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Coronavirus

Charting a Dark Course: U.S.-China Relations in the Age of the Pandemic

Amid any chaos or turmoil, nobody quite knows what will come out of the ashes. The same can be said about the pandemic that has descended on the world. It has put even the most basic aspects of everyday life in an uncertain direction. Enmeshed in this uncertainty is the relationship between the United States and China. Already in peril before COVID struck, pundits and analysts are now trying to gauge how far U.S.-China relations have degraded and to what shape they may take coming out of the pandemic.

As of now, harsh rhetoric and blame have become ubiquitous in both countries. Chinese officials have spread conspiracy theories that claim the virus may have ties to the United States military, declared victory in defeating the outbreak, and propounded that their authoritarian, resource-mobilizing political system has demonstrated its superiority over the more decentralized, democratic system of the United States. In the United States, hardline voices have explored whether the virus escaped from a Wuhan bio lab and if cover-ups in the Chinese government compounded the spread. U.S. Senator Tom Cotton has even pedaled the notion that China’s leadership may have wanted the virus to spread beyond China’s borders because “They did not want to see their relative power and standing in the world decline because the virus was contained” in their own country

Whether genuine or politically expedient, criticisms being launched by both sides are fermenting public resentment and are bringing each country to the forefront of discussion as ordinary people’s lives are upended by the economic fallout of shutdowns. According to Pew Research, two-thirds of Americans now have an unfavorable view of China. Negative views are up 20 percent since Donald Trump took office in 2017 and remain at their lowest point in the 15-year history of the poll. Chinese public sentiment of the United States is also falling rapidly. Though difficult to truly gauge public opinion within China, David Wertime of Politico has noted that anti-American attitudes are increasingly being held by “educated, internationalized Chinese observers – the very group once inclined to look to America as an exemplar.”

Public sentiment of both will likely continue to deteriorate coming out of the pandemic. Calls for answers and determining who bears responsibility for the spread of the virus will grow, especially in the United States. The Chinese government, presiding over a weakened economy, may seek to distract the public by evoking nationalism and stoking anti-U.S. sentiment. Reuters reported on May 4^th that an internal Chinese report being circulated among party leadership warned that Beijing faces “Tiananmen-like” global backlash over the virus, even indicating that the hostility coming out of the pandemic could “tip relations with the United States into confrontation.”

With this in context, it is important to illustrate the environment that will likely exist coming out of the pandemic.

For one, U.S-China relations were already in peril before the pandemic struck. Antagonism was high and prospects for repair low. Tensions in potential geopolitical flashpoints, such as the South China Sea, were increasing while a battering trade war between the two was far from being resolved. As stated previously, U.S. perceptions of China had already been at 15-year lows.

Second, there currently exists little public appetite for compromise. If anything, the public in both countries appear to be receptive of the rhetoric coming from hawkish figures in both governments, indicating that these hardliners have gained the upper hand in policy discourse. Compounding this is the fact that diplomacy is at an all-time low. Stoking intense levels of nationalism and resentment boxes in decision makers and diminishes the impact diplomats can have in easing tensions as they flare up. This creates an unstable environment because the prospect for confrontation increases while the ability to diplomatically maneuver out of a crisis decreases.

Last, the United States is in an election year. As taking a hardline against China becomes more attractive in the United States, candidates may attempt to capitalize off of this by advancing harsh rhetoric, putting forward aggressive policy platforms, and casting themselves as leaders unwilling to be “soft on China.” The Trump campaign has already begun putting forward campaign ads portraying 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden as someone who is not hard enough on China. Joe Biden’s campaign has also launched ads accusing President Trump of being too soft on China in his response to the Coronavirus pandemic.

These international realities, along with the current domestic political landscape in both countries, indicates that U.S.-China relations are on a fast track to unstable territories as the world slowly comes out of the pandemic. It will be increasingly difficult for both sides to tread the line between cooperation and confrontation. A century marked by strategic rivalry is virtually inevitable at this point, but war is not. Just as in any high-stakes environment or moment, the United States must restore and utilize its tool of first resort: diplomacy. Leaders should not allow rhetoric, culpability, and political expediency to chart the relationship on a dark course where nobody truly wants to go.

May 14, 2020 0 comment

Global Health Mexico and Latin America Middle East

The Danger of Being “Safe at Home”: Domestic Violence in the Era of Quarantine

written by Annabelle Werner

Not long ago was the topic of domestic violence considered a taboo. Universally, these terrible deeds have been concealed within the sanctity of one’s “private” domain. They have been perpetuated by the manipulation inherent to their cruelty and compounded by a lack of legal remedies/feasible exits for their survivors. Some communities are still fighting for intimate partner violence to be considered a crime, while others are desperately seeking for the actualization of promised legal recourse; regardless of the stage of public mobilization, domestic violence and the struggle to prevent it has been exacerbated by COVID19’s stay at home orders.

