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Where will the pandemic take the US?

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ceciliazhang

Dec 03, 2020, 15:30

(By Martin Jacques) Joe Biden will be remembered as an extraordinarily weak president. He narrowly won the presidency. Having refused to accept the result, President Donald Trump has already started his campaign for 2024. Three quarters of Republicans similarly do not accept the result. There will probably be a Republican majority in the Senate. Trump has already ensured a big right-wing majority in the Supreme Court. All of this leaves Biden with little room to maneuver on domestic policy.


The area where he will have some latitude is foreign policy. But even here he will be seriously constrained. The US is considerably weaker than it was at the turn of the century. Two major events in particular have served to shift the balance of power away from the US and toward China. The first was the financial crisis in 2008, which seriously undermined the US. The second is in play now: the pandemic will almost certainly have an even bigger effect than the 2008 crisis in serving to weaken the US. The country that Barack Obama assumed the presidency of in 2008 is not the country that Joe Biden will become president of in January, 2021: its global influence has been seriously reduced.

Trump's foreign policy tacitly recognized this. Between 1945 and 2016, the US pursued a strategy of global hegemony based on multilateral institutions and Western alliances. Trump rejected this approach in favor of a return to the nationalism and isolationism which had informed US foreign policy prior to 1939. America engaged in a partial retreat from the world in the face of its decline. Even on China we can see the same kind of retreat. The strategy of engagement was based on two assumptions: China's economic rise would be unsustainable and China would never threaten America's economic ascendancy; and China's economic rise would inevitably result in the adoption of a Western-style political system. Both these assumptions proved wrong. In response, the US retreated from its engagement with China and pursued a more antagonistic and much less ambitious approach.

Biden might adopt a softer attitude toward China, but it is very unlikely there will be any major shift. He will not demonize China in the manner of Trump. And he will not seek regime change as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has advocated. But there will be no return to anything like the engagement policy that prevailed between 1970 and 2016. First, there has been a major shift among Americans, both Republican and Democrat, toward a more hostile approach towards China. And second, Trump and the Republicans will be vigilant in seeking to ensure that Biden does not backslide in his approach on China. This does not preclude the possibility of limited cooperation on an issue like climate change. But because of the shift in popular attitudes, Biden is likely to be closer to Trump than Obama on China. It will be a long time before we can envisage another serious rapprochement between China and the US and when it happens, as it will one day, it will be on a very different basis to the 1970-2016 engagement policy.

Meanwhile, Biden will, in all likelihood, seek to adopt a more multilateral approach toward America's allies in Europe and Asia Pacific, with China firmly in mind as the adversary. There is already talk of a US-EU summit early next year. It is also likely that Biden will seek membership of the Paris agreement on climate change, the WHO, probably the Iran nuclear deal, and perhaps the revised TPP.

Important as US foreign policy is, the key question that demands our attention is the state of America and what the future might hold. America is not the same country as it was in 2000. It is now deeply divided and increasingly polarized. The underlying reason is America's decline. Although still widely denied, it is now patently clear.

The US is a troubled country: That is why it could elect a right-wing populist maverick like Trump. The causes of the ever-intensifying divisions are manifold, including the huge inequalities in income and wealth and the country's historic and continuing failure to address systemic discrimination against African-Americans. Americans are hopelessly divided on a constantly expanding range of issues. Where once Democrats and Republicans shared some common ground, now there is virtually none. The polarization has reached the point where governance is close to paralysis. Americans are now even asking whether its democracy can survive. The outlook can only be described as bleak. Almost 300,000 people have died from the pandemic and the number is rising rapidly. Half the population say they will refuse the vaccine. The economy has been hobbled. The real wages of many will fall. Unemployment is predicted to reach around 7 percent. The financial crisis led to Trump. Where might America find itself in the wake of the pandemic?

8 1073
Newtown
GhostBuster post time: 2020-12-04 17:48

Agreed: Australia always takes a peaceful "dove" position to such issues. 

wchao37

Oh talking about the U.S., Pfizer, in cooperation with a German biotech mogul BioNTech, is rolling out their mRNA vaccine.  Here's my take on Pfizer:

Pfizer's vaccine work was primarily carried out using technologies developed by the German biotech company BioNTech, and as of this date, no Third-Stage Clinical Trials have been recorded or reported to the WHO by either Pfizer or its German partner.  As in the case of the pharm company responsible for the heroin epidemic in white America, its smile these days is as broad as its stock price is high.

