Geopolitical Experts (Jack Means)
Is COVID-19 a Geopolitical Game-Changer?
One March 24th, the Institut Montaigne published an opinion article by Michel Duclos, a former French ambassador to Syria. This article discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic may cause for a shift in the distribution of global power away from the US and EU, and towards China and other Asian countries.https://www.institutmontaigne.org/en/blog/covid-19-geopolitical-game-changer
Analysis: Fact Checking
Claim 1: "International institutions have entered a phase of weakening, due partly to an American withdrawal, and partly to discord among major powers."
This claim checks out. Since President Trump's election to office, the United States has been playing less of an international role by withdrawing from several agreements and institutions. These include: The Iran deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, the Paris Climate Accord, and even the UN council on human rights. These are all highlighted in this Washington Post article. This article also talks about other agreements and institutions the US may leave in the future. As for the claim of "discord among major powers", Duclos is mostly referring to Brexit, which has changed the role of the EU significantly, and created more hostility among the European Powers.
Claim 2: "China emerged from the ordeal while Europeans, now the main area of infection, were slow to implement drastic measures, while the Trump administration demonstrated its messy incompetence."
This claim is also true. However, since this article has been written, the United States has been hit much harder than Duclos seems to have anticipated. As of April 19th the US has over 750,000 confirmed cases, which is drastically higher than any other country. This is largely due to the fact that the only attempt at attacking the virus early on was by closing borders, as described in this Intercept article. By the time this was done, the virus was already well inside the country and beginning to spread. Despite all this happening after the US got to observe the very effective measures China deployed in combating the virus, the US applied none of those restrictions and left it to state governments to apply loose social distancing orders. This claim is very important to Duclos' argument because it shows that China has the ability to assist internationally, and the US is demonstrating that it may be unable to.
Claim 3: "It follows that the WHO is not playing the central role it should in the Covid-19 crisis. It was informed too late by China, to the detriment of other states' ability to react, and having to comply with Chinese injunctions before declaring a state of pandemic."
This claim seems to be mostly true. China was aware of the virus for a few weeks before declaring it as a pandemic, however at this point it's unclear whether that was in an attempt to hide it or just that they couldn't predict it would grow to pandemic size proportions. This article details how China failed to inform the world at a quick pace, and even suppressed some information from being circulated as well. However, it is also true that the rest of the world was watching China deploy extensive quarantine measures months before they started taking action. I remember seeing video of the hospital construction that was happening in Wuhan while I was still in my college dorm, at a severe risk of potentially coming into contact with someone infected. In summary, if China had acted faster I'm certain the pandemic would be less severe than it is, however this is not to blame the pandemic on the actions of the Chinese government, as there was still a lot of time for other countries to do anything in anticipation.
Claim 4: "In terms of policies, Italy, Germany and France aren’t following such a different line from China, even if the implementation is obviously less deprived of individual freedoms than is the case in the People's Republic of China."
This seems to be false. As we have read from Dr. Smith's study on action against these pandemics, it is specifically this necessary repression of individual liberties that is necessary to combat the virus. China has been willing to employ this, while other countries are not. Before the American quarantine began, President Trump explicitly stated that quarantine would be far too imposing on the collective way of life to be acceptable. We also see that China had constructed hospitals where the virus outbreak started, while the US healthcare system proves to be entirely inadequate in helping against the pandemic. This is an odd claim from Duclos because he also states that China has "emerged form the ordeal" while other countries were struggling, and as the benefit of living in the future has shown us, the United States has been devastated by this pandemic. So this seems to be false, but maybe with the benefit of hindsight Duclos would retract this statement based on his others.
Claim 5: "In the coming months, it will be difficult for policymakers and public opinion to focus their attention on anything other than managing Covid-19."
This is true in the case of the US. The corona-virus economic relief bill was just passed on April 24th, and the only thing passed before that was the COVID-19 relief bill that was effective April 1st. The US legislature has been slow in many ways to provide relief, but bills are passing regarding the pandemic.
Essay
COVID-19's Effect on Global Power
The wheels of power have been turning in the world for the past several years, and according to the global political community, this pandemic could be what brings in a completely new global power dynamic. Many figures in this community have raised this idea due to several key factors that we are going to analyze, hoping to better understand what is and isn’t true, and just how likely these outcomes could be. This community is responsible for the biggest decisions made in the world, so I thought it would be incredibly interesting to get an idea of how they are responding to this global pandemic.
