Home Editorial When two elephants fight … who suffers?

When two elephants fight … who suffers?

Arsénio Reis*

An old African saying says that “when two elephants fight, the grass suffers” … the grass, or the lawn, depending on the country where they will be reading. And the planet is watching, at this point, a struggle between the two largest economies in the world.

The United States and China had started the year well. In January 2020, the White House hosted a meeting between the President of the United States and the Chinese President.

At that time the two powers established an agreement seen as a first step towards overcoming the trade war that had put the world economy on alert.

A few months later, spiced up by the covid-19 pandemic, the relationship between the two countries reaches a peak of hostility with consequences that are still difficult to predict.

The diplomatic relationship is based on the closure of consular representations, the race for a vaccine against the coronavirus divides them, the military maneuvers in the China Sea intensify. And 5G has sparked a technological, therefore economic, almost networkless war. Everything is being played to the limit.

The approach of the American elections also does not favor the evolution of this conflict, which – despite everything – nobody believes in the possibility of it taking on military proportions.

Donald Trump knows that today there are fewer who believe that he has the capacity to fulfill his slogan: “Make America Great Again”

In fact, the latest polls give Donald Trump a little more than 40 percent of the voting intentions – nationwide – and Joe Biden, the man who wants to remove him from the U.S. presidency, about 50 percent.

The current president may be paying a heavy price for managing the pandemic crisis, in a country with more than four and a half million people infected and 150,000 dead. As if that were not enough, US GDP fell more than 30 percent in the second quarter of 2020.

Donald Trump knows that today there are fewer who believe that he has the capacity to fulfill his slogan: “Make America Great Again”.

In this scenario – like President Bush on 9/11 or President Kennedy in the Cuban missile crisis – Donald Trump too may be tempted to further promote an external enemy. Especially if he is as powerful as China.

The discovery of the new vaccine could be decisive in this game between the two giants, because in Washington it is known that Beijing did everything to gain relevance in the future. Proof of this is the results achieved in artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, biotechnology and technology in general.

If the vaccine is owned by one of these giants … the grass will suffer again.

*Director of Plataforma

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