Global Interdependence Strengthened by the Pandemic while Narrow Self-protection Concept Abandoned

Jin Jiyong,

Vice Dean of School of International Relations and Public Affairs,Shanghai Foreign Studies University

The COVID-19 outbreak was declared a pandemic in Geneva by Tedros A.Ghebreyesus, the director general of World Health Organization on March 11. As of Thursday, the novel coronavirus has infected nearly 130,000 people in 114 countries and regions, killing about 4300 people. Facing sudden emergence of the epidemic,some countries regard nationalism as a barrier against the pandemic, global cooperation against the epidemic is challenged, and others take the opportunity to sing elegy to the globalization. But meantime, the epidemic outbreak has also made more countries and people recognize the importance of global coordination and multilateral cooperation. In response to the"global pandemic outbreak",the international community should launch a multilateral cooperation to combat the epidemic.

Since outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic, some countries have shown a strong tendency of "self-protection". For example, when asked about the prepared response to the epidemic in the United States, President Trump said, "now, what we have done is we have blocked non-U.S.citizens from entering the United States from China; the U.S. Government trade advisor asked "all U.S. pharmaceutical companies to evacuate from China". There are also some countries that prohibit export of their protective equipments. Currently,some European countries have also intercepted masks for neighboring countries,which has also led to some diplomatic disputes. Under the influence of these nationalistic and selfish practices,the global anti-epidemic cooperation also faces challenges. Having played an effective leadership role in global health and highly praised for its role, the WHO has also been adversely affected by these actions, for example the WHO suggests that various countries should not take excessively restrictive measures, and calls on them to fully share clinical cases data, while individual governments try to "politicize"the epidemic outbreak, and turn a deaf ear to these warnings and appeals.

Despite these challenges, the WHO remains the most important multilateral mechanism in global health governance and has played a crucial role in the global response to pandemic outbreak.By giving full play to its professional and technical authority and neutrality, WHO timely shares epidemic outbreak information, as well as diagnosis and preventive and control measures with the international community; WHO also uses its emergency projects to provide assistance to Iran and countries with poor public health capacity in Africa,support the weakest link in global epidemic control, and strive to avoid the risk of epidemic control falling into the"tragedy of global commons"; in order to increase the attention and speed of action of some countries, WHO after careful consideration, has declared the novel coronavirus pneumonia outbreak the"global pandemic". The WHO outstanding prominent role in the epidemic control also shows that, facing the pandemic, it is the most urgent task to provide global public health products through multilateralism.

There are three ways to supply global public health products: hegemonic supply,global multilateral supply and regional multilateral supply. With the weakening of American hegemony and the resurgence of isolationism, the United States is neither able nor willing to adopt the way of hegemonic supply. The Trump-proposed 2021 budget cuts the U.S. emergency spending on the WHO by 53%, which fully demonstrates this. Presently, what we can rely on is mainly the global multilateralism and the regional multilateralism.

Currently,a sound international political atmosphere is needed to maintain the multilateral supply of global public health products. On the occasion that community of a shared future for human health and security is facing serious threats, various countries need to shelve disputes and jointly safeguard the authority of the global multilateral health mechanism, so as to meet the challenges of global multilateral supply. After the COVID-19 outbreak,China has timely shared the epidemic and virus information with the WHO and various countries,and decided to donate US$20 million to the WHO to support its emergency response projects, which fully shows China's pursuit of global multilateralism. On February 24, the European Union announced an urgent input of 230 million euros to support the global anti-epidemic efforts, of which 114 million euros will be used to support the WHO's global emergency action plan so as to enhance the public health emergency response capacity of countries with weak health systems.

In addition, we should improve the decision-making publicity and income distribution publicity of public health products supply. In this respect, the global governance concept of"extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits" advocated by China coincides with it, which can provide a reference for the regional multilateralism supply of public health products. In 2017, China and WHO signed the Belt and Road Health Cooperation Memorandum, so as to improve health safety of various countries along the routes of the Belt and Road. East Asian countries have held eight consecutive meetings of China, Japan, South Korea and ASEAN ministers of health, focusing on infectious diseases; on February 20, 2020,11 foreign ministers of China and ASEAN held a special meeting on jointly combating new coronavirus pneumonia outbreak;China has also launched joint prevention and control projects on infectious diseases with countries in the Lancang -Mekong River region. China has also created conditions for the multilateral supply of global public health products through regional multilateral mechanisms, including BRICS and Group 20.

In a word, in the era of global"interdependence because of pandemic",various countries need to abandon the narrow concept of"only minding ones own business in defiance of others sufferings",and really join hands. The only way to promote global and regional health security is to build a community with a shared future for health security and to take multilateralism as the guiding principle.