Monday, May 18, 2020

Tackling Corona (Wuhan) Virus. Must We Surrender to George Orwell’s Animal Farm?

Paper No. 6579 Dated 17-May-2020

By Kazi Anwarul Masud ( Former Secretary and Ambassador- Bangladesh)

Time and again credible intellectuals have told the global audience that the world we had been used to since the great world war that ended in 1945 would no longer be there after the unpredictable and viscous coronavirus has left us. It is as yet unknown with the best scientific brains trying to find out when this “unpredictable” will become “predictable” and the people of the world will have a weapon to fight this demon.

Another battle also would have to be fought on the question of who gets the first shot of the nectar, will it again be distributed along the lines of the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots, the privileged and the underprivileged, the developed and the underdeveloped world. Any kind of justice requires that the claims of all be considered equally.

As Amartya Sen elucidates in his Theory of Justice by giving an example of three competing claims on a flute one claim based on his being the best flutist; another claim based on his being the poorest; and the third because of his expertise in making the flute. Sen argues that the three arguments are based, in turn, on principles of utility, economic equity, and the entitlement to the fruits of one’s unaided efforts. Each can be defended with strong, impartial arguments. But is the outcome necessarily arrived at the most optimum result? At least one can be satisfied that all claims were discussed and the decision was arrived based on the claims put forward at the time of discussion.

If an eventual or at least temporary palliative for coronavirus is discovered then its availability should be based on the necessity of all the people of the world because as yet no scientific basis has been found to base necessity except Angela Merkel’s advice to the Germans of “ testing, testing and testing” which alone can detect the contagious from the non-contagious. This testing. is possible more easily for the rich countries than the poor who are equally affected but have little to cope with the fallout both justice and necessity demands that the nectar be equally made available to all. While equitable distribution is being debated Sino-US conflict has taken a turn for the worse.

In an article James Palmer (China’s Coronavirus Success Is Made Possible by Xi’s Brutality-May 14^th) writes: “After an initial and disastrous cover-up, the systems that allowed the government to successfully act are the same ones that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses to maintain its control over citizens—and that are currently being used as part of a campaign of mass imprisonment and cultural genocide against Uighurs and other minorities in the western region of Xinjiang. This omnipresent domestic control apparatus is funded out of a so-called stability maintenance budget larger than that for national defense. These systems are not necessary for success, as Taiwan and South Korea have shown, but in China they proved critical”.)

A contrary view has been expressed by The Economist casting doubt on Trump administration’s “coherent” accusation that China is responsible for the pandemic, its birthplace is in Wuhan laboratory, the contagion did spread from an animal market in Wuhan which helped transmission from animal to human being though no direct allegation has yet been made of Chinese malfeasance. The Economist chided US Secretary of State for his unwavering loyalty to Trump administration’s which has resulted in Mike Pompeo’s demotion from the position of the Western world to one singing a lonely tune. “It is hard to think the words of any previous American chief diplomat, a role traditionally considered supra-partisan to a degree, have carried less weight. Yet, in an administration of mediocrities, Mr Pompeo remains a substantial figure. He is one of its last significant talents. Even his critics note his smarts—famously displayed in a stellar record at West Point and Harvard Law School—and policy seriousness. His articulation of an America First foreign policy that engages with the world consistently but sceptically is a fair stab at making Trumpism coherent. Since the sacking of John Bolton eight months ago, he has been the administration’s foreign-policy tsar. Mark Esper and Robert O’Brien, the Defence secretary and national security adviser, are nonentities by comparison”.

(Is the Pandemic China’s Sputnik Moment? What a Virus Reveals About Two Systems By Branko Milanovic May 12, 2020). Branco milanovich also compared the momentary Soviet surge in global influence following its successful sending of Sputnik into space. It was an inspiring feat for the Soviet Union in greater global influence but it was transitory in the evolution of human history. The Soviet camp was no less delighted but the Americans were not to be left behind. The US stole the march by putting a man on the moon despite Yuri Gagarin’s orbiting the earth before the US could even match the Soviet feat.

