For the past three months, Melbourne, the metropolitan area of nearly five million people, and capital of the Australian state of Victoria, has been under one of the world’s tightest lockdowns.
Japan’s new prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, has arrived with a suite of ambitious policy ideas, including plans to digitise government services and revive the country’s regional banks. But he has yet to come up with an overarching theme that strikes a chord with the public.
There is no single future until it happens, and any effort to envision geopolitics in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic must include a range of possible futures. I suggest five plausible futures in 2030, but obviously others can be imagined.The End Of The Globalised Liberal OrderThe world order established by the United States (US) after World War II created a framework of institutions that led to a remarkable liberalisation of international trade and finance.
The modern international financial system emerged from the devastation of World War II. Since then, it has continued to be shaped by historic slumps – most recently, the 2008 global financial crisis.Today, the COVID-19 pandemic is putting the global financial system to another stringent test.
Research to develop a safe, effective, and widely available COVID-19 vaccine is advancing rapidly. But when it will happen is not clear. Much depends on how we govern the production and distribution of new drugs.
Asia is home to many exemplars of small but effective government, countries where sound policies and strong institutions underpin economic stability and robust growth. But during the COVID-19 crisis, many are pursuing expansive macroeconomic interventions and implementing measures that infringe on privacy. They are perched on the edge of a slippery slope.To be sure, extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.
There is a growing consensus that one or more COVID-19 vaccines will become available at some point in early 2021. Within a year, many people in the United States (US), and some other countries, will be vaccinated. For some childhood diseases, the development of a vaccine was by itself decisive.
When I was governor of Hong Kong, one of my noisiest critics was Sir Percy Cradock, a former British ambassador to China.
As COVID-19 spread earlier this year, governments introduced lockdowns in order to prevent a public-health emergency from spinning out of control.
China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, recently declared that aggression and expansionism have never been in the Chinese nation’s “genes.” It is almost astonishing that he managed to say it with a straight face.
In any normal year, I would be in New York City now for the annual opening of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). The event represents the greatest concentration of global policymakers in one place and is the high point on the diplomatic calendar. But this year is far from normal, and “UNGA week” is going virtual with events held online – a familiar format for us all in recent months.
Now almost in its tenth month, the COVID-19 pandemic is still wreaking havoc on economies and lives around the world. But while the end of the crisis seems as far away as ever, the fact is that we are approaching a potential turning point. World leaders now have an opportunity to seal the deal on a global framework that puts international cooperation above vaccine nationalism in stopping the pandemic. The moment of truth was at midnight on 18 September.