U.S. regulatory authorities nominally monitor the drug companies and investigate any potential safety concerns, but tell that to the millions and millions of white suburban Americans who got addicted to the opioids while no CEOs from the manufacturers of OxyContin ever went to jail.  A fine of $160 million was imposed, but the revenues from that single opioid drug amounted to billions. 

So, put yourself in the position of the Pfizer CEO.  Do you think he would break away from such a deeply entrenched tradition of U.S. drug companies? 

Of course not, and this is best reflected in the fact that Pfizer has announced it is not going to go through any further testing before distributing the drug for public use.  They are not using any deactivated virus as the antigen to elicit an immune response.  Instead, they are using viral mRNA fragments to do the job.  When political and monetary motives are pushing the development of such a vaccine, this is the kind of outcome you can expect.

No Pfizer spokesman would say whether they are certain the vaccine will work because so far, all testing has been done in the lab and not on humans.  So, they give an arbitrary number -- 90% efficacy -- and say the vaccine is good to go.  This approach is radically different from the one supported by the WHO and followed by China and all European countries except Russia -- an approach that entails testing on humans in countries where the pandemic is wreaking havoc and thus useful comparisons of clinical results can be properly evaluated. 

Mind you that of the four routes taken by Chinese researchers in their vaccine development, the mRNA approach was one of the earliest taken.  The advantage of this approach is that there is far less probability of healthy subjects developing the full-blown disease because of receiving vaccines made from mRNA fragments and not from the deactivated virus itself.  So, this is the way they are trying to strike a happy balance between vaccine efficacy and risk management while still maximizing their profits.

The mRNA program from Pfizer and BioNTech includes four experimental vaccines in different mRNA formats, which in turn were derived from pre-clinical studies, which, as I said before, does not mean anything more than pinning an arbitrary number (90%) to in vitro test results in the laboratories.  In theory, the mRNA-vaccine approach offers greater flexibility and a quicker development timeline than vaccines developed using deactivated viruses.  But no one knows for sure because the theory has not been tested using humans both as experimental subjects and controls in double-blind studies.

Messenger RNA (mRNA) is a copy of the viral DNA molecule, consisting of nucleotide chains linked in a unique sequence to provide the necessary genetic information for human cells to manufacture the proteins encoded by the mRNA.  The proteins then act as antigens displayed on the cell's surface, where they generate a clinical response from the immune system to produce antibodies to fight the real viral pathogens when they enter the body.

The Pfizer vaccine's greatest drawback is that there is no way you can tell what kind of side effects the untested (in vivo) vaccine will elicit, so that's why the initial batch of those given the injections will be watched for at least ten minutes by the health providers to see if neurological or other signs and symptoms will follow the injection.  This would not have been the case had the vaccine been adequately tested in Phase 3.  Pfizer is cutting corners under the very noses of U.S. federal regulators because hospital ICUs throughout the country are filled to capacity, and the health authorities are left with no plausible alternatives.  

Thus, they MUST tell people they have a vaccine -- 90% is not really that much different from 70% in terms of giving people a false sense of security after receiving the vaccine shot -- you would not know the truth anyway if you end up being a victim whether it is 10% or 30% chance of failure.  They are truly at the end of the rope, and perhaps more than half a million people will die in the U.S. due to the inaction of the boy scouts living in that pale house on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington D.C. in the year 2020.  Hope this information helps.


markwu

To belabor the key point one last time, one can't be a friend in some aspects while being an enemy or rival in another.

Such posturing will inevitably spiral downwards soon enough, especially when Trump's diehards will still be around to stoke animosity and enmity.

Such a semi-confrontational approach will only bring negative reactions and negative results that will diminish efforts made to recouple and rebridge for reapproachment and reengagement for mutual benefit to last beyond each political/human lifespan.

The dross of geopolitics must give way to a better and higher level of candid cooperation not fester as the nursery bed of bad seeds. If not for future generations, then for what purpose diplomacy and relations?

ren/ends

markwu

In short, it would be insensate and incongruous for Biden to follow Trump's footsteps on China when Trump has been likened by his own detractors to a whitish Don Quixote fighting invisible windmills in his jaundiced and ripvanwinklish imagination long after windmills had given way to nuclear-powered generators.

The US today is being pulled apart by its own centripetal forces between neoliberalism and neopopulism. Biden knows Trump is armoring himself for a return in 2024.  Biden knows the Republicans will bet up their chips to cause political damage to his Democrats by 2022. Therefore he has to generate enough change momentum in the two-year run-up to that judgement.