Isolation with one’s abuser in a time of social and financial stress has created upticks in already frightening statistics. According to an NBC report, 18 of the 22 contacted law enforcement agencies across the United States have reported an increase in domestic violence calls since the implementation of the stay at home orders. The city of Houston has experienced a 20% increase in the month of March alone. COVID19 has also complicated typical resources, like NGOs that provide shelter and safe spaces, as they struggle to accommodate survivors while keeping them safe from the virus.

While there appears to be a recent spike in reported cases, the problem of domestic violence is far from a new phenomenon and remains indiscriminately present around the world. In a global study on homicide, the UN reported that “more than a third (30,000) of the women intentionally killed in 2017 were killed by their current or former intimate partner” and 1 in 3 women globally have experienced “either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or sexual violence by a non-partner (not including sexual harassment) at some point in their lives”. Despite its prevalence, it can be argued that little has been done to hold perpetrators accountable within relationships/marriages because of two main factors: marital expectations for women and views of state presence in the household. While laws vary per nation, women lose or have lost legal rights after marriage when their autonomy and access/entitlement to legitimacy in the public sphere is transferred to the husband. In fact, marital rape was only made illegal in all 50 U.S. states in 1993. Prior to becoming illegal, a prevalent legal assertion was that a marriage contract symbolized a form of written consent, thus making rape between a husband and wife impossible. When this lack of autonomy for married women is combined with the discouragement of the state to interfere with the husband’s jurisdiction over family matters, women find no alleviation from violence in their community or the law.

Many are working to push this conversation to the forefront of the public sphere and investigate the characteristics of domestic violence. A revered psychiatrist at Harvard University Medical School, Judith Lewis Herman, has discovered how the manipulative tactics used by abusers against their families resemble the methods “kidnappers use to control hostages and repressive regimes use to break the will of political prisoners”. Thus, the emerging term for domestic violence known as “intimate terrorism” seems apt in its connotation. Reshaping the narrative of these silenced acts is vital to obtaining the attention of both civil society and legislators who cannot continue to pay the hefty price tag that comes with apathy. The UN estimates the “global cost of violence against women had previously been estimated at approximately 1.5 trillion dollars.” By ignoring this particular side effect of the pandemic, the stakes rise in tandem with the cost of impunity for the perpetrators of intimate terrorism.

Efforts to end domestic violence on the global stage dates back nearly 40 years when one of the cornerstone legal works of women’s rights, the Convention on the Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), went into effect. Since then, the treaty has been ratified by 189 states (not including the US) and has been used as a catalyst for the passage of domestic violence laws in Turkey, Nepal, South Africa, and the Republic of Korea. Unfortunately, domestic violence is still not considered a crime in nearly 20 states, which translates into approximately 603 million women living in a country where this violence is not outlawed. Recent mobilization and lobbying for the criminalization of intimate partner violence and its prevention has taken place around the world in honor of the recent International Women’s Day.

Protests took place across Latin America as nearly 190,000 people in Chile and 80,000 in Mexico mobilized in support of women’s rights. Despite the dangers of the COVID19, many felt it more important to protest the impunity for violence against women in their communities. According to the UN, “Latin America is home to 14 of the 25 countries with the highest rates of femicide in the world and an astonishing 98 per cent of gender-related killings, go unprosecuted.” Sometimes activists are protesting laws that blatantly restrict women’s rights (i.e. El Salvador’s total criminalization of abortion or the proposed draft known as the Jaafari Personal Status Law which would allow for child marriage in Iraq), yet in many situations regarding domestic violence, activists are demanding that their government take active measures and fulfill positive rights that have been denied to them because of their gender or marriage status. And why it might seem indubitable for governments to prosecute the murder and torture of their citizens regardless of gender, there remains a persistent record of passivity in not prosecuting perpetrators of domestic violence which stands as a systematic violation of human rights.

The UN has spearheaded multiple initiatives regarding women’s rights and campaigns against gender-based violence. In considering how women’s lives will be affected by stay at home orders around the world, the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres made a special distinction in his proclamation for a global ceasefire when he tweeted “Peace is not just the absence of war. Many women under lockdown for #COVID19 face violence where they should be safest: in their own homes. Today I appeal for peace in homes around the world. I urge all governments to put women’s safety first as they respond to the pandemic”. Other UN action includes the “Spotlight Initiative” which is the world’s largest effort to end violence against women and girls and serves as a “demonstration fund for action on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)”. They operate a 6-pillar mission that targets a change in laws and policies, strengthens institutions to be gender responsive, as well as focus on prevention, services, data, and the promotion of women’s movements. These are all campaigns working towards the SDGs’ ever approaching 2030 target, yet in order to eliminate an issue as ubiquitous as domestic violence in our lifetimes and callous our tolerance to the domination of women, our communities need to have a sustained, serious discourse about ending cycles of predatory and abusive behavior.

