System Rivalry during Pandemic Times: A Political Economy View of Great Power Vaccine Diplomacy

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has turbocharged world history while ravaging global populations. From digital transformations of work and education, to development, clinical testing and distribution of new vaccines in unprecedented timeframes, adapting to the virus has driven structural shifts at breakneck speed when viewed historically. Perhaps one of the most significant structural shifts the pandemic has accelerated is the growing geopolitical and economic tensions between China and the U.S., with some asking whether it marks the end of U.S. hegemony as leader of the post-war liberal international order (Lake, Martin, & Risse 2021; Norrlöf, 2020). Much of the tensions revolve around claims that China’s model of state capitalism gives it unfair competitive advantages against liberal capitalist economies. China’s trading partners, and most vocally the U.S., increasingly argue the country is not meeting its WTO obligations (Bown & Hillman, 2019; Zhou, Gao, & Bai, 2019). Economic competition between the U.S. and China in particular, has invoked the view that we are entering a new Cold War type conflict (Karaganov, 2018; Westad, 2019; M. Zhao, 2019). The pandemic has only added heat to pre-existing tensions, with Bahi arguing: ‘The health crisis amplified the competitive dynamics between the USA and China, affected the provision of global public goods and injected instability into the global order’ (Bahi, 2021, p. 1). As economies seek to recover from the economic consequences of the pandemic, trade tensions stemming from different capitalist systems are becoming geopolitical flashpoints that have the potential to intensify and threaten economic recovery (Bahi, 2021). This chapter will assesses how growing economic and geopolitical competition is impacting public good provision through proxy competition between China and the U.S. waged through ‘vaccine diplomacy’ (S. Zhao, 2021). Renewed state-to-state systemic competition between the two largest economies today will have an important effect on the overall ability of the world to combat COVID-19, as well as recover economically from the detrimental economic effects of lockdowns, which will in turn impact countries’ future ability to manage a major health crises. There is a pressing need to understand the nature of these tensions if policies for attenuating Sino-Western tensions are to be devised.