<![CDATA[Will the US, China and Russia come together to shape a new world order post-coronavirus?]>
If we know anything about the post-pandemic world, it is that it will be "different", and that three countries " the United States, China and Russia " will be decisive in shaping it, for better or worse.
These three countries are not only the most powerful strategic, military and, in two of the three cases, economic players of our time but they are also countries whose governments think and operate in "rule-setting" ways. Each of them will carry an effective veto on the world-building plans of the other two.
What would frustrate any collaboration between Washington, Beijing and Moscow to rebuild the world after Covid-19? Answer: ever-deteriorating trust and the consolidation of ideological "belief" within the strategic elites and commentariats of the three countries.
What may nudge these same three capitals into a common post-Covid mega-agenda? Leadership or the spectre of common, total economic or systems collapse.
US President Donald Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Photo: TNS alt=US President Donald Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Photo: TNS
If the US today has, by far, the most capricious leadership, China's is the least transparent and Russia's the most unstable " a function of President Vladimir Putin's still-unresolved succession challenge.
On the other hand, the US still enjoys the world's most formidable economic resources and innovative class (including the science to solve the coronavirus problem), while China has the most coherent and cohesive machinery of state power (domestically and internationally) and Russia the most crafty, with significant ramp-up or "mobilisation" capacity.
Ideologically, the anti-Chinese posture of the US, already strong since the advent of President Donald Trump, has only intensified as the coronavirus emergency evolved. American calls for a "reckoning" with " or aggressive "decoupling" from " China will only grow once the dust settles.
In China, distrust of the Trump administration is at an all-time high and the sense of national survival and resilience triggered by the countrywide effort to fight the pandemic will have become ever acute.
Russia's pivot towards China will have been solidified by this emergency, but it remains a partial one, as the Russian psyche is endurably European in orientation and the bilateral relationship with Beijing is plagued in the medium term by a fundamental asymmetry in capabilities " typically in Moscow's disfavour.
US President Donald Trump addresses the daily coronavirus task force briefing at the White House in Washington. Photo: Reuters alt=US President Donald Trump addresses the daily coronavirus task force briefing at the White House in Washington. Photo: Reuters
Still, stranger things have happened than Trump (or a Democratic successor), Xi Jinping and Putin (or a near-term successor) coming together to sit around a table in, say, Singapore or Australia, to solve some pressing post-Covid problems in tactical terms or, better still, to invest in a strategic "rebuilding", "refurbishing" or "restitching" of international institutions and the international order.
FDR, Stalin and Churchill distrusted each other greatly " to say nothing of their respective teams, bureaucracies and societies. So too did Nixon and Mao. Or, more recently, Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
What would they discuss? First and foremost, a revitalisation or recreation of international health and emergency management institutions, to ensure that the next international pandemic (even if it is imminent) has maximum transparency of information, sufficient resourcing in microbiological talent, pharmaceuticals, and medical and logistical assets.
Concurrently, they must draft the architecture of a historic international economic package " including massive joint projects and ventures, public and private alike " to restart broken economies around the world.
Brand-new institutions need to be created in cyberspace (free speech versus reasonable national control over internet infrastructure), refugee management, space, energy and renewables, as well as "interstitial" theatres like the Arctic and the peripheries connecting the former Soviet space to Europe and Asia.
The Middle East lacks a core regional security framework, and so too does East Asia. Multiple failed or highly weakened states in Eastern Europe (Ukraine and Belarus), Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan), South Asia, Southeast Asia (Indonesia and the Philippines), Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean will desperately need economic and administrative help to restabilise " and to avoid destabilisation of larger states and systems.
Let this revised post-pandemic order still be called the "liberal international order" " or, better still, "liberal international order " take two".
Despite its imperfections, inequalities and pathologies, the international order and logic that preceded the pandemic was still the most peaceable, productive and organised order in human history, having connected humanity through communications, transport, trade and learning, and having drawn billions " starting in Asia " out of poverty and into the good life.
The stabilising achievements of the United Nations, European Union and Asean must be consolidated.
Increasingly interlocking conflicts in Northeast Asia, the former Soviet space and the Middle East could still tear the world further asunder. The three great powers would be wise to settle one or more of these conflicts quickly en route to bigger achievements in the post-Covid world.
Irvin Studin is Editor-in-Chief of Global Brief Magazine and President of the Institute for 21st Century Questions (Toronto)
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
Copyright (c) 2020. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
