高飞、王冬文章英译文

The Post-COVID-19 Situation of the World and China’s Response

By Gao Fei and Wang Dong

The year of 2020 witnessed a “great pandemic unseen in a century”breaking out globally and spreading continuously,which has posed not only a huge threat to the health and lives of mankind,but also a formidable challenge to the global public health system.In addition to exposing many problems in the f ield of international politics,the pandemic also accelerated the evolving trend of the world order.In the post-COVID-19 era,the international balance of power is to undergo profound changes,geopolitics will return,multilateral cooperation will be faced with serious challenges,and the international order is to take on new characteristics on the basis of existing trends.In the face of such a complex international situation,how to correctly understand the changes,scientif ically respond to the changes,and actively initiate changes have become major tasks of China’s diplomacy.

First,globalization and anti-globalization will continue to confront each other.In the context of the spreading COVID-19 pandemic,Western countries have successively adopted policies of massive contraction,strengthened their “economic sovereignty”,boosted local production in key industries such as pharmaceuticals and medical equipment,and been much concerned with the localization and regionalization of industrial and supply chains.Encouraged by protectionist and isolationist policies,antiglobalization and de-globalization will become the major trends in the near and medium term,while globalization will be at low ebb.As diplomacy is the extension of domestic politics,the rise of anti-globalization and deglobalization movements before and after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic is largely triggered by the low level of national governance and the uneven distribution of social wealth.The contradictions and antagonism,manifested in stalemate,protests or even riots during the past US election,have reflected the contradictions between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party,namely the two parties have opposite positions on policies relating to revenue,police reform and Medicare among others,as well as they disagree with each other signif icantly over basic political values,views on current issues and the seriousness of the problems facing the country on the one hand.On the other hand,they have ref lected the serious rupture and polarization of American society due to uneven distribution of social wealth as well as over the race and education issues.As the reality shows,Trump’s “America First” political narrative has been proved persuasive and influential in politics,which has utilized the isolationist pressure long existing in American politics to arouse many Americans against globalization.In the 2016 and 2020 Presidential elections,Trump won 63 million and 72 million votes respectively.So,no one can underestimate the influence of Trumpism without Trump in America in the future.In terms of external relations,this social rupture and polarization of American society will be ref lected as intensifying confrontation of protectionism and unilateralism against liberalism,and the persistence of dichotomy between global engagement and isolation.It must be pointed out that although the trend of anti-globalization is currently intensifying,the fundamental trend of economic globalization has remained unchanged,and globalization will be diversified.There are scholars believing that due to the influence of policies emphasizing “economic sovereignty”,the world economy will move toward limited globalization,while countries of the world will attach greater importance to their own economic security,and strive to keep key production capacity at home.Some scholars also believe that due to the vulnerability of the long-distance industrial and supply chains,proximity to end users will become an important factor for investment decision in the traditional manufacturing field,and countries will turn to vigorously develop regional economy,thus triggering the shift from globalization to regionalization.

Second,the international landscape will continue to feature “the rising of the East and the descending of the West”.The developing countries represented by the emerging market economies have been rising collectively,while the control by the developed countries of the world is descending,thus making the international balance of power continue to change in depth.Faced with the rampant epidemic,the developed countries in the West lack the capacity to muster large-scale testing,quarantine and decisive actions if necessary,thus resulting in accelerated spreading of the epidemic and widespread infections.According to statistics,by November 17 of 2020,the confirmed COVID-19 infections had reached more than 11 million while the COVID-19-related deaths exceeded 0.246 million in the US,accounting for 20 percent and 18.9 percent of the world’s total respectively.Under the impact of the epidemic,the economy of the developed countries in the West has fallen into a massive recession.According to the forecast of the IMF,the developed economies will contract by 5.8 percent in 2020,with the US,Germany and the UK contracting by 4.3 percent,6.0 percent and 9.8 percent respectively.In a sharp contrast,China,in the face of the pandemic,has given full play to its advantages of socialist system that can “pool resources to accomplish large undertakings”in governance,and has soon controlled the spread of the epidemic at home by rapid decision-making and eff icient implementation with science as the guidance and national cohesion as the support.Soon afterwards,China’s focus shifted from preventing exporting the epidemic to the world to preventing importing the epidemic from abroad,and began to actively provide the world with anti-epidemic materials and share its experience with other countries.Soon after the epidemic was basically controlled,China’s economy is rapidly recovering,its society remains stable in general and its advantages in market space and development resilience have further been demonstrated.Once again,China’s economy is now serving as a stabilizer of the world economy.According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics of China,China’s GDP in the first three quarters of 2020 grew by 0.7 percent year-on-year,while the growth was 3.2 percent and 4.9 percent in the second and third quarter respectively,thus making China’s economy stand out among major global economies.From the supply side,China’s industrial production has returned to normal levels,and the repair of the service sector has been accelerated.From the demand side,the power of the troika has been strengthened.It is not diff icult to see from the problems exposed in controlling the epidemic in Western countries that the trend of collective rise of the developing countries represented by China has remained unchanged.

