Abstract

The world politics has been dominated by the US-led West since the Second World War and particularly after the demise of the Soviet Union at the end of a protracted Cold War. However, the balance of power seems to be shifting from the West to the East led by rising China. This geopolitical shift has been accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Pandemics have been known to affect great powers and global politics in the past. The “Black death’, the ‘Plague of Athens’ and ‘Antonine plague’ are some of the examples from history, which resulted in the decline of great empires. Although Corona virus reportedly originated in Wuhan and later spread to the entire world, China was able to mobilize its resources in time and managed to control the disease in a very short time. On the other hand, the West and particularly the US was slow in taking appropriate measures resulting in death and misery to the people. US like many other countries, is still struggling with the pandemic that has caused a severe blow to not only its economy but also its standing as a world leader. While China has emerged as a more suitable candidate for the world’s leadership and steadily on the path of economic and technological primacy. The paper studies in detail how the virus has affected the global politics, particularly comparing the performance of the two rivals during the pandemic.

Key words: Covid-19, geopolitics, China-US rivalry, democracy, economy