the world today | june & july 2020 June & July 2020 | Volume 76 | Number 3 Medical check-up Front-line health workers on battle to defeat Environment It’s time to put out the fire and start saving the planet Expert advisers Politicians must show leadership, not hide behind scientists

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Cover story 10 Pandemic's side effects Taking liberties to protect our health Marjorie Buchser From the Editor Hong Kong financier Shan Weijian on how It was the best of times, it was the worst China can bounce back of times. So opens Charles Dickens’ novel America and China: today's imperial rivals Samir Puri of the French Revolution, A Tale of two Features 20 Interview Dame Vivian Hunt on the jobs threatened by the Cities. At this stage it is hard to divine all pandemic and the need to avoid mass unemployment the lasting effects of the coronavirus 24 Environment Putting out the fire to save the planet pandemic, but a number of revolutions Walt Patterson are under way. As Marjorie Buchser writes, the mass adoption of digital 28 Russia Plunging oil price will hit Putin hardest technology has leapt ahead, with serious Philip Hanson and Michael Bradshaw implications for privacy. 31 Leaders-for-rent is no answer for Ukraine or Georgia Meanwhile, the trade war between the Max Fras Untied States and China has warped into 32 Scientific advisersPoliticians should lead, not hide a global test of strength. The Chinese behind experts Calum Inverarity financier Weijian Shan tells us he is 36 Conflict resolutionA good time to talk peace confident that the People’s Republic will Michael Keating recover, while Washington seems set on 38 The bigger picture Cyclone Amphan hits Ganges Delta a course of nationalistic self-harm. Vivian Hunt, our interviewee (page 42 Medical reports The view from the front line: how doctors 20), sets out some alarming forecasts are coping in Germany and Zambia Ben Horton for the world of work. A quarter of the Britain has become hostile territory Saleyha Ahsan British workforce are at risk of declining Hospitals' unsung heroes: My time as a cleaner income or losing their jobs, and the figure Hassan Akkad rises to one third in the United States. Regulars 4 Contributors Huge numbers of staff need to be 5 The world in brief including Jargonbuster and shorts retrained. 41 Postcard from Great Bahama Bank Megan Farr spends So much for the bad news. If there 53 days in quarantine at sea on a cruise ship is any upside it is the realization that we cannot simply return to the old model 42 Date with history Marshall Plan is passed by Congress of reckless over-consumption. On page Mariana Vieira 24 Walt Patterson pleads for the world 46 Review Where does the US go now? John Kampfner to use the crisis to stop burning oil, How to avoid extinction Thomas Raines coal and gas and move to sustainably Reading list: Sino-American tensions produced electricity. 50 Culture notes Dancing around the podium Michael Keating (page 36) regrets that Catherine Fieschi the UN Secretary-General’s call for a Cover by Luke Brookes global ceasefire has largely fallen on deaf ears. But he insists that now is the time to address conflict zones, if only national leaders can find the political will. The pandemic has brought to the fore a neglected truth: our economies cannot function without ‘low-skilled’ workers, such as hospital cleaners and care home staff. Read on page 43 a refugee’s experience joining the ranks of cleaners in an NHS hospital during the pandemic. Alan Philps

the world today | june & july 2020 | 3 June/July 2020 Contributors

Marjorie Buchser is the leader of Chatham House’s Digital Society Volume 76 Number 3 Editor Initiative which aims to bring together policy and technology communities Alan Philps to address the challenges caused by digital advances. In this issue, she [email protected] sounds a note of caution for policymakers. ‘Technological innovation is not Deputy Editor Agnes Frimston a silver bullet against the virus.’ [email protected] Design Alexander Ecob Sub-Editor Richard Parrack Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress is a scientist at the Middlebury Institute of Assistant Editor Sarah Whitehead International Studies in Monterey, California. He gives his views on where [email protected] the United States has gone wrong in the COVID-19 crisis, and the lessons it Editorial Assistant could learn from South Korea. He says: ‘A pandemic is like small forest fires Nairomi Eriksson [email protected] which can start up anywhere and spread.’ Marketing and subscriptions Roxana Raileanu [email protected] 020 3544 9275 Advertising Vivian Hunt is managing partner for the UK and Ireland of McKinsey and 020 7300 5751 Jane Grylls Company, the consultancy. She has been recognized by the Financial Times [email protected] as one of the 30 most influential people in the City of London and awarded Renata Molina Lopes a DBE for services to the economy and women in business. In our renata.molina-lopes@royalacademy. org interview, she warns employees that, in a tight jobs market, qualifications The World Today will be less valuable than underlying skills. is published by The Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House Saleyha Ahsan served as British Army officer in the Balkans before training in London. Any views expressed in this publication are those as a to work in emergency . She also works as broadcaster of the contributors. covering medicine in conflict zones in Syria and Libya, experience that For submissions, letters, provides unnerving parallels with doctoring in the NHS during the advertising, subscription enquiries and back pandemic. copies, please contact: The Editor, The World Today, Chatham House, 10 St James’s Square, London, sw1y 4le. Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7957 5712 Email: [email protected] Permission to reprint or republish material from The World Today in any form must be sought from the Editor. Back copies are available from 1990. The World Today is available on microfilm from The National Archive Publishing Company, www.napubco.com Electronic versions are also available from Exact Editions www.exacteditions.com and from Information and Learning, www.proquest.com Charity Reg. No 208223 issn 0043-9134 Printed by Warners Midlands Plc

4 | the world today | june & july 2020 June/July 2020 The world in brief

Pandemic Nordics react in different ways, but is Sweden right?

In the three months since basis to the strict lockdowns country. Ninety per cent of the coronavirus outbreak most other countries have those who have died from reached Scandinavia, Sweden opted for and, if anything, the COVID-19 in Sweden were GETTY IMAGES has become a country at lockdowns are purely political. over 70. Of these, almost 75 odds with the rest. Through Giesecke was the chief per cent lived in care homes a public health stance based scientist of the European or had home carers. on cooperation and social Centre for Disease Prevention While Sweden has seen responsibility rather than and Control for almost ten fewer deaths than many of enforcement, the Swedes have years and he now advises the its locked down European set themselves apart during World Health Organization. neighbours – 379 deaths the pandemic. In a Chatham House briefing Socially distant diners share per million compared with Nordic countries reported about the coronavirus a table outside an Ostersund countries such as Spain, with their first confirmed cases pandemic he outlined why restaurant in Sweden 596, France with 430 and of COVID-19 during he thinks other governments Britain with 526 – this is a February, and in mid-March aren’t taking the same governments are debating major failing for a strategy governments put measures in evidence-based approach: how to begin unlocking their that set out to protect the place to limit the spread of the ‘Politicians need to show countries there is no talk of elderly and most vulnerable. virus. All schools in Denmark, strength, decisiveness, action, exit strategies in Sweden. Despite differing Finland and Norway were and they jump on it when they The country has focused on approaches, each Nordic closed, as well as most shops have an occasion.’ sustainable restrictions that country has high public and restaurants. Finland Sweden asserts it is too people can live with over long support for how it is dealing declared a state of emergency soon to measure who has periods, and acknowledged with the epidemic but it will and put the capital under successfully handled the from the start this was a long- probably be a while before quarantine for two weeks. outbreak and that when its term challenge. anyone can determine who As European countries Nordic neighbours open up The majority of the people, achieved the most favourable compare coronavirus-related again after the lockdown they about 70 per cent, supports outcome. deaths per million, Denmark will be starting from square a policy based on scientific No two countries are the with 96, Finland with 55 and one. ‘I don’t know of any advice and trust, but the same, but the region, which Norway with 43 have all been single country in Europe that government’s capacity to is culturally, geographically, relatively effective in keeping had any idea how they would carry through the model has economically and politically the numbers down so far. get out of the lockdown. been questioned. similar, saw 17 million people Sweden by contrast has a toll The exit strategy was never Sweden has tested fewer assigned to lockdown, while of 379. discussed,’ Giesecke said. members of its population the remaining 10 million In charge of the Swedish In fact, in late April, Mika than any other Nordic Swedes were asked to simply policy are the current and Salminen, the Finnish public country. Towards the end keep their distance and stay at former state epidemiologists health chief, claimed that of May, 17 tests had been home if they felt sick. and Johan Finland had been so successful done per thousand people. From a scientific Giesecke, with Tegnell, rather at containing the virus that In Denmark and Norway the standpoint, the Nordic than government ministers, the spread of was figure was more than twice as countries will offer a unique informing the public of the going too slow and that at this high, 67 and 38 respectively. opportunity to compare the best course of action in daily rate, Finland wouldn’t reach How the virus managed to differing approaches and how media briefings. Their mantra the peak of their epidemic sweep through care homes successful they have been. is that there is no scientific until the autumn. While other across Sweden shocked the Nairomi Eriksson

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Five things The split in Assad family ranks

The Syrian government held the cousins together has want a slice of the economy. has ordered the seizure of collapsed. The fall of the Makhlouf assets belonging to Syria’s empire could be a sop to wealthiest businessman, 3 Makhlouf has suggested President Putin whose air Rami Makhlouf, a cousin of that the president’s wife, force turned the tide of battle. GETTY IMAGES AFP/ President Bashar al-Assad, Asma – well connected revealing a split among the to the old Sunni Muslim 5 The Assad family, in power family that has ruled the business elite who resent his since a military coup by the country since the 1970s. dominance of the economy president’s father, Hafez Here are five things to help – is behind the shake down, al-Assad, belongs to the explain the murky events in Asma al-Assad: business ties perhaps in order to give her Alawite sect of Islam which Damascus. son Hafez a cut of the wealth makes up only 11 per cent of estimated at $6 billion, but enjoyed by Makhlouf’s sons. the population. The family 1 The split emerged when he posted complaints on faced a similar split in 1983 the government demanded Facebook of ‘unjust taxation’. 4 A likely cause of the rift when the old president’s $180 million in back taxes could be pressure from brother, Rifaat, moved tanks from Makhlouf’s mobile 2 Makhlouf used his wealth Moscow, where the media into Damascus to try to take phone company, Syriatel, and to help crush the nine-year have been criticizing the power. He failed and went began arresting its executives. revolt against his cousin. corruption of the Assad into exile. The question is This sum is peanuts for Now that the revolt is all-but regime, an indication that whether the current president Makhlouf, whose wealth is ended, the solidarity that Russian business interests has his father’s staying power.

Jargonbuster ‘Ramping up’ goes rampant

If there has been one phrase They were ramping up To ‘ramp up’ is a bit joining different levels. But its that has transferred from the the recruitment of contact more prosaic, because it main metaphorical meaning, TV comedy series The Office tracers. And then they were simply means ‘to increase’, before the modern vogue, was to the government during the ramping up tests again. presumably because the a scheme to persuade people coronavirus crisis, it has been As a piece of business graph looks like a slope going that a company’s shares are ‘ramp up’. jargon it is not as ridiculous from a lower level to a higher worth more than they are. Every minister who as a sea change or a quantum one. It is possible, were one In this sense, the ramp was has come to the socially- leap, all ways of suggesting to speculate, that executives a device inserted under a distanced lectern in No 10 to dramatic improvement, yet giving presentations like it flimsy share price to raise it speak solemnly to the nation none really works at the level because it evokes in some artificially. about government efforts – of metaphor. minds’ eye an image of a The ‘bankers’ ramp’ was variously herculean, straining A sea change was motorbike hitting a ramp at a phrase in the 1930s for every sinew, moving heaven originally what happened speed in order to jump over what the Oxford dictionary and earth and whatever it to Ferdinand’s father in The some obstacle. calls ‘a financial crisis takes – has used the term. Tempest: after he drowned he In which case the origin perceived to have been The government was suffered a ‘sea-change, into and uses of the word ramp engineered by bankers for ramping up production of something rich and strange’, offer an ironic commentary. political or financial ends’. ventilators – until it turned when his bones turned to It is from the Old French Reason enough then for the out that they weren’t needed. coral and ‘those are pearls ramper, meaning to creep or government to ramp down Then they were ramping up that were his eyes’. As for a crawl upwards, often used the usage. tests and testing. They were quantum leap, it is the change of plants, before entering ramping up the supplies of state in an electron and English, meaning rear up, and Send your jargon suggestions to of protective equipment. therefore very small. eventually a noun for a slope [email protected]

6 | the world today | june & july 2020 June/July 2020

White House watch Trump swallows his words on disinfectant cure

Oil deal Under pressure be suspended for 60 days, and Flynn, who had pleaded guilty But he added: ‘We have to get from the White House, Saudi there were many exceptions. to making false statements two our country open, and we have Arabia and Russia ended years ago. Trump has repeatedly to get it open soon’. A medical their oil price war on April 12, Disinfection The president called for the general to be adviser, , warned concluding a deal to make the withdrew from daily briefings exonerated on the grounds of ‘really serious’ consequences biggest oil production cuts in on April 25 after his bizarre that he was the victim of FBI if workplaces reopened history. Donald Trump said suggestion that injecting agents acting on the orders of prematurely. The US death toll the deal would save ‘hundreds disinfectant could cure President Barack Obama – part from the virus passed 100,000 of thousands of energy jobs’ in COVID-19 disease was greeted of the so-called ‘Obamagate’ on May 24 and was projected to the United States, but analysts by experts and the media conspiracy promoted by rise to 143,000 by August 4. questioned whether the cuts with a mixture of shock and Trump himself. The FBI twice were deep enough to buoy the ridicule. On May 19, he stunned investigated Flynn, first as part China escalation Trump oil price. reporters by revealing that he of its probe into ties between stepped up his threats against was taking the anti-malaria the Trump campaign and the World Health Organization Migration ban Trump tweeted drug hydroxychloroquine to Russia, and later over a series on May 18, saying he would on April 20 that he would ward off coronavirus, despite of conversations he had with permanently pull US funding suspend immigration into the health officials warning it may the Russian ambassador to if it did not ‘commit to major US in response to what he called be unsafe. Washington. substantive improvements in the ‘attack from the Invisible the next 30 days’. In a letter to Enemy’. When details emerged, Obamagate Federal Open the economy WHO chief however, the measure was less prosecutors on May 7 asked Trump said on May 12 that Ghebreyesus, he said the only far reaching. Issuing Green a judge to throw out the case it was possible some people way forward for the agency Cards, a step to citizenship, to against Trump’s former national might die from COVID-19 was to ‘actually demonstrate people outside the US, would security adviser, Michael when restrictions were lifted. independence from China’.

