Geopolitical fallout of the Coronavirus

paddythere

Does anybody have any thoughts on the geopolitical fallout from the coronavirus. Could we see a situation where China and Russia emerge as the superpowers and the U.S. falls apart?

To me, the situation in America is very disturbing. Social strife and racial tension is brewing and the Coronavirus is bound to creating a melting pot. Now, if their economy starts hitting the ****ter all hell could break loose and with half of the c*nts possessing firearms things could get very messy.

On the other hand Russia seems to be avoiding a coronavirus outbreak and China (if official reports are to be believed) seems to have largely stopped the virus.

Xertz

China, maybe but I don’t think so.

The US probably won’t fall apart. If anything this could probably end the era of political crazy by exposing all the charlatans for what they are and the US might suddenly rerun to something more like normal.

I don’t see how Russia could deal with a COVID-19 outbreak. They’ve a terrible healthcare system and very little ability to organise things anyone. It’s not the USSR. It would really struggle and will do whenever this starts to “bloom” there too.

China is also extremely dependent on the US and EU markets for its own economy and that’s not going to change overnight so, it’s absolutely in mutual interest to ensure all 3 current world economic powers recover form this. US, Europe or China going into meltdown is a disaster globally.

I would be more concerned with some of the domestic political reactions to this when the dust settles eventually. At the moment most countries are in bio battle stations mode. We could be looking at very isolationist politics after this, particularly around freedom of movement of people.

grindle

Great thread but

Russia seems to be avoiding a coronavirus outbreak and China (if official reports are to be believed) seems to have largely stopped the virus.

1. Believing Russia is like believing your parents when they talk about Santa

2. There's no stopping it at all, just curbing it.

There could be an economic switcharoo, won't matter. What will happen is no matter how much debt gets created, it will be taxed in one form or another from average people. This should be a shot in the arm that emphasises how important truly universal healthcare is. It should be a sticking point. But I don't think it will be. Do you?

paddythere

grindle wrote: »

Great thread but



1. Believing Russia is like believing your parents when they talk about Santa

2. There's no stopping it at all, just curbing it.

There could be an economic switcharoo, won't matter. What will happen is no matter how much debt gets created, it will be taxed in one form or another from average people. This should be a shot in the arm that emphasises how important truly universal healthcare is. It should be a sticking point. But I don't think it will be. Do you?

I agree with both your points regarding the virus.

On universal healthcare- I see the consequences of this whole thing playing out rather differently country by country so there will be mixed effects. Some countries will reform their healthcare systems, others such as the US and a few European Countries move far to the right after this. Seriously, its very worrying what Trump can get away with in America and I think they are heading down the road of fascism without realizing it.

grindle

They're already down that road, I've had chats with many people who take everything he says with a pinch of salt but will still vote for him because he benefits them. The purest idiocy. All about the now, the current, no planning ahead for having somebody in charge who... It's very hard to argue he's not mentally unwell. He's a moron.


I don't care much for left/right talk, but strong healthcare is (and always has been) something that should be our base to work from. Not just another auction on the price of a life. It seems so basic that it should be intrinsic, but we allowed it to get closer to the US system? It's depraved.

ceadaoin.

paddythere wrote: »

I agree with both your points regarding the virus.

On universal healthcare- I see the consequences of this whole thing playing out rather differently country by country so there will be mixed effects. Some countries will reform their healthcare systems, others such as the US and a few European Countries move far to the right after this. Seriously, its very worrying what Trump can get away with in America and I think they are heading down the road of fascism without realizing it.

I dont think so.maybe its because of where I live but most people I know want proper healthcare and don't like Trump, even people who voted for him . Most Americans are nice decent people, and not gun toting far right loons

grindle

Most aren't, but a whole lot are willing to vote based on memes and slogans rather than voting towards a VERY basic care for society. Myopia.

NSAman

paddythere wrote: »

I agree with both your points regarding the virus.

On universal healthcare- I see the consequences of this whole thing playing out rather differently country by country so there will be mixed effects. Some countries will reform their healthcare systems, others such as the US and a few European Countries move far to the right after this. Seriously, its very worrying what Trump can get away with in America and I think they are heading down the road of fascism without realizing it.

I am not so sure of moving further right. Trump has shown himself to be a buffoon on this topic and it has taken its toll on many people where I live. They see him in a different light.

His policies (or those of his advisors) are reactionary. There seems to be a large part of economy first over people. With the current “bailout” it seems aviation and hotels alone are the ones being bailed out (surprise surprise). What about the millions of small restaurants and bars???? Support from owners has shifted completely.

Once this has quietened, I think there will be serious questions asked about why things were not done more quickly. (Especially once the levels of virus infections start coming out later this week).

Will America fall? I am not sure. Will Russia and China become the superpowers? Possibly.

The real casualty in all of this IMHO will be the EU. It has been indecisive and fairly weak, leaving so many decisions to the nations that they are supposed to be working with.

ceadaoin.

grindle wrote: »

Most aren't, but a whole lot are willing to vote based on memes and slogans rather than voting towards a VERY basic care for society. Myopia.

Well I think what's about to happen is going to hammer home the need for universal healthcare. I can't see it going any other way. I'm optimistic that america is going to change for the better after this.

grindle

NSAman wrote: »

The real casualty in all of this IMHO will be the EU. It has been indecisive and fairly weak, leaving so many decisions to the nations that they are supposed to be working with.