The US' best foreign friend for the rest of this century must be China. Because she is the only nation which can help Biden solve the US' most intractable problems of negative results from economic decoupling which will only deepen the divisive political gulf that is his spectre. His fear of China's ideological musings is unfounded.

He himself must already know that fear was generated by neocons to try and ensure continuous US supremacy even when they already know it is untenable to do so because no one has a monopoly on talent and progress.

Which may explain why in continuing to do so, the US is looking more and more like a brawny schoolyard bully from a broken home hellbent on causing maximum pain onto others in order to vent its own frustrations against the very problems of its own creation.

On the other hand and unlike Pompeo, no one from China has gone around trying to market China's model even when it is a success. There has been no 'forced ideology transfer'. And, unlike Morrison, no one from China has gone around bragging about China's values and principles even when they have been increasingly practiced through international consensus building, especially when voided of US interference.

And any ideological expression within China has been only to strengthen her governance and to steel state organizations to fight inefficiencies and excesses so as to improve the lot of her citizens synonymous with foreign investors who have found in their accomodation with her a more peaceful, prosperous, progressive, safer and saner home than anywhere else.

These 2020s mark the end of Kondratieff's fifth cycle. The year 2030 will usher the sixth cycle of technology transformation. Not a minute too soon. And that is one sufficient reason for the amalgamation of US and China economic and tech cooperation at the highest level - for the sake of both - for the renewal of this broken planet.


markwu

Some comments on the Biden interview:

a.  he and his interview notes-givers are out of date on China.

China has been reforming in tempo with her economic development and political learning curve.

The acceptance of the RCEP reflects the second 改革开放 of her market; that the US continues not to recognize this in Biden trying to act like Trump on China implies the US is not honest about its real intention on China - which is to deny China her right to advance on her own terms even as the US is doing its darnest to slow her down; this conclusion is the opposite of what Biden had said while standing on Chinese soil when he was VP under Obama not that long ago - he said the US would like to see a rising, prosperous and peaceful China.

One asks what could have caused Biden and his policy-makers to do a volte face in such short time.

b. the lack of consistency in US policies on China has caused the US to slide from positive engagement with China to negative rivalry with China.

Common sense says it is better to be steadfast friends to overcome hurdles than to be headlong enemies to create more hurdles which will only weaken both, with deleterious side effects on 'allies' and friends. In short, everyone in the world.

The US must ask itself why it has chosen to fight China's rise which it can instead transmute into much needed cooperation with China that can help solve the US' own critical needs.

c. the US trade war on China has wounded US industries which depend on her intermediate goods and US consumers which depend on her finished products, both at prices which US manufacturers cannot match and which US consumers enjoy to salvage their livelihood.

Offshoring to other countries will disrupt critical supply chains in place to kickstart economies trying to recover from the pandemic; meanwhile no other country has the means and scale of versatile mass production that China has been commanding globally for the past two decades.

Therefore Trump's trade-deficit focus was wrong and ultimately to the ruin of US industries and consumers, all the more during this economically depressive time, so why is Biden wasting time holding onto Trump's demagoguery-engorged absurdities?

In fact, in the fullness of his years, can Biden, were he president of China, expect to buy more US oil and gas under present (a) economic circumstances, (b) logistics difficulties, and most importantly, (c) immediate climate fossil fuel burning delimitations?  Doesn't he know the ice of Antarctica is already melting beyond replacement rate? Will his climate tsar, John Kerry, be wonderin' what the hell's goin' on?

Moreover, an antagonistic stance against China will only discourage China enterprises from investing in, helping out, and joint-venturing with US industries that would have created much needed jobs in the US which had been hollowed out by the very globalization which has however enriched US multinationals operating in China, what more their share prices which in turn has shored up the value of US pension funds for those who are still spared from the virus.

In fact, the label 'Made In China' is a misnomer. For Apple Inc, for instance, China only makes USD8 out of every USD100 that Apple registers as revenue; the rest are made elsewhere in the US (design and marketing), Europe and Asia ex-China+tw (parts). So for Apple products, their label should be '8% Made In China' which means the US-China trade deficit is an inflated number.

There are other examples of how insane has been Trump's policies on China tech's that Biden is now trying to salvage and continue.