Chatham House quotes When Xi’s mask came off

Right now we are in an are just a developing country If we are to prevent a second our own countries … We have election period. If you look at bringing our population out and third and fourth wave got a medical problem that is US-China rhetoric over time of poverty’. The mask came of this virus coming into global and cannot be resolved GETTY IMAGES in the six months before an off and Xi started being much the countries that are now without global action, and election, it always gets much more assertive and aggressive. experiencing it, we have got we have got an economic more hawkish. He started breaking promises to help the underdeveloped problem that is as big as in You have a political action that he had personally made health systems of the world the 1930s. committee supporting to Obama. So across the US cope. We have got to help Even if there is a $15 trillion President Trump running political spectrum you have those countries that have got stimulus, because there is a ads about ‘Beijing Joe’ – this moment of reassessment no social safety nets and can’t lack of global coordination, attacking Joe Biden for being about a much more muscular, practice stay at home policies, even when you add up this too soft on China. There is a ambitious China. , or attempt at underpinning the domestic political element Michele Flournoy, even handwashing world economy, it is not going for everyone to step up and US Under in some cases to be enough and we face a be tough on China. But more Secretary of where water and decade, perhaps more, of fundamentally there was a Defence for sanitation is so secular stagnation. shift around 2014, even in Policy 2009- poor. If we do Gordon Brown, the second Obama term, 12, ‘US Global not help these UK Prime Minister 2007-10, when President Xi moved Leadership countries, they ‘What Does the Path Through away from a hide-and-bide after COVID-19’, will be carriers of the Pandemic Look Like?’, policy – on the lines of ‘we April 20 this disease back into April 27

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The coronavirus is not just attacking our health, it is changing our world. It has allowed the digital revolution to fast-forward, while eroding traditional ideas of liberty and privacy and at the same time destabilizing economies around the globe. The tectonic plates of international politics are also moving as a modern-day clash of empires between the United States and China intensifies. In the following pages we look at the side effects of a pandemic that will shape our future LUKE BROOKES LUKE

8 | the world today | june & july 2020 COVID-19

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In April 2020, more than a third of the dependence has altered – at least tempo- planet’s population was under varying rarily – our relationship with technology. forms of restriction. In the initial phases Before the pandemic, most democratic Taking of national lockdowns, socially distancing nations saw big tech as a toxic force bring- citizens had no choice other than to con- ing more plagues – such as manipulation, nect with friends and family virtually. Food disinformation, democratic deconsoli- liberties and vital deliveries shifted to e-commerce. dation and extremism – than benefits to Demand for digital tools enabling remote societies. During the crisis however, the working and e-learning surged. prevalent argument has crystalized around Within the space of a few months, the immediate needs and the necessity of tech- to protect health crisis has forced countries to radi- nology. People are saying: ‘If technology cally alter their social, political and eco- helps me keep my job, I’ll use it’ or ‘If tech- nomic dynamics, shifting many, if not most, nology helps to save lives, I’ll endorse it’. activities online. It has fast-forwarded digi- Citizens are generally more willing to share our talization across all sectors of society and their personal data and consent to the de- led to the mass adoption of digital tech- ployment of surveillance technologies in nology at both institutional and individual the public space, especially if they believe health levels. that these measures constitute a necessary In parallel, the pandemic has also deep- step to fight the virus or to resume their ened our dependence on the services and ‘normal’ lives. tools provided by technology companies, This change in attitude is evident in Marjorie Buchser especially in developed countries. Early polling conducted in Britain by the Oliver warns that privacy and evidence suggests that digital and cloud- Wyman Forum. Over six weeks between based enterprises will withstand the loom- March and May this year, the proportion democratic principles ing recession much better than most face- of respondents who were ready to share to-face businesses. mobile location data rose from 33 to 47 per are being sacrificed in Take Amazon, for example. In the first cent and the figure for biometric data in the fight against the quarter of 2020, the company announced public settings increased from 37 to 49 per that it would hire 175,000 extra staff to cent. Willingness to share data on health pandemic handle coronavirus-induced demand. This status rose more modestly, from 61 to 63 aggressive hiring strategy – which brought per cent. Amazon’s workforce to just under one mil- Meanwhile, the speed and scale of the lion worldwide – stood in stark contrast to COVID-19 pandemic has forced leaders other parts of the retail sector which have to reorganize governments to focus on had to furlough hundreds of thousands of rapid crisis response. In this context, sur- staff members. veillance technologies for contact trac- Beyond e-commerce, the surge in de- ing, symptom monitoring or quarantine mand is also noticeable on most social plat- enforcement have often been portrayed as forms. ByteDance, the start-up behind the effective emergency measures towards a short video app TikTok, has hired 10,000 smart recovery. new employees since the beginning of the However, as of May 2020, there is still year. As the pandemic is forcing many no clear-cut evidence that technology alone young users in need of entertainment to can contain the virus or mitigate the im- stay indoors, the popularity of the app has pending economic recession. soared. Countries that appear to have success- Similarly, Facebook indicated that mes- fully contained the virus, such as Tai- saging activities on its platforms had in- wan, South Korea and to a certain extent creased by 50 per cent in the countries hit Singapore, have done so by deploying hardest by the virus. From a position of a mix of measures, including enhanced considerable relative strength, big tech is levels of preparedness due in part to the likely to tighten its grip on large areas of legacy of the Sars outbreaks in 2002-4, well- digital activity while accelerating its reach developed health infrastructure, large-scale into new fields. testing and rigid enforcement practices. In the midst of this accelerated digitaliza- Furthermore, as societies move to various tion, public attitudes towards technology stages of confinement and recovery, there is have also shifted. In a March 2020 article, Wired magazine candidly asked: ‘Has the A Royal Malaysia Police drone patrols a block coronavirus killed the techlash?’. While it of flats in Kuala Lumpur put under quarantine is too early to announce a renewed sense after several cases of coronavirus were of tech-optimism, our increased digital reported among residents

10 | the world today | june & july 2020 COVID-19 AFP/GETTY IMAGES AFP/GETTY

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a significant risk that temporary solutions, privacy, transparency, inclusion and state which often neglect standard checks and ‘While Chinese control. balances, are retained or repurposed even COVID-19 will increase the contrast be- as curves flatten. As such, technol- authorities have long tween countries with strong privacy-pre- ogy innovations during the epidemic might had the ambition to serving legislation and nations flirting with mark a historic watershed which normal- digital authoritarianism. In China and to ized the deployment of invasive tools with- use data to regulate some extent Israel and Singapore, citizens’ out any public debate. relationship to the state is being redefined While the crisis has fast-tracked the de- citizens’ lives, at a speed and scale that would not be pos- ployment of both consent-based and com- sible in a normal context. pulsory surveillance technology globally, it Covid-19 has Outside this crisis, these changes would is important to remember that these appli- have been met with a higher level of scru- cations have diverged greatly from country provided them with tiny and resistance. Before COVID-19, the to country. computer scientist Wendy Hall had warned In European democracies especially, the an unprecedented of the growing fragmentation of national deployment of technology has been pre- opportunity to digital infrastructures and competing gov- dominantly led by public authorities and ernance visions which ‘were impairing ef- has – so far – complied with existing regu- deploy intrusive forts to regulate the digital space’. Post- latory frameworks such as the General Data COVID-19, this fracture – the so-called Protection Regulation. A simple compari- technologies’ ‘splinternet’ – may be inevitable. son between European, Singaporean and Second, the crisis is also likely to shift Chinese approaches to contact tracing apps positive for COVID-19 are required by ethical standards on technology and the illustrates this point. law to assist the authorities in mapping out public’s understanding of the need for Unlike other contact-tracing systems, the their movements and interactions. them. The pandemic has forced policy- Pan-European Privacy Preserving Proxim- China offers the most extreme example makers – in all parts of the world, Europe ity Tracing Initiative is the only multidis- of the prompt and systematic implementa- included – to reconsider essential trade- ciplinary effort involving more than one tion of most biometric technologies avail- offs between safeguarding public health, state. This European consortium should able today. restarting the economy and preserving soon release software code for the creation The crisis has offered a testing ground – certain civil liberties. of apps to track transmission chains. These namely the Hubei province – for Beijing to Against this background a dangerous apps would inform European users, based try out these tools in a more exhaustive and debate has emerged on whether privacy- on their phone’s Bluetooth signals, whether aggressive fashion than any other country. preserving regulations and other standards they have been in close proximity with indi- For example, in Wuhan, China’s COVID-19 regarding the use of technology should be viduals who tested positive for COVID-19. epicentre, local authorities have installed set aside during the pandemic to enable a According to the initiative’s manifesto, CCTV cameras at the apartment door of more efficient response. While European these applications will comply with all pri- those under quarantine. Drones equipped countries are unlikely to deploy measures vacy-preserving principles as established with facial recognition systems have been that violate the General Data Protection by the European Union. Furthermore, at deployed to watch public spaces and iden- Regulation or reverse it, the crisis will force the national level, cyber-security and data tify individuals who fail to wear face masks. governments to reconsider some of prin- protection agencies will also be in charge Compulsory digital health codes determine ciples and regulations in their 2020 policy of ensuring the lawful deployment of the an individual’s health status, instruct them pipeline. Undoubtedly, it will have a chill- technology. More generally, the EU’s su- about the length of their quarantine and ing effect on the European Commission’s pervisory authorities have been consistent police the types of services and activities ambitious digital strategy as well as its with their pre-coronavirus positions. While they are free to conduct. vision on ‘data sovereignty’. Europe’s regulators have supported the use While Chinese authorities have long had More generally, the crisis has cast doubt of technology solutions by public entities the ambition to use data and technology on democracies’ resilience and ability to they require these applications to meet the to regulate citizens’ lives, COVID-19 has provide an adequate and timely response principles found in data protection laws. provided them with an unprecedented op- through technology or other means. The Singapore’s TraceTogether app also uses portunity to deploy intrusive technologies benefits of open, accountable and demo- Bluetooth connectivity and embeds a num- more freely and in a more radical fashion. cratic systems are once more being re- ber of privacy-preserving features, such as While the divergence of approaches examined in the light of repressive regimes’ data anonymization and the requirement of between democratic, semi-democratic and relative successes against the virus. explicit user consent to data sharing. authoritarian countries may be reassuring As Hans Kundnani, of the Chatham However, unlike the European initiative, to some, the accelerated yet disjointed digi- House Europe Programme, has writ- there are notable exceptions to these pro- talization induced by COVID-19 will have ten, the crisis has shaken the foundation tections. For example, Singapore’s Health major consequences for global technology of democratic tenets and raises difficult Ministry retains the right to use back door governance. questions about whether liberal democra- entry to decrypt and de-anonymize data First, the crisis has, and will, widen the cies can sufficiently protect their citizens. logs. Moreover, despite the so-called opt- difference between national governments ‘There has already been much discussion in approach, individuals who have tested over globally accepted regulations on about whether authoritarian states will

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emerge stronger from this crisis than de- tools in democracies that had so far rejected Furthermore, it is critical for govern- mocracies. In particular, although the them. Yet privacy and effective responses ments to remain transparent about what virus originated in China […] it was able to are not necessarily mutually exclusive. As technology can or cannot achieve. Restric- GETTY IMAGES largely contain the outbreak in Hubei and previously mentioned, technological inno- tions on privacy that do not prove essential deploy vast resources from the rest of the vation is not a silver bullet against the virus to save lives, or allow the continuation of country to deal with it.’ and should not be deployed unquestion- essential economic activity, are unlikely to In the absence of a clear narrative about ingly. Operating in a crisis does not remove be found necessary by the public. the benefits of well-regulated digital appli- the practical and moral obligations on lead- Countries advocating an open, privacy- cations, citizens – even in democracies – ers to act responsibly. preserving and secure use of technol- may feel that they do not have any other Whether or not contact tracing and other ogy during the crisis should reinvigorate choice but to compromise on their basic technology-driven measures will prove a democracy-affirming model – one that rights to increase their sense of security effective to mitigate the health and eco- draws on human rights principles such as or to support the economic recovery. As nomic crisis in the future, it is essential for the rights to freedom of opinion, freedom the historian and author Yuval Harari has public authorities to adopt an evidence- of expression and privacy. noted, the increased pressure on policy- based approach and impose systematic makers and shift in public opinion may sunset clauses to avoid extraordinary crisis Marjorie Buchser leads the Digital Society prompt the deployment of surveillance measures becoming the new normal. Initiative at Chatham House

Digital Health Code

China’s digital health code, also called the Alipay Health Code, is a software that uses big data to generate automated decisions on an individual’s health status. People can sign up through the wallet app Alipay, China’s largest online payment company. As of October 2019, it claimed to have more than 1.2 billion unique users. After people fill in their personal details, the software assigns them with a QR code in one of three colours: green enables the holder to move about unrestrictedly; yellow means that its user will need to self-isolate for few days; red dictates a two-week quarantine. In the provinces where the system is enforced stringently, it has been reported that individuals without a green Alipay code were unable to move around, use services or enjoy recreational areas. In Zhejiang province, for example, officials announced that more than 50 million people – almost 90 per cent of the province’s population – have signed up for the digital health code. Of these codes, nearly one million were yellow or red. According a New York Times investigation, this software does not only decide whether someone poses a contagion risk, it also shares information with law-enforcement authorities. The software does not make clear to its users the criteria for being assigned a specific code, nor the type of information that is shared with the police.

Residents in Wuhan make an Alipay transaction, using an app that also gives them their health code status

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China will recover from this

Shan Weijian, a Hong Kong-based financier, tells Yu Jie that Beijing needs to speed up market reforms after the coronavirus crisis, and warns America it will pay a high price for decoupling its economy from China’s

In your recent Foreign Affairs article, the economy shrank 6.8 per cent in the a way to save the economy. Could you you said that the Chinese economy first quarter. While business has resumed, explain what these are? has a sustainable level of resilience. demand remains weak. It will take time to If domestic consumption is now the main Do you still think so amid the COVID-19 recover. There are some encouraging signs, driver of Chinese economic growth and if pandemic? though. During the five-day Labour Day domestic demand remains rather weak, the When I wrote that article, I didn’t antici- holiday, the country recorded 115 million only way to pull the economy up is to boost pate a pandemic. I was referring to the 40- tourist trips, compared with 195 million last consumption. Many European countries year continuous growth of the Chinese year. I think the economy will continue to and the United States have adopted mas- economy and the potential for further recover, driven by domestic consumption, sive fiscal and monetary stimulus packages growth. although the pace is unlikely to be rapid including ‘helicoptering’ cash to house- The Chinese economy has been severely before the rest of the world comes out of holds. For China, giving cash to households hit by the lockdowns, as have other coun- the lockdowns. will help but will not be very effective to tries. China gradually went back to work stimulate consumption because much of in March after the outbreak had been You have proposed issuing consumer the cash will go into savings. Consump- brought under control. Not surprisingly, coupons to each household in China as tion vouchers, if properly designed, will

14 | the world today | june & july 2020 COVID-19 Q&A

produce a bigger bang for the buck because, Prosperity Network’ among countries to In western countries there is some as the name suggests, they will have a direct replicate supply chains away from China. resistance to contact-tracing apps to boosting effect on consumption. I made the If its purpose is to weaken China, it will be track those infected with COVID-19, as suggestion at the beginning of March. By counterproductive because such efforts will China has done. Must people in the West now a number of cities in China have issued be extremely costly if one moves away from accept that containing the virus requires consumption coupons to be used in con- the most efficient suppliers to less efficient changing attitudes to privacy? junction with discounts provided by stores ones. It is like abandoning your beautiful Again, I am just an investor. I don’t know to great effect. But it is all done by local gov- home in the best location in town to move the answers to questions outside the scope ernments. The central government remains to a less desirable location where you will of my expertise which is in private equity tight-fisted with its fiscal policy. pay to build a new house, pave the road, investments. But from the point of view connect to power, and where you hope of economics, I think there is always a bal- Would you agree that COVID-19 some others will move in to build shopping ance between private and public interests. presents a unique opportunity to push malls, hotels, restaurants and so on. How Private interests should be maximized the Chinese leadership towards the willing are you to do it without some strong provided public interests aren’t harmed. ‘reform’ President Xi Jinping outlined cajoling and economic subsidies? It is like traffic lights which restrict our at the Fourth Plenum of the 18th Party That, by the way, was how the Soviet driving but are needed so we don’t kill Congress in 2014? Union and China messed up their econo- each other. But too many traffic lights stop China is faced with slowing economic mies in the days of central planning. If the traffic. There needs to be a balance. Public growth and a deteriorating external envi- purpose is to reduce the risk of another health issues cannot be solved by private ronment. The pandemic has added frost pandemic, we know from history a new solutions or by expecting people to change upon snow, to use a Chinese saying, or made virus can pop up anywhere, including in the their behaviour. There need to be some things more difficult. China has grown its United States where H1N1 (swine flu) was rules that all will follow for the common economy in the past 40 years by moving identified in 2009, so how do you know the good. But if the rules are too draconian, away from a centrally planned system in the next new virus won’t originate from within people will resist. Policymakers will have direction of the market, through economic the Economic Prosperity Network? Be- to find the right balance or ask people to reforms. To continue to grow, there is no sides, if another virus pops up in China, help make decisions. There are other tough other way than to further market-oriented why wouldn’t it spread to other parts of choices facing governments, for example, reforms to let the market play a decisive the world? how to balance between the need to contain role in resource allocation. Now that China So what is the real purpose of decou- the spread of a virus and the need to keep has almost exhausted its so-called demo- pling? Already, all businesses are strapped the economy alive. graphic dividends, such as migrant work- for cash because of the impact of the lock- ers from the rural areas, it can’t expect to downs. How many have the resources to You spent years in Inner Mongolia as grow by more inputs. The only way to grow relocate to less efficient locations where one of millions of zhiqing (educated is to improve efficiencies, both in the alloca- supply chains don’t already exist? Will youth) sent to the countryside during tion of resources and in productivity, which they abandon China’s growing consumer the Cultural Revolution. Did your time as requires further and deeper reforms in the market where General Motors sell more a labourer benefit you in your career in direction of the market. cars than in the US? Sure, manufactur- business? Or do you regard those years ing will continue to move out of China for it as a harsh punishment? Many western economists believe there lower-cost locations such as Southeast Asia. I describe my experiences and those of is a permanent contradiction between But that is due to market forces and it will my peers working as hard labourers in my market forces and Communist Party only happen gradually, just as Japan found book, Out of the Gobi: My Story of China and rule. What do you think? a few decades back. America. Since most of us never received Ideologies don’t drive but often stand in any secondary education and were out of the way of economic growth. The former China’s pandemic diplomacy caused school for 10 years, I would have called us Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping famously a backlash around the world. If you ‘uneducated youth’ at the time. said, it doesn’t matter if a cat is black or were to advise Beijing, what would After that experience, you would think white, as long as it catches mice. The mice you recommend? nothing can be worse, and whatever diffi- are economic growth and improved living I am just an investor, so I am not in a culties you encounter in life, eventually all standards. The country has done well by position to advise anyone on diplomacy. will be well. So, you tend to look at the posi- heeding his words. We just hope that the world is peaceful tive side of things. I am sure many people enough so we can focus on making money who have experienced hardships in life feel In an interview with The Wire, an online for our investors. But your question pre- that way. magazine, you suggested that COVID-19 sumes that the tensions are all created by would slow down Sino-US decoupling. China’s diplomacy or lack thereof. I don’t Shan Weijian, a Hong Kong-based Do you still believe this? think so. As an observer, it seems to me that economist and chief executive of the private Actually, the rhetoric or even actions for China can definitely do better. But it also equity firm PAG Group, is author of ‘Out of decoupling on the part of some American seems some governments need to shift the the Gobi: My Story of China and America’ politicians are on the rise. There is talk blame to China to deflect criticism for their (2019) and ‘Money Games’ (forthcoming). about a ‘whole of government push’ on de- own failures in controlling the pandemic, Yu Jie is a senior research fellow at the coupling and about creating an ‘Economic regardless of what China does. Asia-Pacific Programme, Chatham House

