In 2020, the United States was “sick”: the coronavirus epidemic got out of control, political polarization was serious, the economy was in recession, society was tearing alarming, and the addiction to breaking the contract and “retreating from the group”.
On January 20, 2021, President-elect Biden of the United States will officially enter the White House. How Biden, who claims to “cure” the United States, will deal with the “five major diseases” in today’s United States remains a big question mark.
The spread of the epidemic
The epidemic is fiercer than the tiger. In 2021, whether the coronavirus epidemic can be curbed in the United States is a major test for the Biden administration.
In the past year, the United States has long ranked first in the world in cumulative confirmed cases and deaths. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, predicted mid-January 2021 could be the “darkest moment” of the U.S. pandemic.
As the world’s largest developed country and the most advanced country in medical care, the United States has become the country with the worst epidemic in the world. In response, Da Wei, assistant dean of the School of International Relations, said in an interview with Xinhua News Agency that one of the major problems in the fight against the epidemic in the United States is the lack of national coordination.
The website of Atlantic Monthly said that the federal government’s health guidelines are either absent or full of loopholes. The Washington Post quoted former U.S. health officials as saying that the American public health agency composed of scientists has been politicized, manipulated and ignored.
Dawei suggested that the Biden administration should provide scientific and strong public opinion guidance, not politicize public health institutions, improve the executive power of the federal government, and formulate a reasonable national strategy.
Political polarization
“Internal consumption” has become a prominent “sickness” in American politics. Whether the failure of national governance can be reversed in 2021 will test the political wisdom of the new U.S. government.
According to the survey data, the proportion of people in the Democratic and Republican parties in the United States who “existently hate” each other has risen from 16.5% 25 years ago to more than 80% now.
Wang Wen, executive dean of the Chungyang Institute of Finance of Renmin University of China, told reporters that the vicious party struggle in the United States has become white-hot, and the relationship between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party has reached the point of “as long as you agree, I will oppose it”.
Wang Wen believes that the new U.S. government needs to improve its leadership, reverse the status quo of governance failure as soon as possible, and rebuild the political order of the United States.
Yuan Sha, an American scholar at the China Institute of International Studies, said that Biden may become a “lame duck” president, and there are many constraints on governance.
Economic downturn
Under the impact of the epidemic, the U.S. economy is struggling. In 2021, how to fight the epidemic and protect the economy will test the “balance” of Biden’s ruling team.
In February 2020, the United States ended its economic expansion that lasted for more than 10 years. In October of that year, the International Monetary Fund predicted that the U.S. economy contracted by 4.3% in 2020 and may expect to achieve 3.1 percent growth in 2021.
The U.S. passed an economic relief bill totaling about $900 billion in the end of 2020 to deal with the epidemic.
Mohamed El-Elian, chief economic adviser of Allianz Group, believes that the rescue plan will not significantly change the short-term trend of the U.S. economy and will not be difficult to hedge the long-term risks facing the U.S. economy.
Furman, the chief economic adviser of the Obama administration, pointed out that the lessons of the financial crisis show that the government’s rescue plan should be large enough and the measures should be durable enough.
Social division
In the United States today, the gap between rich and poor and racial contradictions is widening.
Whether the social divide can be healed to the maximum extent in 2021 will test the Biden administration’s “unity skills”.
Under the epidemic, the gap between rich and poor in American society has been fully exposed and further widened, reaching the highest level since the Great Depression in the 1920s and 1930s.
In addition, racial antagonism in the United States is increasing.
In 2020, incidents such as the violent death of Freud, an African-American man from police law enforcement, triggered a nationwide wave of protests; the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data showed that the infection and death rates of ethnic minorities in the coronavirus epidemic were “disproportionately” higher than that of whites.
Analysts believe that Biden’s ruling team will face great difficulties in eradicating the “inner focus” of systemic racism and social injustice.
Haidong Li, a professor at the Institute of International Relations at the Foreign Affairs College, said that after Biden’s inauguration in 2021, racial relations may be moderated to some extent, but it is impossible to solve racial contradictions fundamentally.
Unilateralism
In recent years, the United States has been addicted to breaking the contract and “retreating from the group” in the international community.
It is worth watching whether the Biden administration can lead the United States to the track of multilateralism in 2021.
Over the past year, the unilateralism of the United States has become more and more serious.
The Trump administration announced the withdrawal of the United States from the World Health Organization, seriously undermining the global anti-epidemic efforts.
Critics point out that the United States, as a superpower, is determined to pursue its own first and national priority, engage in unilateral acts, and constantly withdraw from the group to break the contract.
It not only abandons its international obligations, but also bases its own self-interest on harming the legitimate interests of other countries, which is becoming the greatest destruction of the contemporary international order.
