Globalization rethink

The novel coronavirus global pandemic not only hits the world on the health aspect but also imposed a profound impact on the world economy as well. As and when the virus situation subsides (hopefully it will) there will be a host of topics that the world must look into it so many people said our world is going to be a different one after the pandemic. Among the list of topics, one most talked about is the future development of the existing globalization setting.

Some people said the once flourish globalization is nearly destroyed overnight along with the onset of the outbreak. Alongside the lockdowns and shutdown on the national borders on many nations across the major continents human traffic, especially cross-border, literally came to a complete halt. Cargo traffic is equally hit as well because when lockdowns on cities as well as on some nations kicked in the production is unavoidably severely impacted. Globalization means production of all the parts within a product scattered throughout different countries, if not continents. The Domino effect further hammers the normal operation in production when one or some imported parts is out of stock due to the lockdowns. This is particularly true for those enterprises who practice JIT (Just in Time) inventory system. The world suddenly realizes that how fragile the existing system is so people can't help but just question whether we should keep the existing system running.

Naturally the concern on the stability issue arising from the logistic problem is quite valid. The view is rather monotone though. The argument rests mainly on economic which focuses on the disruption on production and the economic losses arising from it. Despite there are also some western countries have political concern that some strategic essentials which are now produced overseas. This raises the concern up to the national security level when supplies are interrupted just like what has happened on the face masks. Naturally it is almost for sure that governments around the world will raise an agenda for the procurement on such strategic essentials but after all, these items are just a very small fraction of the total world trade volume so the retreat of these items from the world trade will not pose a significant impact on the globalization status.

Perhaps before we go further on the assessment on the survival of globalization, a look back on how the globalization is born can help. Most people see globalization a rather modern thing meaning it happened quite lately. Many people relate it to the industrialization and the modern management theory of labour division. It is true that only after the industrial revolution that production mode changed from manually to inception of machinery so efficiency was gradually increased and so was the output. As the technologies advanced over time but not all countries progressed in the same pace and the same direction, some countries outperformed others in the production of some particular products so labour division emerged among nations and that was the background of the birth of globalization.

Nevertheless, industrialization and labour division just provided a breeding ground of globalization but they do not necessarily cultivate it without a key drive. There must be someone giving them a big push to facilitate the onset of globalization. In fact industrialization and labour division were something very revolutionary by themselves at their birth but they were just the means of the underlying end, ie., profit maximization. By the employment of sophisticated production technologies and having the products made in a low costs country yields the highest profit. Profit maximization is the ultimate goal, or the single goal, if a business must choose from. Yet this is the economic drive only.

In the earlier paragraph I mentioned that most people think that globalization is a rather contemporary concept but in fact perhaps it happened as earlier as in the heyday of the British Empire who was once described as the empire on which sun never sets. The Empire earned this title because she once had colonies where the sun would always shine on one of her colonies. She owned so many colonies not for fun but for profit maximization. People should remember that the Empire was the birthplace of the industrial revolution so she had the most state of the art machinery at that time. The Empire needed a great deal of raw materials for her production as well as a big market to dump her products made by the machinery. Naturally she did not have enough natural resources from her own soil of three islands only so the Royal Navy conquered those colonies which fed the Empire's appetite. On the other hand, the warships also opened up the market for her products in different continents. This is the globalization in true sense.

After the WII, the U.S. succeeded in replacing her mother to be an empire. "American Empire" exists in another form that it basically does not own colony but through its strong military muscle and the U.S. Dollar landscape the "Empire" has been ruling the world with even more (economic) colonies than her mother. Therefore the U.S. was, till this late decade, an hard core fan of globalization. People have heard her solid support on the globalization as well as free world trade over the past decades because these two advocates are the nutcracker on opening up the world market on the natural resources supplies as well as product export. Things started to change only when Trump became the president of the U.S. because he holds different view from the multiple super super wealthy families whom are the beneficiaries of the U.S.'s globalization policy. Therefore Trump does not earn their support and people see Trump has his leg being pulled more than any of his predecessors.

