Dialoguepk

COVID-19 demands a stronger commitment to multilateralism 12 May 2020 Author: Hoang Oanh, Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam The COVID-19 pandemic is demonstrating that a single disease can cause more catastrophic damage than wars and conflicts. The crisis makes it painfully clear that a transnational threat requires a transnational response. But international cooperation has been mostly limited to the sharing of medical equipment and expertise. Multilateral efforts have been impeded by the return of  nationalism and great power rivalry . In today’s integrated world, uncoordinated unilateral responses will not stop the spread of a pathogen. Lessons from previous pandemics have underscored the need for multilateralism. SARS was a ‘ wake-up call ’, demanding intensive international cooperation and prompting the international community to take collective responsibility and implement the revised International Health Regulations (IHR) in 2005. The eradication of Ebola emphasised the need for enh

Australia’s diplomatic COVID-19 self-isolation 11 May 2020 Author: Editorial Board, ANU Australia’s domestic response to the COVID-19 health and economic crisis has brought plaudits at home and from around the world, especially from commentators in the United States. Key to Australian success in suppressing the spread of the virus at home was the rein given to top medical and epidemiological professionals soon after the threat became clear. Australia, by virtue of its motorised urban culture, its geography, the season and its medical research and clinical capacities, had some natural defences on call. There’s no doubt that high levels of interpersonal contact with China and the United States made it vulnerable to early spread of COVID-19. That was relatively quickly contained. Australian political leadership deferred to medical advice and, apart from a lapse in control around the  Ruby Princess cruise ship affair , it’s the medical advice that has largely called the shots in containing

Facing the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression 11 May 2020 Authors: Yves Tiberghien, UBC, Alan S Alexandroff, University of Toronto and Colin Bradford, Brookings Three months into the COVID-19 crisis, the world is not only facing a pandemic that keeps claiming lives, but also the greatest economic crisis since the 1930s. Growth has turned negative, unemployment keeps rising, trade is collapsing, capital flows are fleeing emerging markets, and remittances are falling. It is impossible to know if this shock to our interdependent system will fade away in a ‘V-shape’ recovery by 2021 or break critical components in the global architecture. What we do know is this: the collective actions of systemically important players and international institutions will determine whether the international system bounces back from this crisis. The field of international political economy has taught observers two key lessons over the years: the global economic system is prone to different s

Tracing the problems with Singapore’s COVID-19 app 9 May 2020 Author: Howard Lee, Murdoch University The Singapore government won international acclaim for its deft handling of the COVID-19 crisis in its early months. The country was  praised  for its ability to activate an efficient contact tracing system to track down possible cases and implement strict quarantine measures to reduce community infection. The initial low rate of infection, coupled with the quick closure of borders to COVID-19 hotspots around the world, prompted Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to declare that the virus was  under control  in Singapore. He also elevated Singapore as a  model  for other nations to follow. The government introduced ‘TraceTogether’, a mobile phone app developed by the Government Technology Agency (GovTech) to enhance contract tracing efforts. It used what the government dubbed the ‘ bluetrace protocol ’ — technology leveraging the Bluetooth feature on mobile phones to track proxi

9 May 2020 Author: Kazuhiko Togo, Kyoto Sangyo University In 2019 Japan–ROK relations were their worst since the normalisation of diplomatic relations in 1965. Historical memory  haunts  the two countries and the wartime forced-labour issue played a significant role in their recent trade dispute. So far, the COVID-19 crisis has not had a big impact on the rigid relationship. But South Korean success and Japanese failure in dealing with COVID-19 might open a tiny window of opportunity to renew cooperation and establish a more trustworthy relationship between the two countries. In his speech to commemorate the Korean independence movement on 1 March 2020, ROK President Moon Jae-in made a strong plea to the South Korean people to overcome the COVID-19 crisis. He also  mentioned  working with Japan to overcome the crisis jointly and ‘establish future-oriented cooperative relations’. In this speech, Moon’s rebuking of Japan’s 1910 annexation of Korea has been more moderate than his predeces

        3 April 2020 Migrants and Refugees Migrants and refugees hosted at UN-run reception centres in Bosnia-Herzegovina, are learning to cope with the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. “We fled from home to save our lives, to escape war, and now we are faced with this new  coronavirus ”, says Rozhan, Along with her husband, Ibrahim, and her three children, she made a long and arduous journey from Iraq, her home country, to Bosnia-Herzegovina in Europe. The family are hosted at the Borići reception centre in Bihać, managed by UN Migration ( IOM ) along with 315 other migrants and refugees, who have escaped conflict and violence in countries including Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria.