African countries should draw from past experience to put together plans to manage the post-COVID-19 tourism void
On April 15, Finland’s foreign minister Pekka Haavisto (pictured in September 2019) announced on that his country would voluntarily increase its funding of the Wolrd Health Organization.
Wikipedia
Suerie Moon, Graduate Institute – Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement (IHEID)
The world rightly expressed shock and dismay at Donald Trump’s suspension of US funding for WHO. To respond, other governments, funders and citizens are urgently needed to fill the gap.
China has embarked on ambitious reforms to modernise the People’s Liberation Army to be able to defeat the US in a potential conflict. But many challenges remain.
In this December 2019 photo, people wearing masks in Hong Kong are seen during a rally to show support for Uighurs and their fight for human rights in China.
(AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
In the coming months, China will have the power to appoint or nix global UN investigators on freedom of speech, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention and health.
Australia’s call for an inquiry into the origins of the pandemic has been met with a rebuke from Beijing. China is ramping up its own narrative about the virus, making greater transparency impossible.
Donald Trump at a press briefing with members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force on April 18, 2020 in Washington, DC.
Sarah Silbiger/AFP
An analysis of the expressions used by Donald Trump to designate Covid-19 sheds light on his political calculations and on the evolution of his relationship with China in recent weeks.
China has its eyes on a post-coronavirus world.
Ng Han Guan/AP Photo
Klaus W. Larres, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Beijing is touting its role in the world and praising its autocratic governmental system and its huge countrywide surveillance network. Hawks in Washington aren’t impressed.
A supporter of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen outside her campaign headquarters in Taipei on January 11, 2020, the day of her re-election.
Sam Yeh/AFP
Emmanuel Véron, Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (Inalco) and Emmanuel Lincot, Institut catholique de Paris (ICP)
By providing assistance to many countries affected by the pandemic, the People’s Republic of China is seeking to create a diversionary tactic to quietly put increasing pressure on Taiwan.
Africans living in Guangzhou have faced discrimination amid fears of imported cases of COVID-19.
Alex Plavevski/EPA
Racism, xenophobia or insensitivity? The treatment of Africans in Guangzhou has sparked diplomatic anger.
An Indonesian woman wearing a protective face mask waits for her train at the departure lounge of a train station in Medan, North Sumatra.
Dedi Sinuhaji/EPA
If China hopes to protect its economic interests in Southeast Asia’s largest economy and improve its global image, it should help Indonesia during this pandemic.
It is not all democracies that struggle to deal with the coronavirus; it is those in which the people do not feel the system works for them.
A staffer works on a ventilator-refurbishing assembly line at Bloom Energy in Sunnyvale, Calif. Bloom Energy makes hydrogen fuel cells but is now refurbishing old ventilators so hospitals can use them to treat coronavirus patients.
(Beth LaBerge/KQED via AP)
This transformation provides lessons for the rest of world, for shifting away from chemical agriculture towards a healthier system for people and the planet.
When an outbreak is brought under control, it’s possible only a small proportion of the population has been infected and gained immunity. This can set the scene for a second wave of infections later.
Have most of us already had it?
Travelerpix/Shutterstock
To recover its economy, China must also see the economy of its export destination countries improve.
Members of a medical assistance team from Jiangsu province at a ceremony marking their departure after participating in the fight against Covid-19 in Wuhan, March 19, 2020.
STR/AFP
Emmanuel Véron, Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (Inalco) and Emmanuel Lincot, Institut catholique de Paris (ICP)
China is seeking to present itself as a model in the fight against the coronavirus – even if it means rewriting the history of the crisis and discrediting the governance of liberal democracies.