Using the US-China competition during COVID-19 as an example, assess how great power rivalry influences the security of those states, organizations, and people caught in between. Is this influence positive or negative?

The rivalry between the United States of America and the People's Republic of China is something that has been going on for decades. One is the greatest power in the west and another one in the east. The clash between two of these countries is still in effect despite the ongoing pandemic (Coronavirus). This tragedy is not only affecting their bilateral relations but also other big institutions and organizations such as the World health organization, World trade organization, etc which are being affected due to their competitive strategies in these pandemic times. Being said the world power, influence, and co-operation of these two nations were necessary. However, That could not happen and due to that, millions of people were affected by that. Somewhat, these two countries have started taking the initiative to work on a global level and tackle and recovered from this pandemic but still, their political conflicts, internally as well as externally are there which is not only making their countries relations at risk but also other factors such as people, organization and states stuck between their conflicts. The US-CHINA relationship is currently at the worst point in decades since they normalized this in 1979 by giving each other diplomatic recognition. There is no blaming the pandemic in this matter but the internal political inefficacy of both of the countries to work together and seek co-operation on the crisis. In the initial stage, where cases were significantly rising all over the world with more than millions of people being Covid positive, both countries tried taking an initiative regarding this matter. Furthermore, a lot of facilities were being made along the lines of beds, hospitals, Covid testing points, helpline services, vaccine programs, etc. However, the work that had been done was within their own countries, not on a global level. China, which has been officially a member of the World Trade Organization for a very long time now, has still restricted its domestic market from other countries. In the last decade, China has seen almost an annual growth of 7-8% and its economy has doubled up since then. Furthermore, China has a huge domestic market. With a population of more than 1. 4 Billion people, domestic consumption has pushed the economy forward a lot in these last few years. Making it in citizens' interest, China’s modernization program has seen a large economical growth in fighting poverty and improvement of the people for literally 1/5th of the population. Although China has opened its gates for foreign investment but still restricts and blocks direct investment in the country. Bilateral trade between both countries has not been stable for a very long time and is still in decline due to their political conflicts. As we know, the Chinese economy works way different from what other societies do. Although before the pandemic, it had been seen and there was a long debate going on whether the United States and Chinese economies has grown too interdependent which would cause a threat to supply chains, jobs to Americans, and a matter of national security but as the pandemic came, not only the United States but many countries realized their dependency on China as China was the main exporter of pharma products, face masks, Personal protective equipment kits, and other corona healthcare products. Now, Taking the Huawei controversy into consideration, where the United States of America and its other allies alleged Huawei of being the backdoor surveillance for the Chinese government, we can see how debates turned from technology to health care supplies affects one’s economy. Moreover, a trade deal was signed between the two of these countries to improve relations between them after nearly a two-year trade war. The deal was to relax some US tariffs on the Chinese goods which were being imported to the United States and China to buy an additional $200 billion worth of American goods which included products from agriculture, technology, and other sectors for over two years. This deal left the Europeans a bit left out as China was now more focused on buying goods from the United States of America than the European Union. However, This deal faced a kind of turbulence due to their after pandemic ‘’cold war mentality’’ and which left China being far short of its trade agreement. The deal was for fair trade and relations between two countries but as time passed, trade between these countries became worse and worse not only between both of the countries but on an international level too. In Donald Trump’s presidency, there has been a challenging competition between these two countries but it took a basic arc towards making the relationship more weakened due to the Trump administration's aggressive efforts to disengage China from their economy. From the initial wave of corona till the last day of Donald Trump's presidency, we had seen the United States of America’s global strength weakening due to unready efforts to tackle these hard times. There was a blame game about how China is responsible for the entire pandemic and just pointing fingers at each other for the consequences. Internal investigations were made in both countries and many organizations were working for that matter. Of course, the root of this crisis was important but there were a lot of other things that were way more important than just blaming each other for the crisis. Many kids lost their parents, many parents lost their kids, people lost their loved ones due to this crisis. Sure, efforts were being made to recover from this but if both the countries worked together instead of playing the blame game, millions of people would have been saved. It did not just affect their domestic level but on a global platform too. The World health organization, which is responsible for international public health, involved in vaccine campaigns, supporting countries in primary care during hard times, was being accused of mismanagement and covering up the spread of the Coronavirus which led to their Trump’s administration to stop US funding for the organization. It is still unknown to us whether the World Health Organization covered up the cases or not. What we know is, a lot of people were suffering due to the pandemic, and stopping funding for an organization that is made for international public health, obviously seems a bit upsetting. It was not just the world health organization that got affected due to their rivalry but also their thwarted actions at G-7 and United Nations council about organizing a different alternative to China's belt and road investment and criticizing China straight up for the pandemic. Before the Pandemic, there was competition between both of the countries over the future of international order. That includes various rules and regulations which govern International politics. As China was seen rising, the US worried that we would overlap the current components of the international order which led them to criticize China’s weakening spots such as their norms over human rights in China and other laws to put them at a disadvantage. This led China to think about its position in the international order and how there is little space to be in the interest of the international order. After the Corona outbreak and controlling the covid situation in their own country, China started putting out medical supply support to other countries in response to covid-19. As China was becoming more assertive towards this situation and becoming more of a political model, the US became more focused on blocking China out of the game. Therefore, the US started calling it a ‘’Chinese virus’’ or ‘’wuhan virus’’ which led not only Chinese officials but even the citizens of China a bit angry towards this behavior which led to destroying the pathway of international cooperation between the countries and their allies. Having said that, China’s response to these events was made by a different approach also known as ‘’wolf warrior diplomacy’’. Now, wolf warrior was an action movie released in 2015 about a group of troops from the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) to battle foreign mercenaries. This approach shows how Chinese diplomacy is so combative and confrontational. It’s not much taken up by foreign policymakers in China because it does reflect their current diplomacy. Now, with the outbreak of coronavirus and other countries criticizing China over this matter, China used this approach to make their people on more of a nationalism side and stand up for support for the country even after facing a decline in the economy in their country. With regards to this, this may have worked in the country of China but had an opposite reaction towards this on an international level. This diplomacy, again caused some issues in US-China relations as China stated a woman from the United States of America was being sent to Wuhan to make this outbreak happen, which led the United States Of America to go for an eye to eye response too. In recent events, China announced its cooperation with the global society to tackle the pandemic in these hard times by supplying additional 1 billion vaccine doses to countries in need. Having said that, Cooperation from the United States of America has taken place as the US President announced sending vaccines as well to other countries which is a step ahead considering that the Ex-president said it straight forward that for him, it's an ‘’America first’’ policy. In total, China has exported more than 2 Billion vaccine doses whereas the US has donated around 150 million doses to this date. We can see there has been an initiative to tackle this pandemic from both sides which is a good thing but at the same time, if there wouldn't have been a space for internal politics at the starting of the pandemic and more towards the development and social work of people in need, we wouldn't be seeing these many active cases and deaths in the present. China has rejected its ‘’cold war mentality’’ and now has taken an initiative for cooperation as their geopolitical tension arises. Anger between the two countries is obviously for a reason but it should not be at the cost of people. In matters like these, there is no right or wrong. The only thing that matters is the partnership between each other to get over this pandemic as soon as possible and keep their other differences aside. Instead of their political conflicts, they should have worked on their vaccine programs together, mass manufacturing of vaccines to the global network and especially to the countries in need and to preserve the global trade for more efficient going. A lot has happened in these last two years and corona is still in place. The only thing that is going to help in this hard crisis is coordination and cooperation between the countries for a faster and speedy recovery. As both countries are renewed and admired as a global leaders.