Pandemic

The Legacy of Coronavirus

March 18, 2021 by Strife Staff

By Hassan Kabalan

Crises and Change

Pandemics, such the Spanish Flu, have historically been agents of major change. Plagues have been recurring agents of disruption in human history and when such disruptions coincided with other crises – such as climate crises, major wars and economic meltdown—they marked watershed moments, which transformed the course of history. As pandemics recede, they initiate major cultural, economic, political, and social transformations, lasting far beyond the disease itself. The great plagues of history reshaped healthcare, economics, religion, the way we socialize, and the way we work, and COVID-19 will be no different. At this point it remains unreasonable to assess the political, economic and societal impacts of the current pandemic. But one may draw some preliminary conclusions while the pandemic is still ongoing, as governments seek to delineate plans to manage the crisis and allow for a recovery later.

While experts are still debating the social, economic, political, and geopolitical impacts of the coronavirus, one thing is certain: policymakers need to address the major problems with the old neoliberal model by endorsing a stronger role for governments in the economy.

The Old System: Neoliberalism and the New System of Governance

One major ramification of the current pandemic is the weakening of the neoliberal conservative model as envisioned by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan during the 1980s. This model sought to limit the role of governments as much as possible while expanding the influence of the private sector. Politicians at the heart of the neoliberal revolution in the early 1980s, along with the leaders of the main global institutions, emphasised the need to liberate ‘’individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterised by strong property rights, free markets and free trade” (Harvey, 2005: 2). They also shared the goal of expanding the domain of markets into new fields that, until then, were largely outside the market economy, such as education and healthcare. The state was seen as disrupting the potential for creative growth of market forces. Accordingly, its authority should be restrained, allowing market forces to function unhindered. Neoliberal politicians also share the goal of challenging traditional sources of opposition, such as labour-unions, anti-establishment movements or even countries that have maintained devotion to welfare state provisions.

This is not to argue that neoliberals seek to completely abandon the concept of government. However, a new type of state role emerged, particularly with the inception of the concept of governance in the 1980s, which has been exploited by neoliberals to help attain their objectives. Governance can be defined as a particular type of ‘’management, originally used in the private sector but that increasingly has been adopted by government, which recreates the mechanisms of a free market for the decision-making process’’ (Ives, 2015: 3). Most importantly, the term emphasises that governments, mandated by citizens through elections, are just one player in the decision-making process, instead of being the predominant one. Instead of seeking to promote public interest, the term governance puts governments on equal standing – if not lower – with other actors. Accordingly, rather than being checked by the government, private factions are seen as negotiating partners. Therefore, under the concept of governance, governments are no longer seen as advocates for the public interest. Rather, they are viewed as one actor representing a competing interest with other legitimate stakeholders and public interest can thus be achieved through negotiated settlements with these players.

Defining neoliberalism and governance allows for establishing a link between the two concepts. Against the backdrop of this new understanding of the role of governments, neoliberal politicians implemented radical policies, dismantling the welfare state that had been established in many parts of the world, particularly in the West. Such policies included the large-scale privatization of public services such as healthcare and education, reducing benefits for the poor and disadvantaged, and a lifting of regulations on banks and stock exchanges. This was based on the presumption that free competition, although it may provoke occasional crises, can eventually provide balance and stability to everyone in the society.

The Pandemic Hit

The current pandemic shows that in times of severe global crises, market forces are the first to collapse and are thus incapable of providing solutions. The coronavirus exacerbated existing socio-economic disparities, pushing cities all over the world into full lockdowns. These measures took an enormous toll on the labour market, with rising unemployment levels and a significant drop in labour force participation. Although not all countries- and people- will be similarly affected, these problems will be similar everywhere. The likely extent and repercussions of the post-crisis recession will be worse than those of any global economic crisis since the end of the second World War.

In October, the World Bank declared that the crisis may drive 150 million additional people below the poverty line by the end of 2021, negating decades of progress. Accordingly, the pandemic has profoundly disturbed employment everywhere. Despite the tremendous measures taken by governments to support businesses and secure jobs through job retention schemes, millions of workers have already lost their jobs, while many self-employed individuals saw their incomes collapse. Accordingly, the economic implications of the crisis have not fallen with equal severity on all shoulders. According to a McKenzie report, low-income and low-skill individuals have had tough times retaining their jobs on both sides of the Atlantic. Moreover, the crisis has been severe on women. First, the pandemic has damaged service occupation with high women employment shares—restaurants and other retail establishments, hospitality, and healthcare. Additionally, the pandemic has also been a grim reminder of the great risk of violence and harassment facing women during times of crises. Furthermore, ethnic minorities were disproportionately affected by the pandemic. For instance, in the US, employment levels for African Americans decreased by 9% between December 2019 and October 2020, almost double the 5 % for white Americans. In the UK, 22% of people of Black, Asian and minority groups (BAME) were dismissed from their jobs, far above the average of 9 percent.

Furthermore, the current pandemic brought great disruption to the workforce, prompting transformation in business models, many of which are likely to persist in the post-COVID-19 world. In particular, the pandemic accelerated 3 major trends that may endure to varying degrees with different ramifications for work. First, according to a McKinsey Global Institute report, hybrid remote work may persist: 20 to 25 % of employees in developed countries and about 10 percent in emerging ones may work remotely three to five days a week, mainly in the computer-based office work arena; That is four to five times the level during the pre-COVID-19 period. Second, the rise in share of e-business and the “delivery economy”- according to the report, the numbers grew two to five times faster in 2020- is likely to persist. This trend is upsetting sectors such as travel and leisure, thus accelerating the decline of low-wage jobs in brick-and-mortar shops and restaurants while growing jobs in distribution centers and last mile delivery. Third, according to a new McKinsey Global Survey of executives, companies have accelerated the digitization of their customer and supply-chain interactions and of their internal operations by three to four years, while the share of digitally enabled products in their portfolios has accelerated by a significant seven years. Prompted by social distancing obligations and stay-at-home instructions that produced a critical labor shortage, companies were looking for new measures to harness emerging technologies to carry out their core tasks with less human labor: fewer workers per store, fewer security guards and more cameras, more automation in warehouses, and more machinery applied to nightly scrubbing of workplaces.

While the idea of a tipping point for digital disruption isn’t new, the survey suggests that the pandemic is a tipping point of historical significance and that major changes will be necessary as the economic and human situation develop. As the job market endure a radical transformation, communities and workers will have to adapt swiftly. While older generations may find it harder to adapt to the structural challenges, young people have so far been impacted the most by pandemic related job losses. However, it is the blue-collar workers who potentially face the biggest challenges: they are more vulnerable to job losses related to both structural changes and COVID-19 (a McKinsey report estimates that given the trends accelerated by the pandemic, more than half of the low-wage workers currently in declining occupations will have to shift to jobs that require different skills in higher wage categories to remain employed). Individuals looking to make those transitions may need considerable training and acquisition of new skills to acquire jobs in growing occupations.

What Should Governments Do?

