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Some major long-term changes are urgently overdue. First, export diversification is imperative. Second, trading partner diversification follows: the more there are, the healthier for any country today, reaffirming the Machiavellian adage that there are no permanent friends or enemies, writes Imtiaz A. Hussain
It has not been a good start to the year. Bangladesh has plenty to rethink, and building a Plan-B for each policy initiative, or being implemented, is as safe a start as one can imagine in choppy and unpredictable waters.
Sure there is the coronavirus scare. Very much like the proverbial cat escaping the bag, anything, and literally everything, can happen. Not only has the first non-Chinese fatalities been recorded: in addition to 1 previously in France, 1 in the Philippines, 1 in Taiwan, 2 in Japan, 2 in Hong Kong, 3 in Italy, where a carnival in Venice was abruptly shuttered, 5 in South Korea, and just under 2,500 in China mainland, with outbreaks in almost three dozen countries predicting we have not reached the end of the line. Country-specific evacuations from the Japanese ocean-liner, Diamond Princess, reaffirm how the spread of the virus is being matched by the closing of borders. With the United States leading the selective separation of quarantined passengers, critical focus will now turn to how quarantined people might fare in their native lands.
That this comes on the eve of Japan's highly touted and expensive Summer Olympics and Paralympics Games in Tokyo could become bombshell news later: not making both financial ends meet would worsen Japan's unexpected end-of-2019 economic slump. Broader still, with many overseas visitors expected for the tournaments, any tourism crisis would compound fear globally, snowballing, in fact, from rumour mills more than actual disruptive cases. The costs will be spread and staggering.
As Japan and world tourism hang in the air as possible coronavirus collateral damages, in a year expected to usher more clairvoyant thinking (after all, optometrists use 2020 to convey that message to patients), some very clouded political messages rock the business atmosphere. With stock-market fluctuations, Bangladesh symbolises a global pattern. Paying more attention is far widely needed than just in one country.
Bangladesh's chief export market, West Europe, is going through an unusual tumult reminiscent of a century ago. The Islamophobic Hanou murder of 10, mostly immigrant, Germans not only rekindled the Christchurch massacre last year, perpetuated by Australian Brenton Harrison Tarrant, but also shows, in Chancellor Angela Merkel's words, the 'poison' of racism that Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party exploited to the fullest in the 1920s to enter office behind a democratic vote in 1933. There may be many emergent Tobias Rathjen, the 43-year-old killer who killed himself, and monitor how their citizens evolve after this incident, particularly relevant after 18 countries were targeted on his list, including Bangladesh.
Against the backdrop of Great Britain exiting the European Union (EU) behind a chauvinist nationalistic call, not to mention the fragmentation of established political parties inviting and elevating fringe parties, especially in the two top countries, France and Germany, one can sense a Europe coming apart at the seams. Yellow-vested protestors have been in the news in Paris for quite a while, as Emmanuel Macron's fortunes plummet from one low to another (even if his reforms may be the doctor's medicine in a country not quite finding the correct economic revitalisation formula).
Across the border in Germany, Merkel's anointed successor, Annegrat Kramp-Karrenbauer, had to resign, much to the chagrin of her mentor, who had earlier expressed her own desire to resign when her term ends next year. In a previous poll, her party's performance was lukewarm, and in the most recent, in Thuringia province, the historically third party, Free Democrats (FDP) actually sided with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), for it to win. Two stalwart parties, Merkel's Christian Democrats and her fiercest rivals (now a minority coalition partner), Social Democrats, collapsed. In fact, across the last half-century, the two have seen their net vote tally sink from over 90 per cent to hardly 40 per cent, the rest going to such factions as Die Linke, mostly in the former East Germany, and the meteoric AfD league-leader today. It does not need a philosopher to speculate how farther to the right Germany will shift by the time Merkel steps down, without any strong centrist anchor. This is ominous news for immigrants, indeed, for Germans in general (and thereby Europe).
In a season of immigrant-bashing, Bangladesh will have to wonder what alternatives it has at hand, particularly of its exports markets: where else can it shift these to, especially now that it needs the income to fuel its megaproject build-up, and how might it function with fringe parties, particularly when their supporters, like Rathjen, are not only proliferating but also coming out into the open more aggressively.
Apprehensions like this extend to the United States too. Although Bangladesh has managed to strike up some kind of a rapport with Donald Trump's administration, given his own warped view of the rest of the non-white world, especially Muslims, there is no Plan B: the Democrats, as evident from their own primaries, look as parochially oriented to the needs of the day as they are fratricidal. Without a Plan B in any exchanges with the United States, Bangladesh might get too drawn into a one-way quagmire.
The overall picture is not pretty. Former East and Central European countries have already been absorbed under the brewing fascist mindset, with West European counterparts ready to fall like kingpins. Any further economic deterioration of truly stagnated economies can only fuel this temperament: Germany, the historical fall-back country that has hitherto bailed out all others, is itself unlikely to show any growth this year, meaning Britain's exit and Germany's economic evaporation would add to the recessionary global outlook that Japan's economic collapse feeds, and the possibly even worse Chinese coronavirus consequences. At least a $30 billion loss is being predicted at this early stage because of coronavirus, given the devastation of tourism and disruption of the many global value-chains having a Chinese springboard.
Some major long-term changes are urgently overdue, and which any Plan-B considerations must pay full attention to. First, export diversification is imperative: land-locking behind a single or few export/s can no longer help, no matter how much of a giant that particular supply-line is for any country or region. Second, trading partner diversification follows: the more there are, the healthier for any country today, reaffirming the Machiavellian adage that there are no permanent friends or enemies. Third, since coronavirus is not the first of the pandemic crises we have faced in this century, every port-of-entry must design better screening of all passengers at all times, in turn, necessitating the construction of sophisticated health facilities at every entry-port. Fourth, routine vaccination must be made mandatory in every country: these might not always be the correct diagnosis, but they help delay or defray any threatening viral invader. Fifth, the domestic economy must be expanded as the last exigency measure: should foreign trade or transactions dip, the domestic economy should be vibrant enough to pick up any temporary slack. Finally, manpower exports have to be seriously reconsidered: imagine the pandemonium likely to ensue any viral outbreak in a pilgrimage, especially as there are enough demented people worldwide now ready to create such a catastrophe, have the means to do so, and the world remains just as flat-footed as ever before.
Dr. Imtiaz A. Hussain is Dean (Acting), School of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (SLASS) and Head, Global Studies & Governance Program, Independent University, Bangladesh