By: Ali Raza Jalbani
One of the prominent realist thinkers Keneth Waltz is the name to be reckoned with. He said that “the domestic imperative is specialise” and “the international imperative is take care of yourself.”
This stance of Waltz is visible in the international politics amid contemporary crisis of novel corona virus. The world is witnessing the non-traditional alterations for the first time in the post Cold War era.
The fabric of globalisation has weakened and realist moves have grown vertically. Of course, the disastrous Covid-19 is unveiling the weaknesses of the liberal world order. The corona virus pandemic has, nevertheless, fostered the debate over the vulnerabilities and grey areas of globalization and the contemporary world order.
The European Union and the Trump administration’s protectionist policies amid this pandemic have set China the new stage to test herself as the vanguard of the world.
It was being argued by the liberals that the liberal values are very close to human nature and people are more prone to cooperation. Unfortunately, since the end of the Cold War, this order didn’t meet any challenging test case like Covid-19 and because of that the theories like ‘End of history’ and ‘Clash of Civilizations’ surfaced.
The pandemic has now been speaking vociferously about the weaknesses of the system. However, the pundits of International affairs were of the opinion that the world is going to a great alteration in future.
Stretching from Graham Allison’s views to Mearshiemer’s predictions, the world was talking about its changing future and ultimate destinations. But nobody had predicted that the things would change leap and bounds. As the US before the outbreak of this pandemic got a little edge in over China to bring her to the table over trade crisis and forcing it to limit its state-capitalistic measures which had boosted its trade surplus over the US. But, the current pandemic has changed the whole scenario.
China has fought the deadly virus and succeeded and now it is availing all the opportunities to act as the new global boss.
European Union, which was the flagship of the liberal values of integration and cooperation, has proved useless.
And every state including its frontline leaders France and Germany have chosen the nationalistic paths despite having single market as the former seized all available face masks while the latter prohibited the exports of masks and other medicines to other states. Meanwhile, Italy was denied the help. Along with her, Serbia, which had shown eagerness to join EU, was also left alone. In the same manner, this epidemic is rendering Spain to become another Italy. This all is happening against the trend and China is trying to fill the void.
Chinese aid, furthermore, is reaching everywhere in the world. And, hence, it is getting more allies than ever before. Italy, who is still holding the burden of hundreds of deaths, has now seen the realities of the world politics and removed the EU flag and replaced it with that of China.
The Communist Party government offered aid and to sell ventilators, masks, protective suits and swabs to them and some other countries. Likewise, the Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, after being left alone by the EU countries, stated that “by now you all understand that international solidarity does not exist. European solidarity does not exist.”
He further added, “It was a fairy tale on paper. Today, I sent a special letter to the only ones who can help, and that is China.” Besides Italy and Serbia, the Netherlands is also being helped by China. In short, Europe is now looking for the Chinese help and China is responding in a proportionate manner.
On the contrary, China’s strategic rival the US and its key allies Britain, France and Germany which themselves are Covid-19-hammered are following the “America First” and similar populist policies. They all are isolating themselves. Their selfish moves, still and all, have provided China a ground to find allies in Europe in same manner as the US is having in the East.
And in fact, China would be so naïve to let go these chances of driving wedges between the western states and gather fulfill its long-awaited dream to get a key strategic ally in the West. Definitely, it would execute every Machiavellian guiding principle that fits in this situation. In short, China would now try to get its Japan and South Korea in Europe by hook or by crook in the form of Italy, the Netherlands and Serbia.
In addition, the measures taken to deal with Covid-19 by the champions of globalisation and liberal world order themselves are proving more harmful for the entire system than that of their adversaries.
As the history is repeating itself for example in 1956, the intervention of the Suez Canal proved to be deadly for the United Kingdom’s reign as a global power. Today, the US and its allies should admit that if the US does not rise to meet the moment, the corona virus pandemic could be another “Suez canal moment” for it.
