deficits or extraordinary monetary stimulus. China’s economic success and quick
vanquishing of covid-19 will be the backdrop for a year of triumphal celebration in
Beijing, as the Communist Party marks its centenary.
The contrast with the West will be stark. America will start the year with wobbly
growth, not least because of the failure to pass a sufficient stimulus package in the last
days of the Trump administration. Europe’s economies will be sluggish far longer, with
generous furlough schemes tying people to jobs that no longer exist and zombie firms
propped up by the state. On both sides of the Atlantic, the inequity of the impact of
covid-19 will become ever clearer: the most vulnerable hit hardest by the virus; job
losses concentrated among the less skilled; educational disruption harming poorer kids’
prospects the most. Public anger will grow, particularly in America, which will enter
2021 still a deeply divided country.
With the West battered and China crowing, plenty of pundits (including in this
publication) will declare the pandemic to be the death knell for a Western-led world
order. That will prove premature. For all its “vaccine diplomacy”, China inspires fear
and suspicion more than admiration. And for all his determination to bring China
centre-stage, its president, Xi Jinping, shows little appetite for genuine global leadership.
Although Mr Trump’s contempt for allies and forays into transactional diplomacy have
shaken trust in the American-led global order, they have not destroyed it.
That means America, once again, will have disproportionate ability to shape the post-
pandemic world—and the man most able to set the tone is a 78-year old, whose political
career began closer to the presidency of Calvin Coolidge than today. Joe Biden, a
consensus-building moderate whose own political positions have always tacked close to
his party’s centre of gravity, is an improbable architect of a bold new era.
But he could be just the right person. Mr Biden’s policy platform is ambitious enough.
Behind the slogan of “build back better” is a bold, but not radical, attempt to marry
short-term stimulus with hefty investment in green infrastructure, research and
technology to dramatically accelerate America’s energy transformation. From
expanding health-care access to improving social insurance, the social contract
proposed by Bidenomics is a 21st-century version of the Progressive era: bold reform
without dangerous leftism.
In foreign policy Mr Biden will repair relations and reaffirm America’s values and global
role. A veteran of diplomacy and instinctive multilateralist and institution-builder, Mr
Biden will send strong signals quickly: America will re-enter the Paris climate
agreement, stay in the World Health Organisation and join COVAX, the global coalition
to distribute a covid-19 vaccine. He will head quickly to Europe to reaffirm America’s
commitment to NATO and the transatlantic alliance—though his first stop will be Berlin
or Paris, rather than Boris Johnson’s Brexit Britain. Mr Biden will reassert the
importance of human rights and democracy to American foreign policy. Expect tougher
criticism of China for its treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang and its oppression in Hong
Kong; there will be no more palling with dictators.
On the most important issues, however, Mr Biden’s presidency will offer more a change
of approach than of direction. America will remain concerned about the threat posed by