What will the post-coronavirus world look like? History tells us that in times of crisis, large corporations and the most vulnerable in society seek refuge under the protection of the state. The 2008 financial crisis already made clear that markets alone cannot drive competitiveness and prosperity. On the contrary, state intervention is crucial.

The popular argument that lithium is necessary to transition vehicles away from fossil fuels usually doesn’t go deeper to critique the influence of Canadian and US companies on economic priorities and policies in those countries with substantial lithium deposits. For at least two decades, mineral prospecting in Mongolia has gone hand-in-hand with neoliberal policy intervention, and the looming lithium boom signals that this will only intensify.

China’s rapid growth has produced prosperity and reduced poverty. It has also generated less wholesome economic, social, and ecological consequences which are now catching up with it, making the much-vaunted Chinese model increasingly less attractive for developing economies.

On December 13, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights released a powerful statement that criticized India’s new citizenship law. This “fundamentally discriminatory” Citizenship (Amendment) Act of 2019 would expedite citizenship for persecuted religious minorities from India’s neighboring countries. But in the list of those minorities, it names only Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians. It does not mention Muslims.

Kashmiris were not surprised by this latest aggression by a government that has been attacking them and other minorities of India to evoke the public’s nationalist sentiments for years. This attack on the very being of Kashmir is unprecedented. The Kashmiris will sooner or later respond by taking to the streets. With thousands of troops already deployed across Kashmir to silence dissent, there is every reason to fear for the safety of every single Kashmiri living under Indian rule today.

This is all plain hypocrisy! No other country in the world would have shown such forbearance in the face of foreign-sponsored rioting destruction and sabotage of the national economy as China has. If in the days to come China’s patience runs out, it will not be before time so far as the great majority of Chinese citizens, including Hong Kong citizens, are concerned. China signed up to the one country, two systems in the territory. It did not agree to two countries, two systems.

Trump’s trade wars and other policies should be understood as part of a broad reordering of US economic and political policies, and relations with other nation States allied and adversary alike, to ensure the continuation of US global economic and military hegemony for the coming decade. Nextgen technology development is at the core of that restructuring and restoration of US hegemony. Trump is just the appearance, the historic vehicle, behind the deeper global capitalist transformation in progress.

The year 2018 marks the fortieth anniversary of the beginning of China’s economic reform programme, originally initiated in 1978. The rise of migrant workers’ strikes since early 2000s and the efforts of the Chinese government to rebalance and reregulate workplace relations have created fertile ground for labour studies and labour activism in China.

China presents a test of our national fitness to continue to enjoy a preeminent position internationally. We will not pass that test if we do not repair our national strategy deficit and rediscover diplomacy – measures short of war — to address the challenges of a rapidly changing international environment. That is what we need to do to reverse the diminishment of America and make us great again.

The Olympic Winter Games have offered a glimpse of hope for North Korea and its relationship with the rest of the world, but diplomatic solutions will require a deeper level of awareness about the policies, actions, and mistakes that have brought the international community to this moment. For that, Canadian Dimension turned to Bruce Cumings, the Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professor in History, and former chair of the history department at the University of Chicago.