Post COVID-19: Beijing Does Not Score Any Win; Washington Is Undefeated

The global pandemic caused by COVID-19 will have far reaching repercussions for international relations and with respect to the domestic structure of nations, between people and the authorities that represent them. Analysts are already mentioning the collapse of some nations and the rise of others, particularly the enormous rise of the Chinese economy and the decline of the West, especially the United States. The facts on the ground and future indicators are, however, not pointing in that direction and the facts are inconclusive.

In a previous article on March 9, titled “Corona Virus: The Nightmare that Will End Globalization,” I tackled the subject of how the pandemic will end globalization as it reshapes relationships at different levels. The secret that lies within the impending change is that citizens all around the world have become more aware. The effect of this awareness will differ from one country to another and from one political leadership to another. Its effect will be exponential in democratic countries and in countries which run national projects even if they are not deemed to be democratic, such as Iran.

TV programs in Spain, France, Italy and Belgium, and even the United States, are wondering with resentment and astonishment about whether countries will fail to produce enough medical masks and ventilators to save the lives of patients. This is a legitimate question to ask advanced countries, which have no excuse for not acting, and not weak countries. Some presidents had a positive reaction to these questions, including Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who recognized the gravity of the situation when he announced last Thursday that Spain would shift all of its resources and effort toward medical manufacturing so that it would not need help from any other country and would be able to maintain a strategic reserve for emergencies. A number of Western countries echoed these statements, especially those countries whose political leadership was aware of the situation. Citizens will therefore drive reconsideration of the economic model by reinstating local national production, after many countries looked to China and turned it into the largest global epicenter of manufacturing providing humanity with much of what it needs.

We therefore see Chinese planes carrying Chinese medical supplies to different countries and continents without hesitation in an effort to eradicate the virus. A number of international relations researchers, especially those involved in geopolitics, have raised new speculation about the collapse of the global world order due to the collapse of the Christian-Jewish culture, as suggested by the French philosopher Michel Onfray in a recent interview with the French magazine Le Point. Onfray didn’t hesitate to describe Europe as a third world country for having failed to provide a cure for everyone.

The global pandemic caused by COVID-19 is a turning point that comes before the collapse of the Christian-Jewish culture, an idea which Onfray focuses on in his book, “Decadence.” Onfray updates the thesis in German philosopher Arnold Spengler’s book, “The Decline of the West,” which has existed since the second decade of the last century. Some American writers for Foreign Policy agreed with this thinking that projects China will win and the U.S. will decline. Indeed, in the eyes of the whole world, China is the winner, even to most Americans, as China managed to contain the virus within three months and to provide aid to many countries, including Western countries such as Italy, France, Spain and Belgium. People are talking about China being the leader of a new future international order as history is made and written by the winners of the global coronavirus war. The deep state in the West, especially in the United States, which is against globalization and neoliberalism, considers the coronavirus an ally that best supports its position on a comprehensive self-sufficiency model similar to that of the 1960s and 1970s, with the exception that there was a need for raw material.

The world and the West are on the verge of reconsidering their mode of production, and will give priority to national-local production at the expense of international production and trade. The crisis has exposed the dependence on supplies provided through international trade, a practice which which also exposes people to risks, sometimes fatal, when one is dealing with pandemics, given that a large number of deaths in Italy and Spain are tied to the shortage of medical supplies like gloves, masks and ventilators.

Hence, there are two interconnected factors that will shape the geopolitical future. First, more countries are now aware of how important it is to be self-sufficient, which means that local production will dominate particularly because of the economic distress this pandemic might cause.

Countries are allocating large parts of their budgets to preserve production and mitigate collapse. This means betting on national projects and shrinking the number of imports to create jobs; this is the deep state’s major demand. Trump exploited this crisis to redirect local production to the needs of hospitals in the interim.

As for the second factor, the United States is trying to convince its allies that the pandemic is a historic chance to lessen the amount of dependence on China and to prevent it from becoming a global leader, given that it resists Western values and the fact that the time has come to enter a commercial cold war against the Asian giant. Theoretically speaking, the world perceives China as the leader, as it has contained the pandemic and provided support to dozens of countries.

The truth is, however, that China didn’t win. It is aware that it will see a decline in imports after the crisis is over, and the globalization which enabled it to be a pioneer in an export-based economy is nearing an end. The United States didn’t lose and China didn’t win. It is the headline for the the new post-coronavirus world, which will enter into an unprecedented commercial freeze shaped by marked polarization.