Shortly after the global outbreak of the pandemic, governments all over the world realized that without their intervention, markets would continue to collapse, and eventually trigger a global economic crisis not seen since the Great Depression in 1929. As mentioned in the previous section, during 3 decades of neoliberal policies, governments intervened only to regulate emerging problems, creating an asymmetric relationship between the public and private sectors that can only be depicted as private profits – public risks. The continuing fallout of COVID-19 illustrates how neoliberal policies undermined ability of public institutions to react to the challenges governments face today. When the government is seen not as a partner in developing value but as just a fixer, the public sector is starved of resources. Welfare programmes, education, and healthcare all become underfunded. Such negative impact on a depleted public sector was already apparent to those needing governmental support the most, particularly the under-paid workers who needed to reinforce their income with social benefits that were regularly being rationed and lowered. However, the pandemic has made it obvious that a depleted public sector cannot properly respond to new challenges and threats.

Nevertheless, there are cases showing that it is possible to overturn this process. For instance, in March 2020, the Spanish government did temporarily nationalize all private hospitals and health-care providers, something that was impossible to consider before the pandemic. Accordingly, Italy has stepped up plans to rescue the bankrupt flagship carrier Alitalia, as the government created a new company to press ahead with Alitalia nationalisation plan. Meanwhile, the French government has asserted that it will intervene in any way necessary to protect the country’s economic assets, with Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire even claiming that this may include capitalising businesses or taking stakes in struggling firms. In the US, the current pandemic led to the implementation of ideas that would have been deemed very radical just months ago.

As early as March 2020, U.S. policymakers adopted interventionist ideas such as direct cash transfers, freezing mortgage foreclosure, and governmental nationalization of troubled businesses. These measures can be seen as major intellectual vindication of the progressive left, which has always been highlighting the very issues that the pandemic has now evidently uncovered: precarious employment; income and wealth disparities; an unaffordable healthcare system, housing problems, and the problems of personal debts.

This is a welcome return to reality – in which unity and solidarity are possibly more crucial than boasting about measures enriching only a few. These measures basically show that the pandemic has revived the social contract in developed economies— for now. However, the measures demonstrates that it is simply inadequate for governments to interfere as the spender of last resort when crises happen. Rather, governments should be actively shaping markets to make sure that they deliver the sort of lasting outcomes that support everyone. For too long, governments have socialized risks but privatized rewards: when economic crisis occurs, government is seen as the saviour; but when the economy is thriving, the government is ignored and big corporations soak up the benefits, at the expense of the public. The pandemic offers a chance to reshape this dynamic and call for a better social contract.

History shows that crises can sometimes unleash a new era of change. In the US, the Great Depression was the catalyst for the Social Security Act of 1935; in the UK, the Beveridge Report, which helped establishing the modern welfare system, was drafted during WWII. In this pandemic too, beyond seeking to build on existing channels to address the urgent issues, governments may take innovative measures to enhance the social contract in the long term. These measures could form the basis for a new role for both the private and public sectors. The post-pandemic world needs government that understand that without strong state support- and effective public institutions- the economy will not be able to recover. Most importantly, political leaders will have to realize that massive governmental support will be crucial to help to masses of the unemployed, and that sectors such as housing and health should not be left to the private sector. Policymakers should also prioritize addressing inequality, as unemployment and income losses in the wake of the crisis are large enough to trigger an economic depression that can last for years. Indeed, as always, there will be voices concerned about the increase in budget deficits and public debt than by the rise of unemployment and losses of income generated by the pandemic. But prioritizing the restraint of public debt over restoring the pre-crisis unemployment rates is simply bad economics. A crucial element of governments’ post-crisis recovery strategies will be to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This is important since these enterprises account for a staggering 70% of employment worldwide, and because they were disproportionally affected by the ongoing crisis. Hence, according to the likes of former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and former Council of Economic Advisers chair Jason Furman, what is needed is more governmental spending.

COVID-19’s Possible Legacy

Empowering the state will undoubtedly involve risks. Reference to the historical record indicates that authoritarian regimes on the left and right have always emerged during periods of crises and emergency, as the need for powerful leadership was used as a pretext to destroy democracy. Tough times are always seen as an opportunity for authoritarian elements that exist on the margins of every society to represent themselves as the saviours of their people and the entire world. In view of these risks, two things are crucial: ensuring the independence of the legislature and judiciary branches and the preservation of a strong civil society. A balance of power between the state and a strong civil society- by which is meant the associations, interest groups and the employers’ and union organisations- is crucial for the safeguard of the democratic ideals.

The pandemic has already had monumental and potentially enduring implications on everyday life. Our work and social interaction have gone virtual, with even G-7 leaders organizing their conferences virtually. Most importantly, the crisis has revived debates about healthcare systems all over the world, possibly to the benefit to those arguing for universal coverage. And it can have an even broader geopolitical legacy. The Spanish Flu in 1918 and the Great Recession that followed precipitated a wave of nationalism, authoritarianism, and subsequently another devastating world war. Certainly, the same may happen in the aftermath of this pandemic, reversing the tide of globalization while inflaming xenophobia at a time when all nations should unite against Covid-19. In fact, it is already obvious that this pandemic, despite its predicted relatively lower mortality rate than other pandemics, will have major social, geopolitical and economic reverberations, overshadowing the much deadlier 1918 Spanish Flu. The coronavirus struck at the core of our interdependent global order while breaking new grounds. It is the first global pandemic in an era of social media platforms, an era of identity politics and political polarization. Indeed, we will need time and perspective to understand how this crisis will reshape the world. However, the sense that we are witnessing some of the seams of our social cohesion tear is not totally unfounded, and history suggests that similar shocks often coincide with moments of transformation and development —and sometimes even growth. A good start would be to acknowledge that while the pandemic is not culpable for the perilous economic balance in many places at risk of conflicts, it will probably increase the likelihood of further strife. Just as a health crisis can cause economic collapse, economic crises may generate political instability in countries least prepared to withstand the consequences. In the future, many priorities in the West- such as climate change, migration, and pandemics—will necessitate cooperation with the countries currently most threatened by the coronavirus. The reverberations that the world ignore today can have destabilizing implications for years to come.

Hassan is a second year PhD candidate at King’s College London’s War Studies department. His thesis examines sectarianism from an inter-group perspective. His main research focus is on sectarian relations/ sectarian identity, geopolitics and international relations. Hassan previously completed an MA in Geopolitics, Territory and Security from King’s Department of Geography in 2018. He currently works as a teacher assistant at KCL.

Cyber Security in the Age of COVID-19: An Interview with Marcus Willett

July 10, 2020 by Strife Staff

by Ed Stacey

The World Health Organisation has reported a fivefold increase in cyber attacks during COVID-19 (Image credit: Getty Images)

On 22 April 2020, Ed Stacey sat down with Marcus Willett to discuss his recent article for the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). Marcus’ analysis draws parallels between the current coronavirus crisis and global cybersecurity challenges and warns against the Balkanisation of either response. In this exclusive interview, he expands on his thinking.

