The Dual Role of COVID-19 in Changing International Landscape

With the nail-biting flare-ups of COVID-19 at the moment, the end result of the pandemic may not be decided quickly. Due to the lack of adequate understanding of the novel coronavirus, the international community has applied different anti-pandemic measures, leading to uncertainty about the duration and scope of the coronavirus and bringing potential shocks to the global landscape and international order. The pandemic will fuel changes that have taken place before, while also spawning ideas and actions to reshape the landscape. Boosting and reshaping will be the two basic drivers affecting the future, and how the world differs before and after the pandemic will depend on the connected and contradictory interplay between the two. Whether the pandemic will become a “booster” or “watershed” of the changing world situation, the new substance of international politics, the changing agenda of global governance, and the fundamental transformation of the globalized economy are all major trends that are taking place and will shape the future international landscape.

Booster or Watershed?

Before the outbreak, several trends had already emerged in the international landscape. Globalization had completed the first half of its race and reached a crossroads as it collided more intensively with anti-globalization sentiments; the political ecology in some countries had undergone significant changes,

with the resurgence of “identity politics,” the over-generalization of security concepts, the rise of protectionism, and the trend of policy conservatism; competition among major powers had been more confrontational and even spread from the economic arena to other fields; the fight for global governance was intense, multilateralism was under siege, and deficits of public goods had expanded. These trends are reflected in and reinforced by the turbulence caused by the pandemic: some countries have chosen to fight alone or even adopted beggar-thy-neighbor policies; discriminations based on nationality and race, closure of borders, and seizure of medical supplies headed to other countries not only reflect a confluence of populism and national egoism, but also seem to undermine the logic of globalization that the international division of labor can advance interdependence and common good, while reaffirming the realist assertion that high-level interdependence cannot limit national sovereignty or change the reality of prioritizing one’s own interests, and therefore does not automatically bring peace and cooperation. Even at the height of the pandemic, competition among major countries still continued and even extended to the public health sphere in the form of politicization and stigmatization. The United Nations and the Group of 20 (G20), as the main mechanism of global governance, have exposed their weaknesses to varying degrees. The World Health Organization (WHO), as a professional international body, has been drawn into political struggles and unable to fully play its role.

It is against this background that COVID-19, following the Black Death, the 1918-1919 flu pandemic and other large-scale infectious diseases that changed the course of human history, has been given a certain subversive historical significance and has become a watershed moment of changing the world pattern: the economic base of globalization might be greatly weakened, or even reversed and disintegrated; the international system is returning to anarchy in which sovereign states are the main actors and source of power; competition among major countries is difficult to control and multilateralism is hard to endure; and a multipolar pattern with disorderly competition is emerging. At the same time, however, based on the

historical experience of mankind in dealing with infectious diseases and the development of globalization, the novel coronavirus can become another “watershed” in the changing world landscape: the economic foundations and ideologies of globalization will be reshaped rather than completely abandoned; sovereign states can play a prominent role in times of crisis, but the shortcomings of state power in the absence of international collaboration will be further exposed; the will and capacity for ideological rivalry and bloc confrontation is being eroded at the same time as great-power competition intensifies and spreads.

The pandemic is bringing shocks and impacts to the world politics as both a booster and a shaper; therefore, there will not be a huge gap or complete difference between the world before the pandemic and the world after. Whether the international order will return to a “worse yesterday” or move towards a “no worse tomorrow” will depend on the direction and priorities of the international community, the reshaping of international political dynamics, changes of agenda in global governance, and the fundamental transformation of the globalized economy.

New Substance of International Politics

As the pandemic has changed the ways of communication, intensive public discussion between countries has become a highlight of international political exchanges during the pandemic, when public life and diplomatic activities have stagnated. The “battle of narratives” centered on the pandemic and the subsequent “comparison of systems” will be the focus of competition for national discourse and soft power in the international arena at present and in the period ahead. The main purpose of the “battle of narratives” is to provide an explanation for the legitimacy and rationality of policies and actions, which, in the context of the pandemic, serves both to maintain political legitimacy at home and to promote dominance in international politics. Countries that are more able to respond effectively to crises have more say, but other countries can catch up by shifting narratives and improving their

narrative techniques.

