More and more uncertainties are besetting our world. The pandemic is still raging on, acting more fiercely in some parts of the world, slowing down in others; economic downturn, recession, or depression (pick your favorite term) is becoming an undeniable reality; unemployment, unprecedented in modern history, is unfolding; all these problems and more are getting tied in with civil unrest in the US following the murder of George Floyd by the police. India is getting hit with a cyclone, Mexico and possibly the US with a tropical storm, and some Iranian forests are getting ravaged by wildfire. India-China, India-Nepal, India-Pakistan border conflicts are re-emerging. We still cannot predict the future of the virus. ‘We have moved into a world of far greater unknowability about the future.’ This unknowability is affecting every international actor and bilateral relation, including Sino-American relations [No one knows: How the unknowable consequences of COVID-19 affect thinking about foreign policy and US-China relations].
Under the current conditions and uncertainties, China’s ambitions of self-reliance and sovereignty have been reignited and manifested in the form of ‘techno-nationalism’, with elements such as technological and digital ‘sovereignty’ gaining renewed currency in China [China's post-Covid 19 'techno-nationalist' industrial policy]. In the meantime, China is trying to use its health-related aid to gain more international appreciation and soft power and is talking about ‘health cooperation along the BRI map’ [The BRI in Post-Coronavirus South Asia], while eying manufacturing possibilities in Africa [China finds manufacturing opportunities in low-wage Africa]. As for the EU (which is also suffering from several problems and issues, some of them self-inflicted), Josep Borrel, the region’s topic diplomat, is calling for a “more robust” strategy to deal with an increasingly assertive China [EU needs ‘more robust’ China strategy]. And finally, the US is reeling in more problems than one and is extremely 'confused' (a generous word at this moment to describe its behavior) politically, economically, racially, and medically speaking, while undergoing an electoral process, a presidential election which adds even more ‘unknowables’ to the American and global dynamics. This pandemic is not causing all these problems and uncertainties for all such actors, it is just bringing them to the surface. It is time for us all perhaps to take a pause and undergo a systemic check, or perhaps even better, a systemic change, at all levels, socially, economically, financially, regionally, globally, and environmentally in terms of the human relationship with nature.
M. Forough
The next issue of Silk Road Headlines will be dated 17 June 2020
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