Nothing to learn from East Asia?

‘Although most East Asian economies have successfully contained the pandemic without nationwide ‘stay in shelter lockdowns’, many governments have seen such measures as necessary. But lockdowns are blunt measures, with inevitable adverse consequences, especially for businesses and employment. 

‘Many countries have thus imposed lockdowns, citing China’s response in Wuhan. But as the first WHO fact-finding mission to China noted, “The majority of the response in China, in 30 provinces, was about case finding, contact tracing, and suspension of public gatherings—all common measures used anywhere in the world to manage [infectious] diseases.

‘Lockdowns were limited to a few cities where contagion went “out of control in the beginning”. The key lesson from China was “all about…speed. The faster you can find the cases, isolate the cases, and track their close contacts, the more successful you’re going to be.”

Read here (IPS News, Jan 19, 2021) 

Pandemic to keep Asia's growth at lowest since 1967, warns World Bank

‘The coronavirus pandemic is expected to lead to the slowest growth in more than 50 years in East Asia and the Pacific as well as China, while up to 38 million people are set to be pushed back into poverty, the World Bank said in an economic update on Monday. The bank said the region this year is projected to grow by only 0.9%, the lowest rate since 1967.

‘Growth in China was expected to come in at 2% this year, boosted by government spending, strong exports and a low rate of new coronavirus infections since March, but held back by slow domestic consumption. The rest of the East Asia and Pacific region was projected to see a 3.5% contraction, the World Bank said.’

Read here (Reuters, Sept 29, 2020)

How cultural differences help Asian countries beat Covid-19, while US struggles

‘Confucianism, a cultural force in East Asia that advocates duty to society over individual needs, has been cited to explain Asian responses to COVID-19 and lack of cohesion in the United States, according to March 31 blog post by the Wilson Center policy forum.

‘Ethnic Malay cultures in Malaysia and Indonesia promote banding together against common threats, [Alan] Chong [associate professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies] said. Within a week of Malaysia declaring its lockdown, some 95% of the population had complied with the order, said Ibrahim Suffian, program director with the polling group Merdeka Center in Kuala Lumpur.

Read here (VOA, July 22, 2020)

As the US and China clash, what can other countries do?

Keypoints: Neighbours and partners must work to rebuild cross-border trade and boost supply chains as a leadership gap widens during the coronavirus pandemic. Lessons can be drawn from the efforts of Asian countries, which signed their own FTAs as a backup plan to global trade when WTO negotiations stalled at the start of the 2000s.

Read here (South China Morning Post, May 21, 2020)

The West has lost its way, but China may not be the beneficiary, says historian Wang Gungwu

‘It did not help that the US as the leader of that West has made serious mistakes as the world’s sole superpower, including that of letting rampant capitalism dictate the globalisation process. The negative reaction among those in the US who turned against its liberal ideals has left the country’s allies in confusion and thus opened Western hegemony to question. But even if the West should be in relative decline, that does not mean that China will be the beneficiary. Much will depend on whether China’s alternative perspective is credible and attractive to those who are now more sceptical of what the West stands for.’

Read here (South China Morning Post, May 21, 2020)

From Hong Kong to Britain, governments ranked poorly for their response to Covid-19

‘From Hong Kong to Britain, governments ranked poorly for their response to Covid-19. Survey of 23 economies finds ‘major cracks’ in self-belief across the Western world. China, Vietnam and India have impressed with their responses to Covid-19, while Hong Kong and Japan languish at the bottom.’

Read here (South China Morning Post, May 6, 2020)

Coronavirus is accelerating eight challenging mega trends

‘...be in no doubt, as the long days at home seem to pass ever so slowly: in its effect on societies, politics and the distribution of power in the world, COVID-19 is on track to be the Great Accelerator.’

1. Eurozone existential crisis: ‘To put it crudely, Italians will not work as productively as Germans, and Germans will not agree to pay off the debts of Italians.’ 
2. Trans-Pacific tensions: ‘...the process of “deglobalisation” - more of what we consume being made closer to home, even if it is more expensive - will accelerate.
3. Greater rise of the Asian tigers: ‘[Asia] was already going to account for 90 per cent of new middle-class people in the next decade. Perhaps we can revise that up to 95 per cent now.’
4. Oil price volatility: ‘Countries dependent on oil production already faced forecasts that petroleum demand would peak and fall before 2030.’ We have in recent days seen negative oil prices.
5. Politics of inequality: ‘It will push to the forefront of politics fundamental issues about the taxation of wealth, the case for basic incomes provided by governments, and the responsibility of companies for their employees.’
6. Debts: ‘Political parties will campaign for debt forgiveness and write-offs, and for the cancelling by central banks of money borrowed by governments, with inflationary consequences.’
7. Data: ‘Once we are all carrying around an app on our phones to show where we have been and who we have met, pressure will grow to use that information for other purposes.’
8. Crisis as the mother of innovation: ‘More optimistically, they have one positive companion - the massive incentive this crisis provides for innovation’

Read here (The Age, April 21, 2020)

Shockwave: Adam Tooze on the pandemic’s consequences for the world economy

This lengthy essay begins by painting the economic background of this crisis, covering the weaknesses of the globalised system and its over-dependence on government stimulus post-2008. There were detractors though. ‘True conservatives, as distinct from those merely wedded to the religion of the stock market, welcomed the prospect of a shakeout. It was time for a purge, time to slim down the businesses that had gorged on too much cheap funding, time for a return to discipline." However, as we know, it was not to be.

When Covid-19 hit, the three main economic blocs responded, strapped to the underpinnings of their own socio-economic systems. Many East Asian countries, notably China, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, employed ‘the hammer and the dance’ by hitting the virus hard and fast. Europe ended up in an uncoordinated and dispiriting stalemate. ‘From the point of view of the wider world, what matters is that Europe does not unleash a sovereign debt crisis.’ In the US, ‘more than the flame-out of Trump, is the gulf between the competence of the American government machine in managing global finance and the Punch and Judy show of its politics. That tension has been more and more glaring since at least the 1990s, but the virus has exposed it as never before.’

‘If you swiftly declare an emergency and are prepared to interrupt business as usual, both the medical and economic costs of confronting the virus appear more reasonable, and the conventional priorities of modern politics remain basically in place... As the Europeans and Americans have discovered, once you lose control all the options are bad: shut down the economy for an unforeseeable duration, or hundreds of thousands die.’

Tooze concludes that ‘for those of us in Europe and America these questions [about opening up] are premature. The worst is just beginning.’

Read here (London Review of Books, April 3, 2020)