Similarly, China’s control of coronavirus through Xi Jinping’s draconian measures, Chinese data, disbelieved as these are globally, is likened to Soviet transient Sputnik feat of the yester years. In the ultimate analysis the longevity of a discovery, assuming a vaccine against coronavirus will be found in time to remove the global distress, may also seem Sputnik like Soviet victory as the Chinese claim of controlling the coronavirus’ forward march in heightening humanity’s distress. In the quest for global influence some countries may emotionally embrace the saying of “a friend in need is a friend indeed” as the Italian Foreign Minister did in receiving prompt Chinese help. Such transient emotional expression do not have a long life as realpolitik slips in the fight for global influence.

The truest armor the West has is the consent of the people in framing the architecture of their fate which the alternative form of government cannot offer. (COVID-19 Tempts Would-Be AuthoritariansBut Exploiting a Pandemic Comes at a Cost By Ruth Ben-Ghiat May 5, 2020—DEMOCRACY). Ruth Ben Ghiat points out the cooicidence of the appearance of coronavirus with a phase in our history with the rise of authoritarianism. Some how people in parts of the world were getting comfortable with strong leaders some of whom they felt were better suited to lead them out of the dystopian world where no end was in sight. Fortunately for us their number was small as the great majority still had not lost their faith in Jurgen Habermas’ communicative action where people could debate and reach results, if not consensus, on what needs to be done.

The strength of communicative action lay in discussions, and not in being forced to accept what a small minority of “leaders” felt was good for all. Granted the system was not Periclean in essence yet it gave the people to discuss and reach conclusion on what was best for all. Ruth Ben Ghats felt camaraderie with Taiwan based analyst Victor Lin Pu who described the Chinese government’s chief goal during the early days of the epidemic was not to contain the virus but “to maintain regime stability and social control.”

For authoritarian leaders, staying in power nearly always trumps the public’s welfare. The Chinese authoririties’ attempts to conceal the Wuhan debacle is common knowledge now. Yet many in the world would like to take account from the Chinese at a later date than now. The most important thing now is to survive and find a way out of this maze. This attitude is not one of surrender nor reflecting one of “by gone be bygone” but a practical one of survival. The people of the world is not looking at the menace with Voltaire’s Panglossian eyes ( Candide) but with a certainty that one day the fog will disappear and a new normal, in whatever shape it comes, will be embraced.

For South Asians India should prepare itself to be the beacon of light for the region. Despite differences, as differences must remain among neighbors, but similarities of history and tradition outrank the differences, and most importantly India is steeped in embracing a multi-lingual, multi-ethnic, multi-religious carpet for centuries and have provided shelter and voice to all. This what makes India great and acceptable to the region.

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Tackling Corona (Wuhan) Virus. Must We Surrender to George Orwell’s Animal Farm?

Paper No. 6579 Dated 17-May-2020

By Kazi Anwarul Masud ( Former Secretary and Ambassador- Bangladesh)

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Saturday, May 9, 2020

Post Corona Virus- Global Change:

Paper No. 6576 Dated 9-May-2020

By Kazi Anwarul Masud (former Secretary and ambassador of Bangladesh)

Very people doubt that a global change is in the offing. Debate surrounds about the nature of the change.

Change is nothing new. History of mankind has borne testimony to changes. From ruthless and sometimes benign monarchies, over thrown by guillotines, mass royal murders of the Romanovs, institution of ruthless doctrinaire so-called peoples’ revolution which massacred thousands of people through starvation or through negation of right to disagree.

Hubris of the likes of Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany too played a role in the death of one million people in the First World War notwithstanding other factors that also played no minor role. Many historians consider Wilhelm the individual most responsible for the outbreak of war in 1914. While opinions vary, there is a consensus that Wilhelm II’s brash leadership and imperialistic and nationalist agenda was a critical factor in the road to war. Wilhelm II’s main interest was in expanding the power, prestige and size of the German Empire. This was necessary, he believed, so that the German people could enjoy their “place in the sun”.

Historians believe that the burgeoning ‘German problem’ would have required exceptional wisdom, restraint and tact on all sides and particularly in Berlin, qualities which were spectacularly absent under the erratic personal military monarchy of Wilhelm II. The root cause of the First World War (and by extension of the Second World War too) was thus seen to lie in this fundamental conflict between Germany’s elemental drive for supremacy and the determination of Britain along with her continental partners to uphold the existing balance of power in Europe. Kaiser Wilhelm II was arguably the very last person who should have been entrusted with the immense powers of the Hohenzollern military monarchy at such a critical juncture in Germany’s and Europe’s history.

