While watching TV a while back, I heard one analyst say something to the effect that when a leading power sees a rising power, it gets in a delicate balancing act to keep the rising power in check. I didn't and don't necessarily agree with that kind of perspective. However, the logic made sense in terms of giving some perspective about how the US may have been trying to manage its diplomatic and political relationship with China.
It also made me think if the US used a similar approach in managing its diplomatic and political relationship with the former USSR. I wasn't old enough to have any meaningful thought about it before the latter was destabilized. I could only imagine at that time that Capitalism won and Socialism lost.
When I heard the above analysis, I was reminded about a proverb in Amharic: ሁለት ዝሆኖች ሲጣሉ የሚጎዳዉ ሳሩ ነዉ። It roughly means that when two elephants fight, the grass gets mangled. When I say this, I mean no disrespect to other countries and powers that are leading powers in their own right in various ways.
Here, I wonder if the balancing act by a leading power in order to keep a rising power in check led to the Cold War that got a grip on the world for decades.
The pronouncements now appear to shift from the Socialist Republic (USSR) to Communist China. I was old enough to hear the terms Socialism and Communism during the time of Colonel Menghistu Hailemariam in Ethiopia. If I remember correctly, Communism is farther from Capitalism than Socialism is from Capitalism.
From then to now, I am more for a meritocratic entrepreneurship than communal ownership.
That is when we think about wealth and making it instead of basic human health and maintaining it.
Now, the world is in a pandemic and basic human health, which may be more fundamental than basic human rights, has become a primary occupation of most countries on earth, if not all.
Every country on earth has had, or is most likely going to have, a Patient Zero in this pandemic. Consequently, every country on earth will have its responses and results thereof define that country in terms of how responsive it is to the well being of all of its citizens and residents.
Any sovereign country's Patient Zero is going to define its timeline of responses and the results thereof irrespective of that country's diplomatic and political relationship with any other sovereign country, whether it is bilateral or multilateral.
Patient Zero for the US will define its timeline of responses and results. By the same token, China's Patient Zero will define its timeline of responses and results.
If the results are to be measured in terms of how many lives that could have been saved during this pandemic were not saved, the comparison of the values of Capitalism and Communism as political ideologies becomes meaningless.
Instead of Capitalist or Communist ideologies, the responses and results from Patient Zero to the Last Patient at the end of the pandemic in the countries of the leading power and rising power will definitely characterize each.
Whether it is unfounded or not, when the leader of the leading power pronounces that the virus that caused this pandemic came out of a lab of the rising power, it appears to me that that leader is driving himself into a dead end in terms of keeping the rising power in check. At least, that is what I thought upon hearing that pronouncement.
Just for the sake of argument, assuming it came out of a lab as asserted, did the rising power get ahead of the leading power in establishing such a lab or did the leading power also establish such a lab ahead of the leading power? What are the diplomatic and political implications of the rising power getting ahead of the leading power in doing so or if the leading power was already ahead in doing so but kept it hidden? This is the question that made me think a dead end immediately after hearing that pronouncement. It appears to me that either scenario is untenable.
Irrespective of how the diplomatic and political relationship between the leading power and the rising power is going to pan out, I don't think that other sovereign countries should become the mangled grass in the fight of the two elephants.
Bill Gates suggested the other day that the US has the strongest influence on the World Health Organization (W.H.O.,) or something to that effect. It doesn't surprise me if the leading power wants to have that kind of influence on such a global institution and doesn't want to lose it.
I would imagine that the W.H.O. is supposed to be responsive to all sovereign member States even if it may not be in a position to dictate or be responsible for what actions those States need to take. That is at least what I imagine from a distance and without a solid understanding about its mandate.
However, one thing appears evident. The experiences of each member country from Patient Zero to the Last Patient during this pandemic will be invaluable to make it a global clearinghouse of health.
So, I wonder if Patient Zeros, the responses, and results of all the member States of the W.H.O. could not define the future in various ways. If so, this is one more reason why I think that the disenfranchised activists need to rethink closing ranks in order to not only overcome the pandemic but also to gain more leverage in the W.H.O. and other global institutions.