Third,competition and cooperation between global multilateral mechanisms and regional cooperation mechanisms have been constantly strengthened.The world calls for governance,but there is no leadership.The absence of global governance is the root cause for growing global challenges.Unilateralism pursued by the US has exacerbated the global governance def icit.Different from the unilateralist policies pursued by the Trump administration,Biden argued that “diplomacy should be the f irst tool of American power.” Under the Biden administration,the US will work to restore its inf luence in a range of international organizations and multilateral institutions,and rejoin the World Health Organization,UNESCO,the UN Human Rights Council,and the Paris Agreement among others,which will accelerate the process of global multilateral cooperation.However,under the inf luence of the unilateral policies pursued by the Trump administration,the trust of American allies in the US has been sharply eroded on the one hand,and on the other hand,it is diff icult for the US to restore its inf luence in certain regions and areas.For instance,the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiated by the 10 ASEAN member states,China and some others was officially signed on November 15 of 2020,whose establishment will be conducive to further integrating the industrial and supply chains in the region,boosting conf idence in regional economic development,and promoting strong economic growth after the epidemic.As Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong expressed,RCEP sent a clear signal to the outside world that whatever happened to the world,all the Asian countries believed that win-win cooperation was better than f ighting alone,and would persist in further advancing regional integration.While the process of multilateral cooperation is speeding up,conf licts of interests among regional powers and competition among different standards have put forward higher requirements for global coordination capacity.It is likely that the US will engage in multilateral cooperation with China on climate change,nuclear nonproliferation and global public health,while working with its allies as a united front to crack down on China in the fields of human rights and high-tech among others.For sometime in the future,this competition-cooperation trend will be constantly strengthened.

Fourth,global hot spots will shift,while the dynamics of the strategic game among major powers will change.In Europe,after the US began to pursue a policy highlighting “America First” and pivoted strategically to Asia,Europe’s fragility was coming to light,the EU was heading for the “edge of the cliff”,and NATO was on the verge of “brain dead” due to the impossibility for the US to coordinate its policies with its NATO allies.In the post-COVID-19 era,the US will return to Europe,reshape its alliance system with Europe,as well as consolidate NATO and strengthen its role as the core of American national security and the bastion of democratic ideals.Meanwhile,the structural contradictions between the US and Russia will remain unchanged.Therefore,it is expected that the US will continue to strengthen cooperation with Europe in both military and non-military fields in order to enhance containment capabilities against Russia.After Biden came into office,the US will begin dialogue and negotiation with Russia over extension of the New START Treaty so that it will continue to serve as the basis of strategic stability between the United States and Russia.Nonetheless,on the whole,the situation of strategic game between the US and Russia can hardly be alleviated in the short run,and their strategic contest in Europe,particularly in East Europe,will continue.In the Middle East,since its withdrawing unilaterally from the Iranian nuclear deal in May of 2018,the US has been pursuing a policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran,and tightened its sanctions on Iran whose economy is already struggling under the epidemic.Tensions in the region have risen sharply after the US snipped out Major General Semi Suleimani of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in January of 2020.In future,the US will rejoin the Iranian nuclear deal on condition that Tehran strictly complies with the Iranian nuclear agreement,stop supporting Saudi Arabia’s military operations in Yemen,and withdraw its troops from Iraq and Afghanistan,while its relations with Israel will be cooling off.In terms of China-US relations,as the US has seen China as a competitor,competitions between the two countries will be intensified in economic f ield.However,“China has no intention of displacing the US in the world,nor does it recognize that the US has the power to change China’s system”,and “the fates of the two countries are inextricably intertwined”.As a result,the trend of competition and cooperation between the US and China will continue.Compared with the past,the areas of competition and cooperation between the two countries are rather def inite.So,they need to sum up their experiences in exchanges,enhance exchanges and cooperation in areas of common interests,and maintain stability of their bilateral relations.

In the post-COVID-19 era,in the face of a complex international situation,China should give full play to its institutional strength,correctly understand the changes,scientifically respond to the changes,and actively initiate changes.China should stay put to open up wider to the outside world,and counter “decoupling” with opening-up; firmly support multilateralism,actively participate in and uphold global multilateral mechanisms,and work to make the global governance system more open and rational; uphold and promote the vision of a community with a shared future for mankind,and build a “coordinated,cooperative and stable” majorcountry relationship; persist in running its own affairs well,and coordinate security with development as well as domestic situation with international situation.As “crisis and opportunity always travel together”,as long as external challenges are properly addressed,it is entirely possible to turn them into a strong driving force for domestic economic development.Only when China’s economy is stronger and more sustainable,can it withstand external headwinds and counter currents.

(Gao Fei is Vice President of China Foreign Affairs University,and professor at the Department of Diplomacy and Foreign Affairs Management,China Foreign Affairs University; Wang Dong is doctoral student at the Department of Diplomacy and Foreign Affairs Management,China Foreign Affairs University.This article was received on Nov.25,2020.)