For more information on the IISS and the latest analysis of international security, strategy, and defence issues, visit them here or follow them on Facebook, Twitter (@IISS_org), and Instagram (@iissorg).

ES: In your article, you explore the idea of a global cyber ‘pandemic’ – what do you mean by this?

Marcus Willett: What the article tries to show is that we like to take a lot of language in the world of cybersecurity from the world of dealing with medical crises – like the horrible one we are currently facing. For example, terms like virus and infection. However, what we have not started doing is using words like endemic and pandemic. The article was merely trying to go that extra step and consider the applicability of these words to what is happening in cyberspace. If you just look at cyber-criminality, for instance, techniques that were developed by people in the most advanced and connected nations have now spread, and are being used, all over the globe, by individuals, hacktivist groups, criminals and, of course, states.

Sitting here at the moment, if a cybercriminal was to try and defraud us, that criminal is as likely to be in Eastern Europe, or Nigeria, or Vietnam, as anywhere else. So what I was trying to show is that the use of cyber has spread globally and that you can get infected – through your network or your device – from anywhere around the globe. ‘Pandemic’ feels like quite a good word to describe that phenomenon, particularly since we are all using it at the moment.

ES: Is there a cure for the cyber pandemic?

Marcus Willett: I do not think there is a silver bullet-like vaccine; a cure is more about how nations might approach the problem. The trouble with people who have worked in my sort of background is the thinking that there is always, waiting for you, some technical silver-bullet – a wonderful technical solution that will solve the world’s problems when it comes to cyber. I do not think that is right.

If you think about offensive cyber, for example, the incentives are not great for states to talk about their most sensitive capabilities. This is because the most advanced states still think they have got such an advantage in terms of cyber that it does not make sense to reveal what they have developed to the world. But I believe states need to start a dialogue about the risks involved in some of these cyber capabilities, building on stuff that is already being done around developing norms of behaviour, to think about how we might better manage them.

So, I think a cure is more in the territory of better understanding the risks and better managing those risks than pursuing technical solutions. And the only way we are going to get to that is to recreate the sort of cooperation we see with the response to the current health pandemic. Additionally, I think that the best way of having those sorts of conversations is not to start at the most difficult end, which is, say, to try and work out some big deterrence theory and proliferation control treaty around offensive cyber capabilities. Because that is going to get silence from some of the big actors from the very beginning.

Instead, it is better to pick an area like cybercrime, where all states have a vested interest in trying to combat the defrauding of their economies and use that as a way to start the dialogue between states about how we can better manage these risks. Always, however, with the goal of an internationally agreed regime over what is a responsible use of cyber capabilities. The same way we have ended up with the understanding that it is generally unacceptable that people use barrel bombs and cluster bombs – that a guided missile is more acceptable.

ES: Is the United Nations (UN) the best space for this dialogue to take place?

Marcus Willett: Whilst it needs to be under the auspices of the UN, I cannot help but feel there is a certain group of nations that need to start the conversation. I would love to see, particularly, the Americans and the Chinese talking about cybercrime. That would start a dialogue that might help bring some of the conversations they are having around technologies – take Huawei, for example – into a better place – and where they need to be. If we carry on with this sort of competitive conversation around the future of cyberspace, I think we will end up with results that are not very good for likeminded nations like ourselves and our allies.

ES: Russia has been quite active at the UN on cybercrime. Do you see their recent proposal as a viable alternative to the Budapest Convention?

Marcus Willett: One of the reasons I suggested the US and the Chinese are to draw that distinction with the Russians, who are quite fond of coming to the UN with grand proposals that are, frankly, a little bit transparent. I did a conference in Berlin last year on a panel around cyber and question number one from the audience came from the Russian cyber representative to the UN Group of Governmental Experts (GGE). She laid out, not a question, but a statement about how the Russians were the good guys around cyber, claiming that they had been arguing for all sorts of things – like the cybercrime treaty you just mentioned – and for the outlawing of any military use of cyber capabilities. This was just after the Skripal incident and when that GRU unit was exposed at the Hague. So you can imagine how the Dutchman to my right reacted; it was an ‘actions speak louder than words’ situation.

A more realistic conversation with the Russians, since a lot of cyber-criminality emanates from bits of their territory, would be around legal jurisdictions and Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters (MLAC) arrangements – to try and get their assistance in pursuing some of this criminal activity. As you know, they are very unlikely to agree to that. And these are difficult conversations because they are likely to end up in accusation and counter-accusation.

I like the idea of the Americans and the Chinese talking about it; both with a vested interest, both without the past of being connected to cybercriminal gangs. That has got a higher chance of success. Yes, the Russians need to be brought into those sorts of conversations, but I would not start there because, again, it feels like too difficult territory. Cybercrime between the US and China: easier territory. Cybercrime with Russia: very difficult territory. Offensive cyber and military capabilities: very difficult with everybody. It is about trying to find those baby steps.

ES: Is cooperation between the US and China on cybercrime possible in the current context of the ‘tech war’?

Marcus Willett: What I am trying to argue is that there is more potential for a conversation around cybercrime than there is for a conversation on anything else, given the context of the tech war. It would be the best way of starting a dialogue because it is a rare area of mutual interest. Of course, you would have to start the conversation with a very clear definition of what you meant by a ‘cybercriminal’. But there are millions being defrauded from the Chinese economy by cybercrime, just as there is from the US economy; they are both targets of cybercriminals. So, you have got a better chance of starting a conversation there than anywhere else.

Does that feel overly idealistic given what is going on? I would have thought there was a chance if you just had the tech war or even just the trade war. However, if this escalates into finger-pointing around COVID-19 and an inquiry turns into making China some sort of a pariah state, it would be less likely. And you can see already how some of the stuff coming out of the White House is only going to antagonise the US’ relationship with China even more. So, no – perhaps the prospects are not as good as they were a few months back, but it is about more than just the tech war.

ES: Why do states such as Russia and North Korea use cyber organised criminal groups (OCGs) – either by shielding or cooperating with, and perhaps even masquerading as, them – to augment their cyber capability?

Marcus Willett: Something you said earlier resonated with me. When you alluded to the issue of defining cyber-criminality and the Russians perhaps having a slightly different idea. I remember the same sort of trouble around early attempts to talk with the Chinese about counterterrorism. You had to be very careful to define what you meant by terrorism for them not to think that that was an excuse to go after Uighurs in their own country. For the Russians, unless you are very careful about defining cyber-criminality, for them, people that we might call cybercriminals are patriotic hackers – an extension of the Russian state. That definitional point is a problem.

Another thing to note is the sophistication of some of the capabilities that have been developed by the organised criminal fraternity. In a good, realpolitik way, a state like Russia can see an advantage in these sorts of capabilities being developed by people sitting on its own soil. As you know, beyond cyber, plenty of corruption goes on between criminal gangs and the Russian state – and has done for centuries.