In the era of quarantine, many of us are struggling with the stress of the uncertain. We seek out routine hoping to feel a sense of productivity until we return to our normal lives. Yet during this interim, we must consider what “normal” we want to return to. Will we continue to let this deadly, costly, ubiquitous killer live on in our daily lives? Or will we reshape our institutions to reflect values of equality, intolerance of predatory violence, and solidarity with those who consider saving lives from this violence their own normal?

May 3, 2020 0 comment

Image Source: Axios

Geopolitics Military Security and Conflict Terrorism

Could a Global Pandemic Pave the Way for an Iranian Retaliation?

written by Taylor Fairless

Its been four months since the United States ordered a drone strike that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) near Baghdad, an act that conjured rising fears of a severe Iranian retaliation. America prepared its troops for an assured attack, waiting steadily, all for what turned out to be an incredibly weak Iranian response. What came as a surprise to many top officials, it seemed like Iran yielded in the aftermath of the attack, leaving many to wonder . . . was that it?

Recent events have given reason to believe that this battle is far from over. With America’s attention on the coronavirus and the weakening of Iran’s regional enemies due to the pandemic, could this prove to be the perfect scenario for an Iranian retaliation?

“He’s probably the most powerful figure that is generally unknown outside Iran and the Middle East. He’s essentially Iran’s viceroy for Iraq.”
Jim Phillips, Middle East analyst for conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, was quoted as saying this about Soleimani in 2015

Who is Soleimani, and why is he important? The Iranian General rose rapidly through the ranks of Iran’s military forces at just 20 years old. During the Iran-Iraq war, his fierce tactics made him a war hero, and he emerged as a commander of his squad. Within a few years, he became the head of the IRGC’S elite Quds force — a unit that specializes in unconventional warfare and military intelligence operations.

Following America’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, Soleimani channeled money to Iran’s proxies to fund the creation of highly destructive weapons, including Improvised Explosive Devices. These would be used to kill over 300 American soldiers. The next decade would see war in Syria, where Soleimani was the lifeline that kept Bashar al-Assad’s power alive. “Tehran’s overseas visionary” propelled Iran’s expansionist agenda by directing deadly proxy forces in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon, where he took control of Hezbollah forces. By 2013, he was believed to be one of Iran’s most important figures, and a pressing threat for American officials.

At home, Soleimani was enigmatic and well-cherished, even by critics who acknowledged his dedication to fighting for the Islamic Republic for almost five decades. In the aftermath of his death, violent protests erupted across the Middle East, reaching Palestinians in Gaza and Pakistanis in Lahore.

“Soleimani’s martyrdom will make Iran more decisive to resist America’s expansionism and to defend our Islamic values…with no doubt, Iran and other freedom-seeking countries in the region will take his revenge.”
President Hassan Rouhani, January 3, 2020

Killed alongside Soleimani was Iraqi politician and highly influential military commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis who served with the General against the Saddam regime. With the death of two of Iran’s chief military figures and a precarious replacement, Iranian officials are fuming.

Making matters worse, many Iraqis believed this strike at Baghdad was a myopic move by America that caused severe strains to their relations. An Iraqi official told Newsweekly back in March that “America is supposed to be our ally, they are supposed to be different from Iran, that strike showed that they are no different than the Iranians.”

Iran responded to the murder by firing 15 ballistic missiles at a US Air Base station in Iraq, the long time battle ground for the two forces. No one was killed, but more than 100 American service members suffered head injury. Tehran framed the rather poor attack as the “conclusion” to their retaliation.

But, more recently, this proved to be false.

On March 11, IRGC proxies sent off a volley of rockets that killed American and British service members near Baghdad. The US responded by striking five Iranian militia logistical and military hubs. Foreign policy expert Philip H. Gordon wrote for the New York Times that Washington’s maximum pressure could pave a path to war with Iran, especially following their decision to no longer observe the nuclear restrictions outlined in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

But, the change in global atmosphere due to the coronavirus has opened up new possibilities for Iran.

Despite burgeoning tensions, American officials are now seriously considering lifting sanctions made against Iran in light of the Covid-19 crisis, which could open the doors for a renewal of Iranian strength down the line. America’s incentive for lifting sanctions include providing greater health protection for American forces stationed nearby in Iraq and showing a sense of morality in light of a cataclysmic virus, something that could fortify international and domestic favorability for the Trump administration. American officials state there is little appetite in the White House for an escalation with Iran whose population is coping with the virus amid sanctions that limit their import of medical supplies.

What would this mean for the Iranian government if the sanctions are lifted? General Kenneth Mcenzie, head of the US Central Command and now at the top of Iran’s “hit list,” said last month that Iranian leadership has become fractured because of the virus, “and they’re having difficulty dealing with a number of things. So I think it probably makes them, in terms of decision-making, more dangerous.” He went on to state that Iran is prepared to use their emissaries in Iraq against American targets and targets in the Gulf.