Perhaps one of the great lessons of history is not to repeat the mistakes of the past. Like Alice in Wonderland we and the surrounding forces are not similar and hence it is no use going back. The other lesson Alice has given us is though it is important that we care about our fellow human beings, but minding our own business when it comes to following the rules set for our own good and for the community gossip is better good rule to live by.

Without being pessimistic one has to admit that the war being fought to defeat coronavirus epidemic from past experience of Spanish flu, SARS, HIV, plague of the pre-modern era may look Quixotic but to leave the millions to their fate is also not acceptable. Humanity’s journey from pre modern to modern to post-modern eras cannot go in vain. The main question we are trying to find the distribution of power in a multi-layered society where the emerging economies or at least the leaders among them would get seats at the high table.

There is a general consensus that post-Second World War state of affairs would not be tenable nor is it tenable now. The very existence of G 7, G 20 and other regional bodies are recognition of the fact that the world is already multi- layered. The question would arise how much the USA is ready to concede ground to the claim of Harvard University’s luminary Stephen Walt (The United States Can Still Win the Coronavirus Pandemic-April 3 2020) that the decline of US influence would result in end result in a world “that is less open, less prosperous, and less free” than the world of today. Walt refers to National Security Expert Rachel Klein’s March 31 piece where she wrote: global responses to date do not vindicate authoritarianism:

Some democracies have done very well in reacting to the crisis, and some dictatorships have reacted very badly. In other words, regime type doesn’t appear to be the critical variable here.

There is another reason why the United States may get out of this in better shape than one might initially think: the dollar. It remains the world’s reserve currency and is still considered a relatively safe asset in times of economic uncertainty”. Walt argues that the extent of long-term damage to America’s global position will depend on two main factors. First, can the United States get the pandemic under control at home, so that it can safely restart its economy and so that other nations will decide that Americans still know how to respond in a crisis? The country will have to do a lot better henceforth than it has done so far, but it certainly isn’t impossible. Second, does the United States maintain an “America first” approach to this global problem, or does it begin to exhibit the kind of global leadership that it showed after World War II, the 9/11 attacks, or the financial crisis of 2008.

These are crucial questions to the world that abhors a system that denies Universal Declaration of Human Rights and imprisons human quest for knowledge beyond cosmos and acquisition of technology that will make life easier being conscious of the fact that robots will replace human beings and make a sizeable portion of humanity unemployable. There are always a cost-benefit analysis conducted in corporations and in governments when new products/methods are introduced. Intelligent governments like corporations look at shareholders or stakeholders benefits.

In this case Australia’s former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in a lengthy article (The Coming Post-COVID Anarchy-May 6 2020) has weighed with his views on the post-coronavirus global order. Kevin Rudd immersed as he was in his country’s politics and in Australia’s diplomacy should be taken with due interest by all those who bodes well for this planet. Rudd having been a strong US ally for decades (from the Second World War and remains a staunch ally in this region). Kevin Rudd opposes the common trend of thinking that Beijing has profited from the pandemic pandemonium.

On the contrary “the outbreak has opened up significant political dissension within the Chinese Communist Party, even prompting thinly veiled criticism of President Xi Jinping’s highly centralized leadership style. This has been reflected in a number of semiofficial commentaries that have mysteriously found their way into the public domain during April. Xi’s draconian lockdown of half the country for months to suppress the virus has been widely hailed, but he has not emerged unscathed. Internal debate rages on the precise number of the dead and the infected, on the risks of second-wave effects as the country slowly reopens, and on the future direction of economic and foreign policy”

The economic damage has been massive. Despite China’s published return-to-work rates, no amount of domestic stimulus in the second half of 2020 will make up for the loss in economic activity in the first and second quarters. Drastic economic retrenchment among China’s principal trading partners will further impede economic recovery plans, given that pre-crisis, the traded sector of the economy represented 38 percent of GDP. Overall, 2020 growth is likely to be around zero—the worst performance since the Cultural Revolution five decades ago.