Michel Duclos is a former French ambassador to Syria who wrote a piece for the Institut Montaigne, an independent French think tank. In this article he considers the world we find ourselves in. The United States has been participating much less in global politics, and the European Union is much more divided. A pandemic is a chance for countries to show muscle, and to show weakness. According to Duclos, it seems likely that this may be the tipping point in global favor away from the US and EU, and towards China. By comparing the responses to this crisis, we can get a very good idea of a country’s ability to act. Duclos wrote his article in the early stages of this pandemic, but his perspective is already easy to prove as true. Due to the preventative actions taken swiftly by China, and the lack of actions taken by the US, we now live in a world where New York alone has twice the number of coronavirus cases than all of China. This is a global show of “messy incompetence” according to Duclos, and this is important to him for the reasons it’s important to all of us – we all live in the same world. What happens to who holds power and who doesn’t will affect the entire world’s population. As Duclos perceives it, he has an interest in seeing that the US and EU retain their global power, which makes sense as he personally stands to gain from that outcome. He is a close member of the French political community and he stands to not only keep making a living, but to hold on to some amount of actual power. Just in the same way how members of the US political establishment are hoping to retain their power after this pandemic, and how members of the Chinese political establishment are hoping to gain power.
This piece is intended to be read by people who actively pay a lot of attention to political news, and it was only circulated through the Institut Montaigne, which is a think tank I had never heard of before this project so there is sort of barrier of obscurity to this piece. The facts that matter to these people are the specifics of how countries respond to this pandemic, as well as their own determination of which countries they want to support and condemn. Because of all this, these people have a knowledge of history and the way global institutions operate. Duclos himself has direct experience with this as being a former ambassador. However, Duclos does rely on a lot of information. As described in an article on global disease outbreaks by Dr. Smith, many different methods of attack are necessary against pandemic, which is something that Duclos stresses heavily. Since this is knowledge that we would expect people in power to be aware of, it is truly shameful behavior if a country cannot perform those necessary actions – which is what Duclos criticizes the western countries for not doing.
With that in mind, it seems that Duclos trusts academics and government officials all over the world, and he never explicitly states any groups that he distrusts. He is very aware of the “great power competition” between China and the US, so you could argue that he doesn’t trust everything each of these countries suggests about the other. Because of all this, Duclos seems to just have an interest in the world becoming a more global society that is led by those best capable of protecting the people of the world. Still, this doesn’t mean that he doesn’t conflict with others. His claim that China has been most competent in handling the pandemic is certainly true, but it’s not the truth that the western powers would care to openly acknowledge, so for Duclos to make this point in western publications would certainly draw some critiques.
This is an important perspective because it helps us to better understand how the world we are in is changing. These are changes that will affect the lives of billions, and it’s something that more people should be aware of so they can better understand the changes that will actually come to us in the future.
References
Duclos, M. (2020, April 3). Is COVID-19 a Geopolitical Game-Changer? Insitut Montaigne, retrieved from https://www.institutmontaigne.org/en/blog/covid-19-geopolitical-game-changer
This is a type of blog post from Michel Duclos on the Institut Montaigne website, which is an independent French think tank. Very early on in the article Duclos shares two main observations that he believes this pandemic is highlighting. The United States diminishing presence in the global political community, and "a shift in the centre of gravity of the balance of power towards China and Asia in general". This shows that Duclos is pretty aware of the current political situation, and has a keen interest in how COVID-19 is going to affect it. The main purpose is to highlight 3 potential outcomes Duclos believes can come out of this. These are that: the crisis is dealt with and things return to how they previously were, China sees a rise in global political power, or a reinvigorated United States launches some sort of counteroffensive to see that it remains the global superpower. The key idea is that the coronavirus outbreak is a real chance for global power to shift away from the United States and the EU. The main evidence for this is that the United States has already been playing less of a role in the global political community, and the European countries have been having increasing difficulty among themselves due to Brexit. During this crisis, some have even demonstrated outright hostility towards one another. While these are both true, China and other Asian countries have demonstrated a much more capable response to fighting this pandemic; and China has given an unprecedented amount of aid to other countries dealing with the pandemic since they have almost entirely defeated the virus. The author Michel Duclos has a history in the gloabl political community. He was formerly the French ambassador to Syria, and is now a contributor to various media sources. He clearly has experience in this field, so his way of thinking may be more representative of a quality prediction of the outcomes of this than other people.Duclos, M. (2020, March 26). Is China winning the coronavirus response narrative in the EU? Atlantic Council, retrieved from https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/is-china-winning-the-coronavirus-response-narrative-in-the-eu/