I lived in Moscow in 1983-84 as a student, during the height of the Cold War. And even though you could not read about it in the press, every Russian you spoke to knew that all sorts of arrangements were going on between the Soviet government and people they called mafia bosses – the mafia boss in Leningrad, as it was then, or the mafia boss in Moscow. There was the official world and then there was what really happened. So, I cannot help feeling – as so often in cyber – what you see being played out in cyberspace is actually a reflection of what has been going on for a long time in the real world. Sorry to use this phrase and be the first one to use it, but cyber is just a new domain for old age stuff. It is an accident of history and culture, going back through Tsarist times, that some slightly shady stuff goes on between the Russian state and parts of its population. Why should we be surprised to see that being playing out in cyberspace?

In terms of the other point you are making, which is that some states pick up a modus operandi that makes them look like cyber OCGs – and I think you are mainly referring to North Korea there. Well, I wonder if that is out of choice or whether it is simply the case that the level of sophistication that they are able to attain is that of a cybercriminal group.

North Korea is a very interesting example. Everybody knows that they were behind WannaCry and the hack on Sony Pictures, and that they have been trying to defraud the global banking system – Swift and so on. I put it to you that North Korea is not able to do much more than that given its own massive vulnerabilities. For example, the number of connections that come out of North Korea to the global internet is extremely few, and so, for that reason, it often deploys its operatives overseas. It would certainly need to do that if it got involved in any sort of conflict, as it would have no chance of running offensive cyber operations from within its own territory if it was up against a capable cyber actor.

In other words, North Korea has had to develop these more distributed, low-level capabilities. I do not think they are deliberately trying to make themselves look like cybercriminals, it is just that is the sort of capability they know they can use and have access to.

Countries like North Korea and Iran have learnt from what other countries have done in cyberspace, which is perhaps not the lesson that was intended; it certainly was not the lesson intended for Iran around Stuxnet. They saw this activity and thought: ‘Oh, that is interesting. What could we do in cyberspace? And would that give us a reach beyond our own region that we have no chance of achieving with any of our other capabilities? Does it give us a reach even into the great Satan – the US?’. And low and behold, it does. Their attacks are not going to be of the level of sophistication that can bring down the US’ Critical National Infrastructure (CNI), but they can have strategic effect. Whether that is propaganda effect or just being an annoyance, it nevertheless can be used to say to their citizens: ‘Look, we can do harm to the US’.

It is the famous point about cyber, that what can look like unsophisticated capabilities can proliferate and be picked up easily by states, from groups like cybercriminals, and then utilised to have a strategic effect in the mainland of a superpower, in a way that they previously could not. So, North Korea, and I would add Iran, are very interesting studies in some of the risks associated with the proliferation of cyber capabilities.

Sitting in the back of our minds, always – and this is the other thing big, cyber-capable states need to talk about – is the proliferation of some of those more destructive capabilities to terrorist organisations, and what that could mean. Everybody always assesses international terrorist groups when they look at threat actors in cyberspace. And the answer for years has been: ‘They know about the potential; they are interested and looking for it, but they do not have it’. And so, every assessment ends with: ‘So there is no need to worry about them at the moment’. Well, that picture could change. If ever terrorists work out a means of delivering the same sorts of physical destruction that they can through the use of a bomb, with cyber means, that is a bad day for everybody.

ES: How real is the threat of a catastrophic cyber event?

Marcus Willett: Having talked about cyber-criminality, terrorism, and states realising the asymmetric advantages they can gain through cyber capabilities, nevertheless, these are not where I see the greatest risk of a cyber catastrophe. The greatest risk of a cyber catastrophe, in my mind, is what is happening every second of every day, with the reconnaissance and prepositioning by states against their potential adversaries’ CNI – infrastructure like power, transport, communications – the bringing down of which would have catastrophic humanitarian consequences, as well as technical dimensions. And, while I am sure no state short of a conflict situation would intend to do that, my worry is that – as has already been proven in WannaCry and NotPetya – states, in trying to either reconnoitre a network or preposition for a conflict scenario, may accidentally make a mistake.

Prepositioning is necessary because, to have an effect in a conflict situation, you cannot go from a standing start: you either have that presence in the network or you have not. In other words, you need to establish a presence in the network in peacetime to be able to have that capability should a conflict occur. So, states are not only doing reconnaissance, they are doing pre-positioning. And the chances of something going horribly wrong, I would say, are fairly high.

What worries me most about that is, even just the detection of that sort of activity – what some may define as a cyber attack – could cause escalation. And how states try and deescalate in a cyber catastrophe is still something we have not properly thought through. How a prime minister or a president would be brought into the discussions around such a technical subject, that had spilled out into real-world loss of life and escalation, in a way that could deescalate the situation, is an issue at the heart of where we need to get to around international conversations, under the auspices of the UN, for cyber.

My argument is that, although this is the biggest risk, you cannot start with this conversation amongst states. But you have to start the conversation somewhere, so have it about cyber-criminality. Do not be deceived, however, in forgetting that the biggest risk is the one I have just been through: a mistake by a state in cyberspace that is interpreted as a potential act of war. That is the biggest risk in cyberspace.

How likely is that sort of catastrophe? The sad thing is that we do not really know, except to say that it is probably more likely than we should be comfortable with. The problem is we still do not properly understand what is happening in cyberspace. But there is lots of reconnaissance and prepositioning going on, all the time, by states, against each other’s CNI. Do not be deceived as to what is reported in the press about there having been 200 cyber attacks in the last ten years, or whatever the figure is. It all depends on what you mean by a cyber attack.

ES: Your comment on translating technical information to world leaders really resonates with President Trump in the White House. With a lack of precedent for escalation in cyberspace, there is no knowing if and how he might act.

Marcus Willett: Unfortunately, if you are an official in the US administration at the moment, you know you dare not mention the word cyber to President Trump. Because – and this is a massive generalisation – to him, all he can equate cyber with is: ‘The hacking into of our electoral processes and people saying that cyber is the reason I got elected’. Whilst he has made statements about the use of cyber in the past, I know from private conversations with ex-colleagues who are in those positions, that cyber is a subject you have to handle very carefully. Otherwise, you press the wrong button with the President, and it ends up not being a conversation, but the receipt of an earful. So, it is a huge challenge.

ES: And finally, in the context of the coronavirus crisis – and discussions around sovereign capability, national tech companies, supply chains, and so on – is the Balkanisation of the internet preventable?

Marcus Willett: This is a very interesting question. Balkanisation, or even bifurcation of the internet, which is the other phrase that is thrown around, is the concept of two internets. One model is what we have at the moment: multi-stakeholder governance, free, with a balance between states, NGOs, the private sector and techy-coders; and then how that internet is developed and run, with a balance between the rights of individual citizens, the private sector and governments. And the second model, which is being pushed by the Chinese and the Russians, which entails greater state control over sovereign cyberspace. This can sound like just a technical issue, but the implications for how the global economy works, for example, are massive.