Indeed, Iranian militia groups have been escalating tensions with the United States in hopes of extracting the remaining 5,000 American troops from Iraq, a prominent goal of theirs.

If Iran’s vengeful mindset persists among a lift of sanctions, it could possibly mean that they could carry out an attack after gathering more resources that had once been denied to them. At that point, what would stop Tehran, in its sensitive and unstable posture, from seeking further retaliation for the murder of Soleimani? And, would America’s distractions over reinvigorating their economy prove to be perfect timing?

It doesn’t seem to be outside the realm of possibility. And now, Iran has a new figure to admire, Soleimani’s own daughter, Zeinab Soleimani, who has become the public face for consolidating national unity and openly calling for Iran to avenge her father.

With an unstable government and new public figure, the risk of an emotionally-driven attack seems more and more likely in the wake of the virus. This environment can prove to play into the political hands of the Iranian government and their proxies by opening up a new channel for strength and recuperation from the sanctions and pandemic. There is now a gamble that Washington has to play. Should the Trump administration show diplomacy and shuffle aid to Iran’s hard-hit country which could prove to lessen tensions between Washington and Tehran, or should strengthen their threats and continue imposing sanctions?

It seems like a hybrid of the two choices, that is, providing temporary relief with strings attached that would prevent Iran from manipulating the circumstances, such as renewed negotiations for the 2015 nuclear deal, would seem best. This could project an image of peace and rationale for the Trump administration, perhaps resolve some tensions with Tehran, and it would help to contain the virus in the Middle East which is also risking the lives of American troops stationed there. All of this could be done while still maintaining a heavy-hand with Iran. We will have to wait and see, but given the rapidly changing and hypersensitive environment, an answer should not be long-awaited.

April 18, 2020 0 comment

China Global Health History Russia

Is Xi’s Coronavirus Gorbachev’s Chernobyl?

written by Taylor Fairless

On December 31st, the government in Wuhan confirmed they had been treating dozens of cases of an unknown virus. By January 20th, other cases of this pathogen appeared in the United States, South Korea, and Thailand. Three days later, President Xi Jinping closed off Wuhan when 570 more cases had been confirmed.

The initial, negligent handling of the coronavirus and official’s delayed response is analogous to the disasters that unfolded with the 1986 Chernobyl incident, and is severe enough that Xi should be worried.

At 1:23 a.m. on April 26, 1986, almost exactly thirty-four years ago today, a routine test of the Chernobyl nuclear power station located in Kiev, Ukraine caused control rods to enter into the nuclear core. This created an unprecedented power surge that blew the 1,000 ton roof off of the reactor and caused radiation to spill into the air for 10 days.

At 2 p.m. on April 27th, some 36 hours later, Soviet officials finally proclaimed there had been an accident and began evacuating citizens for a “temporary” restabilization period. All the while, radiation was spilling so quickly that air monitors 2,577 km away in Sweden detected large amounts of iodine-131 the day after the evacuation. Despite this, Soviet officials falsely stated that “everything is under control.” People unknowingly carrying radiation on their bodies were migrating around the Soviet Union, with the government’s knowledge.

“It was a sunny Saturday, and I had spent most of the day outside, playing with other kids from our apartment building…We collected wildflowers and jagged clay pieces that we thought treasures until our mothers hollered our names through open windows, summoning us to dinner…As I ate my dinner, the sky was blue outside the wide-open window of the kitchen. I didn’t learn about Chernobyl for several days.”
Sophia Moskalenko, 10 years old at the time of the incident

Within weeks, 54 people died from radiation exposure. Another 4,000 civilians would get cancer, and some 120,000 clean-up workers would pass away from radiation poisoning. Today, these figures continue to rise.

Today’s threat is different from a nuclear explosion. Radiation is not a pathogen; during the 1980’s, the spread of radiation went only so far as available transportation could carry it. And this occurred at a much slower rate. On the other hand, the coronavirus has spread across the globe at incredible speeds through modern transportation and increased interconnectivity.

What parallels is individual reaction. There is an omnipresent feeling of vulnerability to an invisible threat. Trying to distinguish fact from propaganda and truth from deceitful words of relief raises questions about the trustworthiness of the government. To be sure, questions are proliferating in all realms and, the matter is, scientists are working with the unknown and political leaders across the globe have intentions that may vary from our own.

The nuclear disaster at Chernobyl struck a critical juncture in Gorbachev’s rule, just following his promise of transparency and reconstruction through glasnost and perestroika. Yet, it took weeks before Gorbachev stood in front of the public to discuss the incident for the first time. His promises were quickly overturned as the Soviets reverted back to their ways of secrecy and self-serving interests.

