These are just some random thoughts about how COVID-19 and its link to politics, looking at the leaders of three countries: China, Singapore, and the U.S.
In the U.S., Trump has tied himself so closely to the handling of COVID-19, it will become impossible for him to shirk any responsibility of failures and mistakes. By appearing daily in front of the nation and talking about COVID-19, he has implicitly taken ownership of the problem, even as he tries to blame previous administrations, China, and the WHO. This is truly a gamble: it will be a political bonus to his reelection if there is a significant improvement in the COVID-19 situation within the next month or so. Otherwise, if the situation continues to worsen, or just carry on without improvement, his frequent appearances in the media fronting the response to COVID-19 will only reinforce in people's minds that the situation they are in is all thanks to him. For the well-being of the American people and his political career, I can only hope he succeeds.
Looking at China, Xi took a different approach. He rarely appeared in the media, but he used his media appearances to show that he was concerned with this situation. His hands-off approach was probably aimed at distancing himself from whatever the political outcome of COVID-19 could be. If things turn out well, he could always get people to praise him later. But if not, at least he could try to limit the political impact (aka blame the local government). State control of the media largely allows him to spin any story after the fact, which may explain his decision to avoid tying himself to COVID-19 until he can be sure it has a positive impact on his own political standing.
For Singapore, Lee's approach is from another angle. Like Xi, he made very few media appearances. This could be because he is the face of the party, and while Xi has the luxury of falling back on blaming the local government if things turn bad, Singapore's national government is the local government. There is no one else to blame. This may explain why Lee tries as much as possible to downplay any politics in the handling of COVID-19, keeping out of the media as far as possible to avoid giving the impression that he (and by association, the party) is fronting the fight. In Lee's case, he does not need the political benefits for himself, since he is likely to pass on leadership of his party to the next generation of leaders. What he is concerned with is maintaining the legitimacy of the party for this baton-passing to take place.
Is there a good or bad to this? Not really, but it is interesting to see how they each handled the situation differently. Trump's entanglement in the COVID-19 fight can turn out both ways, and the political benefits can be huge for him; it can also be disastrous. Xi knows he can spin the story post-fact, so he is in no rush to claim ownership. Lee needs to maintain party legitimacy, and knows that the party can claim ownership of positive impact post-fact too; the priority then, is to ensure that the party can steer the situation toward delivering positive impact that it can subsequently claim.
Meanwhile, I only hope that through collective and individual efforts, we can bring an end to this in the near future.
In the U.S., Trump has tied himself so closely to the handling of COVID-19, it will become impossible for him to shirk any responsibility of failures and mistakes. By appearing daily in front of the nation and talking about COVID-19, he has implicitly taken ownership of the problem, even as he tries to blame previous administrations, China, and the WHO. This is truly a gamble: it will be a political bonus to his reelection if there is a significant improvement in the COVID-19 situation within the next month or so. Otherwise, if the situation continues to worsen, or just carry on without improvement, his frequent appearances in the media fronting the response to COVID-19 will only reinforce in people's minds that the situation they are in is all thanks to him. For the well-being of the American people and his political career, I can only hope he succeeds.
Looking at China, Xi took a different approach. He rarely appeared in the media, but he used his media appearances to show that he was concerned with this situation. His hands-off approach was probably aimed at distancing himself from whatever the political outcome of COVID-19 could be. If things turn out well, he could always get people to praise him later. But if not, at least he could try to limit the political impact (aka blame the local government). State control of the media largely allows him to spin any story after the fact, which may explain his decision to avoid tying himself to COVID-19 until he can be sure it has a positive impact on his own political standing.
For Singapore, Lee's approach is from another angle. Like Xi, he made very few media appearances. This could be because he is the face of the party, and while Xi has the luxury of falling back on blaming the local government if things turn bad, Singapore's national government is the local government. There is no one else to blame. This may explain why Lee tries as much as possible to downplay any politics in the handling of COVID-19, keeping out of the media as far as possible to avoid giving the impression that he (and by association, the party) is fronting the fight. In Lee's case, he does not need the political benefits for himself, since he is likely to pass on leadership of his party to the next generation of leaders. What he is concerned with is maintaining the legitimacy of the party for this baton-passing to take place.
Is there a good or bad to this? Not really, but it is interesting to see how they each handled the situation differently. Trump's entanglement in the COVID-19 fight can turn out both ways, and the political benefits can be huge for him; it can also be disastrous. Xi knows he can spin the story post-fact, so he is in no rush to claim ownership. Lee needs to maintain party legitimacy, and knows that the party can claim ownership of positive impact post-fact too; the priority then, is to ensure that the party can steer the situation toward delivering positive impact that it can subsequently claim.
Meanwhile, I only hope that through collective and individual efforts, we can bring an end to this in the near future.
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