Is an Ideological Clash a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy?

Amid the recurrence of the COVID-19 contagion across the globe, prospects for forging coordinated and coherent multilateral cooperation remain abysmal. While the blame game over the virus origin still rages on, a new dimension of schism along ideological seams is becoming increasingly pronounced. Jingoistic drum beats accompanying abrasive geopolitical rhetoric have been gaining traction at the expense of international cooperation.

Is a face-off inevitable?

Having inherited the Trumpian legacy to a large extent, notably his anti-China stance, the Joe Biden administration did not mince words in portraying the world’s second largest economy as its worst adversary and the competition as the fight between liberal democracy and authoritarianism. The ensuing global onslaught of diabolical vilification against China by Washington