Major shift in global power dynamics "with Corona"
This is English ver. of original Japanese article posted below:
Changes in the international relations do not necessary lead to an immediate impact on our daily lives, but the shift is taken place more gradually from a medium- to long-term perspective. It is partly because of the field of study I majored in at university so that I found interesting. Yet I also feel that the changes in the international system where the United States has been leading the world for the past 30+ years since the end of the Cold War seems to be happening along with COVID-19 explosion.
By the way, what is International Relations? If you are not sure about it, please check out the following article first, as it is concisely written on the subject. (Sorry, Japanese only). For English ver., please find this link on Wikipedia.
As the article below shows, theories around the decline of U.S. hegemony have always been hot topics. This is probably because of the Cold War era against the Soviet Union, the subsequent rise of growing economic power such as Japan, and the deepening rift with China currently, which may be not only of economic size but also of an ideological conflict. At the same time, the Trump administration's U.S.-first mindset, the passive attitude toward human rights that can be seen in the BLM movement in the U.S., and the diplomatic stance represented by the confrontation between the United States and China have combined to create a situation in which the United States has led to decline the U.S.'s soft power in International Relation. Soft power is a concept in International Relations that the ability of one country to appeal and to persuade other countries about the attractiveness of its own country. Attractiveness often comes with the sharing of its own value with other countries.
On the other hand, China, emerging economic powerhouse, has increased its investment in hard power (i.e. military assets including nuclear weapons). However, with the enforcement of the National Security Law against Hong Kong, the territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas, territorial disputes with India and other countries, human rights issues for its ethnic minorities etc, China is taking a firm stance on these issues, and even the so-called "mask diplomacy," in which the Chinese government distributes facial masks at free of charge to other countries as a countermeasure against corona, has not been very successful. Thus, China's soft power does not seem to be increasing. In addition, because of the country's one-child policy, China has already passed the demographic dividend period, and is expected to start declining in its population in the near future. Given such situation, how much further the economy expansion will last from here on pose a big question for China, and the backbone of its hard-power (i.e. population and economy) may not be able to be counted on for much longer.
If we step back and look at international relations, one of fundamental elements is that the world is still run by people. Modern superpowers like both the U.S. and China have their large populations as well. In the aftermath of COVID-19 spread, some of the migrant workers in those countries have lost their jobs or returned to their home countries, hence the amount of remittance they sent back has dropped significantly in past few months. It is likely to observe that more of these migrant workers will either change their jobs or seek employment opportunities in their home countries.
Changes are happening steadily, and perhaps due to anticipation of these changes, or perhaps prompted by such changes, people also make their own moves accordingly. This could become a major shift in international relations.
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