Xi’s authoritarian regime had many of the same initial responses, and subsequent strategies. As of last week, China’s propaganda blitz has focused on pivoting the blame of COVID-19 away from China, saying that it had nothing to do with its spread. Similar to the Kremlin, the Chinese government let the virus go unchecked for weeks from its initial start in Wuhan earlier last December. Despite cases emerging across Southeast Asia, as in Thailand and Singapore, Chinese officials muzzled scientific reporting and rejected visits from American health authorities in the earliest stages of the epidemic.

Chinese officials also lied about the seriousness of the situation. One of China’s more esteemed epidemiologists (a person who studies the accumulation and spread of diseases) said that if the government had acted sooner, “the number of sick would be greatly reduced.”

“The false information released by the relevant departments — claiming the disease was controllable and would not spread from human-to-human — left hundreds of doctors and nurses in the dark, doing all they could to treat patients without knowing about the epidemic.”
Said by an anonymous Central Hospital department head in Wuhan, China

As was the case with the Soviets, Chinese authorities failed to critically address the burgeoning issue, making claims that the virus could not spread from human contact. Social media discourse about the virus was heavily censored, even when propagated by doctors and health officials. And like Gorbachev, it took Xi weeks before he finally acknowledged the crisis on January 20th. A full three days later, he declared Wuhan to be on lockdown. But by that time, some 5 million Wuhan residents had traveled across China and overseas.

Beijing has tried to project the lackluster response to the virus onto local officials, as the Kremlin did to devoid themselves from the growing reprisal. But in both cases, the blame lies within the penchant for praise funneled through censorship, misinformation, and dystopic control.

The world should look towards the handling of both the nuclear disaster and the coronavirus outbreak as an example of the need for more transparent, intimate, and regular collaboration between governmental officials and health personnel to act earlier and more decisively in a globalized world. There needs to be an open, international forum for discussion that leverages the work of impartial IGOs and NGOs, such as the WHO and Doctors Without Borders. This is especially true for underdeveloped countries who are shouldering immense burden from the outbreak. A decisive plan for recovering from the fragmentation of the economy and society and strategizing ways to prevent its further dismembering needs to be reached.

With Chernobyl capturing the world’s attention almost 40 years ago, perhaps the current world was myopic when it came to the coronavirus outbreak. In the aftermath of the pandmeic, Xi needs to acknowledge his government’s failure to respond to the initial outbreak and subsequent disregard for its spread.

March 30, 2020 0 comment

Global Health Globalization Immigration Society and Culture UCLA and the World

Pandemic Fascism

written by Grayson Peters

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented global health crisis. Governments worldwide are struggling to restrain the spread of the novel coronavirus, hoping to “flatten the curve” and avoid a surge of patients needing hospitalization which could overwhelm limited hospital beds and medical supplies. Faced with this challenge, many governments are reaching for greater authority over the movement of their citizens, imposing forced quarantines and border closures, activating emergency powers, and ramping up surveillance. While these measures may be effective as short-term countermeasures against the coronavirus, it is undeniable that, compared to only a few months ago, governments are exerting a far greater degree of control over the everyday lives of people.

Nationalists and xenophobes have taken to blaming the pandemic on foreigners, ethnic and religious minorities, and globalization. These reactionary sentiments have the potential to interact dangerously with governments that are increasingly comfortable with exercising authoritarian emergency powers. If the coronavirus is not successfully managed and millions fall sick and die, it has the potential to traumatize the world, radically reshape global politics, and transform the relationships between citizens and governments.

This worst-case scenario, which I call “pandemic fascism,” is the synthesis of medical authoritarianism, a reactionary fear of the foreign, and the collective trauma of a deadly global pandemic.

Unprecedented Border Closures

Countries across the globe are implementing travel restrictions, limiting the ability of their own citizens to move freely and some cutting off entirely from the outside world. These border closures and internal travel restrictions are on an unprecedented scale.

Canada, Haiti, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, Serbia, Greece, Romania, Ukraine, Latvia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Sudan, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Saudia Arabia, Iraq, Yemen, Oman, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Australia, and New Zealand have closed their borders to all foreign nationals.

Hundreds of other countries including the United States have put in place less draconian measures like requiring mandatory quarantine periods for foreign visitors and returning citizens. For example, China, Nepal, Madagascar, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Jamaica, Rwanda, Singapore, South Korea, Uruguay, Chile, and Israel have all mandated that those entering the country from abroad remain in quarantine for 14 days.

Other nations have chosen instead to selectively bar travelers from other countries. Jordan, for instance, barred entry from neighboring Israel, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria, before adding France, Germany, and Spain to the list.

Medical Surveillance

Although systems of national security surveillance already exist, states are rapidly expanding their abilities to monitor individuals in every waking moment, log their movements, and archive the most intimate details of their lives.

