What the virus hath wrought: rising political risk in the age of COVID
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Who better than the sublime author of “The Plague,” the existentialist writer Albert Camus, to sum up this dreadful, awful year? As he put it in the conclusion of his masterpiece: “All that man could win in the game of plague and life was knowledge and memory.”
So what has this unforgettable year of the coronavirus taught us? On its own, the global COVID-19 outbreak — as this column flagged back in the seemingly faraway spring — amounts to the seminal happening of the 21st century so far.
But beyond even its immediate importance, the true significance of the virus lies — as is the case with most historic world events — in the underlying global realities it has exposed, laying bare other major processes affecting the world that we live in.
In terms of global political risk, the year of coronavirus directly affected and furthered at least two other major events of 2020: the incipient Sino-American Cold War, and the character and the outcome of the US presidential election. Each amounts to a major compass point, outlining the contours of the strange new era we live in; both were seismically affected by the COVID-19 calamity.
The pandemic propelled the Sino-American Cold War into overdrive. The counterintuitive reality is that while the virus emerged from China, among the major global powers it is Beijing that has benefited economically, relatively speaking, from dealing with it first and best. China is the only major power in the world that is predicted to record an increase in gross domestic product in 2020.
Its first-mover advantage has led its political elite to embrace a dangerous triumphalism. For example, Chinese President Xi Jinping crowed that China’s relatively successful response to COVID-19 “fully demonstrated the clear superiority of the Chinese Communist Party leadership and our socialist system.”
This feeling that the virus has accelerated China’s strategic rise has had almost immediate real-world consequences. During the course of the year, Beijing: clamped down on democracy protesters in Hong Kong; further subjugated ethnic Uighurs in its western Xinjiang province; clashed with the Indian army in the Himalayas; bullied neighbors in the South and East China Seas; and practiced in-your-face “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy. Frankly, in its ferocious bellicosity, it is hard to think of a country in the region that Beijing did not alarm (perhaps North Korea).
But it was on the other side of the world that China’s Asian expansionism resonated loudest. In Washington, bipartisan perceptions of China changed and hardened as the vast majority of Americans came to believe that, at the very least, Beijing had behaved with depraved indifference in allowing the spread of the virus.
Beyond even its immediate importance, the true significance of the virus lies — as is the case with most historic world events — in the underlying global realities it has exposed, laying bare other major processes affecting the world that we live in.
Dr. John C. Hulsman
This amounts to the biggest sea change since I left Washington almost 15 years ago. At that time there was a bipartisan view that treating China as an economic opportunity, facilitating its rise, would help it transform into a status quo power and become a partner in stabilizing the new era. Literally no one in Washington — after this year of pestilence, the blame for which is placed squarely at China’s door — believes this anymore.
Rather, the country is united in viewing China as a reckless, hostile superpower, one whose rise must be checked. The respected Pew Research poll of August 2020 makes this clear, revealing that 73 percent of surveyed Americans view China unfavorably, a leap of 24 percentage points in only two years. As a result of COVID-19, America is united in perceiving China as its new primary competitor in our new era.
The second major event affected by the pandemic was the US presidential election, which will go down in history as “the COVID election.” While leading in most polls on the (usually) critical issue of who is best to lead the economy, President Donald Trump was sandbagged by his erratic, flailing response to the pandemic, which emerged as the definitive issue of the campaign. As an NBC News poll in August made clear, a decisive 61 percent of Americans believed the administration’s response to the virus was unsuccessful.
Even the voting debacle (which, I am very proud to highlight, my political risk firm predicted) that ensued is centered around the pandemic, because the health crisis altered the character of the race itself. A greater number of Democrats — who were generally more concerned about catching the virus than were Republicans — voted ahead of time, often by mail. This led to a record number of mail-in votes, comprising almost half of the total 2020 vote count.
Although these votes were received earlier, in many battleground states election rules dictated that they had to be counted last, after the polls closed on election day. As such, it was always obvious that greater numbers of in-person, on-the-day Republican votes would be counted first, with Democratic candidates enjoying a surge later in the count.
That is precisely what happened, explaining Trump’s rage as his early leads in a number of battleground states (such as Pennsylvania and Michigan) evaporated, transforming what seemed a likely victory into a devastating defeat. His wails of corruption and the refusal of many Republicans to accept either the result or Joe Biden as the legitimate political victor — causing unprecedented turmoil in the US and a huge increase in political risk — directly stem from holding an election during a time of pandemic.
Wherever one looks, political risk is on the rise, with the COVID-19 pandemic playing a large role in this. While all I can promise you is that we are in for a bumpy ride, in this column, dear readers, I also pledge to you we will navigate the treacherous journey together.