the world today | june & july 2020 | 15 TASS VIA GETTY VIA IMAGES TASS

16 | the world today | june & july 2020 COVID-19 Today ’s imperial rivals

Samir Puri looks at the growing tension between China and the United States

Coronavirus has knocked the world for six. It has cost many lives while upending our assumptions about public health, security, society and commerce. Fixated as we have been on the grim day-to-day developments, it is still too early to say how it will change our world. One thing is clear, however. Not even a pandemic can extinguish the ever smoul- dering embers of international rivalry. Quite the opposite, in fact, as certain rival- ries intensify. Liberal voices have called for nations to unite at this moment of need. Yuval Noah Harari, the Israeli historian and author of Sapiens, warned in March of the world fac- ing a choice between ‘national isolation and global solidarity’, since ‘the epidemic itself and the resulting economic crisis can be solved effectively only by global cooperation.’ Cooperation is certainly the watchword for the epidemiologists and virologists, whose data-sharing and international col- laboration will, one hopes, pave the way to- wards a vaccine. In geopolitical terms, however, the pan- demic is likely to intensify some of the deepest fissures that already criss-cross the globe. One battleground on which the rhetoric is rising pitches authoritarian states against liberal democracies, com- paring how different systems have fared in containing the epidemic and, further down the line, in rebooting their economies.

Donald Trump and Xi Jinping shake hands during a meeting outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in 2017

the world today | june & july 2020 | 17 COVID-19

Perhaps the most significant cleavage It has always been empires that clash, not caused by the pandemic is the suspicion it ‘It has always been civilizations. In an era of mutual suspicion has cast on the veracity of China’s commu- between nations, of competitive geopoli- nist regime, and its credentials as a respon- empires that clash, tics, and of autocracy in some countries and sible global power with a growing stake in not civilizations. populism in others, history matters. the economies of other nations. The world’s many rivalries are clearly Already, a cluster of British MPs have In an era of sui generis, but the path to understanding formed the China Research Group. The them lies in something experienced by the Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat explains mutual suspicion world during the past 100 years: the end its purpose as follows: ‘The coronavirus of formal empires. These were empires of crisis underlines the urgent need for a bet- between nations, territorial conquest and occupation. They ter understanding of China’s place in the have gone. But we still have informal em- world, and our economic and diplomatic of competitive pires of influence, in which preferential engagement with it.’ This is a far cry from geopolitics and of rights are achieved by great powers over the time of former prime minister David weaker nations, or by a multilateral body Cameron who celebrated a ‘golden era’ in autocracy in some that allows some countries to exercise veto ties with China. powers over its member states. In the United States, Donald Trump has countries and My book, The Great Imperial Hangover, been even more bellicose towards China. charts the seismic shift to international Trump’s clamour of suspicion has encom- populism in others, affairs caused by the end of formal empires, passed China’s alleged concealment of the which dominated almost all recorded his- origins of COVID-19, and its under-report- history matters tory. We are still only just getting used to ing of the severity of the initial outbreak their absence. in Wuhan. The impact has been dire on and, midway through 2020, there is evi- In the 20th century, the contest between Sino-US relations, damaged already by the dence to suggest the pandemic will inten- empires reached its apogee, and the end of US-China trade war, rising concern over sify aspects of global competition. the European colonial empires resulted in Huawei building global 5G infrastructure During the pandemic people have pri- waves of decolonization. With the collapse and America’s concerns over China’s naval marily relied on their national govern- of the USSR in 1991, it was the end – for ambitions in the Asia-Pacific. ments for help. Key multilateral organi- now – of the last formal empire. For its part, the Chinese Communist zations have fared poorly so far as rallying It is to the end of empires that we must Party has watched the US and Britain suffer points for an international response. Ursula credit the current existence of around 200 the first and second highest declared over- von der Leyen, the European Union Com- sovereign states. The book’s message is that all death tolls from COVID-19 in the world mission president, even offered a ‘heart- our varied imperial pasts have contributed (as of May 2020). The People’s Liberation felt’ apology to Italy for not providing greatly to our seeing the world in such dif- Army has seen the humbling of the USS more support early on in the outbreak. At ferent ways. Whether the forebears in your Roosevelt nuclear aircraft carrier, docked the same time Trump was lambasting the nation were once conquerors, were once in Guam after its captain was relieved of World Health Organization for colluding conquered, or experienced both fates at dif- his command by the Pentagon. The captain with the Chinese to cover up the severity ferent times, a host of imperial legacies still was deemed to have shown poor judgment of the Wuhan outbreak. influence present generations. by raising the alarm over a COVID-19 out- Even after empires have ended, they break among his crew. Habits of empire leave both physical and attitudinal lega- It may be an affront to our sense of Every global shock is different – just think cies. The physical ones relate to the very humanity that nations are point-scoring at back to the disorientation immediately shape of a nation’s borders on the map, the a time of global suffering but the notion of after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Pandem- ethnic and religious makeup of its populace winners and losers is inevitable because the ics and terrorism are clearly incompara- and its access to wealth. crisis is happening at a delicate moment in ble, since the former relate to an unseen Attitudinal legacies relate to the habits international affairs. enemy, and because analogies to ‘waging of empire, for example a sense of national Well before the pandemic, scholars and war’ against a disease are not especially grandeur nurtured by a country’s elites practitioners were bracing themselves for enlightening. who remain inspired by their ancestors. an epoch of greater geopolitical competi- Nevertheless, the comparison reminds Conversely, nations that were created out tion. There was already a palpable sense of us that all global shocks, including the cor- of decolonization will have inherited a very the world order slipping its moorings on onavirus, unfold against the backdrop of different set of legacies, of mental and ma- the shores of US hegemony and moving historically rooted suspicions, rivalries and terial obstacles that need to be overcome. through the uncharted waters of China as grievances, and tend to intensify them. One I do not claim that imperial legacies an ascendant superpower, while navigat- of the consequences of 9/11 was America are the sole or even the dominant influ- ing past increasingly assertive Turkey, Rus- going to war with Iraq, an old antagonist ence on modern problems. Instead, I in- sia and Iran. Nations with proud histories of Washington but with no responsibility quire into the extent that different impe- were asserting themselves in ways unseen for the terrorist attacks. Even amid the rial legacies have influenced current affairs for decades or even generations. shock of COVID-19, the long arc of history – and how different post-imperial visions Change is clearly afoot in the world order remains a crucial reference point. of world order collide. This returns us to

18 | the world today | june & july 2020 COVID-19

the intensifying mutual suspicion that is humiliation. In recent decades, China has citizens from different parts of the world driving the US and China apart. Neither expanded its global reach via the Belt and can gain real insights into each other’s lives. America nor China actively see themselves Road Initiative, in which it invests in doz- And yet, what divides our political systems in an imperial light, but neither can be un- ens of countries around the world, sending and cultural perceptions remains just as derstood without recourse to their respec- them scores of workers and buying their important as what unites us. tive imperial legacies. resources. Pestilence, famine, war and death The US built its national story on repudi- In other words, both the US and China ravage us in ways that differ from the past, ating British colonialism in the 1770s. After maintain informal empires of different and yet the long shadow of history remains 1941, it has cultivated a self-image of pursu- kinds, and each holds a different self-image an essential adjunct to our understanding ing a global role in the name of protecting to justify doing so. While Washington’s in- of modern problems. the freedom of other nations. formal empire is now 75 years old, Beijing’s ‘There have been as many plagues as wars Orthodox US foreign policy thinkers do is only just being built. in history, yet always plagues and wars take not see their nation as behaving imperially people equally by surprise,’ wrote Albert since it does not annex other countries. Plagues and wars Camus in The Plague. More nasty surprises Instead it stations troops in military bases Their bitterness over COVID-19 is just the may yet befall our world after the demise dotted around the world, from Afghanistan latest manifestation of their competing of formal empires, but recourse to impe- to Okinawa, always with the host govern- visions for the post-imperial world. Only by rial history can help us to interpret what is ment’s agreement, flexing its muscles from understanding the historical roots of such happening, and understand why the world these bases to defend its conception of Pax divisions can we hope to moderate their struggles to unite in the face of a seemingly Americana. worst tendencies, and perhaps overcome shared crisis. Modern China on the other hand has them, when a crisis looms. inherited two big post-imperial legacies: A century ago, the Spanish flu outbreak Samir Puri is Adjunct Professor in the the first is its many centuries as the pre- of 1918-19 devastated the world in the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced eminent East Asian empire; the second, aftermath of the First World War. Today’s International Studies and Visiting Lecturer its ‘century of humiliation’, during which pandemic involves a virus of an entirely dif- in War Studies at King’s College London. outside powers cannibalized its territory. ferent nature, and has spread in an era of His book ‘The Great Imperial Hangover’ is The Communist Party cites the beginning globalization and technology unthinkable published by Atlantic Books on July 9, of its rule in 1949 as the end of this era of to our ancestors. The internet means that 2020

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The World Today.indd 1 19/05/2020 12:19 the world today | june & july 2020 | 19 Interview Dame Vivian Hunt

The managing partner for McKinsey & Co’s UK and Ireland offices warns of the pandemic’s seismic economic shock and the blow it will deal to jobs, and stresses the need to retrain the workforce for a digital future

A lot of people would like the world to Technology has enabled us to stay in touch, ‘go back to normal’. How do you see the perhaps more than most of us imagined world of work changing as a result of was possible, but it is not the same. Chair- the coronavirus? ing a virtual meeting is a whole different COVID-19 is the most serious health crisis ballgame from chairing a meeting where the world has experienced in a century, and you are sitting across the table from your it is one of the biggest shocks to employ- colleagues. ment. McKinsey’s latest analysis finds that We have seen throughout the lockdown nearly a quarter of the workforce in Britain that swaths of the economy can function – or 8 million people – are vulnerable to well remotely. McKinsey estimates that reduced income, furloughs or layoffs and about 20 per cent of European workers are nearly a third – or 57 million jobs – are at now working from home – four times the risk in the United States. The impact of this pre-crisis average. pandemic is shared across every country But it is not possible to work remotely and economy in the world. in roughly 60 per cent of occupations, COVID-19 is accelerating the profound because the place of work is fixed, such as structural shifts in the workforce already for a sales assistant or waiter, or requires underway. We have leapt five years in con- specialist equipment, such as for a labora- sumer and digital adoption in eight weeks. tory technician. Our research tells us that British companies Most UK company headquarters – in- need to respond to these changes by mov- cluding our own – are currently closed. I ing up to a third of their workforce into new expect that, when we all reopen, we will roles over the next decade. initially allow only a small percentage of If we fail to meet this challenge, we could our workforce to come into the office on find ourselves with even more acute short- any given day, subject to stringent physical- ages of talent than today. For instance, two- distancing and hygiene measures and the thirds of the British workforce could be investment in a common tracing platform. lacking basic digital skills by 2030, while more than 10 million people could be A lot of businesses which provide under-skilled in leadership, communica- significant employment may no longer tion and decision-making. The real test of be viable. Where will the less skilled who leadership is now. All these changes are have worked in hospitality, retail and happening much faster than predicted. leisure find employment in the future? Fifty per cent of all jobs at risk in Europe People who work in offices have come from customer service and sales or discovered that it is possible to work food services. Our analysis provides stark from home – and they don’t miss the confirmation that vulnerable jobs are con- daily commute. But surely there is an centrated in low-paid occupations. It is a element in working life that is lost when moral imperative for both government the only connection is virtual? and business to prioritize helping the most It is a mixed blessing. I love spending vulnerable. more time with my family, but I miss the Government and education providers interaction with colleagues and clients. can consider how to scale-up the retraining