Why would states not want more control over the threats to them and their own sovereign bit of cyberspace? Well, the net result may be, instead of having a conversation about how you can achieve control with a single internet and a single global economy, you end up with two separate versions, then three, or four, and so on. And do not forget what the word Balkanisation means: it is the disintegration into individual components that compete, or even conflict. And if there were two separate internets, one Chinese and one US, broadly speaking (although there is talk of a RU.net and the Iranians have invested quite a lot of money into trying to develop their own intranet) the current risks around cyber that I described earlier, between states, become even greater.

Imagine if you had no vested interest in that other internet: it is not connected to your economy; none of your CNI is dependent upon it. What would the incentive then be for states to restrain themselves around their use of cyber capabilities?

That is my worry about Balkanisation and why I fear a tech war, to which the only solution is to ban bits of tech from your own networks, ends up being self-defeating. Not only immediately, as you can see with all the US tech providers, for example, going to the White House saying: ‘Do you not realise what that does to our own economy and our ability to export into those markets?’. That is almost putting an Iron Curtain down that virtual world of the internet. And if you think about how dependent we are all becoming – with the Internet of Things, smart cities, and smart homes, and so on – that virtual curtain could only be followed by a real-world equivalent. I think it is incredibly short-cited, and it can only lead to increased risk geostrategically.

Having said all that, if you are sitting here in a place like the UK you speak with two different voices. You certainly support the idea of a single, multi-stakeholder, free internet. But Ministers also worry about the UK’s ability to deal with terrorists and cybercriminals in its own bit of cyberspace because of issues such as the spread of ubiquitous encryption by big US tech companies. So, the UK also has a sovereign problem around understanding some of the biggest threats in cyberspace. It is a difficult question to answer, which becomes especially challenging for a middle-ranking country like the UK: one that instinctively does not want to see Balkanisation and cyber sovereignty, but also wants a bit more sovereign ability for national security reasons, over its little bit of cyberspace. It is a fascinating subject that is, I think, just going to roll. But I do not like the idea of banning tech from your own network; it is unrealistic and just not the way to go.

In some ways, the US has hit the strategic thing that is going on: a global competition about how the internet in the future will be developed, between itself and China – its main rival in this space. That is the big strategic point. And though the UK may not have woken up to that issue, the US tactic feels wrong. The UK tactic, ironically, perhaps not having recognised the strategic issue, feels better. And for those who love their deterrence theory, this is the idea of deterrence through entanglement – which everybody debates whether it really works or not. The notion that a potential adversary entangled with the global economy and in global cyberspace, is far easier to deter from bringing down that economy and that cyberspace than it would otherwise be.

And one more thing: look at this from China’s perspective. China is desperately dependent on eight US companies for how it runs its own networks. You could list them: Microsoft, Qualcomm, IBM, Intel, Cisco, and so on. They call them the eight guardian warriors. Yes, China does talk about having its own internet and ‘the Great Firewall’, and all that sort of stuff. But interestingly, two of those eight companies – Microsoft and Cisco, I believe – sit on China’s cybersecurity internal standards-setting body. IBM and the Bank of China develop technology supporting trillions of dollars of financial transactions around the globe. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) uses Microsoft. I mean, that is just how it is – they are thoroughly entwined. Why would you try and persuade the Chinese that the better solution is for them to start developing everything indigenously; to not use anything American and wipe out half of the world’s population from your markets? I mean, why would you do that?

Ed Stacey is a BA International Relations student at King’s College London and a Student Ambassador for the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). The #IISStudent Ambassador programme connects students interested in global security, political risk and military conflict with the Institute’s work and researchers.

Marcus Willett CB OBE is a Senior Adviser at the IISS. He helps to develop and deliver a programme at the IISS that researches the use of cyber and related technologies as levers of national power, including their role in future conflict. His initial focus is on developing a methodology for measuring cyber power to assist national-level decision-making.

Warning About Conflicts and Pandemics: How to Get Heard by Decision-Makers

July 1, 2020 by Strife Staff

by Christoph Meyer

As is often the case with warnings about conflict, there was a costly lack of timely responses to early warnings about the COVID-19 pandemic. Such delays are not necessarily just the fault of decision-makers. Expert warners can also do better. To be heard, they need to understand the world of policymakers, take risks and spell out expected consequences and actionable recommendations.

Could the mounting death toll, pain and costs from the coronavirus crisis have been prevented or at least lessened? Leaders and senior officials in the US and the UK have been accused of recklessly ignoring warnings, whilst Chinese officials even stand accused of suppressing them. The pandemic has been labelled the “worst intelligence failure in U.S. history” or UK’s “greatest science policy failure for a generation”. Future public inquiries will hopefully address not just questions of accountability but also, more importantly, which lessons should be learned.

Do Not Just Blame the Decision-Makers: Expert Warners Also Need to Do Better

However, even today there are striking parallels between the warning-response gap in conflict and mass atrocity prevention and the coronavirus crisis. Our extensive research on cases ranging from Rwanda 1994 to Crimea 2014 found a wide-spread tendency in the literature to overestimate the supply of “warnings” from inside and outside of government and to underestimate how difficult persuasive warning actually is. Warners are typically portrayed as altruistic, truthful and prescient, yet doomed to be ignored by irresponsible, ignorant and self-interested leaders. Imagine princess Cassandra of Troy trying to convince Mayor Vaughn from Jaws.

The first in-depth investigations of the decision-making on COVID-19 suggest that at least some of the warnings in the US case suffered from credibility problems whereas UK experts were criticised for not warning more forcefully, explicitly and earlier. This raises important questions about individual expert’s motivations, capabilities and strategies, but also about structural and cultural factors that can impede early, credible, actionable and, above all, persuasive warnings.

Expert Warners Need to Learn What the Obstacles Are for Their Messages to Be Heard

In our recent book we compare warning about war to the challenge of conquering an obstacle course against various competitors and often adverse weather conditions. The most successful competitors will be those who combine natural ability, high motivation, regular training, and risk-taking with a bit of luck. Many expert warners do not realise what the obstacles are, nor have they been trained to overcome them or are willing to take some of the professional risks involved in warning.

We found that the most effective warners tend to be those who (i) have acquired some personal trust as a result of previous personal contacts with decision-makers, (ii) can offer a positive professional reputation and track-record in their previous analysis and warnings, (iii) understand decision-makers’ agendas and “hot-buttons” (iv), share the same broad political or ideational outlook, and finally, (v) are willing to take some professional risks to get their message across.

Based on our research, we found that in order to increase their chances of being heard by decision-makers, expert warners should consider the following eight points.

1. Understand That Decision-Makers Work in a Completely Different Environment.

First and foremost, expert warners need to understand that senior officials inhabit a different world to themselves. Most experts tend to consume information from a relatively narrow range of quality sources focused on a specific subject area. They evaluate the quality of the method and evidence behind causal claims and, sometimes, the potential to solve a given problem. Warnings are relatively rare in this world. In contrast, decision-makers live in a world where warnings from different corners are plentiful and competing demands for their attention is constant and typically tied to requests for more government spending. They are trained to look for the interest behind the knowledge claim and are prone to see warnings as politically biased and potentially self-interested manipulation attempts. A New York Times investigation suggests, for example, that at least some of the coronavirus warnings were discounted as a result of perceived political bias regarding China.