Moreover, Russia and Cuba are also accompanying China to fill the gap created by the liberal capitalist states. They are sending medical teams and medicines to the ailing countries. Notably, the Russian aid to Italy is being seen with apprehensions because it has shared a checkered history with Europe.
Besides, there is still the war of allegations is underway between the two strategic rivals, the US and China at the lower level while the contact at the upper level. Meanwhile, till January 2020, both states were quarreled in a trade war and even the predictions had been made over the future of both the states. For example, Graham Allison predicted that both the countries are more likely to be indulged in the Thucydide’s trap. Which means their ultimate destination is war. However, the current pandemic has maneuvered the debate and astonishingly swift changes are lying ahead.
The upcoming changes would be taking in to account the current implications of the pandemic. As the world is likely to see in future the issues of health and safety would supersede the geopolitical matters. The deterrence theory would accompany the health sector. Additionally, the layman could be under the surveillance more than ever and state’s control over its internal issues would expand because the world has seen the Chinese example of using the Artificial Intelligence tools in coping with the virus. AI has, however, contributed a lot to shake the contemporary world order.
According to Tortoise Intelligence, the US, till date, is the largest spending country on AI. But a large part of that is made up of investments into privately owned AI businesses. On the contrary, China, who may be in the second place at the moment, but its state controlled policies have shown the potential to surpass the US within this decade.
Tortoise report says that China is up to spend “one and a half times greater than every other country in the world combined”.
The traditional giants in the field of AI such as Canada, France, Germany and the UK cannot here be missed out completely but they will never be able to compete with the two arch rivals. AI, ergo, could dictate the new world order.
Earlier, it was the mismanagement of the Chinese leadership to handle the disease that lowered the country’s global image. Dr. Li Wenliang, who disclosed the spread of virus, was detained by the government. Later on, the Chinese government acknowledged his claim and apologized but the Dr., who himself was affected by the virus, died with few days of release. The Communist Party, initially, was under the huge criticism over its earlier missteps. Meanwhile, the liberal assumptions of the vulnerabilities of the dictatorships to famines, epidemics and disasters, merely because of their suppression of the information had been proven to be right. As the first two targets of the virus were China and Iran. Unexpectedly, the course of nature changed within no time and the liberal democracies started seeking help from what they called the dictatorships.
Whereas, according to Henry Farrel and Abraham Newman, the Trump administration is busy in using this and other shortages to threaten allies and to justify a further withdrawal from global trade, arguing that the US needs to bring back its manufacturing capabilities and supply chains to home. Consequently, Germany has revealed concerns that the US will proceed to buy out completely a new vaccine under development by a German company in order to use it in the US. Hence, Berlin is planning to make a counterbid on the vaccine or ban the US transaction. So, this is how COVID-19 is exposing the unexpected fragility of the relationship of the countries which had been allies to contain China.
In addition, the analysts around the world are still uncertain about the post COVID-19 world. There are a lot of opinions regarding the future of the world. On the one hand, the return of realist politics is being reiterated and somewhere the end of the resurging populist politics is also being predicted. And some are of the opinion that the corona virus has given states one more reason to limit globalisation.
However, the liberal globalisation is of course more likely to be limited but the world is unlikely to use the all out option against globalization. In spite of its weaknesses, globalisation has created a more complex interdependent world which was never seen before. In fact, states cannot afford to practice a full autarky. So, the complete deglobalisation is not an option but the Globalisation 2.0 is probably forthcoming which could pledge to create an interconnectedness all around the world through Belt and Road Initiative.
Along with this, COVID-19 could end the economic arrogance and bolster cooperation with lesser protectionist policies. And as discussed earlier, the greater investment in the healthcare and sciences could be the key. Most importantly, theocracies all around the world could face the medieval ages-like resistance.
China, however, is likely to become a global boss but it would not be a sole super power as America had been. Also China himself is not yet ready to take all the power solely into her hands. So, the Chinese world would not be the unilateral but more likely a multilateral one.
