10 April 2020, NIICE Commentary 4016
Rushali Saha
The world has come to a standstill, as the global population is confined in some form or the other, to evade the wrath of COVID-19 which, according to World Health Organisation (WHO), as of 10 April, it has claimed more than 82 thousand lives with more than 14 million cases globally. The aggravated nature of the infectious disease is being attributed to inadequate planning, incompetent leadership at the global level, exacerbated by living in an interconnected ‘global village’. This has turned out to be common threat to humanity which demands a coordinated global response, but ironically, countries around the world are not only closing their borders but are looking more and more inward, as they desperately want to ‘flatten the curve’.
COVID-19 has been an eye opener bringing to the fore, the failure of global governance institutions like the WHO. With many commentators suggesting an apparent politicisation of the independent organisation indicative from the fact that current Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, former Ethiopian foreign minister, is the first person to hold the position who does not have a medical degree. State leaders have come out and openly expressed their dissatisfaction with the organisation’s delayed response. Japan’s Deputy PM Tarō Asō, critically slammed the organisation when he said ‘Rename WHO as Chinese Health Organisation’. The United Nations Security Council, the only international organ mandated to issue ‘binding’ decisions upon state parties and is authorised to use force to enforce them, previously played an important role in the Ebola epidemic in 2014 in Africa but has been deafeningly silent over the COVID-19 pandemic. This is due to the US-China rivalry playing out at the multilateral level, which although not new is disappointing, as political considerations overtake humanitarian considerations at the cost of thousands of lives being lost each second. The latest response from the leaders of the G7 was a statement which said that countries may require ‘national emergency measures’ but were committed to the ‘stability of global economy’ without elaborating much on concrete measures which needs to be taken. Meanwhile the G20 leaders have agreed to invest USD 5 trillion into the global economy which is undoubtedly a positive step but the situation demands more than just fiscal measures.
Nevertheless, we cannot forget that ultimately these global institutions are constituted by nation-states and their collapse has to be attributed to the failure of nation states acting collectively. No country has come forward to fill the void and the absence of the US from its traditional conductor role in this global crisis is particularly acute. Following the collapse of Great Britain the void in the international system was replaced by an intense bipolar competition between the Soviet Union and the US. Immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world witnessed a moment of unipolarity with the US as the sole hegemon. In such world order, one state becomes so powerful that it can exercise leadership or dominance over the international system. The debates around the collapse of the US’s leadership is not novel, in-fact President Trump came to power under the ‘America first’ banner together with moves such as withdrawal from FTA’s, questioning the effectiveness of longstanding multilateral alliances such as NATO, was seen as indicating the US voluntarily abdicating its historic leadership role. But in an uncertain world, fighting an alien virus, the absence of the US, in what is still largely a US-led liberal order operating on the Bretton Woods system, is acutely being felt.
The demise of American leadership is undoubtedly intertwined with the narrative of the ‘Rise of China’ which is seen as the closest competitor to the US. While this provides China an opportune moment to capitalise on the void to establish its credentials as a global power, COVID-19 has taken a huge toll on the Chinese economy and population and many state and non-state actors have blatantly blamed China for hiding crucial information in the early days of the virus spread which could have provided other states the crucial time to take preventive steps. After controlling the spread domestically, China has gone out of its way to spin the narrative of being the creator of this virus to being a ‘global saviour’ by embarking on a highly publicised campaign supplying medicines to European nations such as Italy when it was ‘abandoned’ by its European brothers. However, there is little evidence of positive behavioural change of countries towards China, especially as more evidence is pouring in about faulty Chinese equipments and China seems to be losing the international blame game battle on the origin of the virus. The EU, already weak from the gruelling Brexit negotiations and subsequent withdrawal of Britain, has been paralysed into indecision.
India, however, has stood out for its globalism in this pandemic, successfully constructing a South Asian response as Prime Minister Modi reached out to SAARC member countries and proposed a joint strategy, contributing USD 10 million, and outstripping Chinese diplomatic efforts in the region. Indian government acted fast in evacuating its citizens from high risk countries like China, Japan, Italy and others. India has long fought for multilateral cooperation on global issues since the days of Nehruvian non-alignment and this provides New Delhi an opportunity to stake its claims to global leadership but the burdens of its own domestic problems is definitely bogging it down. It has completed among the lowest tests per million populations and a hastily planned lockdown which has left the poorest migrant workers at maximum risk. It is clear that there is no straitjacket answer to who will emerge as the winner in the geopolitical battle unleashed by COVID-19 pandemic but from the present scenario it is evident that there is a shift from the West to the East with China acting fast in various geographies, from donating kits in Namibia to emergency anti-epidemic medical supplies in Bangladesh, to accelerate its claims to leadership but the question of culpability will definitely haunt it for a long time.
The role of a global leader is to maintain status quo, global order, create institutions at the international level and the current system has evolved through years of the US and Europe cooperating to create a liberal order and the sudden vacuum created by the West ceding leadership places the entire system under threat. The world is witnessing significant changes which will transform the world as we know it, while it is too soon for definitive answers; it is safe to say that post COVID-19, the world will be less open, less prosperous and less free. Amidst these uncertainties, a global leadership deficit looms large when global action seems to be the only way out. However, laws of physics together with our historical experience suggest that the vacuum will be filled, instead of fearing a power transition tussle between the US and China. There is the need for global collective leadership, and not dominance.