In China, an already pervasive surveillance system is growing to meet the threat of COVID-19. Police officers are donning ‘smart helmets’ equipped with cameras capable of facial recognition and measuring the body temperature of passers-by within a range of five meters. GPS tracking and ubiquitous facial recognition cameras log the movements of citizens, allowing for those who unwittingly come near confirmed coronavirus carriers to be automatically notified. Access to buildings can be restricted if a security camera observes that an entrant has a fever.

Israel implemented a controversial mass surveillance program operated by the Shin Bet security service to track the cell phone location and personal data of persons suspected to be infected and diagnosed with coronavirus, empowering the Health Ministry to send text messages notifying anybody who came into contact with them to self-quarantine. While both legal and arguably justified in the service of public health, this new system of medical surveillance received criticism from privacy advocates. Avner Pinchuk of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel argued that “the danger of COVID-19 is not only the virus itself, but the fear that as part of the efforts to overcome the danger, we will also lose our basic values as a free and democratic society.”

South Korea has used surveillance camera footage, smartphone location data, and even records of credit card purchases to backtrace the movements of coronavirus patients, determine who they were in contact with, and reconstruct chains of transmission.

People under total lockdown in Lombardy, Italy are under location surveillance by the provincial government to ensure that they obey the stay-at-home order and limit their time outside. Lombardy vice president Fabrizio Sala claimed on March 17th that phone location data provided by cell companies showed that 40% of Lombardians were still moving too much.

Blaming the Foreign

Government officials and private individuals are also taking part in the longstanding tradition of blaming foreigners and immigrants for disease. Instead of taking ownership of their crisis management (or lack thereof) leaders are dodging responsibility for failures of public health policy, advancing nationalist policies by using vulnerable groups as scapegoats.

President Donald Trump has taken to calling the coronavirus the “Chinese Virus” amidst a spate of racist attacks on Asian-Americans, and tweeted that the global spread of the coronavirus would be prevented by the completion of his signature wall on the border with Mexico. Sheriff David Clarke, a frequent guest on Fox News, speaker at the 2016 Republican National Convention, and high-profile Trump surrogate suggested that George Soros, a frequently-employed Jewish boogeyman for the far-right, was behind the spread of the coronavirus. Media and political figures in Turkey have claimed that coronavirus is a Zionist plot orchestrated by the state of Israel. Two spokesmen for the Chinese Foreign Ministry insinuated that the virus was brought to China by the United States military and did not, as scientists have concluded, originate in a wet market for wild animal meat in Wuhan.

In each case, blame for the pandemic is not directed towards the virus itself, insufficient public health policies, or overburdened health care systems, but towards alleged foreign threats and traditionally stigmatized groups.

Pandemic Fascism: America First Bruins

On March 25th this year, a new student organization at UCLA named America First Bruins made its social media debut with a joint resolution signed by the Bruin Republicans and five other College Republicans chapters. Alleging that the “Wuhan Virus” is spread by the “continued importation of refugees, guest workers, and foreign students,” the statement calls for President Trump to suspend refugee resettlement, the issuance of F-1 student visas, and the H-1B visa lottery while completing the southern border wall and deploying military assets to seal the northern border with Canada.

America First Bruins is an openly fascist club. I mean this in the truest sense of the word and without hyperbole. The header on its Twitter profile reads, in stylized vaporwave text, “Communists aren’t people.” The club cites Nicholas Fuentes, a holocaust denier, as inspiration. On the subject of ICE raids during the coronavirus pandemic, the club president tweeted “Can ICE just cough on illegals or something?” On the subject of Harvey Weinsein’s 23 year prison sentence for sex crimes, he tweeted “This is proof that women are literal children and should not have full rights.” Responding to the claim that accusing Ben Shapiro, an American Jew, of “dual loyalty” to Israel is antisemitic, he responded: “Jews have no loyalty to Israel? HAH!”

The fact that America First Bruins debuted and the Bruin Republicans openly embraced fascism for the first time amidst the coronavirus pandemic is not a coincidence. The emergency and the nationalist sentiments it produces are fertile ground for fascist organizing. This unprecedented shift in the political culture of the UCLA campus should be understood as a microcosm of an emerging far-right in the politics of American youth, emboldened by the cultural impact of COVID-19.

Fascism and Public Health

Broadly speaking, fascism is an ultranationalist and totalitarian political philosophy which imagines a mythic national rebirth from a state of degeneration, moral decay, and foreign subversion. In fascist rhetoric of the 20th century, foreigners and minorities were often characterized not just as undesirables or political subversives, but as parasites and vectors of disease infecting the body politic.

The German Nationalist Socialist Party, for example, often described Jews as parasites who both leeched off of German society and physically corrupted the German race through miscengination and moral degradation. In this way, previous fascists frequently conflated public health, the body politic, and an ideal of societal purity.

President Trump, importantly, has also used the rhetoric of public health as a way to attack immigrants and marginalized groups. As a candidate for president in 2015, he accused undocumented Mexican immigrants of bringing “tremendous infectious disease” across the border as justification for a border wall and widespread deportations.