Kevin Rudd has not been complimentary to the US either. He thinks fragmented establishment will constrain US‘s global leadership and more so as the economy will shrink considerably adding to a long list of unemployed Americans lining up for dole. In the ultimate analysis peoples’ distaste to be told what is to be done will win the day for liberal democracy. Hungary and Serbia , AFD in Germany and Marie Le Pen may for a while increase membership but a repeat of 1938 Weimer Republic general elections that catapulted Hitler to power has no parallel to today’s pandemic situation.

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Monday, May 4, 2020

Post Covid Scenario: Bangladesh At Cross Roads:

Paper No 6569 Dated 3-May-2020

By Kazi Anwarul Masud ( Former Secretary and Ambassador, Bangladesh)

Covit-19 has put many countries, rich and poor, in an unpreferred position to fathom the future politico-economic course for their respective countries

Are they to abandon the system and institutions they had embraced for decades that had become in course of time their own? Some had digressed from the ones they had liberated themselves from, often due to feel they are different from their colonial masters whose main aim was extraction from the colonies to enrich their metropolis. The scale of extraction was immense and to the detriment of the disposed, not due to lack of resources but because they did not have the guns to fight the colonialists.

Though the colonialists viewed themselves superior to the natives Polish-British novelist Joseph Conrad in his Heart of Darkness asserts that there is little difference between "civilized people" and those described as "savages." Heart of Darkness implicitly comments on imperialism and racism. Perhaps Joseph Conrad would put the circumstances as the dictator who decides whether London (in Heart of Darkness) was any better than Africa the dark continent inhabited by “uncivilized” people.

As the newly developing countries were trying to find their identity so did Marxism and Maoism were finding their own battle not so much on ideology but whether industrialized capitalists were sucking the blood of the common men or as Mao, revolutionizing rural China, felt that not the industrialists but the feudal lords were sucking the blood of the farmers. Both Karl Marx and Mao Zedung were fighting the same battle from different contexts. Mao’s China has now been transformed into the second richest country in the world with vast geo-political armor in its grasp.

So political scientist have started a debate on the fate of the world in post-coronavirus world. Would we see Harvard’s Graham Allison’s description of Thucydides Trap which Allison described as a situation “when a rising power like Athens, or China, threatens to displace a ruling power like Sparta, which had been the dominant power in Greece for a hundred years, or the US, basically alarm bells should sound?” Nowadays many hear the loud sounding of the alarm bells warning the world of an impending “Thucydides Trap”. Chinese President Xi Jinping has chosen Belt and Road Initiative as the vehicle for spreading China’s influence in Asia and Africa and to convert the world into a multipolar system in which China as the second richest nation in the world will play a significant role in global affairs. The problem arises with Xi Jinping’s insistence on the primacy of the Chinese Communist Party in all affairs which with the advancement of technology would be able to peep into the bed rooms of the Chinese people.

China’s intrusion into the recent agitation in Hong Kong contrary to the agreement of “one country Two system” signed at the time of the British handing over of the colony to China is a blatant example of Chinese interference in Hong Kong. Xi Jinping’s authoritarian bent can be gauged from his analysis of Nikita Khrushchev’s 1965 speech on destalinization which in the Chinese leader’s opinion had opened the door to multiparty political system in then USSR. The point to ponder is when people have more disposable income the urge for more freedom of choice becomes inevitable. Chinese of this generation would not like to see a Tiananmen Square massacre not by foreign troops or by their own.

Outwardly China is a showpiece for the world to see. Yet the rural areas have been denied the gains of development. Inequality among different segments are increasing. According to WIKIPEDIA China’s current mainly market economy features a high degree of income inequality. According to the Asian Development Institute, “before China implemented reform and open door policies in 1978, its income distribution pattern was characterized as egalitarianism in all aspects.”

Wikipedia continues to add that in December 2009 34 out of 50 leading economists thought that inequality would impede sustainable development. Harvard Economist Kenneth Rogoff also cautioned on the problem of income inequality, commenting that “There is no doubt that income inequality is the single biggest threat to social stability around the world, whether it is in the United States, the European periphery, or China.”[ Income inequality is argued to be a menace to social stability, and potentially causes a disappearance of middle class capital that would impede China’s economic growth. In a bold statement ] Hu Angang, an influential researcher in China, warned that further increases in regional disparities may lead to China’s dissolution, like in the former Yugoslavia.