For instance, Huawei would be the best candidate in the world to continue building and modernizing the US' rural networks. Yet, just because Trump had unilaterally tarred China as an existential threat which was toxically originated from Bannon-Navarro-Rubio-Cruz-Pompeo-O'Brien-Ross-Barr-...etc, Biden is proposing to modernize the US rural networks but likely without the Huawei equipment already installed in most that Trump has already asked to be dismantled.

If Huawei's products are rejected from the US, how are the rural mid-class Americans to get their calls for help through in the wilderness?

Likewise, the US Pentagon had already installed HikVision's cameras on its military bases; yet the order has been out to remove them, also to retire China-made drones, for the same excuses China rail-cars are not to be used in US cities or Tik-Tok banned or China companies listed in US stock exchanges disbarred.  If the US military, world tech authorities on spying others had approved China tech's for their own use, which part of their due diligence did the Trump administration not understand that the Biden administration must follow in tow?

Now that Christmas is coming soon, the US administrations will next ask that China decorations and toys be banned. Who knows, american infants may be spied upon; after all, if China students in US universities can be accused of stealing their own research meant for general publication, what else can't the US anti-China hawk groups think of next?

The latest is the US congress planning to ask its defense dept to disallow US troops to be sent to any country that uses Huawei equipment.... on second thought, that may be a good thing for global peace and order, after all, given how the US has devastated so many societies overseas (besides its own).

d. Biden's interview notes sounded like a broken record. Already repeatedly explained numerous times during the past five years, IP has improved - foreign concerns get better outcomes than even local ones; for a direct answer, he should just call one of the US tech's, say, Qualcomm, and ask how much China has paid in terms of royalties for use of its products; Dumping - is another joke of a complaint; China presently exports very little steel products to the US; Trump ended up hitting Canada, India, and Europe. Subsidies - another distortion; it's actually export rebates incentives which all emerging nations practise as allowed by the WTO; in fact some of the locals reimport on the sly to enjoy the incentives illegally whose practice should be arrested; finally, "Forced" tech transfers? how is this possible? at gunpoint? but unlike the US' Texas, Montana and its other fifty states, public gun ownerships are disallowed in China. If tech transfers are 'forced', surely the US concerns can unforce themselves by taking the next flight out. They have stayed and are enjoying handsome returns seeing their products customized for the local market. If not so, none would be left instead of most staying and all of those having left regretting their lack of foresight and patience.

What Biden really needs instead of trying to prolong Trump's kill list on China and trying to get US allies to go along and be henchmen as well is = to.come.to.Beijing.and.get.a.really.good.foot.massage.

That will improve his blood circulation as he ponders the intricacies and full implication of China's dual-circulation.

GhostBuster

There is a place but it is on Earth for US to be with COVID-19!

GhostBuster

COVID-19 could have been easily brought under full control in US, had it not diverted and blamed others while letting it blazed through its own land with growing increase in reported infection and death!

Willingly Australia dove to take the lead from US as if it was the champion that must replace US!


markwu

Biden Interview by Friedman/NYT December 2 2020:

Notes:

1 First priority is to get the USD908 Billion emergency federal relief package approved by Congress; approach is to do a trade-off with the Republicans' McConnell by prompting latter to think what will happen to the GOP come midterm 2022 if the right reliefs are not forthcoming;

2 Restore the nuclear deal with Iran but extend the duration of non-production of fissile uranium and keep the US' sanction snapback threat in a new agreement to include Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirate (note: Israel's new partners) to reduce the regional nuclear capability (note: therefore maintaining it solely with Israel); Iranian precision missile arrangements with Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen will be a subsequent focus;

3 Delay the removal of the 25% tariffs on half of China's exports to the US and delay the removal of Trump's Phase 1 deal that required China to buy an additional USD200 Billion in US goods by 2020-2021, pending a full review of the existing agreement with China plus consultation with traditional US allies in Asia and Europe so that he can develop a coherent strategy with emphasis on getting all of US allies on the same page with view to using trade to crowbar perceived practices on IP, dumping, subsidies and 'forced' tech transfers;

4 Develop US leverage to compete against China by strengthening bipartisan US domestic industrial policy through massive government-led investments in R&D, infrastructure and education, particularly in energy, biotech, advanced materials and artificial intelligence so that USgovernment-led domestic investment will precede new trade agreements;

5 Modernize middle-class rural healthcare with Obamacare and Medicaid add-on USD20 Billion for telemedicine broadband;

6 Preferred to see the glass as half-full after Trump leaves in the hope most of his supporters may then see it more productive to collaborate with the Democrats, or else the US will be in 'real trouble'.