by Xinhua writer Gao Wencheng
BEIJING, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Amid the ravaging COVID-19 pandemic, about 300,000 people have lost their lives, countless businesses and factories have shut doors, cross-border personnel exchanges have almost ground to a halt, and the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s is looming large.
This unprecedented tumultuous situation has exposed the shortcomings in the current world order.
While a more effective global governance system is needed more than ever in this age of growing multipolarity, economic globalization and rising non-conventional security challenges, the United States, the world's sole superpower, has become the biggest stumbling block for a better world order.
Since coming to power, the incumbent U.S. administration has repeatedly undermined the UN system and turned increasingly hostile towards multilateralism.
It has exited the Paris climate accord, quitted the Iran nuclear deal, and left the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization paralyzed.
Most recently, this White House decided to defund the World Health Organization (WHO), the only global health coordinator the international community can count on for guidance in the global pandemic fight.
The United Nations and its family agencies, an important pillar of the existing world order the United States has helped build in the post-war years, have played a critical role over the decades in mitigating conflicts, facilitating humanitarian relief, reducing poverty and hunger, and championing free trade and sustainable development. The UN system is not perfect, but it is still irreplaceable in building up global consensuses and coordinating global efforts to fix global problems.
Washington should abandon its unilateral foreign policy approach, and give more, not less, support to the United Nations so that the world body can better fulfill its role. The most immediate thing the United States should do is to reinstate its funding for the WHO.
Meanwhile, this White House has tried to shrug off its due global responsibilities in terms of providing its fair share of global public goods.
Harvard professor and long-time world politics expert Joseph Nye coined the term "The Kindleberger Trap" to warn that an under-provision of global public goods from the world's major countries could bring disastrous consequences for the world.
In the current pandemic fight, the United States has not only failed to inspire a collective global drive to bear down the deadly pathogen, but become the world's epicenter in the pandemic.
Moreover, it has refused to acknowledge its own mishandling of the outbreak, launched a smear campaign against China and the WHO to shift blames, and refused to respond to the WHO's call for a global initiative to develop treatments and vaccines, which are the very public goods the world needs most urgently.
The United States has also abused its influence in the Bretton Woods institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, pillar bodies of the current global governance system, for its own gains.
Last month, Bloomberg and other U.S. media outlets reported that the U.S. administration planned to block Iran's 5-billion-U.S.-dollar emergency loan request from the IMF. U.S. magazine Forbes commented that the IMF has become a new battleground for Washington and Tehran.
Over the years, Washington has also been obstructive in pushing forward some of the long-awaited yet long-stalled reforms to those major global financial bodies.
Take the IMF for example. According to the multilateral lender, emerging and developing economies have contributed more than 80 percent of global growth since the 2008 financial crisis. However, their voting share in the organization is less than half, while the United Stats holds a de facto veto on any crucial decision the IMF can make.
As countries worldwide are facing the laborious challenge to rejuvenate economic growth after the coronavirus pandemic, they need financial assistance to jumpstart their recovery. The developing countries' lack of an adequate say in those global lending bodies will very likely make their funding challenge even harder.
Therefore, a major reform is to increase the voting share of developing countries and emerging economies so as to better reflect their legitimate rights to development and modernization. And Washington should facilitate this much needed change.
There is no doubt that the raging coronavirus pandemic will alter the world in one way or another. This is something no one can change. However, what still can be done is that all countries collectively make the post-pandemic world a better place for all. In a world where everyone's interests are closely entangled, decision-makers in Washington have every reason to join the rest of the international community in delivering that better future for humanity. Enditem