2. Credibility Is Key to Who Is Being Noticed and Heard.

Even experts without an apparent or hidden agenda can and do contradict each other, including those working in the same field. On any given issue, there is rarely just one authoritative source of knowledge, but multiple individuals or organisations that supply knowledge. The cacophony gets greater when assessing the proportionality and unintended effects of the measures to control the disease, including the inadvertent increase of non-COVID deaths and severe loss of quality of life.

When politicians claim to be only following “expert advice” as was the case in the UK, they obscure necessary decisions about difficult trade-offs and dilemmas arising from diverse expert advice. Decision-makers need to decide whose advice to accept and to what extent. This is why credibility is key to who is being noticed and believed.

That means warners need to ask themselves whether they are likely to be perceived as credible or rather with suspicion by the people that ultimately take political decisions. If the latter is the case, they can try to target more receptive scientists sitting on official expert committee instead or organisations closer to decision-makers. They can publish pieces in news media likely to be consumed by politicians rather than those they might prefer themselves. Or they can boost their credibility by teaming up with others through open-letters or joint statements.

3. To Cut Through the Noise, You Might Have to Take Risks.

The next challenge is for warnings to stick-out from the everyday information and reporting “noise”. Officials may, for instance, choose an unusual channel or mode of communication. We know that ambassadors have used demarches as relatively rare and more formal formats to highlight the importance of their analysis rather than their routine reports.

Senior officials might cut through when they are ready to put their career and professional reputation on the line as Mukesh Kapila did when warning about Darfur in 2004 on BBC Radio 4. This lesson can also be drawn in the case of Capt. Brett E. Crozier who was fired after copying-in too many people into his outspoken warning about the spread of the virus on the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt.

Many external experts as well as intelligence analysts, such as Professor for Epidemiology, Mark Woolhouse, are satisfied just to be “heard and understood”. They do not seek for their advice to be accepted, prioritised and acted upon. However, sometimes a more pro-active and risk-taking approach is needed as was arguably the case with COVID-19 according to Professor Jonathan Ball: “Perhaps some of us should have got up in front of BBC News and said you lot ought to be petrified because this is going to be a pandemic that will kill hundreds of thousands of people. None of us thought this was a particularly constructive thing to do, but maybe with hindsight we should have. If there had been more voices, maybe politicians would have taken this a bit more seriously.”

4. Spell Out a Range of Expected Consequences.

Given leaders’ constant need to prioritise, experts need to spell out the range of expected consequences. They need to dare to be more precise about what the likelihood is for something to happen, the timing, scale and nature of the consequences. Too often we found warnings to be rather vague or hedged. Similarly to the account by Balls, an in-depth Reuter’s investigation also suggests that UK ‘scientists did not articulate their fears forcefully to the government’ and could have spelled out the probable deaths involved earlier.

5. Focus on What Matters to Decision-Makers, Not Yourself.

Warners need to focus on what matters most to decision-makers, not to them. One of the most successful warnings we came across in our research on conflict warnings highlighted not just the humanitarian suffering, but also how this escalation would resonate with important domestic constituencies such as evangelical Christians and how it might harm electoral chances. NGOs focused on conflict prevention and peace may find it easier to make their case if they also highlight the indirect and less immediate effects of instability on migration, jobs and security.

6. Understand the Reference Points and Contexts That Decision-Makers Work With in Any Given Situation.

Warners should try to understand and, if necessary, challenge the cognitive reference points that underpin leaders’ thinking. In the area of foreign policy, decision-makers often draw on lessons learnt from seemingly similar or recent cases from the region. For instance, preventive action against ethnic conflict in Macedonia in 2001 benefited from fresh lessons learnt from the Kosovo conflict. Spelling out what precisely is similar or different in present threats in relation to lessons learnt from previous familiar cases can encourage decision-makers to question and change their beliefs.

In the current crisis, one reason why senior officials in Europe may have underestimated the danger of coronavirus was that their reference point and planning assumption was a flu epidemic. Many also still remembered that the UK was accused of overreacting to the much milder than expected swine flu in 2009. In contrast, leaders in many Asian countries had other more dangerous viruses as their cognitive reference points and underpinning their pandemic plans.

7. Know What Kind of Evidence and Methods Decision-Makers Trust the Most.

Experts should try to understand what kind of evidence and methods decision-makers and their close advisors consider the most credible. In foreign affairs, decision-makers often trust secret intelligence based on human sources more than assessment based on expert judgement using open-sources. Other decision-makers like indicators and econometric models as compared to qualitative expert judgements. If unfamiliar with these particular methods, they could seek to collaborate with those experts who are can translate their findings into the most suitable language.

8. Include Actionable Recommendations With the Warnings.

The best warnings are those that contain also actionable recommendations. Decision-makers are more receptive to warnings that give them information on which they can act today, ideally including a range of options. The influential model by the Imperial College team appeared to resonate so well not only because of the method they used, but also because it gave decision-makers a clear sense of how death rates might develop for different policy options under discussion.

The dilemma for warners is that they can undermine their own credibility by suggesting policy options that are considered politically unfeasible. According to a Reuters account, the lock-down measures adopted in China and Italy were considered initially inconceivable for the UK and thus not considered in-depth early on. Warners do need to resist a narrow understanding of what is feasible and sometimes need to push to widen the menu of policy options considered.

It Is Also up to Government Bureaucracies and Decision-Makers to Be Open for Warnings

All of this is not to deny that the key explanation may ultimately lie with unreceptive decision-makers who cannot deal with uncomfortable advice or who create blame-shifting cultures in which many officials just seek to cover their backs. We should approach any justification why leaders did not notice or believe a warning with a healthy dose of scepticism. Politicians can be expected to ring-fence at least some of their time to regularly consider new and serious threats to the security and well-being of citizens, regardless of distractions by media headlines. There should be clarity about who is responsible to act or not to act on warnings. They should ask probing questions of experts that bring them reassuring news to tease out key uncertainties and down-side risks as was allegedly lacking in the UK case. They need to ensure there is sufficient diversity in the advice they are getting through expert committees, create channels for fast-tracking warnings and opportunities for informally expressing dissent with prevailing wisdom. Leaders have a responsibility to build cultures in which high-quality warnings can be expressed without fear of punishment or career disadvantage.

One of the questions to be addressed in postmortems will be whether the relationship of politicians to the intelligence community in the US and to health professionals in the UK was conducive to timely warning and preventive action. Have experts allowed themselves to be politicised? Have they cried wolf too often and on too many issues? Or, conversely, have they been affected by group-think and hesitated to ask difficult questions sooner and more forcefully? Keeping expert warners in the picture matters greatly to learning the right lessons from the crisis. The best experts with the most important messages need to find ways of cutting through, regardless of who happens to sit in the White House, Downing Street, the Élysée Palace or the Chancellery. Only with the benefit of hindsight is warning and acting on it easy.

