Economics & Business Archive

China has made concerted attempts recently to rewrite the global narrative about the coronavirus pandemic, especially its own lack of transparency about the early outbreak in Wuhan, in order to project an image of itself as a responsible global power. It has shipped medical supplies to help countries around the world contain the virus’s spread, and has launched a far-reaching disinformation campaign about the origins of the contagion and China’s response to it. Europe has been at the heart of these efforts. Chinese state media outlets have insinuated that Italy was the source of the novel coronavirus, while Beijing has […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. In the latest sign of an escalating campaign in Washington to pin the blame for the coronavirus pandemic on China, President Donald Trump’s administration is weighing aggressive economic action against Beijing. Facing criticism for his disastrous response to COVID-19 in the U.S., Trump has elevated China to the forefront of his reelection bid, claiming that it bears all responsibility for the coronavirus outbreak and the economic devastation it has wrought. In a Fox News town hall on Sunday, Trump […]

After months of living under strict lockdowns, many people have grown accustomed to scenes that once would have been utterly surreal, like normally busy highways and thoroughfares suddenly emptied of vehicles. Photographers around the world have documented how wild animals are reclaiming national parks in the absence of human visitors. Atmospheric researchers have documented dramatic declines in air pollution. All of this will simply be a temporary salve for the environment if the economy comes roaring back, business as usual, once the public health threat recedes. But it could also be the beginning of a new normal, a transition point […]

New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, declared victory against her country’s coronavirus outbreak last week. “There is no widespread undetected community transmission in New Zealand,” she announced, as COVID-19 had “currently” been eliminated from the country. New Zealand’s director-general of health, Ashley Bloomfield, echoed the prime minister, saying that the continued downward trend in new infections “does give us confidence that we have achieved our goal of elimination.” The country of 5 million people has confirmed around 1,200 cases of COVID-19 and 20 deaths so for, and recorded no new infections earlier this week. New Zealand ranks among the world’s […]

The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the entire world—but in vastly different ways. In particular, efforts to “flatten the curve” could create huge but unquantified costs for the most vulnerable. As a result of measures to contain the coronavirus’s spread, the specter of “biblical” hunger now hangs over much of the globe. At the same time, social distancing strategies remain an unattainable mirage for the hundreds of millions of people living in crowded quarters in the developing world. For fragile and conflict-affected countries, the pandemic represents a grim, dual challenge that risks threatening a precious good: peace. Many of these countries […]

The ultimate cost of the coronavirus pandemic won’t be tallied for a while. But one casualty seems obvious now: sustainable development. The pandemic has exposed the world’s failure to meet basic human needs, not least in health. Worse, it threatens to erase recent social, economic and environmental progress, particularly among the world’s most vulnerable populations. Pundits frequently describe the coronavirus as a “great equalizer,” reinforcing the message that “we’re all in this together.” In truth, the pandemic is reinforcing the brutal inequality that separates the world’s privileged and marginalized communities. Five years ago, U.N. member states endorsed the Sustainable Development […]

In late March, as many governments were enforcing lockdowns and restrictions on movement to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro posted a series of videos to social media that showed him strolling around a crowded marketplace near Brasilia. In one clip, Bolsonaro questioned the quarantine measures that were being implemented by local and regional officials in Brazil, which now has the second-worst outbreak of COVID-19 in the Western Hemisphere, with more than 87,000 confirmed cases and 6,000 deaths. He also touted the benefits of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, despite a lack of scientific evidence that it […]

Just months after reports emerged of a novel coronavirus spreading in central China, our world, and all of our individual worlds, have been transformed by what has become a terrifying pandemic. What can governments, other global actors and individuals do survive the crisis and navigate the new world beyond it? We have yet to see an international response that matches the scale of the threat because the outbreak has hit at a time when the international order’s immune system is badly compromised.

In this week’s editors’ discussion on Trend Lines, WPR’s Judah Grunstein, Freddy Deknatel and Prachi Vidwans talk about the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the strategic competition between the U.S. and China, and whether the current tensions between Washington and Beijing over the origins of the outbreak will have a lasting impact on bilateral ties. Listen: Download: MP3 Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | Spotify Relevant Articles on WPR:COVID-19 Could Reignite Trump’s Trade War With China Why the Coronavirus Pandemic Won’t Lead to a New World OrderBeware of China’s Coronavirus PropagandaIn Israel, Netanyahu Outplays His Political Opponents, Again‘In Many […]