20 | the world today | june & july 2020 Interview

the world today | june & july 2020 | 21 Interview

and reskilling of both employed and unem- and their employees. One lesson from his- ployed people. Even if employment returns ‘One lesson from tory is that societies must do all in their to previous levels within a year or two, the power to avoid the significant rise in unem- shape of the economy will have shifted history is that ployment witnessed during previous crises. significantly, requiring new skills from the societies must do In Europe, the unemployment rate rose workforce. by 27 per cent from 2008 to 2009, and There is a big opportunity for the more all in their power youth unemployment reached staggering agile reallocation of staff across traditional heights in some economies. Overall, it took boundaries and the redeployment of to avoid the rise almost 10 years for European markets to employees who might otherwise become recover, and some countries had still not unemployed. in unemployment reached pre-2009 employment levels when For example, our research shows that COVID-19 struck. while robotic process automation and witnessed during As estimates of the expected economic image-recognition technologies will reduce shock created by the pandemic far outstrip the need for data-entry and data-manip- previous crises’ that of the financial crisis, mastering this ulation tasks in companies’ finance func- challenge will be even more important in tions, the people in these roles already have in restricting COVID-19’s spread. Is it the current context. skills in areas such as taxation and logical to talk of ‘female leadership’ There is a strong case for governments accountancy. in a crisis? and business to take swift and forceful But many companies in Britain lag We need to be careful about attributing action, and to improve the understanding behind their peers when it comes to the success to individuals or one characteris- of which jobs and groups are particularly rapid reallocation of financial and human tic and certainly not gender. We believe vulnerable. resources. Companies will need to shift in the power of diversity of thought and from assessing people based on their qual- leadership. People from New Delhi to Los Angeles ifications and career histories, to assessing Our research has found that women have enjoyed cleaner air and brighter their underlying skills. tend to demonstrate five of the nine types skies. Can these environmental benefits of leadership behaviour that improve give new impetus to the faltering climate After the most acute phase of the virus, organizational performance more often change agenda? countries will be keen at all costs to boost than men, including talent development. Given the magnitude of this crisis, you jobs and growth. Are the concerns for Women also apply more frequently three might think that the world can no longer diversity and gender balance that you of the four types of behaviour seen as most afford to address climate change. But we have championed going to be trampled in effective in addressing the global chal- simply cannot afford to do otherwise. the rush for growth? lenges of the future, namely intellectual Climate action remains critical. Invest- Inclusion and diversity are at risk in the stimulation, inspiration, and participative ment in climate-resilient infrastructure crisis – but are critical for business recov- decision-making. can drive significant near-term job crea- ery, resilience, and re-imagination. Our In times of crisis, organizations – and tion while increasing economic and en- research repeatedly shows that organiza- countries – require enhanced problem- vironmental resilience. With near-zero tions that invest in inclusion and diversity solving and vision to rethink entire busi- interest rates for the foreseeable future, have a distinct performance advantage. nesses, industries and regulatory environ- there is no better time than the present for Companies that pull back on these goals ments. Our evidence has shown repeatedly these investments. now will put themselves at greater risk in that being able to draw on the full spectrum It is perhaps also giving us an opportu- the long term. Not only will they face a pos- of talent and create an inclusive environ- nity to see what is possible in how we can sible backlash from customers and talent ment is the real differentiator for success. respond. Addressing pandemics and cli- down the line, they will miss the opportu- mate risk requires the same fundamental nity to position strategically for growth. Chatham House was founded after shift away from optimizing for shorter- Let us take customer insight and inno- the First World War before the Great term performance to ensuring their longer- vation as an example. Research shows that Depression and is celebrating its term resilience. Healthcare systems, physi- diverse teams are more innovative – centenary as we head into what could cal assets, infrastructure services, supply stronger at anticipating shifts in consumer be another depression. Do you draw any chains and cities have all been largely needs and consumption patterns that make lessons for today from the past designed to function within a very narrow new products and services possible, poten- 100 years? band of conditions and many are struggling tially generating a competitive edge. The 2008-9 financial crisis provides a so- to function within it. So, leaders must not hesitate to con- bering analogy. It began as a financial shock The coronavirus pandemic and the tinue in their commitment to inclusion and but soon spilled over into the real economy, responses that are being implemented – to diversity because it will probably buy them putting millions of workers out of their jobs. the tune of several trillion dollars of govern- a better chance at recovery. The COVID-19 pandemic is a humanitar- ment stimulus as of today – illustrate how ian crisis that has taken its toll in the real expensive the failure to build resilience can Countries with female leaders – economy – primarily because the lockdown ultimately prove. The bottom line is that Germany, New Zealand and Taiwan for measures that were taken to protect lives the costs of a global crisis are bound to example – have been notably successful have severe consequences for businesses vastly exceed those of its prevention.

22 | the world today | june & july 2020 Postcard from Great Bahama Bank All at sea … and loving it

Megan Farr, a crew member on a cruise ship, tells of 53 days in quarantine

Like everyone else on the planet, we tuned in to news channels, followed tweets, commented on Facebook posts, read articles and shared opinions as we watched COVID-19 roll across the world. I was working on a cruise ship in the Caribbean and so, at first, it all felt very far away. The crew were from all over the world so we began to hear stories from members of their families as the virus began to affect people’s day-to-day lives. As countries began lockdown, we started to get fearful for our jobs and health. We turned around 2,000 guests each week, and while most were from the US, where the virus had yet to take hold, a handful were from more exposed places. The cruises continued, Quarantined cruise ships lie at anchor on the Great Bahama Bank but rumours spread and we all knew something was about to happen. over the Tannoy, read a daily joke and sea is that governments were not letting It was a Friday afternoon at sea when then the cruise director would outline ships dock. We know that the cruise lines an email landed stating that when the any activities or entertainments for the are working really hard to repatriate current guests disembarked next day, the day. As time went on everyone settled crew in a very complex situation but the ship would not be taking on any more into their routine. consensus among crew members is why passengers and would be heading out A temporary outdoor screen was put not let everyone go home? If a ship is out to sea. This was unheard of. Cruising up so we could watch films at night under at sea for 60 days and there has been no without guests simply doesn’t happen. the stars. We were gradually moved case of coronavirus, it must be safe to On Saturday morning, there was a to outside guest cabins and most of us dock. strangely joyous, if edgy, atmosphere as enjoyed balconies. I was lucky. I was on a virus-free we began sailing out to the Great Bahama As the days ticked on I started to ship and our management team were Bank – our new home for at least 40 days, identify constellations in the Bahamian wonderful. Friends on ships that did something we didn’t know at the time. sky and spot wildlife in the sea. I’m no have the coronavirus say it is a whole Many of the crew, including myself, expert, but we saw sharks, eels, rays and different scenario. Understandably, they no longer had any work to do, which was many other creatures we couldn’t name. were quarantined to their cabins for two quite liberating, although we had no idea The seagulls became less shy and if you weeks with food left outside the door. if we would be paid or not. left a plate of food for a moment, they Sometimes this happened before ships Those who did have to work were busy would dive bomb your dinner and fly off could transfer everyone to outside cabins, doing the housekeeping, preparing food gulping down spaghetti carbonara. so some didn’t see daylight for 14 days. and drinks, keeping the ship moving and The one thing that struck me was the This has been a time in my life that looking after the rest of the 800 crew. We silence. Standing on my balcony, with no I will never forget. Relationships that sailed out into the ocean, dropped anchor engines running and no wind surrounded developed surpassed friendship and and simply floated there. For weeks. by sea was a silence like no other. many people have come out of this Over time, we were joined by other Eventually, my friends and I were with new families. The experience has ships whose passengers had disembarked. transferred by tender to another reinforced my belief in a positive mindset Crew members don’t normally get cruise ship that had been cleared to and being kind to others, helping where to share a cruise ship’s delights, but we go to Europe. On Day 53, I arrived in you can and taking things day by day. were allowed to use the guest gym, the Southampton and walked down the Although, I wish this pandemic hadn’t basketball court, the pools, Jacuzzis and gangway and on to dry land. happened, I will look back on those 53 more. Each day at 11.30am the captain The reason why we and thousands of days with great affection. I can’t wait to would give updates, if there were any, crew members were living on ships at meet up with my friends again … on land.

the world today | june & july 2020 | 23 Environment

We humans base our activities on the sto- seen as an unqualified boon. It gave us light ries we tell ourselves. The story we have after sunset, warmth from the cold, allowed related for the past century has seen hu- us to cook our food, glaze pottery, smelt Out of manity slide into ever deeper trouble. We metals and eventually power the engines have created a world of acute inequality, that set us free to travel the globe. where the opulence of the few contrasts But fire itself is always a destructive the ashes, sharply with the desperate poverty of the process. We have always known that fire is GETTY VIA LIGHTROCKET IMAGES many. Our air and water have been poi- dangerous. It can destroy what you value soned, making city smog unbreathable, riv- – your crops, your home, your life. But ers and lakes toxic and oceans acidified and now it is apparent the risks are far worse. a new awash with plastic. What scientists call the The fumes from power stations and car sixth extinction is accelerating as thousands engines are the reason you struggle to of species, from butterflies to rhinos, vanish breathe in Delhi or Beijing. Fire, and the from the Earth. Our way of life is overheat- carbon dioxide it releases, is relentlessly world ing the planet, melting icecaps, triggering raising the Earth’s temperature with dire droughts and wildfires and making storms consequences. more frequent and destructive. We accepted these dangers because we Walt Patterson on how Now we face a pandemic whose origins wanted the benefits fire offered. Arguably, lie in part in our failure to respect the envi- the greatest of these was the ability to pro- a greener future could ronment. The toll is already grim and will duce and control electricity. Now we can do emerge after the get worse. No one with a trace of humanity with electricity most of what we used to do would unleash a lethal pandemic as a way to with fire. We can adjust temperatures with pandemic a better future. Nevertheless, as we grap- electric heaters and air-conditioning. We ple with COVID-19 and the collapse of the can make light and we can even produce global economy, we must also ask ourselves electric cars. Perhaps most important of all, where human society goes from here. we can manage information, with electric The pandemic has shown that dramatic sensors and computers. For most human change can be brought about rapidly. Even activities, we can now replace brute force as the death toll mounts, people are see- fire with elegant electricity. ing clearer skies and cleaner waterways, One central problem nevertheless and hearing birdsong instead of the din of remains. We still make far too much of our traffic. Can we not preserve these benefits electricity from fire. We don’t have to. We without destroying people’s livelihoods? can make it with moving water and air, and Many powerful people, governments even with sunlight, harvesting these natu- and companies are eager to return to ‘nor- ral processes with infrastructure. We are mal life’ after COVID-19. Others, how- on the way to being able to store this fire- ever, think we can do better. Much better. free electricity to use when we want to; and They want to write a new story about how these processes are all becoming cheaper human society works, that addresses and more reliable. But too many power- the many threats our former way of life ful entities still want us to use fire. Large inflicted on the planet. companies and entire countries get revenue This former narrative which guided our from feeding fire. Within the past century activities was very old indeed. It even pre- we have created a global economy modelled dates our species, Homo sapiens. The story on fire, a ‘consumer society’ in which natu- begins when one of our precursors, what ral resources are rapidly transformed into we now call a Neanderthal, sees lightning waste, frequently toxic or pernicious. strike a tree and start a fire. At first a terrify- Our indifference to natural systems has ing spectacle, no doubt, it nevertheless had now brought us COVID-19. If and when we a surprising side effect. It produced warmth get the pandemic under control, we shall and light. Somehow our Neanderthal pre- need to tell ourselves a better story about Smoke billows out cursors found a way to sustain the fire, and the way we live. The rise of fire-free elec- from an opencast even to ignite one, a skill passed on to their tricity offers us the key: a transition from a coal mine in Jharia, successors, Homo sapiens. No other living fire economy to an electric economy. But in India’s eastern Jharkhand state. creature can start a fire. This was the spark a fire-free electric economy will function Fires can be started that was to create our modern world. At the very differently. by a lightning strike same time it was to divorce human society In financial terms, for fire-free generation or an abandoned ever more widely from the natural systems you invest in a piece of infrastructure such cigarette and have been burning in the on which all life depends. The cumulative as a wind farm or solar array, and it then mine for more than consequences grow more alarming daily. delivers electricity throughout its work- 90 years Until very recently, the use of fire was ing life, with no fuel cost or fuel price risk.

24 | the world today | june & july 2020 Environment

the world today | june & july 2020 | 25 26 | the world today | june & july 2020 Environment

Commodity trading in fuels fades from the pension funds, manufacturers, installers ‘Governments, picture, and commodity trading in electric- and operators of fire-free generation and ity disappears. Electricity becomes a ser- high-performance service technology, pension funds and vice based on access to infrastructure and health maintenance institutions, climate AFP/GETTY IMAGES AFP/GETTY other financial paid for like rent. Billing for kilowatt-hours scientists and institutions and a growing disappears. band of climate activists, especially among bodies need to get Traditional electricity suppliers fiercely the young. oppose these developments and we are The effect on international relations out of fire-based already caught up in a power struggle would be dramatic. Throughout the past between fire and fire-free electricity which century the need to feed fire has been a investments and will intensify. The way through this is to key determinant of international affairs, evaluate policies by asking if they help or especially cheap petroleum from the Mid- transfer to support impede the move to cleaner energy. dle East, but also coal from Australia and The World Bank and other financial natural gas from Russia. The fire-feeders fire-free systems’ institutions have to stop funding fuels and are still trying to derail intergovernmental fire, and all subsidies for burning fuel must efforts to reduce carbon emissions. How cease. Governments, pension funds and the power struggle evolves will have a pro- other financial bodies need to get out of found impact on the future of humanity. fire-based investments and transfer sup- After COVID-19, no one yet knows port to fire-free, infrastructure-based sys- how fast the use of fossil fuels will decline. tems. Three overall policies and measures But even before the pandemic, influen- are interlinked. We need new businesses tial figures in the European Union and the and business models based on minimizing US were advocating a Green New Deal. waste, the so-called ‘circular economy’; we Analysts such as Amory Lovins, of the need to shift from fire to electricity; and Rocky Mountain Institute, and Mark we need to shift from fire-based to fire- Jacobson, of Stanford University, put for- free electricity. Company law, taxation and ward detailed programmes for 100 per cent regulation need to support the shift. renewable energy by 2050. Now politicians For employment, an essential criterion such as Frans Timmermans, the EU vice is a ‘just transition’ for those whose fire- president, and Joe Biden, the Democrat feeding jobs disappear. Many key skills are presidential candidate, are calling for a transferable; when they are not, retraining ‘green recovery’. COVID-19 could accel- will be crucial. In financial jobs, the shift erate the transition. will be away from commodity trading to Moving from fire to electricity will investment. System maintenance and up- change humanity’s narrative for the better. grading must deliver the services people As Lovins has said, we know three ways to and society actually want. Moving to a cir- make a good building material out of lime- cular economy will entail designing for stone: you can cut it into blocks; you can repair, reuse and recycling. Minimizing calcine it at over 1,200C, to make cement; waste and maximizing utility of resources or you can feed it to a chicken. Weight for will require appropriate skills, regulations weight, eggshell is a very strong material. and standards. But we don’t yet know how a chicken does We need to anticipate the changing it. And it does it at a chicken’s body tem- nature of ‘work’. Social transactions will perature. Trees make wood. Animals make move away from the ‘fire economy’, in bones and teeth. Chickens make eggshells. which people are ‘consumers’, towards an For its constructive processes nature does ‘electric economy’ in which people inter- not need or use the high temperatures. But act by offering and accepting, selling and we still have a lot to learn. buying access to processes: access to com- Over time, as the fire story gives way to fort, to illumination, to motive power, to the electric story, human activity could mobility, to information and communica- converge towards constructive natural tion – all delivered as equitably, cleanly and activity, functioning entirely at low temper- efficiently as possible. atures and without fire. We humans could The effect on political relations will be at last reinstate our membership of a wholly A solar farm at the profound. Fire-feeders, both companies interdependent nature. But time is short. Colle des Mees, in and countries, have long exerted leverage Let’s change the story. Provence. The in favour of fire on policy at every level. For- 112,000 solar panels cover an area of 200 tunately the electric economy has a growing Walt Patterson is an associate fellow of the hectares with a total constituency of influential players, includ- Energy, Environment and Resources capacity of 100MW ing insurance and reinsurance companies, programme at Chatham House

the world today | june & july 2020 | 27 28 | the world today | june & july 2020 Russia

