Relations Post COVID Pandemic

The ongoing pandemic has created a time of uncertainty, but one certain thing is that once the pandemic ends, there will be an air of distrust in the global market towards China, and their economic, as well as political prowess, will take a hit. This is seen as an advantage for India and a favourable condition for the USA in a cold conflict which has been going on for the better part of the last two years. This has been fueled further by Donald Trump who has continuously referred to COVID as the ‘Chinese Virus’ in his official briefings.  Trump has been asking his allies within Europe to take a similar stance of blaming China for the health and economic distress. India has played the ball with caution and not followed suit by joining America’s call for blaming the situation fully on to China. Rather, India had been in close contact with health officials from both China and the USA during the early stages of the pandemic. This aligned with India’s long-existing value of international cooperation.  Nonetheless, some things need to be kept in mind when India will be forming their policy about the two countries after the pandemic ends, or possibly slows down. First of all, one needs to expect that the relationship between China and the USA will remain sour. This comes from a simple deduction that China has ambitions that go far beyond India, Russia or South Asia for that matter. China is trying to take up the position of a superpower in the international community as is understood by the international community. Further, the USA has already noticed this ambition and has been trying to keep it in check. Whether it is in the form of a trade war or simple political jargon, the USA is trying to retaliate. India, in this scenario, needs to keep its patience. There is no doubt that India has economic interests in both countries, but it will not be hard to argue that India tends to side with America, when it comes to making a choice between the two. An important aspect of post-COVID relations is the economy. For now, we see that China has already started recovering from the pandemic in economic terms as China has started recovering the losses it incurred during the early months of the pandemic. The same cannot be said about India or even the USA. Even though it is clear that the two countries are still going through the pandemic and have not reached their respective peaks, the current signs show that it won’t be soon that they start to recover economically. As Modi has always claimed that the purpose of foreign policy will be to achieve economic prowess, it can be argued that India needs to make use of its foreign policy to economically recover from COVID. A point for worrying is that India will not be able to compete with China in terms of economic recovery on its own because of the simple lack of skill labour capacity. China’s labour socialism has developed labour skill at a level which India, at this point cannot compare with, statistically speaking. Global economists agree that national labour capacity will be the key for recovery post COVID. Even though Modi’s use of the term ‘Atma-Nirbhar’ may be good for showing a certain national self-dependence, on the ground, India cannot compare with China. Similarly, the USA is in a stronger position in terms of labour capital than India, but it is too early to judge that against China. On the other hand, various international politics scholars also believe that India’s bargaining power will increase in a more than likely limited cold war between USA and China, post-COVID. This stems from the simple fact that India has a huge consumer market in which both countries would want to invest in. Therefore, India needs to make use of its market. Lastly, in a post COVID world, India needs to focus on the global flow of labour and capital, with its established strategic partners in Europe, Middle East and South-East Asia. The USA might not be as equally dependent but they too will need to foreign cooperation. A few days back PM Modi invited American investment in India and that is a positive move. Since India has been trying to move away from China, in terms of economic dependence at least, Modi makes the right move by inviting increased cooperation and investment from America.

Defence Alliances Post the Galwan Clash

The ‘Boycott China’ movement of Indians may reflect that Indians might want to move towards self-dependence but such transformation is to be considered as a long term solution. The crux remains that India needs to maintain its economic relation with China as long as it practically can. If things boil beyond control, India needs to think of an economic plan while at the same time it thinks about its border measures.

Conclusion

India, China and the USA will become a much more interesting international dynamic in the coming years with China’s growing ambition. Nonetheless, India’s priority has to be to economically recover from COVID. Improving economic ties with the West is the clear cut answer to that along with an increased focus on entrepreneurial self-dependence. Moving on, a closer defensive relation with the US also seems to be the way ahead, without severing economic ties with China, for as long as possible. India needs to be more vigilant on the border if it doesn’t want to be walked over by China again. Such strategic partnerships will help India to grow economically, as well as maintain its existing influence over South Asia and possibly expand upon it, in the years to come.

