Page 92 - COVID-19: The Great Reset

ideological and political divides that separate them. Far from
uniting the two geopolitical giants, the pandemic did the exact

opposite by exacerbating their rivalry and intensifying competition
between them.

Most analysts would concur that, during the COVID-19 crisis,
the political and ideological fracture between the two giants grew.
According to Wang Jisi, a renowned Chinese scholar and Dean of

the School of International Studies at Peking University, the fallout
from the pandemic has pushed China–US relations to their worst
level since 1979, when formal ties were established. In his

opinion, the bilateral economic and technological decoupling is
“already irreversible”, [89] and it could go as far as the “global
system breaking into two parts” warns Wang Huiyao, President of
the Center for China and Globalization in Beijing. [90] Even public

figures have expressed publicly their concern. In an article
published in June 2020, Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister of
Singapore, warned against the perils of confrontation between the
US and China, which, in his own words: “raises profound

questions about Asia’s future and the shape of the emerging
international order”. He added that: “Southeast Asian countries,
including Singapore, are especially concerned, as they live at the
intersection of the interests of various major powers and must

avoid being caught in the middle or forced into invidious
choices.” [91]

Views, of course, differ radically on which country is “right” or
going to come out “on top” by benefiting from the perceived

weaknesses and fragilities of the other. But it is essential to
contextualize them. There isn’t a “right” view and a “wrong” view,
but different and often diverging interpretations that frequently
correlate with the origin, culture and personal history of those who

profess them. Pursuing further the “quantum world” metaphor
mentioned earlier, it could be inferred from quantum physic that
objective reality does not exist. We think that observation and
measurement define an “objective” opinion, but the micro-world of

atoms and particles (like the macro-world of geopolitics) is
governed by the strange rules of quantum mechanics in which two

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