Russia, like other countries, faces a changed economic universe in the new world being shaped by the coronavirus. How will its Problems own fortunes be changed and how might its trajectory be different from others? The April 11 edition of The Economist in the suggests three ways in which the pandemic, GETTY VIA IMAGES BLOOMBERG and the response to it, are likely to alter the world’s business environment in the long term: pipeline l The adoption of new technologies will be quicker; l Supply chains will be modified to allow more flexibility and to be less dependent on for Putin foreign sources of supply; l Corporate concentration and business- state cronyism may well increase. Pandemic will hit These changes are envisaged, it would appear, with the developed West in mind. Russia harder, warn Does Russia face similar changes? Philip Hanson and A starting point in assessing Russia’s prospects is to consider the state of the Michael Bradshaw economy at the beginning of the new decade. On the verge of the pandemic, Russia’s economy was still struggling to recover from two economic challenges. The first was the 2014-15 oil price crash that resulted in the Opec+ agreement be- tween Opec and other major oil exporting countries that Russia played a major part in, though it never significantly reduced its production. The success of Opec+ benefited Russia, but it also allowed a resurgence in US oil production such that in early 2020 Opec+ was looking for deeper cuts to sustain the oil price, something that Russia refused to accept. Russia used the time, and the higher prices, afforded by the Opec+ agreement to good effect, rebuilding its national wealth fund, which currently stands at about 10 per cent of GDP, and cutting govern- ment spending such that in early 2020 the budget balanced at an oil price of $42 a bar- rel, down from more than $100 a barrel in 2014-15. But this reduction in funding also slowed the rate of recovery. Second, the annexation of Crimea and involvement in the conflict in eastern Ukraine resulted in the imposition of sanc- tions by the West. Allegations of interfer- ence in the US presidential election and support for Venezuela have resulted in fur- Oil storage tanks at the Rosneft refinery, ther sanctions. These served to isolate the in Tuapse on the Russian economy from global capital mar- Black Sea. The kets, reduced the levels of foreign invest- pandemic has seen ment, with the notable exception of China, oil demand fall by a third, a blow to and prompted government support for im- Russia’s chances of port substitution. economic recovery Ironically, this relative economic

the world today | june & july 2020 | 29 Russia

isolation may provide some protection in Meanwhile uncertainty about the lead- the current context but, once again, Rus- ‘Sooner rather than ership, on top of uncertainty about domes- sia’s dependence on oil export revenue is tic economic policy, sanctions and global revealed as a critical weakness. later, Russia will trade, is likely to keep private investment For Russia the present crisis is a com- need access to in Russia low. pound of the impact of the pandemic do- Russia has too diverse an economy to be mestically and the oil-market crash. The technology it does characterized as a petro-state, but oil and global impact of the pandemic has seen oil gas remain central to its fortunes. This, demand fall by a third. It therefore takes out not have, as well too, will be important after the immediate a larger share of Russian GDP in 2020 than pandemic crisis has abated. So far, Russia the pandemic alone is expected to take out as significant has continued to surprise industry analysts of global economic activity. with its ability to sustain high levels of pro- Proceeding on the common assumption investment, to duction, but a consensus is emerging that that the pandemic recedes to some degree its Soviet-era fields are running out and in the second half of 2020, both the Inter- develop new fields’ may be damaged by the coming produc- national Monetary Fund and leading Rus- tion cuts needed as part of the new Opec+ sian economists foresee a larger fall for an industry, now mostly based on for- agreement. Equally, there are only so many Russian GDP than for the global economy eign investment, that depends heavily on times that Russia can play the devaluation as a whole. But both project recovery for imported component supplies. There are trick to drive down the domestic costs of Russia in 2021: 3.5 per cent for the IMF and others. production. 1.3 per cent for economists from the Liberal According to the Ministry of Industry Sooner rather than later, Russia will need Mission Foundation. and Trade, as reported by Izvestiya, 62 per access to technology that it does not have, However, given the possibility of fur- cent of the components for civil aircraft are as well as significant investment, to develop ther waves of infection and economic shut currently imported, and 69 per cent of the new fields. down, the global economy may not recover ‘components’ for pharmaceuticals. The aim The problem is that many of those fields for some time and, even then, oil demand is of current policy is to reduce such percent- will be more expensive to develop than likely to be depressed with some suggesting ages drastically. existing fields and a lasting consequence of that 2019 will have marked a peak in global It looks as though the developed West COVID-19 is likely to be lower oil prices for oil demand. How distinctive will Russia’s will be following Russia in import substitu- some time to come, if not forever. economic inheritance from this crisis be? tion. The difference is that in the West the The situation in the gas industry is some- The advent of a more rapid diffusion of process will be governed by companies. In what different as there is no shortage of gas, new technologies is as plausible for Rus- Russia import substitution is state-led and but prices were depressed even before the sia as it is for other countries. Similar con- seems to have compounded its reliance on pandemic. Russia needs new markets, but ditions are providing a ‘crash-course’ in the resource sectors rather than promoting Gazprom has invested heavily in pipelines working and consuming online. Mean- meaningful diversification. to bypass Ukraine to support a stagnating while, familiar impediments to Russian Corporate concentration, a large state European market and is equally unlikely to productivity growth – the large state economic presence and business-state reap significant financial reward, at current presence, weak competition, low invest- cronyism are already conspicuous features prices, from its new pipeline to China. ment and sanctions – will probably remain of the Russian economy. The state has also heavily subsidized unaffected. At the same time, the capacity The policy response to the coronavirus Novatek’s new liquefied natural gas ven- of the state to invest may be damaged by crisis will tend to strengthen them. The tures on the Yamal Peninsula. This calls the cost of mitigating the domestic impact emphasis of government crisis-support in into question the wisdom of Russia’s new of the pandemic. Russia is on big business, while small firms energy strategy to 2035 that sees further So far, the Russian stimulus package is are neglected. In practice, this may not be expansion of oil and gas production. Such much smaller than the equivalent spending so very different from what is happening in an approach presents significant opportu- in most western countries: 2.8 per cent of several western countries. nity costs to the Russian economy where GDP according to Finance Minister Anton However, any return to ‘normal’ after money could be better spent on social in- Siluanov in late April, compared with open- the crisis, so far as business-state rela- vestment, renewing infrastructure, educa- ended commitments in several European tions are concerned, is complicated by the tion and real diversification. countries that could exceed 10 per cent. If uncertainty surrounding Vladimir Putin’s Finally, should the new COVID-19 world Russia comes through the crisis with com- position and the 2024 ‘succession’ ques- determine to double down on climate paratively low stimulus spending, it will tion’. President Putin has ducked respon- change and pursue a global green recov- reinforce the country’s low-debt position, sibility for conducting Russia’s crisis policy, ery, Russia may find itself simply backing shying away from anything that would pro- leaving most of the running to regional offi- the wrong horse. vide leverage for the West. cials. Whether this promotes or diminishes Changes in supply chains will be less his political support remains to be seen. It Philip Hanson is Emeritus Professor of the important for Russia, whose exports may be that others gain political capital Political Economy of Russia and Eastern are still heavily concentrated in natural from demonstrating capability in a crisis, Europe, University of Birmingham, and resources. So far as imports are concerned, which could undermine the view that Putin Michael Bradshaw is Professor of Global car production is the clearest example of is the only leader for Russia. Energy at Warwick Business School

30 | the world today | june & july 2020 Russia

In May, Georgia’s ex-president Mikheil long-standing corrupt practices, they are Saakashvili, who fled his homeland in 2013 expected to help ‘drain the swamp’. Fur- while facing charges of abuse of power, was thermore, the belief that foreign expertise ‘Leaders given an important job in Ukraine. Presi- is superior, still pertinent in parts of east- dent Volodymyr Zelensky had proposed ern Europe, helps bolster their credentials. him as deputy prime minister, but oppo- In reality, imported politicians usually for rent’ is sition to the move in the president’s own serve the agendas of the real decision- party resulted in Saakashvili being made makers, the billionaire businessman and leader of the National Reform Council. politician Bidzina Ivanishvili in Georgia This post marked his second comeback and presidents Poroshenko and Zelensky no answer in Ukraine. Only five years ago, he had been in Ukraine, who call the shots. granted Ukrainian citizenship to become None of the international nominees governor of the Odessa region. has any political capital in their new He quit that job after a year and, having homelands. A case in point is that of Max Fras explains why protested against the corruption schemes Salome Zourabichvili, a French diplomat of Ukraine and Georgia of then president Petro Poroshenko in the Georgian ancestry, named by Saakashvili as region, he was stripped of his citizenship his first foreign minister in 2004. She lasted need to nurture home- and deported from Ukraine in 2017. He for just over a year, only to set up a political grown talent rather managed to get back into the country which party which failed to attract voters. had adopted and then rejected him, leading Despite her lack of political standing, she than import politicians to a standoff in Kyiv between his supporters won the presidency in 2018 by a slim mar- and police who tried to arrest him. gin, a success generally credited to the sup- Saakashvili is the model of the ephem- port of Ivanishvili, who helped put the en- eral international politician who embodies tire state apparatus behind her campaign. the fascination with foreign expertise that Among Ukraine’s many international persists in Ukraine and the wider eastern politicians, only Saakashvili was an inde- Europe. Some countries in the region crave pendent political player, and then only reform and the electorate is inclined to look briefly. The political party he set up failed abroad for the right politician to provide an to get a single representative elected, and instant solution to long-standing problems. in the recent parliamentary elections, he Ukraine, re-embracing Europe and radi- endorsed another party. cal reform after the 2014 Euromaidan revo- In the absence of a local party base, inter- lution, opted for bulk imports of foreigners national appointees are easy to dispose of. for political office. Between 2014 and 2016, They provide their patrons with a buffer be- Ukraine had Georgian and Lithuanian cabi- tween them and voters who get tired at the net members as well as an American-born lack of tangible progress on economic de- finance minister. All three were granted velopment and anti-corruption measures. Ukrainian citizenship on the same day, This fascination with international upon their nomination as ministers. politicians is unlikely to benefit Georgia or Soon after, Saakashvili was nominated Ukraine in the long run. In both countries, as Odessa’s governor and received Ukrain- politicians and state institutions have low ian citizenship. The fashion for Georgian rankings for trust, and political parties have reformers did not stop there. In the same low membership. period, Ukraine embraced Georgians as Installing international politicians deputy ministers, the head of the national and categorizing them as technocratic police force, a deputy prosecutor-general experts aggravates this problem, distancing and a deputy head of the anti-corruption constituents and communities from gov- agency. A number of Polish nationals also ernment. Thirty years into their regained found their way to top positions. independence, Ukraine and Georgia would The careers of these international politi- do better to put their faith in home-grown KONSTANTIN SAZONCHIK/TASS KONSTANTIN cians reveal the weakness of the civil service political talent and assure proper demo- in the post-Soviet space and the false allure cratic accountability for their politicians. of apolitical technocracy. On the surface, Growing a competent and independent the reasoning behind such international civil service would allow them to rely on the nominations may appear sound. In the era expert knowledge of talented individuals of ‘democracy fatigue’, an aura of apolitical without undermining democracy at home. competence is a sought-after quality. Most of the nominees are renowned for their Max Fras is a Eurasia Democratic Mikheil Saakashvili, the model of the achievements and qualifications at home. Security Network Fellow at the Tbilisi ephemeral international politician Independent of local interest groups and Centre for Social Sciences

the world today | june & july 2020 | 31 Expert advice Don’t blame the scientists

Politicians should lead, not hide behind experts, writes Calum Inverarity

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, the British public have become familiar with the government repeatedly saying that its decisions are ‘led by the science’. Ministers have used these words to respond to media questions on a wide variety of issues: from the actions the government took – or failed to take – to contain the virus, to the coun- try’s economic prospects. A simple, reductive message is not unknown in British politics. The soundbite ‘Get Brexit done’ is credited with helping the current government secure its parlia- mentary majority last December. But it has become glaringly apparent that such simple messaging is of limited use when dealing with a public health crisis of the magnitude of COVID-19. Contrary to reassuring the public, the repeated deference to ‘the science’ has served not only to highlight the failings in early preparedness for the pandemic, but to reignite tensions that exist at the bound- ary between policymaking and scientific expertise. While politically expedient, the invoca- tion of scientific expertise has led to some confusion among the public and drawn criticism from opposition MPs and most notably from the scientific community whose members have seen a sudden, and not necessarily welcome, rise in public visibility and liability. Though this is not a new phenomenon, it comes at a time of heightened emotions

Prime minister Boris Johnson during his daily coronavirus briefing, with Professor , his chief medical officer, left, and Patrick Vallance, his scientific adviser

32 | the world today | june & july 2020 Expert advice GETTY IMAGES

the world today | june & july 2020 | 33 Expert advice

when the public are in need of compe- As I wrote recently with my colleague, those polled said that they ‘are now more tent, reliable and transparent guidance. In Yasmin Afina, on the use of complex likely to listen to expert advice from quali- delegating this responsibility so impre- modelling, expertise can be loaded with fied scientists and researchers’. cisely to the scientific community, the gov- assumptions and biases that, when left un- The poll also found that 67 per cent of all ernment may have elevated those within it challenged, can result in advice that reflects respondents ‘believe all COVID-19 related to a precarious position within the public’s the groupthink of any expert community. research and data should be made open perception. In particular, it has emerged that the for anyone to use freely’. This demand for Utilizing expertise for the purpose of models used to guide the government’s openness no doubts reflects the revelation policymaking is a fundamental component thinking failed to consider the possibil- that Boris Johnson’s senior adviser, Domi- of democratic governance. It is, therefore, ity of enacting early lockdown measures, nic Cummings, attended meetings of Sage. not uncommon to hear ministers justify as were deployed in some countries that As Cummings is a political strategist rather policies based on economic forecasts, gained swift control of the virus, because than a career civil servant, the revelation climate projections or other models. Most behaviourial experts and modellers had as- brought into question the transparency of prominent in the COVID-19 case has been sumed such restrictions were likely to be what is meant to be an independent scien- modelling from Imperial College Lon- rejected by the British public. tific advisory group, on whose deliberations don and Oxford University, the former This serves as a reminder that behind the state of the economy and society may being credited with changing the govern- ‘the science’ remain humans who have their depend for a long time to come. ment’s mind on adopting a policy of social own, often competing, views that inevitably It is interesting, therefore, to note that distancing. influence their advice. public amenability towards scientific The relationship between policymaking In failing to allow for greater transpar- experts seems to have increased during the and expertise, particularly scientific exper- ency and scrutiny or to encourage the dif- crisis. In addition to the Survation poll, a tise, has long been fraught, however. It is ferent opinions that exist in the scientific YouGov survey for Sky News found that in acknowledgement of this interlinkage community to be aired, the government public trust in the NHS and the UK’s chief that science, technology and society (STS) effectively signalled its unwillingness to medical officer, Chris Witty, outstrips that emerged as a field of research during the engage in debate, while abdicating respon- of public trust in the prime minister. These second half of the 20th century. sibility for its decisions to advisers. polls seem to indicate that public contempt STS considers the ways politics and While many within the scientific com- lies with the government for obfuscating science impact upon each other yet remain munity would probably prefer to avoid in- its decision-making process rather than the distinctly separate in order to maintain volvement in political controversy, others, scientists. their respective authorities. Attention has such as the Britain’s former chief scientific While this offers some grounds for opti- focused on the ways boundaries between adviser Sir David King, have made efforts mism that trust in the expertise of scientists the two have become blurred as the scien- to temper expectations by saying that sci- may not have been substantially damaged tific community has been encouraged to ence should inform, not necessarily lead. during this crisis, it may not necessarily assume greater responsibility for the prac- extend to trust in the direct use by govern- tical implications of action taken based on Impending loss of faith ments of scientific expertise for policy- their predictions. To avoid possible reputational damage to making. Ultimately, the coronavirus crisis These tensions have been exacerbated as the scientific community as a result of the may further compound distrust of science- policymakers and scientific experts have government’s actions, Sir David has estab- backed recommendations and the policies been forced to contend with the disrup- lished an alternative body to the Scientific that ensue from them. This distrust has tive impacts of the internet age, in which Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), accelerated apace in the internet age as mis- anyone can go online and access not always which provides some of the primary sci- information has become a common feature accurate answers to questions about any- entific guidance to the government. This that distorts politics. thing, such as symptoms for a new illness, new body, made up of scientific experts, has While the British government continues or how the virus is transmitted or what the been named Independent Sage, in contrast to be criticized for its handling of the coro- possible cures are. to the perceived politicized nature of the navirus crisis and its patchy messaging, it So, why does it matter that the govern- existing group of advisers. remains to be seen what lasting impacts its ment has justified its decisions primarily In failing to appreciate the complex- actions will have. What is apparent, how- on ‘the science’? ity of scientific modelling, the govern- ever, is that it would be inadvisable for any For a start, many within the scientific ment has served to inflate expectations government to rely solely on ‘the science’ community have taken issue with the gov- that ‘the science’ alone has the capacity to regain the public’s trust. Doing so would ernment’s sweeping use of the term ‘the sci- to guide us out of the crisis, while play- risk aggravating a tension that has been, ence’, which is inaccurate and misleading. ing down that this science is only one of a and looks likely to remain, inflamed for the Casting the scientific advice chosen by variety of approaches in a wider set of near future. Just as the recovery from the the government as the only definitive ‘sci- considerations. pandemic appears likely to be protracted ence’ has enabled it to regain control over One of the greatest concerns is that the and uncertain, so too does the rehabilita- the coronavirus narrative. This is not to say scientists will shoulder the blame for any tion of public faith in science-based policy. the expertise available to the government failings of the government’s decisions. was insufficient, but rather to point out that However, a recent poll by Survation for Calum Inverarity is a research analyst and statements like this prioritize political aims the Open Knowledge Foundation may pro- coordinator with the International Security at the expense of constructive debate. vide some pause for thought: 64 per cent of programme at Chatham House