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The Process of the Presidential Election

Before talking about the two candidates, it is important to understand how the election process works since it is very different from that of India. The election for the President of the USA is done separately from the legislative (The Senate and House of Representatives). The two main parties, Republicans and Democrats have small primaries and caucuses which are meetings of sorts in various states all over the country to decide the candidate from their party. When the two candidates are chosen, debates and campaigning is done, followed by voting. An electoral college is formed by the states of America and elections are held. Different states have different strengths for their college, keeping in mind the population of the particular state. The total number of seats is 538 and to become the President, a candidate needs to cross 270 seats. Since the division of seats is done on population, states like California and New York carry much more weight. The process from this point is more confusing. If a candidate wins the majority of the seats in a particular state, instead of the number of seats he has won goes into his account, but rather it is the total number of seats in the state that go into his account and it is said that he has ‘won the state’. For example, California has the most number of seats with 55 and hypothetically, if Biden wins 38 seats in the state, he gets the majority of the state. Not only that, in the total count he will get 55 seats to his name. Overall, whichever candidate reaches 270 seats in the college becomes the President. Now, let us look at the candidates.

 As of now, we have two candidates. Donald Trump from the Republican Party and Joe Biden from the Democratic Party as the leading candidates. The campaign has not gone into full swing as of now and the presidential debates are yet to be held. All this said; let’s look at the two candidates.

 The Incumbent – DONALD TRUMP

Starting with the incumbent Donald Trump; he has had little to no opposition when it comes to being endorsed by the Republican Party. The main reason behind this is the simple fact that he is the incumbent and has maintained a certain level of support in his key demographics. He has higher approval ratings than any other politician from the Grand Old Party (GOP) or the Republicans. Nonetheless, not every member has shown unequivocal support. Former presidential candidate from the Republican Party, Mitt Romney had voted to convict Trump during the infamous impeachment trials of early 2020. The economy has played to his advantage, at least before the pandemic and Trump does not shy away from taking the credit. Nonetheless, there are a few things that have played a role in the fall of his approval ratings. At the forefront, we have the mismanagement of the coronavirus outbreak in America. Currently, 4.1 million people have contracted the disease and considering that Trump has previously ridiculed the ability of the virus to spread and not impose restrictions has reflected the lack of leadership. Second, we have an issue that has not been at the forefront of Presidential elections for the last 3-4 races. The issue of race and institutionalized racism has taken America by a storm and Trump has not managed to control it. He has not openly talked about facing the issue of race but has called the protestors thugs and terrorists. Even though bold stances like this worked in 2016, they do not seem to be effective this time around when the issue is as sensitive as a race. With these things in mind, let’s look at the Democratic nominee and former Vice President under the Obama administration, Joe Biden.

The Nominee – JOE BIDEN

Joe Biden was relatively late to coming forward with his candidature if we compare it to the likes of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, who had been talking about their campaign for long before the start of the democrat party’s caucuses.  This lack of early preparation was seen during the Iowa caucus and the primary in New Hampshire in which Biden didn’t perform very well. But eventually, things started to fall in place, with the regular debate over Sanders electability and Warren’s early withdrawal, Biden was eventually selected to be the Democratic presidential nominee. All this proposes the question that is Biden the best that Democrats have to offer, to go against Trump. Now even though a lot of voters think that his policies may not be as radical or as glaring as those of Sanders and Warren, he has been gaining the popular vote time and again. The political scientists within the party say that people just consider Biden to be more electable. Even though there are some question marks over his leadership ability and his ability to talk to people in a sense which creates a different political wave (something Trump did pretty well in 2016). Nonetheless, we have seen during the Obama presidency what Biden is capable of in terms of team management and keeping his administration smooth. Further, Biden is gaining more edge in political leadership after he had openly criticised the current President over his handling of the pandemic and the protests. All this is something that the political scientists have talked about the two leaders and there are differences in opinion. But one thing that is not as subjective is the polling data that various news agencies have collected.