This article is a reposting of Christoph Meyer’s article with the kind cooperation of Peacelab, please follow this link to see the original.

Christoph Meyer is the co-author (with Chiara De Franco and Florian Otto) of “Warning about War: Conflict, Persuasion and Foreign Policy” and leads a research project on Learning and Intelligence in European Foreign Policy. Support from the European Research Council and the UK Economic and Social Research Council is gratefully acknowledged.

Coronavirus and Intelligence Failures: Lessons Learned from a Global Pandemic

May 22, 2020 by Strife Staff

by Gemma MacIntyre

An officer with U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Field Operations gestures with gloved hands as he speaks with an arriving international traveler at Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Va., March 18, 2020 (Image credit: CBP Photo/Glenn Fawcett)

The transformative effect of Covid-19 upon the world is becoming more clear by the day. Since the first recorded cases in China’s Wuhan starting in December 2019, the disease has transcended borders, thereby claiming 170,000 lives to date, affecting millions more, and forcing entire states into lockdown. The severity and pace of the virus so far have led many to ask the question: why were governments so slow to respond? This frustration is particularly salient given reports that multiple scientific, medical, and intelligence experts alerted authorities about this novel coronavirus months prior to politicians initiating our current states of emergency. This delay has led many to label Covid-19 as an intelligence failure, perhaps the most notable in history.

The American President Donald J. Trump has come under significant attacks for delaying preventative measures – and prioritising economic interests over the advice of health and intelligence authorities. An article in the New York Times from mid-April 2020 stated that the US intelligence community ‘identified the threat, sounded the alarms and made clear the need for aggressive action’ in early January 2020. Yet, contrary to this urgency, Trump was reluctant to impose a lockdown. This hesitance came primarily for economic reasons but was similarly influenced by his well-documented tendency to overlook the guidance of expert authorities. Similarly, in Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been chastised for skipping up to five Covid-19 related meetings, having a detrimental impact on the UK’s rate of response (The Sunday Times 2020). It has been reported that while Britain was initially well-prepared for a pandemic outbreak; austerity cuts and fears of a no-deal Brexit distracted the government from its health-focused objectives. Crucially, had the British Government taken earlier action, it would have been able to respond much more effectively.

However, it is not enough to associate the spread of Covid-19 entirely with political personalities (albeit, they do play a role). Rather, one has to explore the various reasons why, despite warning signals, this deadly virus has been able to have such a dramatic impact, wreaking global havoc in its spread. Globally, it seems, few expected what was to come. Upon reflection of where global health ‘sits’ in the international security paradigm, it seems the reasons for intelligence failure are much more complex and deeply-rooted. On the one hand, global health has been perceived as the foundation of international prosperity. Without strong health infrastructure, the productivity of the international community’s labour market cannot function. Sub-Saharan Africa provides a case in point: many of the development challenges within the region stem from health problems. Yet, the mention of global health as an international security challenge is scarce.

Over the course of the twenty-first century, UK and US intelligence analysts have rightly emphasised important security challenges, such as international terrorism, cyber security, and inter-state war. Interestingly, despite its importance to global prosperity, health has rarely been perceived as an international security threat: more often, it is perceived as a by-product of, or contributing to, other security issues. Arguably, the reason for this is that, unlike other security challenges, pandemics lack the same sort of human capacity to be controlled. This characteristic has made viruses such as Covid-19 less apparent in international security studies; yet, paradoxically, more difficult to contain. Viruses cannot be tracked via policing or intercepting devices: nor can they be interrogated or detained.

Nevertheless, the health-focus of intelligence communities should not be minimised by these challenges. Rather, this new strain of coronavirus invites a new strain of security studies: one that, as the world becomes ever more interconnected, is paramount to global health. Since 9/11, academics and practitioners have affirmed the need to refine methods of intelligence-gathering. To track covert, international networks – including terrorist, drug, and cyber-related groups – intelligence communities have to, in the words of Charles Cogan (2010), take a ‘hunter-gatherer’ approach. This involves actively going out to monitor those suspected of posing any sort of legitimate security threat, and enacting sufficient preventative measures. But how does one ‘hunt down’ a virus? Its intangible, diffuse nature, coupled with the ease at which globalisation facilitates its spread, presents novel challenges to intelligence communities (Bruntland, 2003).

The main tactic used by states to contain Covid-19 has been to enforce lockdown measures on entire populations and economies. Short of proven vaccines, this strategy is essential; but it does not address the root issue: that of preventing contaminated animals, particularly bats, from spreading the disease (The Guardian, 2020). The challenges associated with tracking viruses, at the very least, underscores its importance in international security. Even more so, it presents new lessons and opportunities.

A key lesson provided by Covid-19 is that without medical expertise or predictions; policy-makers will be left in the dark. Unlike other security issues which rely namely on intelligence communities and policy-makers to contain them; assailants like Covid-19 require the inclusion of scientists and medical experts, to not only appreciate but act upon the severity of the threat. This requires a shift in the understanding of intelligence in an epidemiological context, both within intelligence communities, and external to them (RUSI, 2020).

Another lesson has been the benefit of digital surveillance. In authoritarian regimes such as South Korea, Israel, and China, their governments have utilised technology and data to track the spread of the virus and monitor citizens in lockdown. Yet, while China and South Korea have maximised this digital surveillance opportunity; Western democracies remain indebted to the value of transparency. A UK NHS app used to monitor people’s activities has been considered; however, controversy remains over the potential exposure of personal data. Ulrich Kelber (Germany’s Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information) has condoned stringent surveillance measures as ‘encroaching’ and ‘totally inappropriate’ (Foreign Policy, 2020). Ultimately, although transparency remains critical, states may have to overcome this initial unease to make the most of technology opportunities – so long as they are used appropriately, in line with democratic values.

Lastly, the insight provided by intelligence is critical to ensure states are prepared. Historically, intelligence has been used to alert leaders of the appropriate level of investment into national security. Yet, it seems in spite of intelligence warnings, many of those on the front line have been left without the equipment to fight. This idea was referenced by Bill Gates during a 2015 TED Talk, when he affirmed that states had to be prepared to tackle a pandemic just as they would a military emergency. Gates stressed the need for investment in research and development, health infrastructure, and medical reserves, all well in advance of a global outbreak.

Nonetheless, while Gates’ predictions ring eerily true – changing the way states prepare for global pandemics requires not only a shift in intelligence-gathering methods, but in understandings of international security as we know it. Re-defining the priorities of the intelligence community, and conceptions of international security, is essential to combat this pandemic, and the inevitable future ones as well.

