Editorial

As the world emerges from the shambles of the COVID-19 pandemic, a few broad conclusions are now clear: that the pandemic was a truly global affair that gave rise to extreme and ugly forms of nationalism, and raised questions over current forms of governance. As the articles in this issue that discuss COVID-19 point out, competitive nationalism dealt a death blow to the globalisation that had been assiduously crafted over the last 30 years. From the outset, action came down to how each country dealt with the pandemic. China, the epicentre of the pandemic, was tardy in its warnings and reacted with ‘wolf warrior diplomacy’ to valid questions about the origin of the pandemic; the WHO’s calls for a global response were widely disregarded; and states disregarded all humanitarian principles to fund and reserve life-saving vaccines for themselves, giving rise to a new phrase in the popular lexicon: vaccine nationalism. Worse, people across the world bore the brunt of governance deficits and bureaucratic complacency, which impacted the capacity to deal with the human cost of the pandemic—from shutdowns to the appalling absence of basic health facilities. Not all countries were impacted uniformly; clearly, the messier the domestic politics, the harder the hit. In Africa, the continent worst hit by vaccine nationalism and the failure to strengthen a global response, the fall in commodity prices like that of oil only exacerbated the capacity of states to implement the WHO’s health guidelines.

Yet, even as the pandemic tore through cities and communities, states also scrambled to learn from it, as some articles point out. In India, for one, the second wave raised questions over state and institutional capacity, moving governments to address health and livelihood issues. In many Asian economies, state policy prevented the massive mortality witnessed elsewhere. Not surprisingly, new strategic formations like the QUAD in the Indo-Pacific are evolving ‘strategic altruism’ over the development and distribution of vaccines, and older global economic institutions are being held to account by emerging economies such as India and South Africa to synchronise policy on patent rights with the WHO’s objectives of access to medicine and medical equipment.

Moving away from discussions on COVID, other articles in this issue assess the history and objectives of India’s policies in Sri Lanka and the growing presence of China in Kyrgyzstan through access to and control of its internal security and access to citizens’ data through informal arrangements and military contractors, despite the Russian presence in the country, and indeed in Central Asia. A final article points to the debates of the future: the conundrum of state control and cryptocurrency. Is it possible, the author asks, to revive John Maynard Keynes’ idea of a supra-national currency as a ‘medium of exchange’ and what would be a ‘viable state policy’ for its adoption and use?

Clearly, the articles on COVID-19, as well as the rest, reflect the tangled web of national interests and influence and the calls for parity and for a restructuring of global institutions and mechanisms to reflect a diverse world.