Status of Polling Data and Opinion Polls

The latest polling data, as of 9th June by RealClearPolitics shows a lead in favour of Biden by 6 points as he stands on 46%, as opposed to Trump’s 40% approval rate. Similarly, NPR (+8), NY Times (+14), Fox News (+12) and Quinnipiac(+15) all suggest Biden having a huge lead over the president. It is important to mention that the past few months have shown Trump’s worst approval ratings during his tenure, going down to 38%. He, without a doubt, will improve his ratings and consequently improve his numbers in the poll. So, it is not advisable to consider Biden to be the new President, just yet. Also, a data as general as this one is not usually considered to be a clear indicator of who will be winning, as was seen back in 2016 when Hilary had an advantage of 4-5% by the same data  To better understand the polling data we need to divide the data into two different categories. The first is the situation in the swing states and secondly, the situation of the key demographics and the handling of various issues. An important note is that a lot of states are considered to be predominantly Red (Republican) and Blue (Democrats) states. This division is done, keeping in mind the dominance of the said party in the state in the previous elections as well as the general polling data. The states which do not fall under this category are the swing states. In the upcoming election, seven states have been identified by most of the political scientists as the swing states. These are Arizona, Florida, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Different networks consider different states to be swing states but on average these 7 states have been the most common. It is important to note that Trump won all of these states back in 2016. It is also worth mentioning that Biden has led the state of Texas which has been predominantly a red state, and so Trump is expected to win the state back even though a lot of journalists have started to consider Texas to be a swing state. Data between 17th and 22nd June collected by NY Times/Siena poll shows a huge advantage for Biden.  Comparing the current numbers to that of 2016, we see that Trump has completely lost Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, which he won by margins of less than 1 point, and is now trailing by 11, 11 and 10 respectively. Moving on North Carolina and Arizona have shown a smaller advantage as Biden leads by 9 and 7 points respectively. Florida is an interesting state which is considered vital for Trump’s re-election and he won it narrowly in 2016 by 1.6 but is currently trailing by 6 points. All this said, one has to keep in mind two things. First that most of these polls showed an advantage for Hilary as well but she lost these battleground states but second, her advantage was not as big as that of Biden. One would not be surprised if Trump manages to cut down the advantage in these swing states and also manage to win one or two conservative states, but will this be enough for him to regain presidency?

Going by the same source, looking at the key demographics, Biden leads by 74 points with black voters, 39 points with Hispanic voters, 34 points with young voters (18-29), 22 points and 18 points with independent voters. This shows a key advantage that will play in the favour of Biden. Back in 2016, Trump won the election with a huge advantage, running up to 70 points, with independent voters, men, older voters and white people. This time the gap has cut so much that Biden leads in 3 of Trump’s key demographics i.e. independent, men and older voters. This seems like a much more negative trend than one would have predicted. Moving on, key issues like COVID and racial issues have highly favoured Biden. People have started to doubt Trump’s leadership in these two aspects and considering that these are the two main issues of 2020 for America, Biden does seem to be favoured. On the other hand, Trump is preferred when it comes to immigration, economy and job creation. Trump has made it a point to claim the growth of the US economy before the pandemic to his benefit and that seems to be in his favour.

Conclusion

Even though we are just 3-4 months before the elections happen, all of these are predictions and pre-election polls. A lot of things like the presidential debates, widespread campaigning and the actual Election Day turnout, all can change the way things stand today. This was seen back in 2016 to work in favour of Trump but that was because the difference between the two candidates was too small. That may not be the case this time but nothing can be said with certainty. Kanye West has pulled out of the race and it will be fair to say that he did not have much ground before as well. As of now, even though the polls indicate one thing, anything can happen. There is without a doubt a bit of uncertainty and just like 2016, the door is still open for both candidates to win the White House. 

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USA and its Historical Ties with the United Nations and its Subsidiaries

Starting from Franklin D Roosevelt in 1954, the USA has shown signs of solidarity with the UN and the United States’ voice in decisions of the UN has always played a pivotal role, especially since it is one of the P5 members. Conjointly, along with its allegiance to the United Nations, the US has been a significant actor in the projects carried out by the WHO. 

For decades the United States has been a committed partner of the World Health Organisation in aiding global health emergencies and has financially supported its prospects. The US was the number one donor for the 2016-2017 programme budget and for many previous years. Both state and individual donations combined, the total donations made to the WHO that rooted from the States has been a total of US$ 945.6 million in WHO for the 2016-2017 period. And the contributions from the United States were made up for over 76% of voluntary funding.