Reference List

Arbuthnott, G., Calvert, J., and Leake, J. (2020). ’38 Days: When Britain Sleepwalked into Disaster’. The Sunday Times

Barnes, J. E., Haberman, M., Lipton, E., Mazzetti, M., and Sanger, D. E. (2020). ‘He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus’. The New York Times. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-response.html

Bruntland. G. H. (2003). ‘Global Health and International Security’. Global Governance., 9(4): 417-423

Bury, P., Chertoff, M. and Hatlebrekke, K. (2020). ‘National Intelligence and the Coronavirus Pandemic’. RUSI. Available at: https://rusi.org/commentary/national-intelligence-and-coronavirus-pandemic

Coats, D. R. (2019). ‘Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community’. Available at: https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/2019-ATA-SFR—SSCI.pdf

Cogan., C. (2010). ‘Hunters not Gatherers: Intelligence in the Twenty-First Century’. Intelligence and National Security, 19(2): 304-321

Gates, B. (2015). ‘The Next Outbreak? We’re Not Ready’. TED, 2015

Maceas, B. (2020). ‘Only Surveillance Can Save Us From Coronavirus’. Foreign Policy

McKie, R. (2020). ‘Coronavirus: Five Months On, What Scientists Know About Covid-19’. The Guardian

UK Government. (2010). ‘A Strong Britain in an Age of Uncertainty: The National Security Strategy’. Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/61936/national-security-strategy.pdf

Worldometer. (2020). Available at: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Upon graduating from the University of St Andrews in International Relations and Management in 2019, Gemma MacIntyre is now studying an MA in Conflict, Security and Development at King’s College London. Through her academic studies and voluntary experience with VSO UK in Nigeria, she has developed a strong interest in the impact of governance on development. Throughout her MA, Gemma has had the opportunity to explore a variety of security and development areas: including peace-building; humanitarian diplomacy; intelligence in war and peace; and the impact of conflict on global health. Gemma hopes to pursue a career in humanitarian or security policy-making.

Turning the Tables: China’s Approach to COVID-19

March 16, 2020 by Strife Staff

by Francesca Ghiretti & Lorenzo Mariani

China’s Xi Jinping gets tested during a rare appearance amid the Coronavirus outbreak (Image credit: BBC)

It seems plausible to argue that COVID-19 will accompany us for most of 2020. Given the little information we have about the new coronavirus, the scientific community is cautious in forecasting the duration and extent of the coronavirus epidemic that is raging across the world at present. Although over a hundred countries already recorded cases of contagion, many still focus on China. Interestingly enough, the country has changed from being the centre of the epidemic into the first success story in the fight against the virus, now offering support to the other affected countries. Recently, as a sign of victory against the epidemic and with the aim of reviving the hearts of Chinese citizens, Xi Jinping visited the central Chinese city of Wuhan, the place of origin of COVID-19. In the meantime, commentators continue to wonder what the impact of the virus and of the consequent extraordinary measures taken to counter the virus outbreak will have on China’s governance.

As mentioned in numerous other analyses, the economic impact of the epidemic is of particular concern to international observers. Weakened by the trade war with the United States and by a moderate but steady decline in its growth, the Chinese economy has already begun to feel the effects of the government’s quarantine measures imposed on its citizens and businesses. If already at the end of 2019 the six per cent growth forecast for 2020 seemed excessive, now it seems impossible.

Furthermore, given the importance of Chinese production in global value chains, the world economy will also be affected by the closure of the factories and the Chinese economy’s slowdown. The apparent improvement of the situation in China has now prompted Beijing to loosen quarantine measures and reopen some plants with the aim of restarting the economy. Despite the government’s exhortation to return to their jobs, many Chinese workers remain reticent about the idea of resuming normal work routine as well as public life, to which must be added the fact that some key production areas, such as the province of Hubei, still remain in lockdown.

The fallout of the epidemic on Chinese society is also important. Of major concern is what Beijing will decide to do in the future with the control measures introduced in the midst of the Coronavirus emergency. Over the past few months, in fact, the central government has found in the new technological solutions developed by the main companies in the country a valid ally in the fight against the virus: from the cameras that in addition to detecting the body temperature carry out facial recognition even with masks, to the applications that monitor the potential contact of people with infected citizens. In the eyes of several international observers, the extensive collection of data that today has helped China to contain the epidemic could tomorrow be used to further limit the privacy of Chinese citizens.

On a political level, the central government is unlikely to be affected by drastic repercussions despite the many speculations of the past few weeks which spoke of a possible stability crisis of the Chinese Communist Party and of the Presidency of Xi Jinping due to COVID-19. Although it is true that many, especially in the most affected areas, have criticised the work of the government and the lack of transparency of information, judging from the online response of Chinese users, most of them genuinely adhere to the line presented by the state media. After all, in China the opacity and the distortion of the news are certainly not new, and it should be noted that the majority of citizens who have not been directly affected by the health crisis have not developed a sense of dissatisfaction with the party such as to lead to political claims of the aforesaid scope.

The containment of criticism in the domestic environment was obviously facilitated by the Party’s communication machine, which was set in motion at full capacity already in the first days of the health crisis and which is now helping the government to recover internal consensus and international support. Much of the initial energy was spent primarily to prevent any blame and negligence from falling on the central government. To pay the costs, as it very often happens in China, was, therefore, the local government of the province of Hubei, guilty of not having contained and managed the infection. In a second phase, the communication of the Chinese press organs concentrated its efforts in promoting a national cohesion campaign under the leadership of the Party which culminated in Xi Jinping’s visit to Wuhan where the President met the population and, albeit via connection. remote, even the sick.

Finally, over the past few days, the main attention of the Chinese media has focused on the rest of the world and especially on the United States, accused of having chosen to adopt a “selfish” attitude during a time of global crisis. Proposing itself once again in antithesis to the US policies of closures, China is now seeking to recover the ground that it lost over the past few months. An attempt to revive its image as a responsible nation, ready to collaborate multilaterally for the good of the international community and to send out support to its partners in case of need. In this regard, emblematic is the case of the alleged preferential treatment reserved to Italy in the reception of medical supplies from China, often described as the result of the special relationship that exists between the two countries.

It is still too early to know for sure what the consequences of this health crisis will be on China’s internal politics and international ambitions. What seems clear is that Xi appears to have endured one of the most demanding tests since he took power in 2012. Furthermore, it clearly surfaces the idea that if in the coming months Beijing will be able to play its cards well, then China, and with it the Chinese Communist Party, could even emerge from this crisis stronger than before.

This article was originally published by the Rome-based Istituto Affari Internazionali

Francesca Ghiretti is a PhD candidate at King’s College London where she has been awarded the Leverhulme Scholarship as part of the project ‘Interrogating Visions of a Post-Western World: Interdisciplinary and Interregional Perspectives on the Future in a Changing International Order’. Her thesis is about Chinese FDI in the EU. Francesca is also a Research Fellow in the Asia department at Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) in Rome and a geopolitical consultant at CQS, a London-based hedge fund.

Lorenzo Mariani is Research Fellow in the field of Asian studies at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) in Rome where he collaborates mainly on research projects dealing with Chinese domestic and foreign affairs, and Inter-Korean relations. Since 2017, he has been Korea Foundation Fellow. He graduated in International Relations at the University of Bologna and earned a Master’s double degree in China Studies from Zhejiang University and University of Turin. During his academic career, he was an exchange student at Peking University (Beijing) and at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (Seoul).