Given the above situation one has to be cautious about BRI Initiative. Western governments and journalists want definitive information on BRI. The consider statements like "The Belt and Road is a $900 million/$1 trillion/$5 trillion dollar initiative spanning 65 countries, 60% of the world’s population, 75% of energy resources, and 30% of GDP” as more propaganda than plan of action. Some find it intriguing that Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Kyrgyzstan, among other countries have canceled, downsized, or postponed key BRI projects, and the initiative seems to be going through a period of retreat to an extent that some researchers are suggesting that BRI may have seen its peak.

Even if BRI partially succeeds we are far from answering the question of global construct in post-covit-19 situation. Some middle of the roaders reluctant to commit themselves either way have surmised: Humans can rein in their instincts and build societies that divert group competition to arenas less destructive than warfare, yet the psychological bases for tribalism persist, even when people understand that their loyalty to their nation, skin color, god, or sports team is as random as the toss of a coin. At the level of the human mind, little prevents new teammates from once again becoming tomorrow’s enemies. (This Is Your Brain on Nationalism Foreign Affairs).

If many nations face identity crises relating which path to choose in post-pandemic world a guideline could be the state of the economy. Most of the developed economies are expected to contract. In the case of the US 26 million Americans have applied for unemployment benefits while the legal immigrants have paid more taxes and are considered dependable workers. This puts them in the eye of the storm as the object of “stealers” of jobs that average Americans consider to be their birthright. This is no different in Europe. In war devastated Europe many immigrants were invited as “guest workers” to clean the toilets and sweep the streets that full blooded Europeans refused to do. When the European economies could stand on its own feet no doubt due to the efforts of the locals the “guest workers” were encouraged to go back to their “home” that they had left decades back. Their descendants who were no less French or Germans refused to go to a country they had only heard of and had never even seen. When the crunch comes in spades justice flies out of the window.

In Post-Brexit the rights of the non-British Europeans is going to be one of the thorniest points to be settled between Boris Johnson and his EU negotiator. But then Britain and EU are on the same page of liberal democracy. In the case of the US and China it is the opposite. How can the world in particular the developing countries be coaxed into the illiberal camp just because of yet insoluble pandemic disease? One may refer to the US hubris of “American Exception” which was noted by Alexis de Tocqueville in his book “Democracy in America”. Later on successive writers, notably Seymour Martin Lipset and in varying degrees Joseph Nye, Robert Kagan, Neil Campbell Ferguson have voiced American Exceptionalism. Lipset in his article (American Exception-A Double Edged Sword) quoted G.K.Chestersen: "America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence. . . ." As noted in the Introduction, the nation's ideology can be described in five words: liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism, and laissez-faire”. Lipset himself said: Being an American is an ideological commitment. It is not a matter of birth. Those who reject American values are un-American.

From Monroe doctrine to the First World War to the Second Great War and henceforth the American leadership has remained constant. Vladimir Putin however cautioned about the danger of teaching a people that they are exceptional.

The real undeniable truth is that the world has become multipolar as G7, G20 and other regional organizations testify. In neck of the woods South Asia would feel comfortable to cooperate with India though not at the exclusion of China a behemoth in the region. Despite bumps Bangladesh shares common history, India’s assistance in 1971 War of Independence argument notwithstanding that Indian refuge to one million Bengalis was not only due to humanitarian consideration. Her aim was the dismemberment of Pakistan. Geopolitical consideration must have played a role. But should we then forget incessant efforts by then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on our behalf and the number of vetoes given in the UNSC by then USSR to thwart the Western plan to force a political settlement with the murderous Yahya regime whose marauding army carried out the most barbarous genocide that can be matched only with Hitler’s annihilation of millions of Jews in the Second World War?

We have differences with India and we shall have in future more so with the present set up in Delhi which is following a Hindutva policy while housing 200 million Muslims in the country. But then it is for the Indians to decide whether article 370 and declaration of Ladakh as union territory, Constitution Amendment Act, and policy on National Register of citizens after more than seventy years of India’s independence are acceptable. Prime Minister Norendra Modi will have to face an electorate with an economy projected to grow around 2% in 2020 and 2021, huge unemployment and hunger in certain places.

So far as we in Bangladesh are concerned this writer is convinced of closest possible relations with India will be beneficial for Bangladesh.

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