Harsh judgement awaits

COVID-19 has catalysed many political, social, economic and environmental developments that were in train before it struck. It is proving very difficult to manage even by those who saw it coming and there were some Cassandras who did just that. 

A simple (too simple?) set of performance assessment criteria might be:

1. Preparedness for a pandemic

2. Speed of initial response to COVID-19

3. Clarity of ongoing communications with the population

4. The death toll

Presidents Moon Jae-In (South Korea), Nguyễn Phú Trọng (Vietnam) and Tsai Ing-wen (Taiwan) score well on all fronts, even if some of their measures were draconian, as do Chancellor Merkel and Prime Ministers Frederiksen (Denmark) and Ardern (New Zealand). President Macron, Prime Ministers Trudeau, Morrison (Australia), Conte (Italy) and Sanchez (Spain) all score well on communication but only Mr Morrison can claim success on the death toll. In contrast, many of the self-styled ‘strong men’ have struggled, notably Presidents Trump, Xi, Putin, Bolsonaro (Brazil) and López Obrador (Mexico) and Prime Ministers Modi and Johnson.

Mr Trump looks like the first to lose his job, not least because he faces an election in 5 months. As he stumbles from one mishap to another, there are increasing concerns about his mental health, which is not the same, of course, as disagreeing with all his policies. Less imminent perhaps is the threat to Mr Xi, who has made many personal enemies within the senior ranks of the Communist Party while setting himself up for criticism over the crippling cost of his signature One Belt One Road project and over micro-managing the economy through concentrating resources in sprawling inefficient State-Owned Enterprises. Under Mr Xi, unemployment has become a problem, public and private debt has surged and the burden of spending on defence and ‘security’ is starting to resemble that of the former Soviet Union. His aggressive ‘wolf diplomacy’ of picking fights with other governments seems self-defeating, at least to an outsider. The departure from office of both Messrs. Trump and Xi really would have a global impact, probably, but not necessarily, benign.  Other less prominent departures will surely follow sooner or later.