Just like any of the empires in the history, the British Empire fell so will the "American Empire" eventually but people is seeing a young challenger on the rise. China is eagerly trying to mimic what the Uncle Sam's defeat over his mother to replace this ageing giant. People see that China is pathing her way towards an empire by advocating the Rise of a Big Nation followed by the initiative of Belt and Road. She is actively stretching her legs and arms over the world. Therefore people is not surprised to see China became the most solid supporter of the free world trade and globalization than is the U.S. now.

Globalization is the way empires pillage the world so as long as there is empire in the world, there will always be globalization out of question.

Wild thoughts amid the novel coronavirus pandemic

A tiny creature turned the human being's world upside down. Despite the recent news shows that it seems the death tolls due to the novel coronavirus became a little bit leveling off in these few days but the worldwide infection, except that in the origin of this pandemic China, still remains at a high level. Some optimistic people think the infection rate will drop when summer draws near. However, these people are just far too optimistic or just with too much wishful thinking. They simply forget that this is a global pandemic meaning that there are infection even in the African countries and tropical countries like Singapore and Thailand where summer is all year around. This coronavirus is just not another SARS which subsided along with the warm weather. Unfortunately the forecast made by medical experts as I mentioned in my post Did we go too far? a month ago seems becoming more and more evidenced.

In the same post I also had query that the lockdown, especially nationwide, is an appropriate measure in dealing with the outbreak because such handling is devastating in economy for those countries which practice it. Apparently as what I put it a herd behaviour is proven to be a brainless mimicking now. Despite the U.S. has the highest death tolls and infections so it became the worst hit country yet it only implements patchwork lockdown and people should note that the U.S. is also a vast country and with strong economy like China who can withstand the harsh economic consequences of the lockdown. Smaller nations are just committing economic suicide when they blindly mimic such controversial measure.

In fact as strong as they are yet China has withdrawn the lockdown on her Hubei province already and Trump is looking forward eagerly to resuming the nation in normal in order to keep their economy engine running. When we consider seriously the forecast that made by the medical experts that this coronavirus will most likely with us for good and in the meantime vaccine is not going to be available in this 1-2 years time that we know that locking down in the hope to buy time to stop the spreading is virtually impractical.

Locking down in the short run can really stop the spreading within the locked area because social contact is cut completely but at one hand lockdown is just impossible to be permanent so spreading will just resume as soon as lockdown is lifted as long as the virus still exists in that area. On the other hand, the whole world now is living in a global village so as long as this virus exists in one corner of the world then it will just spread to the other parts of the world even if a specific nation has successfully eliminated this virus in its soil. The effort and economic loss for the lockdown just went in vain.

The U.K. once considered tackling measure, herd immunity, was under big attack and Boris Johnson also became a laughing stock when he himself contracted the disease as well. This idea looks outrageous in the first glance because it puts the lives of the whole nation under serious test. Many weak and vulnerable people could die if not treated properly and timely. So the point is not the idea of herd immunity but the execution of this idea. The key point is an organized fashion of herd infection that will not flood the public health system to crash. Man-made vaccine takes at least 4-5 years to be developed but the antibody can be generated one week after the infection. An organized fashion of herd infection within the capacity of the public health system not only let the community generate antibody in the quickest time but also keep the patients in good looking-after condition to minimize the death toll due to complication. Let alone the salvation on the economic impasse arising from the lockdown.

Whether lockdown is effective in combating the spreading is still controversial and only time can tell. One thing for sure is that many people around the world have already lost their jobs or at least some of their income. When the outbreak persists as well as the lockdown then there will be even more people than is now in serious financial hit. They do not die from the disease but just from financial unwell.

Herd immunity is outrageous? In extraordinary time people need thinking out-of-the-box.