High possibility of re-election of Donald Trump has poised various geopolitical risks on market and international relation on global arena. Meanwhile, there is skeptical of the concern that risks pose on only political economy. In this blog, I would like to critically assess the impact on global public health against Virus’s pandemic, as it is directly related with our lives.

（Speech delivered by Donald Trump）

（Source：Diamond Online）

Public health is a field that countries was easily able to cooperate with each other, as sharing information enable countries to deal with pandemic in the history. However, to some extent, Covid-19 is different and has divided global stability, especially the US and China. Considering the current global issues, it is getting difficult to conclude that the field of public health is the one to easily cooperate each other. As a matter of fact, public health has recently been analyzed in perspective of international politics and securities.

（People infected by Cholera in the hospital）

（Source：Volksfreund）

Looking back to the history, the pandemic of Cholera started the corporation between countries in Europe. As the pandemic had been getting worse, member states held internation health conference temporally even in World War I with other countries, such as Japan and the US. This endeavour led to the establishment of international institution and related international law.

On the other hand, Covid-19 exposes different challenges from it used to be towards global society, due to high level of globalization and it’s huge impacts.  There have been global divides between the US and China, and developed countries and developing countries over the corporation related with Covid-19. If Donald Trump will be elected, the solidarity will be endangered more, which makes it difficult to deal with next pandemic.

（Tedros Director-General of WHO delivering the speech）

（Source：Nikkei）

As one of the solutions for next pandemic over public health, the power of middle power should not be disregarded.  Considering the low expectation of corporation between the US and China, the role of middle power, such Japan and EU, will be required. As the fact, EU has played an important role on reforming World Health Organization (WHO) so far. Japan is also advancing its capability, such as establishment of Japanese CDC and ongoing research of wastewater surveillance for social implementation.

In these days, Alaska and Rio have shown the emergency for international cooperation against the pandemic. Under the current circumstance, Japan will surely be the one to take initiative in the field of public health, which will lead to our vision ”Pax Japonica”.

Special Envoy for Collaboration with the United Nations

Shugo Iwasaki