Dr. Achut Gautam

There is no evidence to even suggest that the eagerness of G7 to find a global solution to the present health crisis was fairly met with its financial capability as contributing 1 billion doses of vaccines over a period of one year is nowhere close to addressing the pandemic of a means of immediate relief. The club’s growing ineffectiveness was obvious during the 2008 global financial crisis, a period which had revealed its inefficiencies and shortages in its capability to meet challenges of global order.
With four million global deaths on record, the COVID-19 pandemic still lingers on and incessantly confronts the very core of human mind, tests the depths of scientific knowledge and questions the human capability. Nearly two years is a lot, yet cornered in a desperate situation and limited to playing catch-ups with ever-surging new variants, the only source of hope are the vaccines. Yet, the two of the largest economies are at loggerheads amidst this global crisis. With President Donald Trump gone, G7 meeting finished, President Biden has tried to show to the world that the US is back for business and ready to lead. He was indubitably looking forward towards a grand finale of the summit ending in commitments of rock-solid consensus from all of the other members, however, this didn’t happen.
The US perceptions on China have premised on the strength and potentials of China at present and years down the road to questioning US dominance and its global monopoly in geopolitics. China is not a security threat rather a political and economic contender of might which now is mightier than the Soviet Union and equal to that of Japan, India, Germany and the UK combined. China’s growth, therefore, is likely to question the global hegemony of the US.
In simple words, the US-China rivalry resembles a competition between two of the most outstanding football teams in the entire history of mankind for primacy. The rest, which follows, is mostly a blame game! The binary view of pitching the competition as good vs. bad or democracy vs. autocracy, etc. are merely out-dated cosmetic arguments. As we all saw, the Cold War hype was an unwanted proposition at the G7, many believe Europe understands and remembers history well.
Since the inception of G 6 in 1975, the world has changed. With the contribution of one third the global GDP and barely a 10 per cent of the globe’s demographic representation, the G7 of today has little legitimacy of what it does. Interestingly, the shift of the G7 from its mantra of the management of global economy including promoting international aid to periodic lavish meetings of ritual order ending with tick-in-the-box culture have in fact added to the erosion of significance attached of this club. Many would even argue whether the G7 had a future from yesterday.

Challenges
At the G7 four outstanding and characteristic challenges were presented by the US, which needed to be countered urgently by the group. These challenges were related to China and not the raving pandemic! In other words, the US, G7 and NATO members were the good guys and China the bad one. Of those challenges, the first one was to create an alternative plan (B3W) to counter the Belt and Road Initiative, second was to support the US-led investigation of the of the COVID-19 outbreak, and the third and the fourth were the Taiwan and the Hong Kong issues, respectively.
All would agree that the COVID-19 pandemic associated deaths and human sufferings should have been the motivating factors for the seven rich countries, and subsequently the geopolitical contestation with China should have been called off as brains, resources, and strategies, including that of China’s, need to be streamlined globally to deal with the global health crisis more effectively.
Pan American Health Organisation reports that countries, including the El Salvador, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, are being exclusively supplied by China. The US has not yet shown its presence in the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines in the continent. Is the anti-China drive slowing down the US and its leadership? Similarly, last year while Washington was trumpeting an “America first” response to the pandemic, The Guardian writes, “Beijing was making high-profile deals to trial, produce and sell vaccines in Latin America, deep inside the US’s traditional sphere of influence.”
In the G7 meeting, kick-starting the “America is ready to lead” initiative through the geopolitical strategy of cooperation to fight the pandemic would have been the superior choice for President Biden because the ideals of social justice and human rights invoke the idea of equitable distribution of vaccines and it is the global obligation of the US as well as China to guarantee these rights as two of the world’s largest economies.
For example, G7’s commitment of 1 billion doses by the next year is too little and too late against the WHO’s estimated 11 billion doses required. The richest countries in Cornwall with a combined 48 per cent of the global GDP, could have certainly accomplished a lot, but never made it close. Instead the meeting’s two-fold achievements were, firstly, the issuing of the shared communiqué and secondly, telling the world that China was unwanted in any of the decisions made.
According to the WHO, only 0.5 per cent of the vaccine doses have gone to the lowest income countries accounting for 10 per cent of the world’s population. China has donated 400 million doses of vaccines to more than 90 countries, according to Xinhua News. At the same time, The Washington Post writes that Members of US Congress and regional experts emphasise that the administration needs to catch up with China and getting vaccines to Latin America urgently. It would, without doubt, be healthier if the rivalry is replaced with cooperation. The end results surely would be better and quickly attained too, instead of disquiet and unease being exported from Washington.
Of the total doses of the vaccines delivered in Africa, approximately one third of them are from the Chinese pharmaceuticals besides support extended by China on dealing with the novel coronavirus – all too good reasons for Africans to fall under the influence of the Chinese. In addition, the inward looking idea of “vaccine nationalism” is similar to the insular notions of “America first”. While the latter defined President Donald Trump’s US a year ago, the former has been the unsung story of western countries where vaccine nationalism pervades through political elites and augmented plutocracy while the rest of the world can only hope the virus confers mercy.

Good reasons
According to The Washington Post, China has repeatedly expressed belief that increasing healthcare capacities of African counties helps boost economic development and maintain stability. This certainly is the reason that Africa saw 21,000 Chinese doctors and nurses over the years. In milieu of the WHO warning that 2021 could be even worse than 2020, it is understood and for good reasons that anxiousness, uncertainty and fear have escalated among Africans; and when aid and support fly over from China, why look the other way?
Although seeking opportunities for bashing up opponents or bagging political gains among contesting states and geopolitical powers are not new in themselves, cooperating to fight the COVID-19 pandemic would have been by far the better and superiorly brilliant way of gaining additional legitimacy to their cause, and a sure means to re-establishing the eroding notions of global obligation and global responsibility, failing diplomacy has indeed died in this instance.
Furthermore, the COVID-19 era, according to The Washing Post has been a game changer, allowing China to stand out from the US, European Union and the UK. Now that local production of the Chinese vaccines has commenced in Africa, President Biden’s promise for an equitable vaccine distribution may not be an overstatement after all, since China has already begun implementing it, contributing to the fundamental idea of social justice and also to the ideals of human rights against the milieu of the global health crisis! The global pandemic has solidified Beijing’s medical networking capability in Africa, writes Lina Benabdallah in The Washington Post, as never seen before.

(Gautam is a researcher and political analyst. achut.gautam@gmail.com)