34 | the world today | june & july 2020 Expert advice

Q&A Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress Scientist explains what South Korea did right

You are a nuclear physicist and an response early before the number of infec- There are some who argue that those expert in non-proliferation. What made tions got out of hand. who die from the disease were at you focus on public policy during the Because of the exponential increase in high risk of dying within a year due to coronavirus pandemic? infections, it is vastly more difficult to han- existing health problems. How do you I have always been interested in public dle contact tracing when you have a high react to that? health and worked on an exciting project case load. I heard this argument often at the begin- during the Obama presidency which was ning, and it is very convenient for those looking at emergency responses to a radi- In East Asian countries it is normal to in charge. But we are finding out that ological incident. Working in non-prolif- wear masks. Should we be doing that? young people are also dying because of a eration, you have to convince people that Clear evidence for the effectiveness of reaction where the immune system goes this is a really important issue and, even if masks is low, but it is a simple thing that against the body itself called the cytokine incidents are very rare, that doesn’t make anyone can do. We saw from South Korea storm. In addition, we are now learning planning for a nuclear incident unnec- and other places that masks make a dif- about a rare condition called the Kawa- essary. When the COVID-19 crisis hap- ference. It is not total protection against saki desease in children which appears pened in January, I knew that the people droplet infection, but if everyone wears a to be connected to COVID-19 which has in power were not taking it as seriously as mask then a percentage of droplets are not been fatal for kids in US and Europe. It is they should. going to enter the body. Even if it makes true that older people are more likely to be only a slight difference, that’s a lot of peo- affected in an adverse way. But there’s a What do you mean, ple spared when the overall number of lot we don’t know about this disease, and not taking it seriously? dead is 100,000 in the US. this idea that it is only older people who get I followed the South Korean response very infected doesn’t appear to be true. carefully – my wife is Korean. Did you The death rate seems not to be rising in know that South Korea and the United the US now. Is the virus contained? What more can we learn from States both discovered their first case of There are significant hotspots in rural South Korea? COVID-19 on the same day? The differ- America where the cases are rapidly grow- Because South Korea did random testing ence in response to the pandemic was in- ing. Furthermore, pandemics happen in it was clear what proportion of the popula- credible. I also noticed that there was a lot waves. Infections spread unabated in a tion had been infected. We don’t have that of othering – people were saying we can’t location and then flare up exponentially kind of information in the US. This leads have mobile phone tracing like South Ko- such as those connected to meat-packing to all kinds of speculation, which did not rea because we are different from Asians, plants where social distancing was not im- happen in South Korea. For a time, there we care more about our freedom. On the plemented early on and surveillance was were no new domestic cases, but a pan- news, the way they talked about it seemed not adequate. States like New York and demic is like small forest fires which can as if they were confusing South Korea California have taken the threat very seri- start up anywhere and spread. There was with North Korea, which is a dictatorship. ously, but many other states have not, and one case where an infected person went to There was a lot of ugliness bubbling up. are in my view relaxing restrictions pre- the Itaewon nightclub area of Seoul early maturely. I am very concerned about a sec- in May and infected 237 people. As a re- How did this reflect on policy? ond wave of the pandemic and we need to sult, South Korea tested as many as 65,000 There is a lot that we didn’t know about the give health workers and public health offi- people to determine who was likely to have virus, but one thing that became clear early cials as many weapons to fight this virus as been infected and chased up every one of in February was that the disease could be possible and for many of us that is staying them to ensure they were quarantined. The spread by asymptomatic people. There was at home. goal is that the virus has nowhere to hide. evidence from Asia, but there is a feeling in While people in the US are worried about the US that everything that happens out- There are predictions that the COVID-19 loss of privacy in the use of technology for side the country is irrelevant to the US. In infection curve could turn out to be self- contact tracing, no names were revealed in South Korea, they didn’t lock everything flattening and will just burn itself out. the South Korean tests and, as of today, the down and they started testing aggressively This happened with Sars, didn’t it? number of cases is going down. Until there with drive-through testing stations. I think It is possible that the virus will mutate in is a vaccine, social distancing is something the US could have handled things very dif- such a way that it becomes less dangerous, we will need to do for a long, long time. ferently, especially in terms of testing. The because the virus dies with the people who argument is always that South Korea is a die. So with the worst virus strains dying Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress is Scientist-in- much smaller country, and the US is so with the people who die, you can imagine Residence & Adjunct Professor at the much bigger. That’s true, but there should that it may become less deadly, but I know Middlebury Institute of International have been a much more aggressive testing of no credible evidence for that. Studies at Monterey

the world today | june & july 2020 | 35 Conflict resolution AFP/GETTY IMAGES AFP/GETTY

A good time to talk peace

The pandemic could bring ‘unimaginable benefits’ if only there was the political will to seize them, writes Michael Keating

It probably should come as no surprise that Yemen and armed groups such as the Kurds a resolution to support the appeal by COVID-19 is being used by power brokers in Syria declared their willingness to sus- the Secretary-General. More mundane to advance their partisan and personal pend military activity. but equally debilitating are restrictions agendas rather than as an opening to work But lulls in hostilities and renewed will- on movement, nominally to prevent together to tackle the common threat. But ingness to talk turned out to be the excep- the spread of the virus, that are affecting is it too late for this crisis to be turned to the tions. In many places, levels of violence not just local people but peacekeepers advantage of people who are most vulner- have increased, with Afghanistan being the and aid workers in places such as Sudan able to violence and conflict? standout example. Instead, a combination or South Sudan. Diplomats and business- On March 23, António Guterres, the of factors may be creating a more permis- people are thin on the ground. UN Secretary-General, called for a global sive environment for parties to conflict. Moreover, political leaders and the pub- ceasefire. This generated widespread pub- An overarching issue is the lack of lic in western countries are mightily dis- lic support, particularly in conflict-affected global resolve and the egregious fail- tracted. The priority has been to contain countries. Among others, Saudi Arabia in ure of the UN Security Council to issue the damage triggered by the virus and

36 | the world today | june & july 2020 Conflict resolution

manage massive and rapid state interven- But conflict-affected states are least able to tions. Leaders are struggling to maintain ‘There has been a absorb or use this. The World Bank their domestic authority, anxious about an has also moved fast to make a chunk eventual reckoning and their re-election boom among of the $160 billion pledged by its prospects, spinning narratives to buttress analysts on what a shareholders available for countries their credibility. defined as fragile and conflict affected. Stopping violence and suffering in con- post-crisis landscape Grants and debt service relief will be used flict zones is nowhere near the top of the to build capacity to respond to COVID-19, list. US engagement around the world is should look like. maintain livelihoods and to help marginal- more unilateral. The pandemic has not ized groups including the displaced. been used to refresh diplomatic efforts but This is healthy’ It is a credit to the Bretton Woods in- to increase pressure on adversaries – such stitutions that they have been so forward as in Iran and Venezuela. The Chinese are of well-functioning institutions, trusted leaning, given their traditional aversion to using the virus to extend their influence. leadership and reliable information, plus risk. Imposing conditions to achieve debt In Europe, the preoccupation has been relative social and economic equality that relief requires strong political support and solidarity, or lack of it, within the continent, creates a sense of solidarity among people, international partnership, as was just dem- not least the willingness of richer regions to are determinants to success in fighting the onstrated in Somalia. Doing this at scale at bail out poorer ones. Some argue that the pandemic. a time of crisis will be complex. survival of the European project is at stake. Unfortunately, these ingredients are There has been a Zoom boom among Despite the impressive sums pledged missing most in conflict-affected socie- analysts, development experts and the to support humanitarian action and debt ties. A combination of lack of preparedness peacebuilding community on what a desir- relief, addressing the deteriorating situa- and useful information, weak or non-ex- able post-crisis landscape should look like. tion in Europe’s larger neighbourhood, the istent health systems, chronic poverty and This is healthy. But it is not the same as mo- Middle East and Africa, is not a priority. ongoing hostilities is likely to result in many bilizing politicians and decision makers in Yet helping fragile states to cope is in richer deaths and widespread suffering. the most powerful countries, including in countries’ own fundamental interest. The economic consequences are still the Arab world and Far East, around a trans- The nature of the pandemic demands being fathomed but will be profound. These formative agenda. For the moment, the a global response. Lifting of lockdowns countries are more integrated into global focus of these policymakers has been on in some parts of the world while the virus economic networks than was the case injecting cash and preventing a full-scale gains momentum just a boat journey or a during the 2008/9 financial crash. Collaps- macro-economic collapse. few hours’ flight away makes little sense. ing commodity prices and remittance flows, The G-20 and G-7 communiques were Dystopian travel, trade and border re- and disruptions in supply chains, trade largely silent on job-creating investments in strictions based upon health status are un- and travel will hit them very hard, as will local infrastructure, clean energy, humane likely to work, will spur corruption and reduced development assistance as the urbanization, land use, waste management criminal activity, play into the hands of xen- GDP of donor states contracts. and recycling, reforestation and biodiver- ophobes and nationalists, and are likely to The desperate need in many fragile states sity regeneration. These are needed both polarize politics further. The hand of those of elites for financial assistance and meeting to encourage more sustainable, climate who argue for militarized approaches to se- the expectations of their citizens, whether friendly and equitable economic models curity will be strengthened, despite decades embattled middle classes, frustrated young and to help address the structural factors of evidence that these do not bring lasting people or the urban poor, could be an contributing to and sustaining conflict. solutions, and often make things worse. opportunity to support reforms that result As for context-specific conversations Can the crisis be used to incentivize more in more inclusive political arrangements among the most powerful states and eco- deliberate approaches to peace and stabil- and greater accountability. nomic actors on how to propel inclusive po- ity? Are sufficient funds available, and is From a conflict prevention perspec- litical processes, accountable government, there enough political coherence in the tive, the issue is whether urgently needed rule of law and dialogue among armed international community to that end? finance can be used to bring about policy groups – these are few and far between. No one yet knows what the impact of changes that address some of the structural An unlikely revolutionary, Kristalina COVID-19 will be on the most vulnerable issues that contribute to insecurity. Key Georgieva, the IMF’s managing director, and conflict-affected states – a distress- issues include the availability of funds to has suggested that there could be ‘unim- ingly long list that includes many countries exercise leverage; and the reform agenda aginable benefits’ emerging from this crisis in the Middle East including Iraq, Syria they could catalyse, focusing on economic including, for example, changes in behav- and Yemen, in the Horn of Africa, Great inequality and gender inequity, lack of iour that benefits action on climate change. Lakes and Sahel, the Caucasus, Afghani- political inclusiveness and unaccountable The issue is whether there is the political stan, South East Asia and Latin America, security forces, illicit economic activity, will and imagination to seize this opportu- notably Colombia and Venezuela. Prelimi- land and resource abuse, and increasingly nity. If not now, when? nary analysis suggests that a combination unpredictable climatic conditions. The International Monetary Fund has Michael Keating is Executive Director, Yemeni fighters loyal to southern separatists moved quickly to get governments to allow European Institute of Peace and a former celebrate the re-opening of a highway in it to make $1 trillion available for emerg- UN Secretary-General’s Special Abyan province during a ceasefire in May ing markets that need emergency support. Representative for Somalia

the world today | june & july 2020 | 37 the big picture big the

38 | the world today | april & may 2020 CYCLONE AMPHAN STRIKES A woman removes debris from the road in Midnapore, West Bengal, amid the wreckage left in the wake of Cyclone Amphan, the first super cyclonic storm to occur in the Bay of Bengal since 1999. It crashed into the Ganges Delta on May 20 at a time when mass evacuations in India and Bangladesh were hampered by efforts to contain the coronavirus. Picture Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP Getty Images the world today | april & may 2020 | 39 Medical reports GETTY IMAGES

40 | the world today | june & july 2020 Medical reports

Across the world, health systems have been put under extreme pressure due to the spread of COVID-19. Ben Horton sat down (remotely) The view with two doctors, working in Germany and Zambia. Johannes Wagner is a newly quali- fied paediatrician in the Bavarian town of Coburg. Mwape Chisonde is a diagnostician at a hospital in the Zambian capital Lusaka, from the where he processes coronavirus tests. Tell me about the public mood towards the coronavirus response in your countries? front line Mwape: Before this pandemic, Zambia had already been dealing with major public health challenges such as HIV, tuberculo- How doctors are sis, malaria. The coming of COVID-19 has added a big burden to that list. Initial pre- coping in Germany dictions were made that if Africa became and Zambia the epicentre of the pandemic, many people would lose their lives. So the government had to be very alert. They had to heighten the levels of public surveillance, greatly increase laboratory capacity to carry out the required tests, and had to secure sig- nificant increases in health funding. The one beauty of this time, I have real- ized, is that there is a spirit of togetherness I have never seen before in this country. People have to put their political and reli- gious affiliations aside and come together to combat one common enemy. It is hard to live like this, but overall, the Zambian people have adopted a sense of responsibil- ity; they want to play their part. As time goes by, however, we see other factors coming into play. COVID-19 comes not only with public health challenges, but economic implications. In the end, people have to pay rent, which is causing some to go out and break one or two rules just to make a living.

Johannes, have you seen this reflected in Germany? Johannes: At the beginning, people understood that it was necessary to stay at home, reduce social contact and shut down all shops but grocers and pharma- cies. People were motivated to cooperate, and many started to produce their own face masks as there were none left to buy. As the virus is especially dangerous to the elderly A customer pays population, they had to accept the strict- from his car for beer est measures of isolation. In Germany, you and a pork knuckle at have 800,000 people, roughly 1 per cent a drive-in Bavarian of the population, living in care homes for beerfest. Bavaria’s traditional Volksfeste the elderly. They were not allowed to go have been cancelled outside and no one was allowed to visit due to the pandemic them. People did accept all this for quite

the world today | june & july 2020 | 41 Medical reports

some time. But now, as patient numbers are One big concern is that people are scared going down in Germany, there are pro- of visiting the hospital, fearing they might tests against these measures, even though contract the virus. This fear has been we never had a total lockdown like in Spain exacerbated by government guidelines or Italy. People have started to combine restricting the number of people allowed to economic and health concerns, just as visit. It has been very quiet since the start of Mwape mentioned in Zambia. There is also the pandemic. I work the night shift, and we a big concern that the measures are oblig- used to attend to more than 500 patients a ‘One big concern is ing women to stay at home to look after the night. It’s no longer anywhere close to that. kids and return to a family way of life we I think this pandemic reminds us that we that people are saw in earlier times while fathers go back really need to strengthen our public health scared of visiting the to work sooner. system. In Zambia there is clearly a need for A big advantage for Germany is that it improvements in the capacity of laborato- hospital, fearing they has a strong economy. As in Britain, the ries such as the one I work in. COVID-19 government is paying two-thirds of the has shown that we need to look at this. might contract the wages of many workers so they can keep their jobs until the economy is up and Mwape, you said that you are working virus. This has been running again. So we have not seen the on testing. Could you tell us what that major rise in unemployment that the involves? exacerbated by United States has experienced. Moreo- Mwape: So, in Zambia testing came in a lit- ver, health insurance in Germany has al- tle bit late. Given this is a novel virus, it has guidelines limiting ways been independent of your job, so eve- taken time to come up with the right testing the numbers allowed ryone is covered and can be tested for free. method and equipment. But one thing we And testing capacities are very high. Over- have been able to do is innovate. Before the to visit’ all, people are a little tired but I think the pandemic, we had equipment that we used mood is still okay. What does concern me to test for tuberculosis. So we recalibrated is that conspiracy theories are on the rise, these machines and started to use them to and some people are losing all trust in the test for COVID-19. government and turning aggressive. In terms of the testing process, nurses As for the hospitals, I work in the paedi- collect samples from suspected patients out atrics department and they stopped every in their communities, and then these are elective intervention. Everything that transported to the laboratory, where the could be cancelled was cancelled. Nev- actual testing takes place. We have greatly ertheless, we had a lot of work with the increased the capacity in terms of the num- COVID-19 patients, so the workload for ber of tests that we are able to do on a daily us was the same more or less. Overall the basis. We started on a limited basis of about healthcare system is still in good shape and 200 tests a day, but now we are able to reach there has been no triage situation. Every- 1,000 a day in our lab alone. As a result we one who needed ventilation or oxygen was have been able to identify more people able to get it. carrying the virus. This is helping us deal with a situation in which many people are Do you worry about the future impact of asymptomatic carriers. cancelling these elective surgeries? Ultimately it is very time-consuming Johannes: It’s very hard to put all this into however, because it requires the health ‘Health insurance in numbers but the quality of life of many peo- system to have the capacity to go out into Germany has always ple who are waiting will have been reduced the communities, do mass testing and in during this time. Certain conditions might that way identify those people with the been independent of get worse but since May electives have re- virus so they can be isolated and given the started because the COVID-19 patient necessary treatment. Only three centres – your job, so everyone numbers are declining and we have a lot one in the Copperbelt region and two in of free intensive care beds. I hope that we Lusaka – have been recommended by the is covered and can be can recover from this, but in other coun- government for testing. Only those facili- tries where maybe there is not such a highly ties have the capacity and the manpower tested for free’ resourced system it could take months to to do the job. resume elective operations. Mwape Chisonde and Johannes Wagner Mwape, what has been the situation in are members of the Common Futures your hospital? Conversations community, which is Mwape: I think the experience has been facilitated by Chatham House and made very much the same as Johannes described. possible by the Robert Bosch Stiftung

