Is the Virus Wrecking Democracy? Privacy and Liberal Values Lost in the Lockdown IDLER FULFILL YOURSELF (And Save Money)

the world today | june & july 2020 | june & july today the world June & July 2020 | Volume 76 | Number 3 Medical check-up Front-line health workers on battle to defeat coronavirus Environment It’s time to put out the fire and start saving the planet Expert advisers Politicians must show leadership, not hide behind scientists Colourful Linens 112 Jermyn Street Is the virus wrecking democracy? www.emmettlondon.com Privacy and liberal values lost in the lockdown IDLER FULFILL YOURSELF (and save money) Save 50% on cover price Subscribe to the Idler for just £27 a year Go to webscribe.co.uk/magazine/idler or call 01442 820580 “The Idler is better than drugs,” Use code IDLE32 when ordering Emma Thompson June/July 2020 Contents 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 doctor to work in emergency medicine. 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.

Load more