The Western Countries of the world specially, America and Europe, have been leading the world for a long time. However, with this Corona Virus situation the Eastern Countries have shown a great potential.
What is going Wrong with West?
The USA has been in forefront since World War II till recent times. The US has always played a decisive role whether in dealing terrorism by intervening in Afghanistan and Italy or in tackling threats like climate change. However, with President Trump’s “America First Policy” during the pandemic is turning USA into Global Isolation.
On similar lines, the Europeans with great historical background and economically developed, have dominated the world in decision making. However, in recent times intra-European disputes has shown internal instability. The instability is much visible from BREXIT negotiations and ongoing financial crisis of European Union.
Even the International Organisations, having dominance of Western Countries, created post-World War II, shows decreasing glory during recent times. Recent, US-China Politics over COVID-19 and Trumps questioning WHO has shown dependency of WHO over US, the blockage of UNSC due to unofficial Cold War between US and Russia and even the World Bank seems under the influence of Western Countries.
What is going Right with East?
On the Eastern Side, many countries have shown greater responsibilities in tackling the pandemic compared to the advanced economies like USA and Europe. Eastern countries like Tawain without being a member of WHO, has shown drastic fight against COVID-19 and India by peacefully handing lock-down, which is home to 1 out of every 7 persons on earth, has shown the strength of the Eastern Countries.
Discussing the Economic strength, whether it was 2008 Global Recession or 2020 pandemic, India and China are the only G20 countries to register positive economic growth during hardships. Further, the aggressive India’s and Chinese investments in Belt and Roads initiatives have shown great potential in these economies for upcoming world.
Way Ahead
The Eastern Countries has shown great potential Socially, Culturally, Economically and Politically. But the they have still miles to cover to change the perspective from “Look West Policy” to “Look East Policy”. For this, primarily, the problem of cross-border terrorism, unsettled border disputes and heavy expenditure over defence needs to be settled. The deadlock in Asian summits like SAARC needs to be mediated.
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