The current battle of narratives mainly includes: “nations should respond to the virus in unity” versus “nations should win this fight on their own merits”; “democracies are incapable of handling the pandemic” versus “centralized nations triumph”; “authoritarian societies of the East are easy to mobilize” versus “liberal societies of the West are difficult to manage.” Nevertheless, the logic behind such battle does not go beyond the West’s socalled sense of apprehension towards a potential power shift. Some US scholars argue that “the pandemic will accelerate the transfer of power and influence from the West to the East. The Republic of Korea and Singapore fared best and China also did well after the initial turmoil, while the skeptical attitude and slow action of European countries and the US have weakened the Western power.”1 However, there is also the view that the East should be further divided along political lines, believing that authoritarians or populists are not better able to fight against the pandemic. The Republic of Korea and Singapore, the two successful models in epidemic response, are democracies instead of countries ruled by populists or authoritarians. How to respond to a public health emergency, such as a pandemic, is a major test of a country’s capacity for governance, social structure, cultural advantages, and the ability to translate resources into concrete actions. Either cultural or institutional interpretation alone cannot contribute convincing answers. Francis Fukuyama is more objective, saying “The major dividing line in effective crisis response will not place autocracies on one side and democracies on the other. The crucial determinant in performance will not be the type of regime, but the state’s capacity and, above all, trust in government.”2 The different understandings and responses to the pandemic are changing the stereotype of “East-west” and “autocracies-democracies,” and have spawned new cognitive perspectives and narratives, which will define the renewal of political connotations.

the international community should always uphold in hard times.

Reform of the Global Governance Agenda

The most pessimistic pandemic scenario is that the public health crisis will trigger the economic crisis and geopolitical conflicts, resulting in a combined effect of the September 11 attacks, the 2008 global financial crisis and the Ebola outbreak. The scenario can make sense as the major pandemic happened at the beginning of “profound changes unseen in a century.” Multiple triggering of circuit breakers in the US stock market and abnormal fluctuations in the international energy market are sufficient to prove that the crisis has a strong coupling effect. In order to avoid the international landscape from sliding into chaos, it has become even more urgent to handle the long-delayed reform of global governance. The pandemic has not only posed new challenges to global governance, but also pushed out the basic forms and direction for a new type of global governance.

The development of human society has always been haunted by viruses and plagues. To consolidate the community of interests driven by globalization, we need an all-dimensional, sustainable, and efficient global public health mechanism. In recent years, the international community has carried out bilateral and partial cooperation and obtained positive experience in combating SARS, the H1N1 influenza and Ebola, but there is still a gap compared to global, sustainable, and closer cooperation. To this end, the WHO needs effective reform, which is not for so-called “accountability” nor for provoking confrontation, but for empowering existing multilateral mechanisms and giving more financial support, and at the same time encouraging active cooperation among countries and regions and extending bilateral or small-scale multilateral cooperation to regional cooperation, given the characteristics of regional transmission of the coronavirus. So, we need to maintain and consolidate the China-japan-rok joint prevention and control mechanism and the public health cooperation within the ASEAN framework, and to upgrade and expand the cooperation into pan-asia-pacific cooperation

in due course. At the same time, regional joint mechanisms of the European Union and the African Union should also promote integration in the field of public health from now, and on this basis foster the Asia-europe, Asiaeurope-africa, and other larger-scale cooperation between regions.

While proposing major tasks of regional and global governance in the field of public health, a large-scale pandemic will bring about serious challenges to global governance on follow-up issues such as the world’s population mobility and food supply. With the impact of the pandemic and its long-term effects, access to and preservation of life security will be a factor of global population mobility, and people are more likely to flow from countries with inadequate medical and health-care capacity to countries with better medical services after the pandemic. Thus, the situation at the Greek-turkish border is even more worrying, and immigration from Central America to Mexico and from the Middle East to Europe will also intensify existing crises. Meanwhile, economic stagnation, interruption in the supply chain, and trade restrictions on food exports in some countries caused by the pandemic will also increase the risk of a global food crisis. For safeguarding people’s life and health as well as food safety, the existing global governance system still lacks a viable direction and an effective mechanism. How to achieve the above security goals within the framework of sustainable development will be the focus of global governance reform during and after the novel coronavirus outbreak.

