The U.S. is finally starting to win friends and influence people with vaccine diplomacy.
This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a terrifying brunch of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. Sign up here. Bloomberg Opinion’s most-read story of the past two weeks is Niall Ferguson ’s warning this past Sunday that not only is a fight between the U.S. and China over Taiwan inevitable, it will probably eighty-six the American empire. A little further down the readership list, but not by much, is a week-earlier warning from Max Hastings about the same thing. Clearly the lesson here is that ruminating about world war and hegemony’s end really helps the Sunday brunch go down. But today is Tuesday, so let us offer an alternative history of the near future, which may pair well with whatever you’re having for dinner. Rather than a threat to become the new leader of an undemocratic world, China seems more likely to stay trapped in its second-place status, writes Michael Schuman. Falling productivity and fertility rates threaten its economic growth. Its recent belligerence betrays either a misunderstanding of its power or anxiety about its lack thereof. There was a moment mid-pandemic — when China had Covid-19 mostly beaten and started shipping homemade vaccines around the world, while America repeatedly stepped on rakes — when China seemed to have at least a soft-power edge on its rival. But it has squandered that goodwill, writes Hal Brands, bullying neighbors and its own citizens and dumping vaccines of questionable efficacy on the world. All of which make it harder to forget and forgive the country’s bungling of the initial coronavirus outbreak. None of this makes China less threatening to America’s place in the world. As Niall and Max have warned, China wants Taiwan badly, and a sense of weakness may make it more likely to force the issue.
