By Temitope Adeola
+234 803 184 0184
1. The United States and the West are aware that their invincibility has been shattered. They are likely to go back to the drawing board and make amends. In the Marxist literature the death and burial of capitalism in the West had been long predicted. But each time capital faces a challenge what it does is to make adjustments and address those challenges and ultimately bouncing back. But rather than capitalism dying it was the socialist paradigm that ultimately crumbled. Is it likely that global capital would bounce back like before in the post coronavirus world? Time will tell.
2. A Sino-Western confrontation, espionage and destabilization are imminent. The coronavirus began from China and it has been alleged China infested the world and especially the West by withholding information from the world on its deadly nature. Some had even speculated it is a biological warfare unleashed on the West by China. And this is likely to elicit reprisals from the West.
3. In the post coronavirus world, Africa's level of poverty and deprivation is likely to increase astronomically. The current price of crude oil in the world market is seventeen dollars. The 2020 Nigeria's budget was earlier predicated on over fifty dollars. The country's foreign reserve is being depleted daily and it is Naira might soon be devalued, leading to high inflationary spiral. Everywhere you turn to today, Africa faces a challenging future.
4. The world is likely to witness a stronger US-Europe relations. The US has now come to realise the futility of its attempting to destroy the North Atlantic alliance.
5. There is likely to be a diminished US involmen in theaters of conflicts around the world. Its adventure in Iraq and Syria was totally unnecessary. Even direct intervention in Afghanistan was avoidable. Massive bombing of the strategic installations of Afghanistan could have weakened the Talibans to the pont that it would have been impossible for them to govern the country.
6. Globally, the reputation of China has been tarnished by the coronavirus which many nations view as nothing more than a biological warfare unleashed on the world by China.
7. The trade war between the United States and China is likely to be intensified. This competition is likely to deepen the animosity between the two of them.
8. Whether China will unseat the United States as the strongest economy and with the most powerful military in the foreseeable future remains to be seen. But without doubt, the United States and its Western allies will continue to be major players in the world affairs.
9. The political future of China is uncertain. History has shown that autocracy and totalitarianism will always have a life span. Unless there are gradual reforms in its political system that will allow for the enforcement of the basic human rights of its citizens, a future implosion similar to the one that took place in the defunct Soviet Union might await it.
Finally, the primary concern of most Third World scholars should not be in the sterile debate on whether Beijing will soon be the economic capital of the world but on whether Africa and the Third World will be able to exploit these changes to the advantage of their peoples.
Certainly, the world can never remain the same again and for ever after the coronavirus pandemic.
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