The veneer of public health concerns allows fascists to pursue their policy goals of discrimination, exclusion, and genocide without openly admitting that hatred is their motivation. Border closures, travel bans, and immigration restrictions are far more politically viable if ostensibly justified by medical necessity. As a result, fascists like the America First Bruins capitalize eagerly on legitimate anxieties about disease transmission in order to demonize minority groups and expand the national government’s emergency powers.

Looking Forward

Now that we’ve laid out the theoretical elements of pandemic fascism — xenophobia and authoritarianism in the name of public health — it is necessary to ask whether or not this actually represents a serious threat. I believe it does.

In March, Politico reported that the U.S. Department of Justice had furtively requested that Congress grant it emergency powers, including the ability to petition a judge to detain someone indefinitely during a declared national emergency. More borders are shut, more emergency powers activated, and more people under tighter surveillance by governments than ever before. Historically, periods of crisis have enabled strongmen and demagogues to play on the public’s fears, seize unprecedented authority under the guise of responding to the emergency, and consolidate their power into permanent and oppressive regimes.

While the COVID-19 pandemic necessitates strong government responses, including restrictions on travel, immigration, and some proactive surveillance, these measures must be balanced with respect for privacy and a serious understanding that, once the outbreak is managed, governments will cede their emergency powers and the balance of power between citizen and state will return to relative normalcy. And, most importantly, people must continue to point out and shame those who weaponize fear of a virus into hatred of minoritized people. If fear is allowed to fester into hate, then the danger of pandemic fascism that lasts long after the spread of COVID-19 has ended may become a reality.

March 29, 2020 0 comment

Globalization

No Good Options: Policy Choices in the Pandemic

written by Zachary Durkee

Governments across the world have unleashed sweeping campaigns to promote social distancing, an infection control method designed to slow the spread of the current COVID-19 pandemic. People have hunkered down in their homes while thousands of businesses have shut their doors indefinitely. It has all been instituted in the name of “flattening the curve,” a term used to describe the goal of slowing infection rates to the point where healthcare systems do not become overwhelmed.

To achieve just this, many government leaders presiding over outbreak-stricken populations have resorted to enacting rigorous measures. Across Europe and the United States, officials have forced non-essential businesses to temporarily close and imposed shelter in place orders to discourage the public from congregating outside. The Trump administration has also requested that people do not gather in groups larger than 10 people. In epidemiology, this strategy is known as suppression which essentially requires the complete shutdown of society.

These choices may be necessary in the face of such a threat, but do they possess long-term feasibility? This is a question policy makers must grapple with as the pandemic takes hold. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo recently stated that such lockdowns and the pursuance of a suppression strategy may be needed for as much as half a year to keep hospitals from being overrun. The only issue with this is that the economic toll would be great.

Layoffs have already begun across various industries. Restaurants, an industry which employs roughly 15 million Americans, have been hit particularly hard due to virus-imposed restrictions. Josh Souder, Director of Operations of “The Drunken Crab” in North Hollywood spoke with CNN, stating that everything has already been a “completely life altering experience from start to finish” and that the financial stress of being forced to shut his doors has made him worry about his physical health. In just one day he had to lay off 75 employees. The State of California received 80,000 unemployment applications on March 17th alone. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has warned that the lack of robust state action could lead to national unemployment rates as high as 20 percent. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates that global GDP growth may have already contracted for the first quarter of 2020.

The nature of this dilemma boils down to the fact that modern economies require integration to thrive while the response to the virus necessitates sweeping levels of social separation to properly combat it. As the economic costs mount and the pandemic rages on, government leaders will be faced with a tough choice ahead. Confronted with a tumbling economic situation that threatens the livelihoods of hundreds of millions, some leaders may ultimately choose to shift to a mitigation strategy (one much looser and less constraining) in an effort to prevent the current turmoil from diving into an economic depression. Mitigation means focusing more on quarantining individuals and instilling heightened awareness of preventative measures within the general public rather than outright shutting society.

The fundamental problem that going down this path presents is that more people will likely die as a consequence. Were the virus left to spread on a larger scale more quickly, hospitals lacking sufficient supplies and beds could become overwhelmed with severe cases of the infection. Current data points to this gloomy scenario were governments to pull back lockdowns and lift shelter in place orders prematurely.

Quite frankly, the picture is bleak. There is no easy answer. Individuals across the globe in positions to make these difficult decisions are faced with two courses of action that trade lives and values. One must ask themself when confronting this challenge: is the direct human cost and prospective catastrophic impact on healthcare systems too consequential when risking a surge of infections under a mitigation strategy, or will the economic implications of sustained lockdowns under a suppression strategy impact us more profoundly in the long term and ultimately cause higher degrees of suffering on a broader scale? Serious thought, analysis of data, and participation of experts must be utilized in making such a decision. The call is not easy, but it must be made soon, especially when the lives of millions are riding on it. Resolute leadership will be needed to determine the path humanity takes.

