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By Fatima Yusufi
The corona virus pandemic intensified the rivalry between two major powers United States of America and China. While On one hand it has increased the international cooperation in order to overcome this threat but on the other hand, it has provoked the anger, mistrust and blame game among the major powers. The world saw a dramatic economic breakdown which had not experienced it throughout the history. Now the question is, will the post covid19 global village would be as same as we experienced at precovid19 era?
The pandemic which set the world in a tragic situation and put in danger the life of billions across the globe and yet no country has been abled to develop vaccine or any particular medication to it. The virus proclaimed to be expanded from a food market of Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei province China, a city with 11 million population. It didn’t take too long to target of American territory and her allies countries. In no time it left US to a most affected center and interestingly china when once was the epicentere of the pandemic become the safest place on earth to be protected from this deadly virus.
If we examine this pandemic from the lens of international politics, it looks like a new type of war mostly takes place between the major and super powers over superiority, but the type and its systematic targeting makes it different and difficult to figure out. Hegemonic wars over the history from anarchy, harsh power, Cold War and soft war concepts seems to be run out and thus we are entering/entered to the new race called Biological war, where there will be no more need of enriching uranium’s.
At the beginning Beijing did her best to camouflage the pandemic and arrest, threatened and expelled even the media outlets who reported about the impacts of this deadly virus, but at the end it couldn’t. Among other reasons US claims the secrecy of China helped the spread of Covid19. The question remains unclear, How China, the densely populated country with around 1.43 billion population as per worldometer, come across to bend the curve of this pandemic? Is it because of the mighty leadership or any secret agenda is behind? There are claims that the virus is been formulated in a Chinese laboratory, if the claim proved than for China’s economy harsh days are not too far.
As the World is experiencing a big slump in economy and countries are striving to stabilise their respective economies. IMF findings shows global GDP will decrease 3% this year and year after respectively while before covid19 there was 3% boost in world GDP. In addition, UN estimates $2 trillion shortfall in income and international labour organization has threatened the world that at the end of pandemic 0.5 billion people will lose their jobs globally. Meanwhile, the hub of global investments has benefited from the crisis. When corona was ascending at china the Shareholders, beneficiaries and owners of International companies based in the country were hesitant about the future of their businesses. After a month of pandemic the Xi Jinping regime announced they are ready to purchase all those shares if any one want to sell it due to the fear of pandemic. In result, China bought the shares several times less than its original values. How long the self made dramatic puzzle will help china?
If the rumours approved that the covid19 is Chinese lab fabricated virus than it would smite China’s economy in the way it has never experienced. On one hand, it will blur the China’s global image and would be countable to pay trillions of dollars to the affected countries. In addition, the China based international companies Google, Microsoft, Apple and Samsung mat shift their businesses outside china by September this year and it will definitely slump China’s production line. On the other hand, the world largest exporter hasn’t been able so far to deal with the double-headed demands of its consumers. Thus, it depicts china inability as a largest producer. Therefore, it force the consumer countries to rethink and search for alternative options, which in the long run will hurt China’s economy.
Politically, China wants to challenge the liberalist school of thought by targeting and weakening the world status of globalization, democracy and Capitalism. Since the rise of globalization from 1990s worlds become interconnected, thus called it a global village. Meanwhile, the outbreak has plunge the whole world into economic recession, trade has been halted and the global borders been shut in result of lockdowns, even European Union couldn’t cope collectively. Henceforth, the concept of globalization and interdependency severely criticized. But I think as the pandemic challenged the whole world at same time and become a global calamity, yet the globalization played its role efficiently. One thing which become vibrant in result of Covid19 is the shared challenge of the global village and I believe it will strengthen the ties among states for future challenges not distracting the interdependency of States. In addition, states are as like humans, different in ideologies and viewpoints, may choose own style of living but can’t exist in isolation. Moreover, we witness an increase in digitalise interactions. US based company Zoom that provides video conferences to facilitate online education, businessmen’s using digital applications and technology and online banking for their trade are the reasons that globalization will not fail.
We may not witness a new world order to emerge but can’t disregard the notable changes in the system. MNCs will lose its control on countries considerably, local governments will prioritize their domestic products despite of pressures..
The writer is a graduate of International Relations and women rights activist who writes on Afghanistan and global current Affairs.
