Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Taiwan and the US should develop a policy for if, and when, tensions with the People’s Republic of China escalate. For Taiwan, the opportunities of COVID-19 present the perfect time to do so.

The pandemic has only confirmed the importance of states.

Pandemics have historically been catalysts for political, economic, and social change. From Thucydides, Prokopios, and Ibn Khaldun, historians of the past who lived through the great pandemics of their day charted the ghastly toll of these invisible killers.

After years of wishful thinking, America and its allies in the Indo-Pacific are returning, finally, to what President Franklin Roosevelt called “armed defense of democratic existence.” Given Beijing’s actions both at home and abroad, one wonders what took them so long.

With Myanmar’s military still controlling 25 percent of its parliament and a history of brutal crackdowns—not to mention the recent Rohingya crisis—COVID-19 is exacerbating the precarious balance between the military and civilians in power.

In the past few weeks, Pakistan has attempted to mitigate COVID-19’s effect on its economy and people. However, these efforts have largely ignored the needs of Pakistan’s minorities. The result is an increase in human rights violations.

Will the accelerating growth in China’s power—a dynamic focused and amplified by President Xi Jinping’s ambitious dream of a rejuvenated, globally dominant PRC—result in a hegemonic war with the United States?

Our world is broken and bending toward chaos, as it was in 1968, as it has been since the Fall, as it will be until Christ returns to make all things new.

After the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in China in December 2019, the world has been turned on its head,…