Future historians may well coin a new marker to delineate a great time of change: BV and AV, “before the virus” and “after the virus”. Because in the longer run we can be sure than politics and economics will never be the same again. This will also be true of global politics: the effects of the virus will accelerate the trends that were already apparent in geo-politics and the shifting fortunes of the great powers, particularly China and the USA.
Paradoxically, although the US has a military capability far greater than that of China, bigger than the next four or five military powers all put together, its diplomatic and political influence across the world were in decline long before coronavirus. Retreating from the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America, US influence has not been as low as it is now since the Second world war. For the first time since 1945, the USA is facing a power with an economic potential greater than its own.
Tariff war is about technology
What lies behind the Trump tariff war on China is not just trade per se, it is the transfer of technology and know-how to China. A high level of technique will ultimately translate into a high level of military capability, and that included cyber-capability, which will feature much more in conflicts and economic rivalries in the future.
The debilitating effects of the coronavirus pandemic will accelerate current trends. It will be China, not the USA that recovers more rapidly from the economic depression because of its capacity to manage and organise its economy, albeit undemocratically and from above. Neither Trump nor his successor, if he is replaced, will be able to deploy national resources so effectively, constrained as they are by the so-called ‘free market’.
Trump’s ramshackle improvisations
The draconian, but effective measures implemented by Chinese president Xi to beat the epidemic have contrasted markedly with the ramshackle improvisations of Trump. It is notable that both leaders are positioning themselves politically to exploit the contrasting approaches, so that relations between China and US have soured significantly since the pandemic has blown up. Donald Trump is explicitly referring to the Covid-19 as the “Chinese virus” or the “Wuhan virus”, even when challenged about its racist overtones.
In turn, Chinese state media have begun to propagate the conspiracy theory that the US planted the virus in the first place. Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, recently tweeted, “It might be the US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan.” A top civil servant in China doesn’t make such a statement without some official sanction, even a nod and a wink. The day after the first tweet, the Chinese state broadcaster, GCTN tweeted Zhao’s allegation.
“the real sick man of Asia”
Responding to Donald Trump’s jibes about the “Chinese virus”, a spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs took to Twitter with this: “It is absolutely WRONG and INAPPROPRIATE to call this the Chinese coronavirus.”
Now the war of words has moved into a war of expelling journalists. Yesterday, at least a dozen journalists working for US media organisations were expelled from China. This is following an article in the Wall Street Journal that referred to China as the “real sick man of Asia”, a reference taken by the Chinese state as a direct insult. When three WSJ correspondents were expelled last month, the USA retaliated by kicking out around sixty Chinese journalists working for Beijing-controlled press and TV organisations.
“Wreaking carnage on world economy”
“It is deeply concerning” said the former head of the IMF’s China division (Financial Times, March 19), that [the US and China] have descended into trading blame insults and punitive actions rather than forging a common front to counter a pandemic that is wreaking carnage on the global economy.”
On the other hand, the important social force that will have the final say in both countries is the working class. The American working class has a tradition of bitter and bloody conflict with the ruling class, although much of it is hidden by ‘official’ histories and popular culture. The millions of American workers who face impoverishment as a result of the inadequacies of capitalism will not sit idly by and starve. The coming months and years will see the greatest challenge to the misrule of capital in the entire history of the US state. It is only a matter of time.
That is also true of China, now the workshop of the world and home to the biggest industrial working class of any country. Here, too, it is only a matter of time before workers begin to fight in an organised and coherent way for their lives and for their futures. The most powerful apparatus of coercion and control in the world, including control of social media and the internet, will not ultimately stop a mighty movement of Chinese workers.
Whether it is American workers or the Chinese who are first to move on a grand scale, each will affect the other and the effect on workers across the globe will be titanic. BV and AV indeed.
March 19, 2020