42 | the world today | june & july 2020 Medical reports

A matter of days after the COVID-19 pan- minimum one day would then be down- demic was declared, I was standing in the graded to something that covered far less Now Britain hospital where I now work as an emergency of the body. doctor watching preparations for the cri- From around the country’s hospi- sis. Having served as an army officer before tals there were reports of disciplinary has become training in medicine, I was there that day action against those that spoke out against in my third role, as a broadcast journalist. this downgrading. There were reported in- We were filming a Channel 4 Dispatches cidents where infection control managers hostile special on the coronavirus outbreak and I had removed items of PPE such as FFP3 was following Dr Christian Subbe, an acute face masks from the ward to discourage the territory medicine consultant. My working at the use of items not covered by the guidelines. hospital had helped get the film crew in. But what happens when you fear that the I was struck by a strange sense of déjà vu guidelines are based less on safety and more Saleyha Ahsan, an as I prepped for filming that day. There was on simply what is available? the same level of risk assessment, antici- One evening early on in the outbreak A&E doctor, blames a pation and concern among the production while I was working in A&E a call came lack of preparation for team I experienced when preparing to film through from the out-of-hours team say- in hostile settings overseas such as Libya. ing they had been notified of a train head- the ensuing crisis ‘Stay safe, be careful, call us 24/7 for any- ing to my town with people from Scotland thing,’ I was told. who had been exposed to COVID-19 and And yet I wasn’t heading to an airport, were now symptomatic. The passengers simply getting into my car and driving intended coming to A&E. At that point across the country. I wasn’t crossing any the hospital had not had any coronavirus borders. It was Britain that had become patients. hostile territory. And that was unnerving. Naturally I thought my public health col- This feeling was reinforced when I real- leagues on call would need to know this. ized I had missed several calls from Tripoli. I imagined that they and the police, and A doctor I had filmed during the Libyan perhaps medics, or at least transport staff conflict in 2012 was calling to ask if I was would meet the train at the station and safe. Over the past eight years it had been identify the suspected COVID-19 pas- me who would ring him whenever news sengers. Others in the carriage would be broke of another military clash in Libya. swabbed and adequate isolation ensured: Now Britain had become the war zone. Test, track and trace. So here we were with an invisible enemy I called the public health number to dis- and a confused central command that was cover you couldn’t speak directly to any- getting it wrong in the crucial early stages one at that time. I left an urgent message of battle. As a result of my military training but didn’t hear back until 24 hours later. By at Sandhurst, I looked for leaders in govern- then the suspected COVID-19 passengers ment and the civil service and found none. had gone home and disappeared. Instead, there was the scrambling of forces That is when it dawned on me that this to create a new army, one that wore a blue was not going to go well for our country. uniform and was armed with knowledge, After filming in a war zone you look for- compassion and nothing more penetrating ward to the sanctuary your homecoming than a scalpel, cannula or needle. provides. But Britain is no longer a sanctu- And there would be casualties – the ones ary. We may be free of bombs and bullets, who ran in early. News started emerging of but we still have to hear the daily update healthcare workers who had died. The first of the number of lives lost to COVID-19. five were black or Asian healthcare work- Those working in the NHS are regularly ers from ethnic minority backgrounds. lauded as heroes, but the words of Christian Immediately, medics started to ask why. Subbe still echo from the Dispatches inter- In the same way as all healthcare work- view: ‘There’s no need for heroes if you are ers aross the UK, we would meet each day prepared. You only need heroes if you fail to hear new instructions from the govern- to .’ ment, and we began to appreciate that lead- It is that preparation, together with a ership at that level would not save us or our clear mission statement and leadership, patients. We had to find the way ourselves. that the government failed to provide. And Instructions were at first baffling and so, you ended up with heroes. then alarming. What constituted PPE – personal protective equipment – changed Saleyha Ahsan is an emergency medicine a number of times. What was deemed the doctor and broadcaster

the world today | june & july 2020 | 43 Medical reports

When the virus came to England, I liter- happening at work that I want to show ally typed into Google: ‘How can I help?’ people. Hospitals’ I first started delivering groceries to peo- I have seen the very worst of human- ple in isolation and then found out that ity before coming here, but now I am also five hospitals were urgently looking for seeing the best. Before I came to England, unsung cleaners. One was Whipps Cross, in north I lived in Syria where I was put in prison London, which is ten minutes from my and tortured for taking part in peaceful home. The idea of working as a cleaner had protests. I was banned from working as an heroes already crossed my mind after I read that the English teacher. Like many others I fled the virus was able to survive for up to two country and filmed my journey to Britain Hassan Akkad, 23, weeks on surfaces. It was clear that dis- and then I worked on a sequel. I know how infecting would be critical to reduce the important it is to tell human stories in order arrived in Britain as a spread. The next day I was in a COVID-19 to share a message. Syrian refugee in 2015. ward hard at work. When I came to Britain, I was offered a I am on duty from 7am to 3pm, five days spare room to stay in to get me back on my Footage of his journey a week. When I arrive, I put on my per- feet – I was treated very well by people and sonal protection equipment, my gloves I wanted to give something back. was broadcast by the and apron, and I start preparing my gear. One of the best things about working as a BBC and won a Bafta. I begin cleaning the tables, chairs and bed cleaner has been meeting some incredible frames. The most important thing is to people at the hospital. There is a ward host When the coronavirus thoroughly clean the hotspots, things you who prepares all the food for the patients touch, such as soap dispensers, doors, sinks. who has not taken a day off, and then there struck, he began work I then clean the nurses’ area and mop the is my boss, Albert, who has been cleaning at as a hospital cleaner. floor. We disinfect every inch – you have Whipps Cross for more than ten years. He to be thorough. Cleaning is physical work came from Ghana in 1996. Even when I call This is his story but even more so when you are kitted out him boss, he says, ‘No don’t call me boss, in PPE, which is really uncomfortable. It is call me Albert’. He is 52 and one of the kind- a great workout, though. I’ve noticed my est people I have ever met. Meeting people arms are stronger. Before, my fiancée was like him restores my faith in humanity. making fun of me for having a double chin, Before this, I felt like a bit of a champagne but now I’m much fitter. socialist. I was in a bubble, going to Soho I’ve got to know some of the patients House with really cool people and talking and they give me a wave sometimes when about world issues. To create change, and I walk past. What I’ve learnt, though, is just I mean a real change, you have to get out of how undervalued cleaners are. Sometimes your comfort zone and see how people out- people will walk past me as if I don’t exist. side your circle live and work. I am trying to This really needs to change. If you look at put a face on this crisis and the people who this situation from a medical point of view, are crucial in dealing with it. cleaners are as important as everyone else Obviously, it is not easy at the hospital. I in the medical team. You have a consult- have witnessed a lot of people dying which ant, you have the ward manager, the nurses, is hard, especially when they do not have the ward host, each one working as an or- their relatives around them. Social distanc- gan in a body, and each one as important as ing is not new for me and other refugees as the other. If I were to liken cleaners to any we have not been able to see our families for organ, we would be the kidneys – we clean years. Seeing patients separated from their the body. Just like kidneys, you cannot live families has triggered something for me. without cleaners. There are more than ten nationalities on Here is the sad truth, there is a visible my ward from four continents. Before the hierarchy in British hospitals with clean- coronavirus they were undervalued and ers and porters at the bottom. And 90 per underpaid. It is sad that it took a pan- cent of them are immigrants or refugees. demic to value key workers but I hope one This hierarchy is very visible. People on top of the good things to come out of this is an need to meet the people on the bottom. I appreciation of these amazing people. I try am already working on that, using my plat- to focus on the positive elements to keep form to make this happen through showing my sanity and I’ll work at the hospital for people just how much we need cleaners. as long as I am needed. I am a photographer and filmmaker, so I have been putting photos of my colleagues Hassan Akkad was interviewed for this up online. I want to make them visible. At article by Sarah Whitehead the same time there are so many things @Hassan_Akkad

44 | the world today | june & july 2020 Date with History: April 3, 1948 Time for a new Marshall Plan?

And could China pay for it rather than the US, asks Mariana Vieira

When the United States problems. In recent weeks, the provision of economic decided to inject a huge it has surfaced in headlines aid would be an opportunity amount of cash to revive calling for European to press Europe to choose a war-ravaged Europe, institutions to find the between Washington and BETTMAN ARCHIVE President Harry Truman money to revive an economy Beijing. feared he would face a devasted by the COVID-19 Nonetheless, given Trump’s tough struggle convincing pandemic. belief that Europeans are the Republican-dominated Ursula von der Leyen, freeloaders, and as COVID-19 Congress to vote for it. ‘I’ve the European Commission engulfs an America on its way decided to give the whole president, has declared the to a presidential election, thing to General Marshall,’ he need for ‘a Marshall Plan for it is hard to imagine that a said. ‘The worst Republican Europe’. In discussions for the ‘Pompeo Plan’ will materialize on the Hill can vote for it if we next long-term EU budget, General George Marshall in response to a developing name it after the general’. Charles Michel, president Sinocentric order. The soldier-statesman of the European Council, formation of Nato. Leading up Under President Xi Jinping, General George Marshall, spoke of ‘a Marshall Plan-like to the Marshall Plan, Henry China is becoming more then serving as US Secretary stimulus strategy’. Pedro Stimson, Truman’s Secretary confident. Its Belt and Road of State, lent his voice – and Sanchez, the Spanish prime of War, warned that victory Initiative now stretches eventually his name – to minister, has echoed support over Germany and peace were from the borders of China to the European Recovery for a ‘common Marshall not synonymous. ‘Close on the central Europe. Does that Programme, which was Plan to recover from the heels of victory has loomed a make China the modern-day passed by Congress on April coronavirus pandemic’. new world crisis,’ he said. equivalent of the USSR? 3, 1948. Spanning several These calls take place In a similar vein, a victory Rosemary Foot, Oxford years, the Marshall Plan against an unpromising against COVID-19 might not professor of International authorized $13 billion to boost political background, be enough to avert another Relations, argues that the the European economy. In however. The pandemic impending crisis should Chinese Communist Party today’s money, total Marshall that should have brought the coronavirus create a puts forward ‘an alternative, aid was worth $130 billion. Europeans together has left long-term schism between non-western, sustainable In the words of Tony Judt, individual countries largely China and the US, with the and successful political and expert in European history: fending for themselves. With Europeans caught in between. economic model’. ‘The Marshall Plan was the principle of solidarity If the rise of China is In retrospect, the Marshall an economic programme, among nation states eclipsed combined with increasing Plan embodied the first stage but the crisis averted was by overheated domestic American hostility and in building a community political.’ In 1947, the appeal debates, the EU’s ability to distrust emerging from the of ideas, economic links of communism was rising in fund any Marshall Plan-like COVID-19 blame game, it and security ties that came Germany, Italy and France. ambition may be limited. could provide ample material to be known as the West. Not only that, with the USSR If Europe cannot look in for a lasting rift. Historians If America is ultimately emerging victorious from the the mirror for a saviour, it will debate whether the unwilling or unable to deploy war, history seemed to be on might have to look outside current Chinese threat is a Marshall Plan 2.0, might Moscow’s side. In restoring the window for someone with real. What matters is the China step into the vacuum? the European economy, the deeper pockets. It is worth perception of a threat that If that happens, Chinese Marshall Plan’s architects looking more closely at the the US needs to insulate itself funds pouring into Europe to sought to give the continent’s reasons that prompted the and its strategic and trading support Beijing’s vision of a leaders a chance to bolster Marshall Plan to see if history partners against. global ‘community of shared their legitimacy with the can be revived. The Marshall Plan forced destiny’ could accelerate a voters. The strategy of massive Europeans to choose between post-western era of global Since then, the Marshall conditional foreign aid Washington and Moscow. governance. Plan has become shorthand emerged as a pillar of As President Donald Trump for any financial magic wand containment of the Soviet seeks to redefine the terms of Mariana Vieira, to be waved at the world’s Union. Another was the America’s international role, World Today staff

the world today | june & july 2020 | 45 Review Where does the US go now?

John Kampfner considers America’s future as China assumes a dominant role

The Age of Illusions: How America globalization was meant to create the nation’s appetite for remaking the Squandered Its Cold War Victory wealth; instead it produced cheap world in its own image.’ What they Andrew Bacevich labour and insecurity. The decades of should have done was to see American Metropolitan Books, £20.00 supposed contentment, the 1990s and Exceptionalism for what it was – nothing 2000s – until the financial crash – and more than ‘unvarnished militarism, History Has Begun: the pursuit of individual fulfilment led missionary zealotry and extreme The Birth of a New America to an atomized, selfish and consumerist nationalism’. Such sweeping statements Bruno Macaes society shorn of communal ties or a sense suggest that Bacevich is perhaps guilty Hurst, £16.99 of duty. He labels this the ‘narcissistic of the same confirmation bias that he inclinations of American culture’. accuses others of. The export of American values, by By contrast, Macaes’ account is America was once Europe’s imagined force where necessary, did not confirm Tiggerishly optimistic. Rather being future. No longer. It has squandered the primacy of the American way. on the verge of institutional collapse, goodwill and abandoned the It unleashed a series of never-ending wars ‘perhaps the United States is only just Enlightenment tradition of the Old and fomented resentment and terrorism. entering its highest period, where its World. On these points, Bruno Macaes And it culminated in the nadir that is individual possibilities will be realized’. and Andrew Bacevich agree. They are not Donald Trump. He derives his optimism from an unlikely alone. A canon of books and studies has These arguments are surely analysis. His central argument is that been produced denoting the demise of unarguable. But they are not new either. faced with a new rival in China, America a country that we used to call the leader That is the main problem with this will – and should – become less western. of the free world. Where writers and polemic. Bacevich served in the US The United States may be largely analysts tend to differ is on the cause of Army for more than two decades and he responsible for Europe’s strategic the malaise. Where they are often found wants people to know it. His withering defence, but it no longer has much in wanting is on the identification of a contempt for the charlatan political common with countries with whom solution. class becomes just a little wearisome. it has long been allied. ‘In the post- Setting off on his demolition course Lurking in the text, however, is a more war decades it appealed to European of US foreign policy, Bacevich cites, as compelling proposition. He opens his intellectuals such as Sartre on account so many do, Francis Fukuyama and his account with a rhetorical question posed of its deracinated life. The music, the much maligned (and oft misquoted) End by Harry Angstrom, the protagonist of literature, the architecture of those years of History thesis. This academic hubris John Updike’s Rabbit novels. ‘Without were an extravaganza of countercultural begat the Neo-Conservatives and saw the Cold War, what’s the point of being passion, breaking with every convention.’ George W Bush telling West Point cadets an American?’ America continues to be a ‘society on the eve of the Iraq War: ‘The 20th If the US began as a revolution of stories’, in terms of its business century ended with a single surviving against old thinking, it sustained itself tycoons, film stars and, of course, model of human progress, based on non- by projecting a new and potentially politicians. He puts into that category negotiable demands of human dignity, better way to the world – epitomized not just the inevitable Trump but also the rule of law, limits on the power of by Hollywood and other brand icons. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democrat the state, respect for women and private The Soviet Union ‘lost’ because it could Representative who has helped galvanize property and free speech and equal not match the American dream. But what a more unashamed left-wing politics. justice and religious tolerance.’ happens when others catch up or grow ‘What contemporary America exhibits But for the author the rot set in earlier, tired of the juxtaposition? Or when they is a world of worlds where the high-tech even before the end of the Cold War. realize that the dream was a myth? utopia of San Francisco exists side by side The removal of an external enemy with Angstrom’s question was deeply with those parts of the country where the collapse of Communism did, he threatening. Too much was riding on many more people believe in heaven, argues, exacerbate the distortions that the belief in American supremacy, the hell and angels than in the theory of have disfigured policymaking in the author argues, that few people challenged evolution.’ He adds: ‘The difference subsequent three decades. But they did the underlying assumptions. ‘Ambitious between Europeans and Americans is not create them. youngsters keen to make their mark in that the former see the great narratives of Bacevich presents a checklist of woes. Washington knew better than to suggest nation, religion or money as fictions to be By breaking down national borders, that the times might be ripe for curbing abandoned while the latter embrace them

46 | the world today | june & july 2020 Review Where does the US go now?