March 24, 2020 0 comment

Economics Globalization International Trade The International Economy

COVID-19: Globalism’s Achilles Heel

written by Zachary Durkee

As COVID-19 spreads around the world, everyday life for hundreds of millions has been drastically altered. Full-scale quarantines have been imposed on countries hit hardest by the outbreak. Italy is under lockdown as its northern region faces sharp challenges in limiting new infections. In the United States, schools have closed, travel disrupted, and mass fear illustrated in the clearing of grocery store shelves.

Perhaps the most consequential disruption – aside from the direct human toll the virus has had – is the economic volatility felt across global markets. In America, ominous signs have pointed to a looming recession. Markets have hit bear territory, meaning securities prices have fallen more than 20% from recent highs. On Monday, March 16th, the Dow Jones Industrial Average saw its steepest single day drop in 33 years. Pessimism and panic have taken hold of economic sentiment. People under quarantine and social distancing measures are less inclined to go out and purchase goods or services. Broad layoffs throughout the job market have begun while the Trump administration seeks nearly $850 billion in stimulus to keep the United States economy afloat.

One of the greatest threats the pandemic has imposed on the global economy is its sheer impact on supply chains. 75% of companies in the U.S. have had their supply chains disrupted as a result of the virus.

Decades of globalization and interconnecting economies have developed a system in which finished products are not made in any single place. Their parts and manufacturing span oceans and continents. The manufacturing of a single Apple IPhone Touch ID button requires over 12,000 miles of movement to reach the place where the iPhone is assembled. All-in-all, “the iPhone has a transportation footprint at least as great as a 240,000-mile trip to the moon, and most or all of the way back.”

It is difficult to fathom the level of complexity that goes into the production of simple products many of us take for granted on a daily basis – at least until COVID-19 hit. Today the world is facing an inflection point surrounding globalization. It has uncovered both its limits and weaknesses.

The unprecedented movement of goods and people has cultivated the perfect environment for a virus which began in a seafood and livestock market in central China to wreak havoc on the world. In a mere three months it has spread to virtually every part of the globe and tanked markets.

It has also demonstrated to governments and its leaders advocating for a turn inwards that isolation is not always a feasible option. What happens in one place inevitably affects another. Companies which operate under a just-in-time (JIT) inventory system, a strategy that opts to maximize efficiency by limiting inventory, face existential threats to their supply of goods. Apple, which produces many of its products under this scheme, is now set to miss its forecast for the second quarter and is facing a sharp constraint in its ability to produce the IPhone.

The more tangible impact that the outbreak will have on globalization is difficult to determine as of now since the spread of COVID-19 has only begun. From a political level, Philippe Legrain of Foreign Policy Magazine has argued that the “outbreak has been a gift to nativist nationalists and protectionists, and it is likely to have a long-term impact on the free movement of people and goods.”

Political leaders espousing these ideas may end up with the ammunition and legitimacy they need to put the final nail in the coffin in their fight against globalization. The world could come out of this more divided and uncooperative than it was before.

This prospective reality is frightening because it is a response to a problem requiring the exact opposite. Forces outside of the control of politicians or their rhetoric are in fact integrating the world to greater degrees as time moves forward. Advancements in technology and infrastructure have enabled more people than ever to travel around the globe. Developing nations are increasingly integrating into the world as hubs of business and travel. Businesses and governments would find it infeasible to truly de-integrate based on the reality that modern globalization has enabled companies to produce products better, faster, and cheaper via the construction of highly efficient supply chains. Reversing this course of direction would be a daunting and nearly impossible task. Globalization is not just some policy choice, it is a consequence of advancements in human ingenuity. In reality, governments ought to be coming out of this realizing the need to invest more in domestic and global preventive measures/capacities. Cooperation and information sharing should become the centerpiece to fighting and preventing future outbreaks. The construction of a more robust global health regime bolstered by true initiative and sustained investment in domestic measures are key to tackling future pandemics.

Although people may feel inclined to see globalization as a threat to humanity in the face of COVID-19, the world continues to change in ways that make turning inwards and shutting the door virtually impossible. People must come to terms with the fact that civilization faces many challenges ahead that do not respect borders. If anything, our current predicament shows us all that many times the only way forward is by uniting and cooperating in the face of shared adversity. The reality is that pandemics transcend many of our common conceptions of national interest and multilateralism. Preventing and combating them requires an immense level of global cooperation and an outgrowth from the daily trivialities that plague interactions between political entities, both domestically and globally. They are one of the starkest delineations of a “global challenge.” Transnational threats to humanity must demonstrate to us all that, in the end, we are in it together.

March 17, 2020 1 comment