COVER STORY/CORONAVIRUS

making globalisation dangerous. Dangers like pandemics are the spillovers of globalisation. Integration of China with the world economy, 1.4 billion tourists, business travelers around the world every year are not only spreading good things, but also spreading bad things. Take the case of pandemics like that of the COVID-19. The rapid growth of cities like Mumbai and Wuhan which have airports means that anything that happens in these cities can go across the world in just a few days. And this is what we are seeing in this pandemic. This spread is not only in pandemics, we saw this spread in the financial crisis in 2008 too, cyber viruses which are spread around the world are another example, and there are also existential unintended consequences of rapid growth coming from globalisation, like climate change.

The answer is not de-globalisation. The answer is not to build high walls. There is no wall high enough even for mighty countries like India, China and the US to keep out the great threats in the future. These are the threats such as climate change, pandemics and financial crises. These high walls keep out ideas, technologies, vaccines and finance. What is missing from globalisation is political globalisation and human globalisation. We need to recognise that the world is as strong as its weakest links. We have countries turning their backs on the United Nations. This is not fit for the 21st century. Global agencies are doing their best, but their shareholders, the governments, are not reforming and empowering them. That is the challenge.