This is an article compiling several different experts' opinions on how the EU is responding to China's COVID-19 aid, but we are only focusing on the part by Duclos to get an idea of his other reporting on China's response to the coronavirus. This is published by the Atlantic Council, an American think tank that focuses on international affairs. The writes all concern themselves with the global implications of China's actions in response to the pandemic in this article, and each writer has a different perspective on that one topic. The purpose of this source was to get an idea for Duclos' other writing on this topic, and he is consistent with what he said in the last article. His main argument is that there is no European solidarity in response to the pandemic; and due to the fact that those countries are relying on aid out of China, they can't speak out against China in an attempt to secure power as they would risk losing very important aid. The key ideas are that China's power is rising as a result of this pandemic, and that this is demonstrably true by looking at how European countries are responding to Chinese aid. They have no interest in looking towards other countries within the union, which suggests that China is now in the number one seat for global superpower. It gives further insight into Duclos' ideas on China's response to the coronavirus and what those responses may result in.
Nkengasong, J. (2020). China’s response to a novel coronavirus stands in stark contrast to the 2002 SARS outbreak response. Nature Medicine, 26(3), 310-311. doi: 10.1038/s41591-020-0771-1
Dr. John Nkengasong is the director of African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (AfricaCDC). He's published several book chapters on HIV therapy in resource challenged areas, and has served on several international advisory boards.It conveys the information through a timeline of events on how China has handled the virus, and it compares it to China's handling of the SARS outbreak. That China has handled the virus outbreak very well as a result of the "strengthening of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention" . The key evidence is that China has been rapidly developing its outbreak response capabilities since SARS in 2002. Comparing coronavirus to SARS, China notified the WHO much quicker. It took them 4 months since their first case in 2002, and it's unclear still when their first case occurred, but it appears it only took them about 1 week to report so this time. They were also able to very quickly identify the virus and understand it, which they were not able to do back in 2002. I think this factual, honest telling of events shows some holes in Mandelbaum's prediction that China was incapable of acting quickly to the virus. It's useful to look at this information when looking at what anybody is saying about geopolitics, because people have many different interests in certain countries and parties over others.Smith, R. (2006). Responding to global infectious disease outbreaks: Lessons from SARS on the role of risk perception, communication and management. Social Science & Medicine, 63(12), 3113-3123. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2006.08.004
Richard Smith has received several awards, including one on a peer reviewed article he co-authored that focused on Lyme disease. A chemist who has an interest in infectious diseases, he is the director of proteomics research at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. This article focuses on the response from the general public and public health organizations to the SARS ourtbreak, along with how the role of media affected the puiblic response.The paper has several big ideas, but the one I want to focus on for this project is that the increasingly global world we live in will make it much more likely that infectious diseases can travel from country to country. However, there is also a benefit in that because the more global community has the potential to act much more efficiently than any one country could. The key ideas are that in time of pandemic, a very wide and diverse array of response techniques is necessary in order to effectively combat the pandemic. In the SARS outbreak, the EU lacked a comprehensive response, and as a result the public didn't trust the information they were receiving. Smith emphasizes things like timeliness, accuracy, and clarity to avoid these. Smith also recognizes that since action must be taken quickly, there may not be time to ensure that an order is 100% necessary or correct, so this may require curbing a few civil liberties. For example, in the SARS outbreak (and the COVID-19) quarantining was absolutely essential in limiting its spread. However, due to the potential violation of rights, this could either be met with resistance, or just never happen as the government is cautious to do something like that when they don't fully understand the outbreak yet. I think this provides a lot of needed insight into the history of how we respond to pandemics, and the needs of how we should respond going forward. This is relevant to Duclos' points because to understand if a country is having a good response to this current crisis, we must compare it to history. It also gives plenty of other good ideas on how countries could go about assessing risk when dealing with these problems.