21 September 2020, NIICE Commentary 5995
Dr. Uma Purushothaman
History tells us that pandemics and plagues have the ability to change the world order. The COVID-19 pandemic promises or rather threatens to do much the same. While there are going to be no drastic changes in the world order, the pandemic will hasten some already present trends in the pre-COVID-19 world.
This paper summarizes some of these important trends. The first is that of globalization. As we all know it as one transformed into ‘Globalization with new Characteristics’. The pandemic brought home to countries across the world, the dangers of relying on exports, even for essential healthcare equipment and medicines. Countries, are now, therefore, trying to be self-reliant in these areas and aim to shorten their supply chains. So, there might be a decoupling between some economies. Free movement of people across borders are also getting affected. As recession takes hold of the world’s economies, more people from poorer countries have to migrate to the West, but are restricted with the fear of carrying the virus and taking over the constricted job market.
Second, multilateral institutions are losing their influence as countries are turning inwards instead of trying to solve the emerging global problems together. Third, COVID-19 has also exposed the US’ weak underbelly to the rest of the world: its terrible health infrastructure; systemic racism which is amplified, because the pandemic affected colored people disproportionately; a highly polarized society; and a President who is more focused on social media than governing. All of this has badly affected the US’ influence, moral authority and prestige, making its relative decline even more obvious.
Fourth, the world is undergoing through economic crises and we are going to witness a poorer world. Unemployment reflects some rather worrisome figures in the US and in India. This kind of economic turmoil can lead to upheavals in several countries and perhaps we will witness more states failing and more human rights violations with the rest of the world, not intervening to deal with the crisis. So, the global human rights agenda is likely to lose some resonance. There is also potential for conflicts among countries if leaders feel that they can act as necessary distractions from domestic troubles.
Fifth, this economic turmoil is probably exacerbating nationalist tendencies which are already on the upswing in several countries across Europe, the Americas and Asia. Countries, have shut their borders and banned exports of medical equipment. The Pandemic has also amplified existing national and ethnic divides and this could lead to persecution of ethnic minorities. We have already seen several instances of vaccine nationalism.
Sixth, the pandemic has also embedded the idea of a surveillance state with support from surveillance capitalism. Civil liberties are being threatened not only in authoritarian states, but also democratic ones. Governments have forced citizens to download tracking apps, some have tracked usage of credit cards and some have even resorted to facial recognition apps to track their citizens. Governments across the world have used the crisis to give themselves emergency powers, a scheme of moving further away from democracy. This stifling of civil liberties and assumption of emergency powers by states have led to domestic disturbances.
Seventh, the intensified and intense great power rivalry between the United States and China will dominate geopolitics. This could take the shape of an ideological battle between China’s authoritarian state capitalism and the US’ open-market democracy. If China emerges out of the pandemic stronger than the US, its model will become much more appealing. On its part, China has already announced a “Health Silk Road,” so that it can lead coordinaed efforts in public health matters and has been sending medical equipment and aid to the US allies in Europe. These allies are already unhappy with the US’ strong handed tactics to obtain medical supplies for itself like paying more than the market price and blocking shipments to firms which had already signed purchase agreements. The pandemic has exposed the weaknesses and strengths of governments across the world; those which have good state capacity and competent bureaucracies and leaders have done better. So, people might turn towards the state again for public goods and social safety nets, leading to the return of the Welfare State as Francis Fukuyama suggests. Finally, the liberal international order might not function in the same way as before. John Ikenberry says that the Liberal International Order has always been tied to US power. So, US decline will contribute to the erosion of this order. The ‘America First’ policy of President Donald Trump has already undermined the rules-based liberal international order to some extent. In fact, the US itself has been attacking the liberal international order by pulling out of the Paris Climate Change Agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action deal with Iran and by leaving multilateral institutions like the WHO, UNHRC, and UNESCO. In fact, even before Trump, the US carried out attacks on Serbia and invaded Iraq without approval from the United Nations Security Council, thus challenging the norm of sovereignty in international politics. Under Trump, it has also been fighting with its allies as well as with rivals like China and Russia. The Chinese too have attempted to overturn norms of the liberal international order through their actions in Hong Kong, the South China Sea and the India-China border. Russia too has acted against global norms, particularly in Ukraine as has the rest of the West.
Hence, we are going to witness a world which is much more turbulent, less liberal, less open and less free, as Stephen Walt says. How can India navigate these trends? India needs to see if it can convert this crisis into opportunity. This is an ideal time for India to move towards ‘self reliance’ or ‘atma nirbhar’ as Prime Minister Modi has already said. But building domestic capacity will take some time. More digitization in the world could lead to more opportunities for India’s IT sector. India could also use this opportunity to build infrastructure-physical, health, digital and manufacturing and this could help reduce unemployment. The silver lining for India is that oil prices will likely remain low for some more time and so it will have less budgetary constraints to do this infrastructure building. Like in most countries, surveillance is likely to increase in India.
On the foreign policy front, India should continue to pursue Multi-Alignment and play on all sides. It can carve an independent space for itself and showcase leadership as a middle power at a time when the great powers are not showing leadership. So, it should promote middle power coalitions or coalitions of the willing and plurilateral like the India-Japan-Australia trilateral idea of a supply chain pact/ special purpose alliances; New Delhi should see this crisis to increase influence in International Organizations and make them more representative and try to shape global agenda. Last, but not least, it needs to prioritize its relations with South Asia because in order for it to focus on economic growth and emerging as a middle power, it needs peace in its periphery.