Double-edged sword.

Go too far we're part of a regime, go too slow we're causing issues. It's not meant to be a regime imo, just a guidance for a bunch off disparate nations. Nations that acted slowly have that on their own conscience, at the cost of their own people's lives.

grindle

ceadaoin. wrote: »

Well I think what's about to happen is going to hammer home the need for universal healthcare. I can't see it going any other way. I'm optimistic that america is going to change for the better after this.

I really hope so but they're not talking about it like that yet, and America is very media-centric.

If many American news shows decide to have a season of discussion about morally-decent healthcare, I'll be very surprised.

ceadaoin.

grindle wrote: »

I really hope so but they're not talking about it like that yet, and America is very media-centric.

If many American news shows decide to have a season of discussion about morally-decent healthcare, I'll be very surprised.

Whatever about the media, the actual people I talk to here in america are discussing it. They know it sucks. But I live in a state that voted for Bernie so maybe that's why.

grindle

More than half the people in America voted semi-sanely last time, media and gerrymandering wins the votes unfortunately. Pathetic situation but it's reality. One of the things that hopefully changes but I can honestly see people toeing the line and bending over despite the very long fallout of this.

Realt Dearg Sec

ceadaoin. wrote: »

Whatever about the media, the actual people I talk to here in america are discussing it. They know it sucks. But I live in a state that voted for Bernie so maybe that's why.

I live in Texas and people feel the same way. There's a perception of America and what the people want, and there's the reality. Most Americans want proper healthcare and all the rest of it. Politicians are not responsive to those desires, they're responsive to money. This is a country that effectively legalised political bribery, and that has consequences for democracy. The beliefs of people have very little relationship to the political agenda in Washington. That's just a fact.

Yurt2

Authoritarianism, despots little and large will get a large boost from this I'd wager.

suicide_circus

civil liberties gonna take a battering

igCorcaigh

This will create a huge debt crisis, won't it.
After 2008 and austerity, a lot if the population moved to the populist Right.

I can't even imagine how this crisis will overlay onto that shock.

skellig_rocks

A long time regular reader on boards.ie but now I feel I wish to say something...

In the past few year we seems to blame Trump for everything. Even when we are discussing coronavirus threads on here, the word "Trump" is still everywhere. But the word "Xi" and "Jinping" were rarely mentioned. It was his initial conflicted objectives on "managing the spread of virus while maintain the harmony for the Chinese new year" caused the covered up and spreading the virus from Wuhan to whole of China, and the world. He has done a great job diverting attentions and blame from himself!

It is too dangerous to have a powerful, dictatorship China, when a single bad decision could affect the whole world. Remember SARS only just happened 18 years ago, although it is not as infective. China's influence on international organisations such as WHO, WTO and UN should not be underestimated. It may leads to long term breaking up or "decouple" of international organisations.


Also on "official" news source. Just an example this is an article of rte news on 7th Feb 2020:

Cannot post link, please just search "1113607-coronavirus-hse rte" on google

Two sentences surprised me:

"Interim Director of the Health Protection Surveillance Centre Dr John Cuddihy said the ability of the virus to transmit from person to person is limited"

"Dr De Gascun said there was still a lot that was unknown about the virus and while there is a lot of fundamental science and information that need to be collected, it is not believed to be readily transmissible from person to person, which is why there has not been a huge spread outside China"

Come on! This article is published on 7 Feb, 2 weeks after China lockdown. The same language was used on Chinese media in "mid-January". I have no doubt they was trying to publish information from "official" sources, but at least please keep news more time-sensitive. This may be why Europe sleep walked into the current crisis and people turned to twitter and "fake" news sources for information.


Also this crisis would be a wakeup call on how we should manage globalisation and its issues, such as supply chain dependencies, income inequalities, trade imbalance, national securities, trade conflicts (especially when China and other countries not playing "fair") and fake information (both from governments and internet).

Don't wrong to keep this too long, but remember:

Don't judge China on what they say, but what they do (China won't lockdown itself for just a flu)
Official news (especially from China) do not always mean it is real, current or facts.
When Russia and North Korea (both allies but also have "deep understanding" about China, first in the world to closed their borders) both open their borders with China again, then we could say China is safe from coronavirus.

All just my opinions...

Harry Palmr

Yurt! wrote: »

Authoritarianism, despots little and large will get a large boost from this I'd wager.

No question that those nations already in thrall to hard man governments will be forced to er embrace the values and ideology that bit tighter.

In the broader sense a few countries are going to be paying a price for years - if prognosis for Iran is as bad as appears to be the case their ambitions are going to be curtailed, China's place as the supplier to the world may take a hit in certain regards - this arrives as countries start to fear a world dominated by Chinese 5G based technology chains. Some might see an opportunity to try and wrest the market back westwards.

The Gulf states influence is almost entirely based on carbon, the demand for this has fallen and will remain low for as long as this persists, again this creates a chance to nudge the market towards locally based renewables.

Russia at this point is an unknown, they do have cases with 55 known in Moscow as of yesterday so it'll take hold there and they are already in an income crisis (3.5 trillion/39 billion USD rouble budget shortfall) which they are trying to trade their way out of (by attacking OPEC nations cuts) as the price of carbon falls. How it reacts to an economic crisis is hard to know beyond not well.