Recent announcements of demonstrated efficacy in COVID-19 vaccine trials have brought hope that a return to normality is in sight.

Americans don’t agree on much of anything nowadays. Yet they are largely united in their belief that China represents an existential challenge to their country and the international order it has long led.

Our geological epoch, the Anthropocene, in which mankind is shaping the fate of the planet, is characterised by existential threats. Some are addressed in action plans such as the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

In his video address to the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in September, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a slight improvement of China’s 2015 Paris climate agreement pledge: national carbon dioxide emissions should now peak before 2030 rather than around 2030.

Devising an effective strategy to compete, cooperate, and co-exist with China will be one of United States (US) President-elect Joe Biden’s toughest foreign-policy challenges. And over the next two months, Sino-American relations are almost certain to get worse.

It is already apparent that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic will be uneven, with poorer countries bearing the brunt of the fallout. This includes the 1.2 million children in Bangladesh who are engaged in the harshest forms of child labour. In such uncertain times, these children – and millions of others elsewhere – are even more vulnerable to exploitative and hazardous work. The reason is simple.

On 14 October, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the southern city of Shenzhen, where he delivered a speech celebrating 40 years of progress since the special economic zone (SEZ) was established there and set a path for the future. A month later, Xi headed to Shanghai’s Pudong district – which was designated China’s first “new area” 30 years earlier – for the same purpose.

For much of its life, the United Nations (UN) has hidden behind the comfortable maxim that, “If we didn’t have it, we would have to invent it.” Now at the venerable age of 75 (old enough to have been a 2020 US presidential candidate), the organisation still enjoys widespread approval in global opinion polls. But beneath the surface, the UN faces difficulties that cannot be ignored. Judging by traditional and social media, the issues that the UN pushes tend to get little traction.

Although COVID-19 infections and deaths are surging in many parts of the world, recent announcements of apparently successful vaccine trials have offered a light at the end of the tunnel.

Once United States (US) President-elect Joe Biden’s administration has made the relatively easy decisions to rejoin the Paris climate agreement, remain in the World Health Organization (WHO), and attempt to reboot the World Trade Organization (WTO), it will confront three key foreign-policy issues.