Post COVID-19 world order

The #COVID19 virus’s does not recognize borders. 

As Henry Kissinger says in this piece in the Wall Street Journal (April, 3, 2020),

"No country, not even the U.S., can in a purely national effort overcome the virus....

Addressing the necessities of the moment must ultimately be coupled with a global collaborative vision and program...

The pandemic has prompted an anachronism, a revival of the walled city in an age when prosperity depends on global trade and movement of people."

This is a conundrum, not the least because Henry has a blind side to the Chinese regime that he helped legitimize (for good or for ill).

It also comes amidst a new Cold War with China.

In a future world order of independent sovereign states pursuing their own self interest but keeping the peace by balancing power, our (more resilient) future may (and probably must) depend on China 'changing its colours' from red to blue and the US changing its mantra from 'America First' to 'kumbaya'.

I doubt the latter will or should happen before the former. Here's the 'rub'; what is the game plan if it doesn't?

The PRC's trajectory to more world conflict will probably dictate future events.

CCP aggression internally and externally

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) controls every aspect of life in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Its treatment of its own people (Christians Muslims and non Han Chinese, is a breach of international human rights standards). It's invasion and suppression of Tibet is an ongoing war crime.

See generally Steven Mosher's book "Bully of Asia: Why China's Dream is the New Threat to World Order". Whilst I do not subscribe to his central thesis that China has always wanted to be a hegemon, his analysis of the CCP's policies in the modern era certainly leave the PRC open to that ambition now that China has 'stood up' and thrown off the ignominy of dominance by Western imperialism in times past. It reflects the cultural mindset that animates the PRC's foreign policy and propaganda narratives being pumped out by the CCP.

The PRC's flouting of International Law of the Sea in the South China Sea is a harbinger of coming kinetic engagement with the rest of the world.

It's the actions of this unaccountable authoritarian regime that will probably make the decision for us in a post COVID-19 China-cynical world as to what the new post COVID-19 world order will look like.

How will the actions of the CCP map the future world order?

The CCP will cause a shift in the global world order by continuing to assert its power beyond its borders. They will do this probably by 'pushing the envelope':

• unleashing the PRC's pit bull, Kim Jong-un and his missiles
• continuing Sino-imperialism in the South China Sea,
• weaponizing the Belt and Road program
• buying up Western assets by use of their sovereign funded front companies, and
• attempting to incorporate Taiwan by force into a greater China.

All these overt provocative actions of trying to establish Sino-hegemony on a global scale will probably be matched by more covert operations such as:

• increasing the infiltration of CCP controlled Huawei 5G technology and
• expanding spies, operatives and influencers in Western universities and institutions.

PRC-distancing

The failure of the People's Republic of China to be good global citizen has been clearly shown in :

• its cover up of the #Coronavirus contagion in its crucial first months (not unlike the Chernobyl communist playbook),
• the export of the virus by allowing infected Wuhan Chinese to travel around the world,
• its criminalizing of Chinese doctor whistle-blowers,
• the obfuscation of the figures since,
• the importation of PPE from other nations by CCP operatives leaving countries like Australia with shortages in their hospitals and
• the export of sub-standard and faulty PPE back to the West after the contagion was ostensibly controlled in Wuhan.

That failure as a responsible state will lead to a COVID-19 blow-back and 'PRC-distancing' by other countries (even indirectly by nation states becoming more self reliant in manufactured goods) if not demands for "reparations".

A combination of PRC aggression and PRC-distancing will thus probably lead to a mis-step by CCP cadres who will start kinetic engagement with the West either out of losing face on the failure of some of their plans or by the world turning away from China.

War is a horrible prospect more devastating than any pandemic. However PRC's trajectory is on that path thanks to the CCP negligence and authoritarian cultism, just as surely as its Chernobyl style cover-up of the Corona Virus has lead to the preventable deaths and economic misery of millions all around the world.

Let us hope that the Chinese people will finally 'stand up' against tyranny of the one party state and avoid this trajectory that the CCP have put China on and be a free and welcomed global citizen in a more co-operative and transparent world order in a post COVID-19 era.

https://www.henryakissinger.com/articles/the-coronavirus-pandemic-will-forever-alter-the-world-order/