Covid can push global governance reforms

THE coronavirus pandemic has been an apocalyptic happening of our times. The speed of its spread and scale, far outstripping the swine flu pandemic of 2009 which left 12,500 dead in the US, has left the world shocked and gasping for solutions. Yet, hopefully sooner than later, normalcy, even with a ‘new post-coronavirus’ tag attached to it, will emerge with some changes to our lifestyles and an awareness that the world is not yet rid of disease and its deadly consequences.

Post-Covid-19, a key imperative must be to leverage the crisis and improve global governance. Alternatively, the debunking of international organisations and multilateralism as ineffective and coverers of misdeeds could spell their further slide into oblivion or even demise. Nothing would please more the right-wing conservatives in the US and Europe who have long plugged for nativism with closed borders and a pullback from globalisation. As things stand, the pandemic appears to be a godsend for them.

With massive numbers of infections and deaths, pandemic matters in the US cannot be bereft of domestic politics, especially in an election year. Scapegoating and passing the buck are needed to avoid carrying the blame for ineffective and poor leadership. Given the origin of the virus, China-bashing and demanding its punishment for culpability meet a fair degree of general acceptability.

The Trump administration has been generally antithetical to multilateral organisations. It is, therefore, understandable that the World Health Organisation (WHO), the UN’s agency charged with protecting global public health, becomes another convenient villain of the piece as having been in collusion with the Chinese and even delayed the declaration of the outbreak of Covid-19 as a pandemic. The withholding of WHO funding by the US is, thus, not surprising though it has met with much criticism even from within the US.

But, are these right-wing conservative ideas on multilateralism the way forward? Wouldn’t they essentially let China off the hook and even given it an opportunity to head a kind of ‘own’ global order, even if not encompassing the entire world? This wouldn’t serve US interests or the interests of the rest of the globe.

The new reality in global economics and politics, brought home by the Covid-19 pandemic in a most unfortunate manner, is the rise and omnipresence of China. At the same time, the pandemic has underscored that China is not strongly bound into global governance. This must change with a clear understanding that China must also bear the costs of global responsibility befitting one of the world’s largest economies with a powerful demographic impetus. This would, furthermore, ensure that they are prevented from free-riding globalisation and that they abide by rules of competing for hegemony in the world and not just doing what they please.

For the US, a strengthened multilateral system with the Chinese more tightly bound and controlled would appear a smart post-Covid move rather than one of going at it by themselves. This would also help the US in sharing global burdens, even while retaining stewardship of the order. This is particularly useful as the Russians are really not in this game, even while being powerful militarily, and the Europeans are losing steam.

Moreover, a reformed system that furthermore brings in the most important of the emerging economies would allow them to benefit from the increasing heft of countries like India, which has almost singlehandedly kept coronavirus from becoming an uncontrolled global pandemic with millions of deaths.

The UN-led multilateralism has participation by all with special powers for some, i.e. it is multilateralism with polarity. And, the US has been mainly calling the shots since the UN’s inception 75 years ago. Of course, the first 50 years saw US-Soviet Union bipolarity.

At the time of the 2008 financial crisis, concerted action by the largest economies, both from the developed and developing worlds, staved off a global collapse. The G-20, which was formed then, essentially sought to have the Chinese share the burden of rescuing the global economy, but its composition also recognised the weight and potential of India and other emerging economies.

Pandemics, perhaps more than any other form of global distress, demand similar concerted action involving the most important poles of the world. At the same time, as pandemics spare no one and can originate anywhere, it is essential that no one is left out of global efforts to contain and combat them. We, therefore, need multilateralism but need to couple it with the heft of multipolarity.

Indeed, even in the context of Covid-19 when national actions have been the main drivers, both multilateral and multipolar realities have played their role in international cooperation. Most visible has been India’s supply of hydroxychloroquine to the world, besides, whether we like it or not, the obtaining of Chinese testing kits and personal protection equipment (PPE) by many countries.

It would be excellent if there could be global cooperation in the production of a vaccine against Covid-19 but this is unlikely, given the huge commercial positivity that would flow for the discoverers. The absence of international cooperation would mean that even the little chance of affordable access to these drugs by the poor in the world would be lost.

The G-20 video conference saw Prime Minister Narendra Modi call for reform of the WHO and at other places speak on the need to reform multilateralism. Meaningful global governance reforms need a trigger to move the status quo and move it towards reform and not disbanding. The Covid-19 pandemic could be this trigger for strengthening multilateralism to reflect contemporary realities. This is the need of the hour for combating Covid-19 and future pandemics, apart from gearing up global governance for meeting other cross-border challenges like climate change for the common benefit of humankind.

Views are personal