Subterms
The escalating row between Washington and Beijing over blame for the coronavirus pandemic is fast becoming a battle over the Chinese Communist party’s legitimacy, raising the stakes in an already fraught relationship. In castigating Beijing for its failure to contain the outbreak, senior Trump administration officials have gone out of their way to portray the […] More
Senior Trump administration figures said to be demanding evidence on virus’s origins Coronavirus – latest updates See all our coronavirus coverage Donald Trump is under pressure with more than 1 million Americans infected and 60,000 dead from the virus. Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters Senior figures in the Trump administration have put pressure on US intelligence agencies […] More
A lot has changed since the first cases of COVID-19 were reported in Wuhan, China, in December last year. While much remains unknown about the new coronavirus, COVID-19 has since spread rapidly from its origin in China to every corner of the world except Antarctica. Unlike previous health crises such as SARS (severe acute respiratory […] More
Fear, in the globalized sense of the word, had largely dissipated ever since the height of the Cold War, when the world stood by as the two superpowers stared each other down with nuclear weapons. Largely absent since the days of brinkmanship seen during the Berlin Airlift and the Cuban Missile Crisis, the world has […] More
The current pandemic has led to the postponement of elections around the world. Over 75 countries have declared some kind of state of emergency. Several illiberal leaders, like Viktor Orban, have used the crisis to seize virtually unlimited powers. The Chinese model of full-spectrum clampdown has elicited praise across the political spectrum for its apparent effectiveness […] More
In more halcyon days, back in 1964, at a time when most popular music in America was still about idealized romantic love, radio stations across the US broadcast the sonorous voice of Dean Martin intoning the lyrics of a song composed 20 years earlier: “You’re nobody till somebody loves you, So find yourself somebody to […] More
A few days ago, President Donald Trump came out and announced that the United States was suspending its funding of the World Health Organization (WHO). Among the main reasons for his decision, Trump cited the WHO’s “mismanaging” of the spread of the epidemic and its heavy pro-China slant. The United States is the most important […] More
We are witnessing a period of great change in world politics. The old power structures still dominate daily politics but are no longer unchallenged. New ideas for a post-liberal order appear on the horizon. The world order has indubitably entered an “interregnum” where, as Antonio Gramsci wrote, the masses “no longer believe what they used […] More