The United Nations was built upon the principle of global syndication and interdependence, however, with the USA’s interventions over the years and its weighty contributions have to some extent eroded the UN’s legitimacy. Although the foundation of the United Nations is that of a liberal idea with the notion of co-dependence and overall prosperity of both big and small state actors, it has been proven time and again that for many states, especially ones that are permanent members, like the US, have used the United Nations as a forum to further their neo-realist agendas wherein non-state actors are only a pathway to increase power and legitimacy and not multilateralism. 

China’s Participation and COVID

Although China’s funding in the United Nations has been increasing each year over the last decade, its contribution to the World Health Organization has especially seen a rise pertaining to the current Coronavirus pandemic which originated in China’s Hubei province. Hence, making China’s say in the matter that of much more significance in comparison to any other state. 

The WHO has appreciated China’s efforts and action towards this pandemic publicly and stated that their response made a major impact on the spread of the virus globally. However, there were many criticisms in regards to the same. Specifically by the US. 

The WHO’s sudden inclination towards China with the arrival of this pandemic was questioned by many and ticked off the US as a result. The role of the World Health Organization is to maintain diplomacy and be an advisory organ for states to act upon at their discretion. This has been the preliminary basis of debate over why the organisation is in the wrong for potentially siding with China and not criticising them for notifying other states much later than the first traces of the virus were found, in December 2019. In addition to this, China’s circulation of faulty safety kits also added to the narrative of China deceiving other nations and not painting a clear enough picture for states to act upon. 

The World Health Organisation’s backing towards China potentially has its roots in the increased funding by China to the UN as a whole. China is now the second-largest contributor to the United Nations funds amongst the G77 countries. This, therefore, makes it a notable member whose presence in the United Nations can not be forgone. 

President Trump’s Response

On the 7th of July, 2020, President Trump announced the USA’s withdrawal from the World Health Organisation. This decision faced a lot of opposition from opponent parties given the WHO’s role in fighting global health emergencies that the world is currently living through and the fact that the United States has one of the highest numbers of cases globally.

Not only will this move have a detrimental impact on the United States status as far as the number of cases goes, but this can also result in a global setback of vaccine development in which the US could have been a major stakeholder and contributor. While the Trump administration has already cut off all funding, the withdrawal process will take approximately a year. However, the 2020 presidential candidate, Joe Biden has vowed to reverse this action and be part of the organisation again. 

This decision further goes on to prove the USA’s intentions with non-state actors and how they are linked to notions of neorealism and are used as a tool to safeguard self-interest rather than build on global interdependence through collaborative measures. 

Furthermore, the decision to pull out of the WHO is also an indication of what US-China relations will be like post-COVID, as prior to this it was still an unclear picture. However, pulling out of the WHO as a result of backing China is a clear enough signal that at least under the Trump Administration these tensions will continue and are not going to change in the foreseeable future. 

Conclusion

Regardless of the gravitas of this situation, this move does not come as a shock after the US pulled out of the Paris Agreement. Inferring from the series of events that have taken place before and after this monumental decision issued by the US government, it is safe to assume that this is in relation to President Trump’s prolonged pattern of claiming that the United States is being taken advantage of by intergovernmental organisations such at WHO and NATO and this action is one of the biggest showcases of it. 

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The birth of NATO as an organisation of military cooperation was in the backdrop of the Cold War era, which saw a constant power struggle between the two superpowers, i.e, USA and USSR. The Cold war between these two superpowers had practically divided the entire world (except the NAM countries) into two alliances – Western & Eastern. The Western Alliance which was later formalised into NATO was led by the US and joined by most of the Western European countries, as the name suggests. Since it’s the foundation, the policy of “Collective Defense” has been at the heart of the Alliance, the policy being a declaration by its member states that an armed attack on one of them would be considered an attack on all of the NATO countries and therefore, all these countries would be obliged to retaliate. This policy, therefore, brings about a spirit of solidarity within the member countries.       

