How COVID-19 will break globalisation
Your iphone made in Shenzhen – good. Your face mask also made in Shenzhen – bad
In 2014, I travelled to Bangkok to meet larry Brilliant , the epidemiologist who led the World Health Organisation team in South Asia that eradicated smallpox. Brilliant was there as part of a mission to bring together government, private sector and citizens to develop digital tools for the early detection of disease outbreaks. There was excitement about using mobile healthcare apps to assist public health officials with spotting early indicators of deadly pathogens.
Following the outbreaks of SARS in 2002 and swine flu seven years later, governments across the world had promised action to prevent the widespread dissemination of zoonotic diseases. But governments moved on to other matters. It wasn’t until 2014, when the Obama administration set up a fund to support low-income countries grappling with the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, that an international effort was established.
In Bangkok, Brilliant and his team repeated numerous times that any effort to prevent the spread of a fast-moving pathogen must be transnational. Geographic boundaries exist, but the world’s topography can also be mapped through infrastructure. The spread of pathogens is possible because of our highly interconnected world.
In the case of SARS, a patient in Guangzhou passed the infection on to a doctor, who travelled to a wedding in Hong Kong. He then passed the disease to some guests at the hotel where he was staying. One of them was a 78-year-old Canadian who flew back to Toronto and died eleven days later after passing the condition on to her son. The virus spread throughout the hospital where the son was treated. Over the following weeks, there were at least six transmission chains in Canada; 400 people became seriously ill,
25 000 were placed in quarantine, and 44 died.
If the COVID-19 crisis has taught us anything, it’s that highly-functioning governance matters and that tackling highly infectious diseases requires an exceptionally coordinated international response. However, the epidemic has arrived at a time where many countries have turned inward. The fracturing of the Us-china relationship, the rise of populism in Europe, Brexit, an isolationist United States, nationalist India, a secretive and authoritarian China, and Russia toying with decoupling itself from the global internet are destabilising forces at a time when cooperation is imperative.
Trust and transparency are crucial assets for democracies, but in China, the attitude to governance is different: control is paramount. Recent reports suggest that China may not have been entirely open regarding the scale and severity of the outbreak. According to Bloomberg, US Intelligence sources reported that “China concealed the extent of the Coronavirus outbreak in its country, underreporting both total cases and deaths.”
‘I think that’ll do more to speed up the decoupling process than President Donald Trump would’ve ever been able to secure,’ says Steve Tsang, the Director of
the China Institute at the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies. ‘When this is over, I wouldn’t be surprised if, not only the US but governments in Europe start to review their relationship and policies towards China.’
over the Past year, the trade War Between Washington and Beijing has threatened to fracture the relationship between the two largest economies in the world. While there’s been no food crisis in industrialised nations, there have been shortages – of vital commodities such as medical equipment as well as information – that have hampered the global effort. This questions the role of the state in both the free market, liberal economies of the West and that of the one-party, command and control version in China.
‘The decoupling process began with the Us-china trade war and the Coronavirus, in the short term, accentuates the tendency for that policy to be supported,’ says Yukon Huang, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and formerly the World Bank’s country director for China. ‘People [in the US] are going to be looking at the virus and questioning the [lack of] availability of medicines, equipment and masks. Why doesn’t the US have the capacity to produce these things in bulk?’
The reason Western nations have experienced shortfalls of both protective equipment for frontline healthcare workers and the necessary medicines and chemicals to make, say, hand sanitiser, is the same reason your iphone is made in Shenzhen: globalisation has meant that manufacturers – from electronics to apparel, packaged goods to healthcare – have pursued the relatively cheap labour costs available in China. Yuang points out that, in a time of crisis, the state has a critical role to play in ensuring that essentials such as medicines are available. In the West, pharmaceutical giants focus research and production on new treatments that are profitable. Reproducing generic medicines isn’t a money-spinner, so the production falls to countries such as China and India where the mass volumes make it economically feasible.
‘It’s not about the US having the capacity to produce vital supplies,’ Yuang says. ‘The question is, how do you make sure they’re available? And, if you can produce this, who’s going to cover the costs?
the devastating Impact of the Coronavirus on the healthcare systems of the Western world isn’t just a medical and human catastrophe. It also undermines democratic states: resources are diminished, economies weakened, trust is devalued. The last part is the most damning aspect of Trump’s dismal handling of the crisis. As a result of his mendacity and advocacy for conspiracy theories, Anthony Fauci, the expert on diseases leading America’s response to the pandemic, now faces threats to his safety.
The Chinese response – first obfuscation, then ruthless enforcement of lockdowns, using surveillance as a form of contact tracing and preventing the spread of information that could lead to panic – has been followed up by a campaign intended to persuade the world of its good intentions.
‘When the Chinese government started taking the virus seriously in late January, they set up a top-level committee with one member representing a portfolio: one for public health, the economy, public security, Central Office, the State Council central office, foreign affairs and the city of Beijing, but two responsible for propaganda,’ says Tsang. ‘That doesn’t mean public health or the economy wasn’t a priority – they were represented, but the main goal was to distract from previous failures.’
Supplies of ventilators and masks to European countries can be viewed either as humanitarian efforts, or ways of leveraging its influence in areas such as decisions around 5G networks. There’s also a question around the efficacy of these supplies – they’re produced by uncertified companies and may fabricate products that won’t protect frontline workers. But there have been other exploits that can’t be classified as mere soft power exercises.
In April, Beijing refused to renew the press credentials of 13 journalists, including reporters from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. Naturally, Trump turned to prejudice, using the phrase “Chinese virus” as a way of removing himself from his comments about the Coronavirus being a “hoax”.
This crisis was an opportunity for the
US to lead as it did in the response to Ebola. Instead, it only saw the severe impact on citizens woefully late. It also finds itself fighting the pandemic when China is shifting the rhetoric around its missteps by love-bombing nations with assistance. This will be more evident when the next wave of the virus hits vulnerable nations. Populous cities such as Cairo, Lagos and Kinshasa are perfect environments for a highly transmissible disease.
‘China will take over as the sole power able to provide supplies to areas in Africa and the Middle East,’ Tsang says. ‘An unsafe face mask or unreliable test kit is better than nothing at all.’
Researchers’ response has also been localised instead of global. Europe, with its public healthcare and generous social welfare systems, showed it wasn’t unprepared.
‘This will probably lead these nations, and others, to reconsider the extent of dependence the US and China since COVID-19 is, among other things, a shock that’s disrupted supply chains,’ says Linda Yueh, the Chair of the
LSE Economic Diplomacy Commission.
Every government has had to play a game of catch-up to respond to the challenges of this emergency. ‘We’ve done very poorly in terms of preparing for it,’
Tsang says.
As the demand side of the economy contracts, Asian countries that responded effectively might be most affected in the medium term as their economies are dependent on trade. ‘China’s the
‘Globalisation has meant that manufacturers – from electronics to apparel, packaged goods to healthcare – have pursued the relatively cheap labour costs available in China’
single largest beneficiary of globalisation, so it’ll probably be the largest loser,’ Tsang says.
The long-term context is the legacy we’ll be left with. Following China’s use of surveillance, it’s not inconceivable that Europe will regulate this technology less robustly than before; China may learn that transparency’s more powerful than shipping masks to Europe; the White House that science and strong institutions have their place. Supply chains will be shorter. Medical supplies will be stockpiled. The immediate crisis will be averted. Beyond that, we’ll demand that the government layers resilience through every aspect of our society.
–