WithCOVID-19 pandemic almost convulsing the whole world, global cooperation and acollective response seems indispensable to negotiate multiple challengesarising out of this crisis. The challenges that range from public health toeconomic recovery, food security to unemployment demand a multilateralcooperation and global solidarity; instead of countries going solo and actingon their own. As UN Secretary General Antonio Guteress put it, “To prevailagainst the pandemic today, we will need heightened solidarity.”Unfortunately, more disharmony prevails in the world today, than solidarity!
The Pan-orld health crisis heralded by Corona Virus has in the meantime exposed thedeep divisions between and within countries. The situation has been exacerbatedby a deep campaign of anti-globalisation sentiment, erosion of a rule-basedinternational order, trade and technology wars between big powers and the riseof populist leaders who reject internationalism and pursue ultra-nationalistpolicies for their political benefits.
The acrimonybetween two global powers – US and China in the midst of this crisis served tounderline how geopolitics instead of cooperation remained the overarching reality.With their relations already in the downward spiral because of trade andpolitical tensions, the latest trigger was Donald Tump’s description of thevirus as “Chinese Virus” and his criticism of China’s mis(management) of theoutbreak. China’s retort was to cast such comments as “racist” and issue sternwarnings. It took a phone call frompresident Xi Jinping to Trump calling for cooperation, to calm down thetempers.
This, ofcourse is not the only development during the pandemic to illustrate the limitsto global cooperation and solidarity and how the world presents a spectaclewhere it is mostly every country only for itself!
Thispandemic, if not Brexit, left Europe unceasingly, in disarray; hardly withoutany sign of cooperation visible. The European Commission president Ursula vonder Leyen, acknowledged: “When Europe needed an all-for-one spirit, too manyinitially gave an only-for-me response.” A former Danish Prime Minister put itmore vehemently: The EU has “not passed the test of solidarity.” ImmanuelMacron, the French President warned of EU’s collapse if it did not put forwarda common response to stricken European economies.
Attemptsthat were made to forge global cooperation did not yield any results, apparentlyit seems so. The G-20 Video Summit in late March proved to be a damp-squib. Itwas expected that the Summit would at least, evolve a collective approach tothe Pandemic as was taken in response to 2008 global financial crisis, butexpectations were this time washed away.
SAARC, alsoonce again proved to be an ‘old man on the death bed’ as attempts by Modi, tocease the opportunity during this pandemic to ‘play Big Brother’ in South Asiaand implicitly evolve a joint approach to fight the common enemy was given acold shoulder by other countries, particularly Pakistan. Once again, anopportunity for forging multilateral cooperation in times of crisis was wastedand geopolitical concerns prevailed over pan-world crisis.
The mostdaring attack to multilateralism during the outbreak came, as was expected fromMr. Trump who levelled a stinging charge on WHO (the multi-lateral agencydealing with Corona Virus at present), of being “China-centric” and in the samebreath, called for “stopping the funding to the agency for mismanaging theoutbreak”. Trump’s earlier criticism prompted the head of the global healthbody, Tedros Adhanom, to warn against the “politicising the pandemic” to scorepolitical points.
The globalhealth agency was arguably caught napping in declaring Covid-19 a global healthemergency and may not have moved as swiftly as the escalating situationwarranted. But such unilateral action on the part of Trump at the criticalmoment was only the latest example of his contempt for multinationalorganisations. Let’s not forget, USA already stands aloof from UNHRC, UNESCO –the other two multilateral organisations which faced the same wrath from Trumpas WHO.
A visiblyshocked and beleaguered UN Secretary General has had to frequently remind afractured international community about the value of multilateral cooperationfor the common good. In response to Trump’s move against the WHO, he againcalled for unity, describing Covid-19 as “one of the dangerous challenges theworld has faced in our lifetime.”
Despitethese pleadings during and before the pandemic, international and globalcooperation seems in tantrums, with countries giving a damn to internationalcommitments and multilateral initiatives. What we, instead see is resurgence ofgeopolitical competition between the big-powers, declining respect forinternational rules and go-it-alone strategies of populist leaders who fortheir narrow political ends prefer unilateralism. The picture that emerges isan increasingly atomised international system devoid of global cooperation andsolidarity with no respect for rule-based international order. Interestingly,if we are to cope the challenges in the post-pandemic world, solidarity is amust or else, a Hobbesian world order awaits us!
Nadeem Khurshidi is a Research Scholar, at AMU Aligarh