John Kampfner considers America’s future as China assumes a dominant role GETTY IMAGES

George W Bush attends a graduation at West Point, the US military academy

all the more for being fictions.’ Narendra Modi. But Iran? In any case, the United States and in Europe. Macaes draws on constitutional rights generalizations such as these don’t Bacevich, in his conclusion, calls on to make his point – America’s gun really take forward the foreign policy American politicians to turn their now culture speaks to an entirely different set debate. Nor does the phrase describing dormant moral mission towards fighting of conclusions about personal freedom as Silicon Valley as ‘feudalism with better the climate emergency. Some governors does its approach to religion. marketing’ add much to the vexed in some states are doing that. Others ‘What is no doubt remarkable is that discussions about the role of the tech are not. We know Trump’s position. on many counts the United States has a giants in public life. Intriguingly, Macaes suggests that lot more in common with Asian societies It is an entertaining read replete with America will find a different role, as an than with Europe,’ he states. Yet he a number of surprises and provocations. arbiter of competing forces. As China does not develop the contention, nor I just wish these were further developed. and Europe fight it out for economic does he introduce facts that may help Indeed, that is the problem with so much power and strategic influence, the US convince the sceptics. Instead he seeks of the discourse on the China-rising, refuses to take a side. It does not behave to reinforce his argument by the use of America-falling matrix. I think of Kishore like, nor does it empathize with either grand statements. ‘The United States is Mahbubani’s consistent argument of a bloc. It is distinctive in its culture and its no longer a European nation.’ So far, so West fading away under the weight of its interests. To some degree that is already defensible. But then: ‘In fundamental hubris and of an Asia ploughing ahead. happening. I call that a nightmare vision. respects it now looks more similar to Each such work seems to add to the parts I still believe in Enlightenment values. countries such as India or Russia or even but does not produce a whole. Perhaps But perhaps I’m old fashioned. the Islamic Republic of Iran.’ Really? that it is because policymakers have yet Yes, we know of the like minds of to find one, have yet to identify what the John Kampfner’s latest book, Trump and Vladimir Putin. One could arrival of China as a ‘first among equals’ ‘Why the Germans Do It Better: make a case for adding to this school superpower means not just for foreign Notes from a Grown-Up Country’, of charismatic nationalists the likes of policy but also for societal trends in will be published in September by Atlantic

the world today | june & july 2020 | 47 Review How to avoid extinction

Thomas Raines on one man’s calculation of humanity’s survival chances

The Precipice: Existential Risk nuclear weapons and climate change; ‘His purpose is to and the Future of Humanity and future risks such as pandemics or Toby Ord uncontrolled artificial intelligence. reach an estimate Bloomsbury, £25.00 The focus on true existential risks means that optimism arrives from of the existential unexpected places. Ord believes New Lockdown is either a very good or a Zealand will ‘probably’ survive a nuclear risk humanity very bad time to read this work by the winter, and its population has a ‘good philosopher Toby Ord. It explores a very chance’ of rebuilding a technologically faces this century. simple question: how do we avoid human advanced civilization. More good news: extinction? climate change has a very small chance His unnerving best Its title comes from Ord’s name for the of wiping us out, leaving us with just an era we are now living through, an era that unparalleled human and environmental guess is that there began on July 16, 1945, with the Trinity tragedy. test, the first detonation of an atomic Ord believes it is important to try to is a one in six chance bomb in the New Mexico desert. estimate probabilities to provide useful of catastrophe’ This was the moment humans gained comparisons, even if only in orders of the power to destroy themselves. At magnitude, to prioritize responses. that point we entered ‘the Precipice’, a On some questions, there are strong we can just get through this period of period of unique vulnerability in human scientific grounds to do so. Take the odds vulnerability, he expects our collective evolution, where the gap between the of a large asteroid strike this century, wisdom to grow to match our collective power of our species and its wisdom has which appear pleasingly low – 1 in power, at which point humanity becomes become dangerously wide. 150 million. master of its own destiny. For the first time, humanity was The author admits the limitations of This he hopes will prompt a period exposed not just to the natural existential applying this to non-natural dangers, of ‘Long Reflection’, which would allow risks of our planetary environment such as the risk of nuclear war or an humanity ‘to achieve a final answer to and interstellar location, but to human advanced AI creating a dystopia for the question of which is the best kind generated ones as well. Understanding humans, but does so anyway. That he of future for humanity’. He foresees the nature of the threat to humanity’s somehow believes war between great a bringing together of the world’s survival, what is at stake, mapping the powers is ‘almost unthinkable’ at present, intellectuals for ‘robust and rigorous’ risks and how we should respond is the which converts to a risk of an existential discourse to find out what the answer is book’s central task. nuclear war of 1 in 1,000, shows just how and, somewhat terrifyingly, ‘deliver a Ord defines existential risks as things arbitrary this is. verdict that stands the test of eternity’. which destroy humanity’s long-term His purpose is to reach an estimate Such a process would seem to contain potential, either through full species of cumulative existential risk humanity dangers as significant as many of the risks extinction, an unrecoverable collapse or faces this century. His unnerving best he identifies. an unrecoverable dystopia. guess is that there is a one in six chance The book’s final section is a dizzying This loss of potential drives the book’s of an existential catastrophe. The role of exploration of humanity’s long-term sense of urgency. He insists we have a a dice. potential. Ord believes we are at the moral responsibility to future humans. At From this you might assume the book beginning of the human story, which can stake is every possible future life, every is pessimistic, but it is not. Ord’s passion stretch across millions of star systems possible future human achievement. For to address existential risk is driven in and billions of years. Ord, the task of those alive today is to part by his conviction of humanity’s It reads like a written form of Douglas navigate through this period of acute risk, extraordinary potential. Adams’s total perspective vortex, in to ensure the full flourishing of Homo His short account of history is a which people are shown the size of the sapiens and whatever we may evolve into. whistle-stop Whiggish tale of human universe alongside a microscopic dot, The book’s central section is a tour progress. While he acknowledges the saying ‘You are here’. While Adams’s of the perils faced: natural risks such many challenges of collective action and vortex was a torture devices, Ord sees as asteroids, supervolcanoes or stellar our past failures to spot risks, he doesn’t only potential in the infinity of space. explosions; anthropogenic risks such as see any of this as insurmountable. If Such optimism informs the book’s

48 | the world today | june & july 2020 Review Reading List: US-China relations How to avoid extinction Superpower rivalry

Has China Won? The Chinese Out of the Gobi: Thomas Raines on one man’s calculation of humanity’s survival chances Challenge to American Primacy My Story of China and America Kishore Mahbubani Weijian Shan Ingram Publisher Services, £25.00 Wiley, £22.99 attitudes to technology. Despite rating the risk of AI destroying humanity this The most recent instalment in a string Shan, a successful financier who in his century at 1 in 10 – the shortest odds of of questions, following Can Asians youth was banished to the countryside to any existential risk – Ord clearly believes Think? (1998) and Has the West Lost do hard labour, gives a raw account of his technological advancement is essential to it? (2018). At times provocative, the improbable journey of success against human progress. veteran Singaporean diplomat appraises all odds. The memoir spans from Shan’s Perhaps a more interesting idea is the strengths and weaknesses of Sino- time at a work camp in the Gobi desert whether there will come a point when American relations and warns of US to his education in the United States. we arrive at the opposite conclusion: ‘delusions of its own exceptionalism’ Told with a splash of humour, Shan’s when humanity willingly forgoes further that inform its ‘with us or against us’ story provides a rare view of America research in areas that could threaten the approach to China. through the eyes of a keen foreign human condition. observer. Ord generally disagrees, and his bias towards a techno-flourishing future is Interesting Times: China, America The China Challenge: clear: a ‘well-meaning regime locked in a and the Shifting Balance of Prestige Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power permanent freeze on technology … that Chas W Freeman Thomas J Christensen would probably itself be an existential Just World Books, £13.99 WW Norton, £18.99 catastrophe, preventing humanity from ever fulfilling its potential’. With a 30-year career in the US Drawing on decades of scholarship and The writing is simple and accessible foreign service under his belt, Freeman diplomatic experience, Christensen – sometimes too much so, though reminisces about his role as President analyses US policy towards China since there are appendices which add depth Nixon’s principle interpreter in the end of the Cold War. He articulates a to his judgments and assertions. The the 1972 meetings with Chairman delicate mix of strength and willingness book is strongest in the exploration Mao. Comprised of a collection of to listen, aiming to shape – not contain and categorization of risk, and in his speeches, the book zeroes in on – China, channelling its ambitions ‘into trying to combine moral and scientific strategic misperceptions, such as cooperation rather than coercion’. considerations of humanity across the Taiwan question, the impact of geological time scales. Chinese domestic reforms and China’s One does not need to share his view of international role. The Practice of Power: human progress or interstellar destiny to US Relations with China since 1949 accept his central thesis: that humanity Ping-Pong Diplomacy: Rosemary Foot faces unprecedented existential risks, The Secret History behind Oxford University Press, £30.00 that we pay insufficient attention to the Game that Changed the World reducing them, and that we should Nicholas Griffin In this highly readable account of US- prioritize resources to understanding and Skyhorse Publishing, £12.00 China relations, Foot examines the combating them. defining moments of the relationship, At one point, in discussing categories Griffin explores the intersection of tracing the reversal from hostility to of risk he observes that some, like sports and society at a time when, in rapprochement. pandemics, will likely arrive as a smaller China, all culture was political. The The book thoughtfully examines the catastrophe before a total one. We may history of table tennis – and the 1971 evolving US perceptions of Chinese receive a ‘warning shot’. visit by a US team – is then unpacked as capabilities, highlighting the importance In a matter of weeks, a virus has gone a bizarre tale of espionage, revenge and of domestic opinion in accounting from a market in China to kill hundreds exquisite diplomacy. The book boasts for the centrality of the Korean War, of thousands and caused the sharpest a cast of eccentric characters, from Chinese association with the Soviet economic shock of modern times. We spies to Ping Pong-obsessed generals, Union and possession of nuclear have had a warning shot. What will we including a vivid account of Zhou weapons. learn from it? Enlai, the Chinese premier, who ‘never gambled without four aces’. Selected by Mariana Vieira Thomas Raines leads the Europe Programme at Chatham House

the world today | june & july 2020 | 49 Culture notes Dancing around the podium

But who should lead, politicians or scientists, asks Catherine Fieschi

COVID-19 has given rise to an interest- have been engineered, the return of science usefully, that neither is science, which is ing piece of political performance in our and of experts has been widely noted. The based on the very opposite of certainty – democracies: the daily briefing. phrases ‘guided by the science’, or ‘follow- doubt. Good science is always about test- Like most traditions, the briefings ing the science’ have defined this pandemic ing your hypothesis, testing your results, emerged half-formed. At the beginning, as moment. For politicians it has been seen it is about remaining humble in the face of the wave of infection spread and grew, they as a guarantee of competence – whatever evidence that can evolve and be debunked took the form of emergency broadcasts. cynical distancing from decisions it might by new theories and the testing of those Over time, they adapted to the situation also have provided. theories. Evidence, in other words, can and incorporated the appropriate experts. The sharing of the podium among poli- change – hence the difficulty of basing final But across the world the variable geometry ticians and experts has brought a number decisions on something that is by defini- of the briefing set-up was revealing of the of uncomfortable truths into sharp relief. tion, potentially provisional. place granted to science, and most of all of Above all, and somewhat paradoxically, as These dynamics were laid bare as the place leaders were granting themselves. politics sought to cosy up to science – and scientists sought to understand a new virus In , incredibly successful in its as science duly obliged – the size of the gap and its behaviour. As was the centrality of management of the virus, politicians knew between the imperatives that drive each of disagreement and divergence in the culture better than to take centre-stage – the health these activities shattered some long-held of science – disagreement is the lifeblood minister is a retired professional basketball truths about what evidence is, and how of progress. This has hopefully become far player. In his place was the soft-spoken ex- policymakers can use it. clearer to the lay public. pert on infectious diseases, Sotiris Tsiodras, As the crisis evolved, and despite the Politics, on the other hand, is about deci- who became the nation’s favourite doctor. claims of many a technocratic government sions – so even though politics must look In France, science was referred to and over the past 30 years, it became increas- to science, it cannot look to science for consulted but remained largely invisible. ingly clear that evidence is not necessarily certainty. The message was political decisions guided about certainty. And, perhaps even more As politicians and policymakers strug- by science. gled to enact policy and define new Britain went for a different approach. parameters for the management of a health After a series of blunders, the only solu- emergency that threatened to engulf our tion was to shore up any pronouncement people and our economies, it became in- by flanking politicians with an expert on creasingly clear that science can only advise either side. The fact that science had to on the basis of what it knows – and some- make such a bombastic entrance to be times it doesn’t know for sure. heard is testimony to what the govern- There are a number of lessons here. The ment’s first reflexes were. first is that by turning evidence into the As the prime minister fell ill with the holy grail of policymaking without both- virus and then left hospital to recuperate, ering to define evidence, the policymaking it marked the resurrection of politics in the of the past 30 years was good at passing the midst of a barely controlled maelstrom of buck – think of Margaret Thatcher’s man- scientific expertise and political tragedy. tra ‘there is no alternative’ – but it set itself These contexts offer different lenses up for hard times when a crisis such as this through which to view the relationship one revealed the dynamics of good science between experts and politicians. Some of and the limits of evidence. it has to do with the variable geometry of The second lesson should be that good institutions – in Germany and Canada, for democratic politics needs to be about un- instance, health is devolved respectively to certainty and doubt ... and give priority to Länder and provinces. As is the manage- judgment, what Aristotle called ‘prudence’ ment of health emergencies. – the capacity to interpret, the courage to Those circumstances both curtail the role decide, in difficult moments. of national politicians but also amplify the And politics is, well, an art. role of scientific experts, who become cen- tral in this form of decentralized manage- Catherine Fieschi is director ment and decision-making. The main point of Counterpoint however is that regardless of how the optics www.counterpoint.uk.com

50 | the world today | june & july 2020