The Cold war era continued to witness a major military role played by the Alliance, particularly after the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies united themselves by the Warsaw Pact in 1955, as a counter-power to the rising NATO forces in Europe. The formation of the Warsaw Pact was triggered by the gradual enlargement of NATO which was joined by West Germany in 1955 and now constituted fifteen member states, with the original member states of Belgium, Britain, Canada, Italy, Iceland, France, Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway, the Netherlands, Portugal and the United States, later joined by Greece and Turkey in 1952. At its height, the tension between the NATO Alliance and Warsaw Pact countries was symbolized by the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, which was perhaps the greatest physical representation of the Cold War, as it was seen to be dividing East Germany from West Germany, and their respective Western and Eastern European counterparts.  

However, it was almost apparent during this time that neither party had any desire of engaging in serious conflict. Thus, for the entirety of the Cold War era, the two superpowers never engaged in a real nuclear exchange and although a few armed conflicts probably emerged, there are no shreds of evidence and thus cannot account for any major conflict between the two superpowers. In fact, a major portion of the time period when the Soviet Union was still alive, a ‘Detente’ phase, had existed which basically meant that both the blocs accepted the status quo and did not make any attempts to change it by creating newer sources of conflict among each other and their allies. Therefore, in the 1960’s the conventional role that NATO played as a defence organisation had undergone a major reshuffling that began with this new phase of the relationship which saw the rise of the new strategic concept of ‘Flexible Response’. As now the Alliance had greater avenues of military responses in events of the conflict, moving away from the earlier binary provided by the ‘Massive Retaliation’ strategic concept between, a total nuclear exchange or peace.  

Gradually, the Soviet Union began to disintegrate for economic (heavy defence expenditure, lower standards of living among people), political and ideological reasons. Although NATO continued to hold its ground, in the world sphere of military and defence. While the Warsaw Pact ended in 1991, it was not as if, NATO’s transition was smooth sailing post-1991. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, US was the only superpower left in the world, and therefore, this created a sort of political vacuum (US dominance with no strong power to contend it), which NATO sought to balance out by introducing various measures like the establishment of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council, the Mediterranean dialogue, etc. It also lent its support to the United Nations in ending wars such as Yugoslavian Civil War but perhaps in its striving for engaging in legitimate and righteous actions, the NATO has often also engaged in some actions, deemed as illegal.

This can be best illustrated by the case of the Kosovar Albanians, when NATO in June 1999, carried out airstrikes so as to prevent the native Kosovar Albanians from going through ethnic cleansing that was being carried out by the Serbian ruling population. What made these actions illegal, despite their righteous purpose was that it was not backed by the UN Security Council’s authorization and also defied the UN Charter, which had declared that NATO can only be activated in case of one of its member countries being under a threat. 

In modern times, the issue of “burden-sharing” within NATO, has become one of great importance and can be considered as a reason for increasing unpopularity of NATO within some member countries like the US. While some observers had raised this issue even in the earlier times, it was most recently brought up by the US President Donald Trump in the July 2018 Summit of the organization. He has put growing pressure on the Eastern European countries within the alliance and more so on those who have consistently failed to meet the two major goals – spending 2% of the country’s GDP in defence (4% according to the July Summit) and 20% of defence spending on equipment purchases. 

Despite its various shortcomings and controversial actions, it would not be an exaggeration to say that NATO has also undertaken various initiatives for the good of the world. The organization which constitutes about 30 member states in 2020, has undergone significant enlargement since it’s the foundation. Although, enlargement has not only been limited to an increase in the number of members but also on an ideological scale. While it started off primarily as a defence organization, relating to matters of security and peace of its member countries, the conventional definition of “security” has also changed. Therefore stimulating changes in the way NATO works to keep maintaining the security not only of its member countries but also of non-member countries. Peacekeeping and Peacemaking have become its priorities, which is not an easy work in any time period and especially not in the 21^st century, which has seen newer innovations in technology than any other age. In lieu of recent events, NATO countries have also played an equally significant role in helping to tackle the global pandemic of COVID – 19 by primarily sending supplies and equipment, where it was required. For instance, the Czech Republic and Turkey sent medical supplies to Spain and Italy, when they requested for help. 

Therefore, the nature of NATO as an organization has changed quite drastically from its foundation days and describes the evolving role played by NATO in the world, in terms of military power, security, peace, etc. 

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