Worst outcome

Wang Huiyao, founder and president of the Center for China and Globalization, an independent think tank based in Beijing, said China also holds the key to global recovery.

"It has already found a way to contain the virus and maintain economic growth, which is something other countries may look to. President Xi also sent a signal to multinationals at the recent CEO symposium that China is open for business," he said.

Brown, from King's College London, a former diplomat at the British embassy in Beijing and author of China's World: What Does China Want?, believes the worst outcome of the crisis would be heightened tensions between the US and China, whatever the rhetoric in the US presidential election.

"It is clear that the US and China do not share common values or a common world view, but they have to work together on common global problems," he said.

"This will likely be a bipolar world that will need constant management, but that does not mean a cold war. The integration between the two is too deep for a situation like that which existed between the USSR and the US to occur again."

McWilliams, from the Centre for Economics and Business Research, the author of The Inequality Paradox: How Capitalism Can Work for Everyone, believes the pandemic might eventually be regarded as the moment the world shifted decisively eastward.

"The global economy was already tilting eastward, but as a consequence of the virus, the tilt will certainly become more rapid. Not just China, but most other fast-growing Asian economies, have managed the virus much better than the West, especially the US," he said.