC

Mohamed A. El-Erian is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A former chief executive officer of Pimco, he is president of Queens’ College, Cambridge; chief economic adviser at Allianz SE; and chair of Gramercy Fund Management. He is author of “The Only Game in Town.”

China’s power grab drew protesters in Hong Kong.
Photographer: Paul Yeung/Bloomberg

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Long-repressed contradictions have a way of flaring up in public in times of stress. China is suddenly at the center of two of them, and they could well entail significant global diplomatic and economic consequences.

In the first case, Beijing’s signal on Thursday that it intends to tighten legislative restrictions on Hong Kong under the rubric of national security has brought to the surface the inherent inconsistency of the “one country, two systems” paradigm that has governed the relationship between the two for almost three decades. Underpinned by the 1997 agreement that governed the U.K.’s hand-off of Hong Kong to China, it promised a 50-year transition for many elements of Hong Kong’s economic, financial, institutional and political structure.