When we emerge from the coronavirus pandemic, we may find that
elements of international relations have changed dramatically. The US
trade relationship with China is one example; Iran’s regime is
another.
Andrew A. Michta, writing at The American
Interest, has
this to say about China:
Should the fallout from the Wuhan Virus prove to be as
damaging as it looks like it might be, the first casualty should be
China’s quest to become the premier manufacturing center for the
world. Few corporations will want to again risk being caught in a
situation where their entire supply chain has been locked into one
country—much less a palpably hostile dictatorship. The subsequent era
will, I hope, be one of strategic reconsolidation, with a special
focus on onshoring critical supply chains that have been moved to
China. Even the siren song of potentially-vast consumer markets in
China may end up being more than offset by the trauma we are about to
face.
Shadi Hamid at The Atlantic also lays
the blame squarely on China:
The political scientist Andrew Michta has
drawn controversy and accusations of racism for stating what any
measured overview of the evidence makes clear. “The question about
assigning agency and blame is pretty straightforward to answer,” he writes in The
American Interest. The Chinese state, he says, is culpable.
But is this a time for blame? Yes, it is. Accounting for
responsibility when a disaster happens—particularly one likely to
devastate entire countries, leaving thousands dead—is not beside the
point, particularly as Chinese officials move to take advantage of the
crisis and launch a disinformation
campaign claiming that the US Army introduced the virus.
Iran is the
third hardest-hit country in this pandemic, behind only China and
Italy. Today the death toll in Iran neared 1,300. Dozens of members of
the regime are sick, the health care system is overwhelmed, and the
theocratic dictatorship that rules the country is losing legitimacy.
Could this bring long-term change to Iran? Ilan
Berman, writing at National Review, raises
that possibility:
Soaring inflation. Deepening domestic discontent. An expanding
environmental crisis. Even before the outbreak of the novel
coronavirus in recent weeks, the Iranian regime was struggling under
the weight of domestic problems that increasingly threatened to
undermine the integrity of the Islamic Republic. With the advent of
COVID-19, however, matters have become much, much worse for the
Iranian regime — so much so that it isn’t unreasonable to think that
the Iranian regime could buckle under the weight of its own internal
contradictions.
Noah Blum at Tablet adds:
The real scope of Iran’s COVID-19 outbreak has not yet become
clear, and it remains to be seen whether the ayatollahs can maintain
stability in the face of such a public health crisis, which has only
been made worse by the theocratic regime’s totalitarian tactics,
whiplash policies, and the state of international isolation and
economic sanctions that it has brought on its own people by its
pursuit of nuclear weapons, development of ballistic missiles, threats
against neighboring and regional countries, and genocidal warfare in
Syria—policies that the regime is continuing even as it buries its own
people in open pits.
