What has been going on in the international community lately, especially since the rise of the Covid-19 pandemic, is perhaps unheard of, at least since the end of the Cold War. The world of the Cold War was nebulous for decades, until the breakdown of the Soviet bloc and the fall of the Berlin Wall in the last quarter of the 20th century, Dr. Salem Alketbi, an Emirati political analyst and former Federal National Council candidate, says.
Today, at the annual meetings of the UN General Assembly, the messages of presidents and world leaders painted a somber picture of what goes on in the world.
Granted, the speeches were pre-recorded and broadcast by video because of the pandemic. But the mood has been quite expressive of the tense global situation.
Surely not surprising to observers and specialists. For months now, there has been a total lack of internal cooperation in the face of the outbreak of the coronavirus epidemic. Fierce disputes over vaccine production, too. A situation that reflects the decline, if not the demise, of international cooperation and coordination.
Mutual cooperation agreements and arrangements, products of globalization in various fields, have vanished from the landscape.
Indeed, the threat to international ties is far more worrisome than the warning of a new Cold War between the US and China issued by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
The “very dangerous direction” in which the world is heading, as Guterres said, does not bode well. The cleavages that pide the world are no longer just piding it into two parts that could lead to the outbreak of a Cold War, he said.
This in addition to the widening gap between China and the US, transatlantic pisions between Washington and its European allies abound. Within Europe itself, cracks run deep.
There is chaos in various parts of the world due to the lack of global leadership as a result of the diminishing role of the US in leading the world order; the current US administration is not big on this role. The repercussions have been compounded by tremendous global challenges that relevant institutions have been unable to address, including the coronavirus outbreak.
According to the UN Secretary-General, “a technological and economic pide risks inevitably turning into a geo-strategic and military pide. We must avoid this at all costs. ” The technological and economic chasm is much more harmful than military and geostrategic pides. These are already here.
You cannot say that there is cooperation or agreement between the major military powers and in geo-strategic competition. But what is new is the conversion of technological progress and fierce competition in this field into a battlefield wilder than the others. Synonymous with wealth, economy, and the future, technology is the measuring stick that determines the ranking of nations in the 21st century.
Against this backdrop, US President Donald Trump, accusing China of causing a coronavirus pandemic, called on the world to hold China accountable. “We must hold accountable the nation which unleashed this plague onto the world—China.”
For his part, Chinese President Xi Jinping, in his speech, stroke a calmer and more diplomatic tone, making it clear that his country was not looking for a new Cold War.
“China is the largest development country in the world, a country that is committed to pacific, open, cooperative, and common development. We have no intention to fight either a Cold War or a hot war with any country,” he said, rejecting what he qualified as a politicization of the pandemic, a sign that the intentions of the two sides are at odds.
The US wants to expedite and settle the polar conflict in order to push back the Chinese dragon sooner rather than later. As for China, it is standing by its historic strategic patience, looking at time from a totally different perspective than the West. China does not want to rush, or even have a confrontation, because it has a clear strategic vision of the future.
On the grand scheme of things, the state of the world, as reflected in the speeches of the heads of state, gives a lamentable snapshot of the international relations. The collective action system is falling apart.
King Abdullah II of Jordan aired this sentiment when he said that the coronavirus crisis has placed a mirror in front of our world, showing the weaknesses of our global system.
Certainly, the weaknesses and failures of our world have been around for many decades. But the breaking news is that the effects and implications of the erosion of the role and weakness of the UN have never been more pronounced than they are now.
The organization is totally absent from the international scene. It is no longer heard. It no longer play any role in major global issues, except for official statements made by UN officials after every development or crisis in the world.
The question now is whether the UN can regain or save its role from the inevitable. What is missing is a willingness to reconsider the role of the UN and other international organizations in the light of lessons learned.
Nevertheless, this have not yet materialized. The UN will likely remain subject to post-Coronavirus interactions within the international community and maybe rethought, restructured, or reactivated based on the outcomes of these interactions, something that may take some time.
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