COVID-19 and shift to the Bipolar World
By: Gopal Kumar
Tags: Coronavirus, China, Diplomacy, Covid 19, International Relations

COVID-19 and shift to the US-China Bipolar World

Ever since the collapse of USSR, any major deterrence to US has been widely seen as the ambition to balance powers in the global influence ranks. The US in the meantime has also emerged stronger by playing a major role in a lot of significant happenings, from fight against terrorism to building new vital relations.

In this period, fortune of many other countries have also changed and most of them are from Asia. India is no longer the oh so poor third world country, comparatively smaller countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam are writing economic success stories, China’s rise has been unprecedented and to the extent that it is in many ways attempting to balance the power globally. As the elections approach in the US, new fault lines are getting deeper with the Russia phenomenon already replaced with China mostly in the wake of COVID-19.

With the establishment of communist People’s Republic of China, this large country has tried and dominated its neighborhood quite substantially whether it’s been in the case of Tibet or take for instance 1962 Indo China war. There are very recent instances of minor conflicts between Chinese and Indian soldiers on the borders as well, the intentions of which are not clear but many experts believe that it might be an attempt to divert attention of the world and the people of China from the failures that lead to the COVID-19 pandemic becoming worst crisis of our times. While the debate about the future of China in global system after the pandemic ends is heated, there are dots which when connected seem to present signs of world becoming more bi-polar in the near future. At present, China is already out of the crisis, while most of the world is praying being unsure of when the peak would come and things get better. This gives China yet another economic opportunity, of exporting goods 'corona warriors' viz. masks, ventilators, PPE kits, etc. to the rest of the world. This quick recovery and new export avenues are expected to help avert the economic downtrend to some extent especially at a time when most of the major economies are poised to register negative growth rates.

Save some debate for another day but there is hardly any concrete evidence of companies moving out of China, at least for now, and so the decision of changing status quo of labour laws by many states primarily to attract foreign investments might not just be in vain but rather disastrous.

The People’s Republic of China has also been quick to fill in the gaps (which are more of easy opportunities) created by Donald Trump. It has pledged to increase the funding of World Health Organization to compensate for the United States pulling out on the allegations of the international body favouring China and not giving adequate warning in time. US state department few weeks back also suggested a minor nuclear test by the world’s most populated country. This case becomes more interesting when we see China comfortably denying any probe into the roots of the virus. If the world together cannot get a country for a genuine and much needed investigation like this, it suggests something very serious and sad. Data fudging by this economic giant has been in talks even among the common people and nobody considers China’s number to be reliable but to surprise and yet not to much surprise, no country says it out loud in the international community. Even the wet markets of Wuhan from where this all started are open again for more than a month now.

One question to which everybody is looking for answers is what will happen to the mighty Belt and Road Initiative(BRI)? Perhaps the most ambitious project by any country, this covers a large part of Asia and Africa going through many big and strategically significant nations. There is of course no simple explanation but China is not going back easily after having invested so heavily. With the worrisome economic condition expected for most of the countries, it presents China an option to get these BRI countries as their modern world colonies if they get into debt trap. But this will happen only when China is able to march ahead with project soon. Take into consideration a very likely situation of poor nations of Africa and Asia coming for loans from Asian Development Bank, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, New Development Bank, etc. and find who has got power and ability? No marks for guessing, China has a lot of stake and influence here also.

Now let’s talk about Asia a little bit. China’s illegal presence in a large part of South China sea is not hidden from anyone and even in such troubling times this has seen expansion. There are several earlier reports of artificial islands being created to claim international borders.

If with all this you get a clarity on something it’s perhaps on the truth that there is no limit to the ambitions especially when your power is in uptrend. Just a couple of weeks after the announcement of nationwide lockdown in India, stake buying by Chinese companies here was made compulsory to go through governement scrutiny in the wake of fears of China using this golden opportunity of getting in for lesser investments and larger share of the pie. Chinese Central bank had bought around 1% share in HDFC not so long ago. Another notable factor is the lesser loss to lives in the Asian countries as compared to the European ones. If a huge number of deaths had occurred in Pakistan, at least there may have been discontent in people there about China. It also has access to perhaps the most geopolitically vital nation of this region Afghanistan, through Pakistan. And the most recent win for China comes in the form of Taiwan, as it has been left out of World Health Assembly and not inducted as observer state at least for this time.

As any political system is not complete without the debate on vulnerable sections, Africa needs a special mention here. Though breathtaking headlines have not been reported from that region the impacts are not going to be pleasing. Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba has reached out to the Africa with his large donations and you should count that as a premium display of soft diplomacy. There is no need to remind of deep roots of Belt and Road initiative in Africa, the region which might also get some kind of economic support from China.

After we have discussed this all in detail, there are definitely few convincing signs for such a world order. The talks around multi polar world has been on for a long time, but threats to this theory in the wake of devastation caused by COVID makes way for a more bi-polar world than not. Many strong countries will take long time coming back to pre-COVID situations. Additionally, the major powers have also suffered loss so it makes catching up and covering gap for China bit easier. It is important to note that in any case this is certainly not going to be the copy of the world we saw after the end of World War II given the progress and new equations in the world politics especially given the absence of soft power with China. But if such a situation of US China bipolar world comes up then India’s role becomes more crucial and delicate in the daily changing world.

How the story unfolds is an interesting thing to look forward to, but no matter what happens the impact on our lives can be huge.