The pandemic has encouraged the totalitarian tendencies of the Chinese regime. The "middle finger" in the climate conference, the closure of borders for foreigners and the strict surveillance measures at home.
The most important guest at COP26 did not show up. As China's president, Xi Jinping leads a country that emits more carbon dioxide than the US and the EU. together. But unlike other world leaders, Xi did not address the climate conference. Instead he handed in a written statement of less than 500 words to be posted on the session website.
Xi's rejection of the climate talks was not a demonstration of the Middle Kingdom (a Chinese name) but of the middle finger. But the Chinese leader's refusal to travel to Glasgow for COP26 - or the G20 summit in Rome before it - is part of a broader plan of national self-isolation.
In response to his pandemic Covid-19, China has installed one of the strictest border control and quarantine systems in the world. Foreigners or Chinese nationals entering the country must be severely quarantined for at least two weeks. Additional controls apply if they enter Beijing, where the country's leadership is based.
This system made it virtually impossible for foreigners to visit China without staying for several months or for most Chinese to travel abroad. Xi himself has not left China for almost two years. The last time he met a foreign leader in person was during a meeting with the President of Pakistan in Beijing in March 2020. Xi's summit with US President Joe Biden took place via video.
When much of the world was in a lockdown, China's extremist measures seemed less noticeable. But as most of the world returns to a state of near normalcy, China's self-isolation is becoming increasingly paradoxical.
The effects on international economic activity are already evident. China continues to trade and invest with the outside world. But business ties are falling apart. Foreign chambers of commerce in China report that foreign executives are leaving the country and are not being replaced. Hong Kong's role as a global business hub has been hit.
The Chinese leadership may indeed applaud some of these developments. Yu Ji, a researcher at the Chatham House Institute in London, says the pandemic has allowed Xi to take faster steps on a path he was already heading for - towards national autonomy. This policy started long before the pandemic, with the "Made in China 2025" campaign, which promoted domestic technology and production.
But with her Covid-19, the emphasis on economic self-sufficiency has turned into a much broader inward turn - with dangerous implications for China and the world. China's astonishing rise over the past 40 years has been sparked by Deng Xiaoping's implementation of its "reform and openness" policy in the 1980s. Deng saw that the isolation of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution had led to poverty and backwardness. . He was humble enough to understand that China could learn from the outside world.
The current climate in China is very different. Rana Miter, a professor of Chinese history at Oxford, points out the danger of "closed borders leading to closed minds." After 40 years of rapid growth, China is confident.
The Chinese media portrays the West, and especially the United States, as being in relentless decline. The Chinese government believes that the country is well ahead of some key technologies of the future, such as green technology and artificial intelligence. Beijing may now believe that the world now needs China more than China needs the world.
Control of the pandemic has been closely linked to the political legitimacy of Xi and the Communist Party. The official death toll in China is less than 5.000, compared with 750.000 in the United States. The Xi government claims that while the US is talking about human rights, the Chinese Communist Party is really protecting its people.
But China's policy on zero coronavirus cases is now in danger of becoming a trap. As the outside world tries to gradually get used to living with low levels of the disease, contact with foreigners may seem even more dangerous to China - which is reinstating measures to limit interaction with the outside world.
Even easing internal controls in China is difficult, as the Delta mutation has led to small outbreaks in two-thirds of China's provinces. Suppressing these outbursts encourages the worst totalitarian tendencies of the Communist Party, which uses technology to monitor citizens more and more closely. In one incident, more than 30.000 people were locked inside Shanghai Disneyland and screened after a single case of coronavirus was discovered.
Such draconian measures have begun to become the subject of public debate in China. But the controls are unlikely to ease any time soon. This week, the Communist Party is holding a meeting that prepares the ground for Xi to extend his term in power at a vital party congress in November 2022. The Chinese will not want to take any political risks before that. After the conference, China will enter the winter, where the disease may flare up again. As a result, many experts believe that China's zero-sum policy - and the accompanying sealed borders - will be significantly extended until 2023.
At this stage, China will be in self-imposed isolation for more than three years. The Chinese and global economies are likely to suffer because of this, as is global cooperation. However, the biggest and most intangible impact may be on the Chinese people. It is much easier to believe that strangers are dangerous and degenerate if you never meet them.
When China finally opens, the world can meet a very changed country.