Instead of dominating the world, it seems that China is now facing criticism, inquiry and global scrutiny, causing much embarrassment for the Xi Jinping regime.

Australia recently calls for an independent investigation into the origins of the highly infectious disease that has now spread across the globe.

Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne had told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that China’s actions in the matter should be thoroughly investigated.

"It will need parties, countries to come to the table with a willingness to be transparent and to engage in that process and to ensure that we have a review mechanism in which the international community can have faith," Payne told ABC.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said it would be a "sensible course of action" to investigate how the coronavirus pandemic began — a view which has angered China in recent days, reported ABC News.

"It would seem entirely reasonable and sensible that the world would want to have an independent assessment of how this all occurred, so we can learn the lessons and prevent it from happening again," he was quoted as saying by ABC News.

"I think it is a fairly obvious and common sense suggestion, that I believe there will be support for," he said.

China rejected the Australian government's claims.

"Is speaking Chinese a fashion today?" China's Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang said in a press briefing.

"Currently, with the pandemic still spreading across the world, the most pressing task is to put people's life and health first and work together to defeat the virus," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang was quoted as saying by ABC earlier.

"At such a critical juncture, it is highly irresponsible to resort to politically motivated suspicion and accusation," he said.

"We advise the Australian side to put aside ideological bias and political games, focus on the welfare of the Australian people and global public health security, follow the international community's collective will for cooperation, and contribute to the global cooperation in fighting the virus, instead of doing things to the contrary," he said.

Bates Gill, professor of Asia-Pacific Security Studies at Macquarie University in Australia,  wrote in The China Story: "In short, we can expect more—perhaps much more—of the same from China, both at home and abroad.  That is because the core means and ends which animate CCP [Communist Party of China] rule have not changed and are unlikely to do so in the near- to medium-term.  Tactics may shift with circumstances—for example, Beijing will seek ways to gain advantages during the current calamity—but the strategic aims of such efforts remain steadfast."

Identifying six drivers of Xi's foreign policy, he said: "All the more reason to clearly understand the core drivers of Xi Jinping’s foreign policy.  In work for a forthcoming book, I have identified six of them. Most have been long-standing aspects of China’s foreign policy.  However, all have become much more prominent and vigorously-pursued elements of foreign policy under Xi. But taken together they offer a coherent framework for understanding—and responding to—China’s approach to the outside world."

He said increasingly prosperous, powerful, and authoritarian, China intends to become a more intense global competitor economically, technologically, diplomatically, militarily, and in the realm of ideas. 

"The COVID-19 crisis will not change this," he worte.

"Taken together, these drivers of China’s foreign policy—legitimacy, sovereignty, wealth, power, influence, and leadership—offer a timely, comprehensive, yet accessible framework to assess those ambitions, consider their implications, strengths, and weaknesses, and develop recommendations for how other powers can respond in the 2020s and beyond," he said.

On the other hand, a Pew Research poll conducted recently showed that a large section of Americans have developed unfavorable view of China at this moment.

"Negative views of China have continued to grow, according to a new Pew Research Center survey of Americans conducted in March. Roughly two-thirds now say they have an unfavorable view of China, the most negative rating for the country since the Center began asking the question in 2005, and up nearly 20 percentage points since the start of the Trump administration. Positive views of China’s leader, President Xi Jinping, are also at historically low levels," read the website of the research organisation.

"Economic factors, such as job losses to China and the trade deficit, remain key concerns for the American public. But other issues – including Chinese human rights policies and environmental degradation – also worry Americans. Many of these issues play a role in how the public views China more broadly: Those who see the China-related topics included in the study as a serious problem generally have less favorable views of China overall," the survey said.

"Views of China have soured further in 2020, building on the dramatic uptick in negativity seen between 2018 and 2019. Roughly two-thirds of Americans now have a negative opinion of China, the highest percentage recorded since Pew Research Center began asking the question in 2005. Only about a quarter in the U.S. report a favorable attitude," it said.

The survey took place as the coronavirus outbreak spread throughout the U.S.

"As ratings for China have declined, so too has confidence in Chinese President Xi Jinping. Roughly seven-in-ten Americans (71%) say they do not have confidence in Xi to do the right thing when it comes to world affairs – a high since the Center first asked the question. Just 22% say they have faith in the Chinese leader, down 15 percentage points since last year," it said.

"The drop in confidence from 2019 to 2020 is especially notable. While views of Xi have been fairly stable for the past few years, remaining within a 10 percentage point range, in just the last year the percentage saying they lack confidence in him has increased by 21 points. This shift occurred among both Republicans and Democrats, as well as among older and younger Americans," said the research.

Raising doubts, Professor Anne-Marie Brady, a New Zealand politics researcher at the University of Canterbury tweeted: "Covid-19 may well be a circuit-breaker for Flag of China foreign interference relationships in some countries who realise CCP’s mismanagement & lies led to Covid-19 becoming a pandemic, but also, because travel restrictions prohibit illegal & nefarious activities, as well as positive ones."