U.S., China Must Cooperate on Covid-19; Gates, Ma Should Facilitate
Apr 30-The U.S. and China must cooperate on fighting Covid-19, along with other leading nations, including India and the UK on vaccine manufacturing and development, respectively, Germany and S Korea with testing and tracing, etc.
Ideally such cooperation should be on a government-to-government basis. The front-line scientists and healthcare workers fighting Covid-19 would gladly cooperate across national borders, if allowed to do so, they currently share critical information much more quickly through treatment and vaccine trials, papers, conference calls, etc.
But if the U.S. and China governments are unwilling to greatly increase such cooperation against Covid-19, then humanity can’t wait for its political leaders to catch up to and deal with 21st century global realities.
I would suggest that Bill Gates, 64, and Jack Ma, 55, and their respective foundations must take the lead in calling for and facilitating such global cooperation, starting with the two together sponsoring a virtual Covid-19 conference within the next two weeks focused on global cooperation.
I apologize for putting those two private sector leaders on the spot like this, but the two of them playing that historically necessary role seems to me simply the logical conclusion from what Gates himself wrote in the opening paragraph of his April 23 GatesNotes, my bold emphasis added:
“The coronavirus pandemic pits all of humanity against the virus. The damage to health, wealth, and well-being has already been enormous. This is like a world war, except in this case, we’re all on the same side. Everyone can work together to learn about the disease and develop tools to fight it. I see global innovation as the key to limiting the damage. This includes innovations in testing, treatments, vaccines, and policies to limit the spread while minimizing the damage to economies and well-being.”
Gates now simply has to take his own thought about “global innovation as the key to limiting the damage” to its logical conclusion in helping to pull together an international effort for such global innovation, beyond what he is already doing, e.g. on vaccine development and manufacturing. He should try to do so in conjunction with the Trump administration, if at all possible.
In fact, Trump, 73, asked Gates to be his science adviser in 2018. Trump should do so again, and this time Gates should seriously consider accepting due to the Covid-19 Crisis. According to press reports yesterday, the Trump administration is looking to accelerate the development of Covid-19 vaccines in an “Operation Warp Speed,” here and here.
Trump should invite Gates to work with that effort, with Gates’ Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) getting involved. Gates should put his global recognition and credibility behind global cooperation, as should Dr. Anthony Fauci, 79, together they would have enormous global influence that even Trump could not ignore.
As should Jack Ma, the co-founder of Alibaba, who like Gates is a seminal historical figure of his era and nation. Ma represents to China its coming of age as a digital technology leader, as Gates did decades earlier in the U.S. Ma is also a member of China’s ruling CCP, so hopefully like Gates has major credibility with his own government leaders.
Gates’ note was focused on “The scientific advances we need to stop COVID-19.” Those of course are critical, but equally critical are the advances needed in the ability of governments to effectively marshal their enormous resources, as Gates has often noted is absolutely necessary, which has not been done in the U.S., see my April 27 article “Covid-19 Exposes Dysfunctional U.S. Political System; Missed “Sputnik Moment”” for my critical view of this.
Once the world sees the huge benefits of global co-operation in fighting Covid-19, such co-operation will also become the 21st century template for other critical issues, including climate change and economic development.
Fighting Covid-19 will become the equivalent in this era to the global co-operation during and after WW II, including the creation of the Bretton Woods system and institutions, which led to decades of peaceful rapid economic development, with more equal distribution of income/wealth.
It will further strengthen those global institutions, which the Trump administration has weakened, and broaden their governance to take into account the new global power situation, which China favors. Cooperation on Covid-19 will resuscitate the image of capitalism and globalization, especially among younger generations.
U.S. and China cooperation on Covid-19 will also start to decelerate the escalating cold war between the two superpowers, and in that respect differ from the “space race” of the 1960s between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, hopefully leading to further global co-operation on disarmament and terrorism.
It will also help to de-escalate Trump’s trade/tech war against China. Rather, once the benefits of global cooperation on Covid-19 is seen, the U.S. and China can then discuss cooperating on global economic development, which will be necessary to pull the global economy out of its Covid-19 doldrums once the disease is defeated, otherwise, there could be years of slow global growth, resulting in far more unnecessary deaths and suffering.
That focus should be on the development of India, which is next in line to be a global economic locomotive, after China has played that role for the past twenty years, especially since the 2008 Great Financial Crisis, and on Africa and Latin America, eventually forever eradicating the scourge of global poverty, as China has so admirably done within its own country.
China’s Xi, 66, has often articulated a somewhat similar vision of global economic development. So both China and the U.S. must not now fall into the trap of looking at Covid-19 like a zero-sum war, with winners and losers. E.g., the U.S. wins, China loses, if it develops a vaccine first, or vice versa. Etc.
That would be a huge mistake, and must be avoided in the U.S., which must not waste this historic opportunity to make the 21st century one of global peace and development. As Gates wrote in the concluding paragraph of his April 23 Washington Post op-ed, my bold emphasis added:
“World War II was the defining moment of my parents’ generation. Similarly, the coronavirus pandemic — the first in a century — will define this era.”
Make America and World Awesome, MAWA
John Furlan
Photo credit. cnbc.com