Fundamental Transformation of the Globalized Economy

The COVID-19 outbreak has severely impacted several global economic centers and hubs of industrial chains in East Asia, Europe and North America, aggravating the already sluggish global economic recovery. Largescale shutdowns and the difficulty of promoting parallel progress in resuming work and production have exacerbated the dilemma of economic development. Moreover, the partial breakdown of industrial and supply chains has exposed the vulnerable foundation of the globalized economy,

which is determined by comparative advantages and market principles. This vulnerability, amplified by the widespread shortage of medical supplies in various countries, will reinforce the perception of industrial reorientation that some economies had planned before the pandemic, and will also drive policies and actions to reshape global industrial and supply chains. This means that the economic foundation of previous globalization will undergo a profound transformation.

On the one hand, the adjustment in the industrial layout of developed economies will witness a clearer direction of safeguarding economic and industrial security, and localizing the whole industrial chain will become a trend especially in emerging and strategic industries. Under the influence of market laws, the Trump administration’s plan of bringing manufacturing back to the United States was stalled and resisted by industries to varying degrees before the outbreak. However, the pandemic has exposed the problem that the US industrial chain is partially in foreign countries and almost out of control, which can be used by the US government to further promote industries back to America, and will create the new political correctness prioritizing “security” rather than “profits,” thereby eliminating resistance from the industrial community. The European Union had already launched its industrial development strategy prior to the epidemic, proposing the layout of whole-industrial chains and leading role in emerging industries such as the green and digital industries, as well as strategic industries including energy, electronics and infrastructure sectors. The pandemic will accelerate its pace. On the other hand, widespread shortages of medical supplies and other equipment during the pandemic will cause major economies to factor life, political, and supply security into their calculation of economic costs. They will not only bring the security-related medical and food industries into strategic consideration, but will also drive the supply chain clusters of key industries. The Trump administration’s stance on the production and supply of 3M medical masks can be seen as the direction of future supply chain adjustments in the US. The painful experience that the whole of Europe cannot produce a single paracetamol tablet and that 70

percent of medical protective equipment is produced outside Europe will also prompt the EU to be more active in its plan of transforming supply chains.

In this context, further “economic regionalization” is likely to replace the existing global industrial layout and division of labor, and become the economic basis and pattern of globalization in the future. The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) proposed by the US, the Pan-european economic zone promoted by the EU, and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) of Asia-pacific countries are the three pillars foreshadowing the new dynamics of globalization. However, this will still be a gradual and tortuous process. The prospect of economic regionalization should never be one of economic fragmentation, otherwise the benefits based on market comparative advantages will be completely wasted. Some views that equate the development of economic regionalization with “de-globalization” represent a one-sided and narrow understanding of globalization in conceptual terms, and are also hard to become a reality. At the same time, the ability to maintain a reasonable balance between security and profits will determine the legitimacy and sustainability of the new dynamic, since the generalization and absolute interpretation of security concepts will ultimately lead to market failures and damage to the economy itself, which in turn affects political and social stability. Certain arguments that view “de-globalization” as an approach to sever ties with China clearly also fail to understand the balance between security and profits. Therefore, in the aftermath of the epidemic, the fate of globalization will be determined by whether or not we could find a balance between motivation of regional economic dynamics and an equitable distribution of benefits, and propose reasonable and viable solutions.

The world is sickened by the pandemic. After the loss of many lives and so much suffering, the international community needs to recuperate, rebuild trust, and renew cooperation. The pandemic is a major test for all countries. We need to reform institutions and enhance capacity in response to both economic losses and governance dilemmas. This should be the direction in which the international landscape should change after the pandemic.