The pseudoscience behind the right-wing drive to force schools to open

Benjamin Mateus

The strategy of “herd immunity” being carried out by the ruling class is inexorably connected to the drive to open schools. After trillions of taxpayer monies were siphoned into the coffers of the stupendously wealthy, the relentless exigencies to extract surplus value off the backs of the working class have risen to a new frenzy. There will be no more lockdowns, and the indispensable factor in bringing the entire nation back to work will be to throw open the school doors and have students seated in classrooms.

The present fight by teachers and their communities to save lives and to stem the rising tide of the pandemic has brought the working class into direct conflict with the capitalist rulers who demand that they comply with their diktats. If any teacher wants to understand the actual intent of the ruling classes, then they should ask why they have been deemed by the Trump administration and the Center for Disease Prevention and Control as “critical infrastructure workers.”

The scene in a hallway at Georgia High School last month

Speaking of the call for pursuing a policy of “herd immunity,” the veteran Irish epidemiologist, Dr. Mike Ryan, spokesman for the World Health Organization, said, “Humans are not herds. The term is relevant only to the field of animal husbandry, in which an individual animal in that sense doesn’t matter from the perspective of the brutal economics of those decisions. The use of the term can lead to very brutal arithmetic which does not put people and lives and suffering at the center of that equation.”

Even the venerable Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious disease, must be held to account when he said on July 29, at the American Federation of Teachers conference, with President Randi Weingarten present: “In many respects, unfortunately, though this may sound a little scary and harsh, I don’t mean it to be that way, is that you’re going to be actually part of the experiment, of the learning curve, of what we need to know. Because remember early on when we shut down the country, as it were, the schools were shut down. So, we don't know the full impact. We don’t have the total database of knowing what there is to expect.”

The Declaration of Helsinki, adopted in 1964, placed at the forefront the ethical principles in research regarding human experimentation. The proclamation is morally binding on physicians, an obligation that overrides any national or local laws or regulations, to respect the individual, their right to self-determination, and the right to make voluntary informed decisions regarding participation in any research. According to the guidelines established by the declaration, the investigator’s first duty is to the patient or volunteer’s welfare before the interests of science or society. Teachers, parents, and students have become vulnerable populations as they are threatened with poverty and homelessness if they oppose the nefarious conditions placed on them by the campaign for opening commerce and schools.

Repeatedly, the political establishment and the union executives have attempted to disarm teachers with platitudes about the needs of the psychology of the children, often claiming children are resistant to the infections caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. President Trump’s comments on Fox News are just the bluntest and starkest expression of this policy: “It will go away like things go away, and my view is that schools should be open. If you look at children, children are almost … and I would almost say definitely immune from this disease … they just don’t have a problem … we have to open our schools.”

Yet, recent studies have surfaced that demonstrate the potential lethality of school openings. It is this science that teachers and parents need to arm themselves with to ensure that their opposition to the state is based on the firm scientific understanding that the virus needs, first and foremost, to be contained and eradicated before communities can be assured that their children and teachers may resume academic relations in schools.

Herd immunity is the resistance to the spread of a contagious disease within a population that results if a sufficiently high proportion are immune to the disease. That immunity can be conferred through a vaccine, as in the case of measles, polio, and other diseases that have been successfully curtailed through systematic public health campaigns.

In relation to coronavirus, however, where there is not yet a vaccine, herd immunity has no legitimate application. It refers to the natural immunity caused by people being infected by the disease and then surviving it, because their immune systems manufactured antibodies to fight it. Given the high fatality rate, however, if a majority of the population contracts COVID-19 and thus develops the needed immunity, millions will die in the US in the process, and tens of millions around the world.

By all accounts, seroprevalence studies that measure the antibody to the virus in the population indicate that less than 10 percent of the US population may now have immunity. Scientists have posited that to achieve herd immunity would require close to 70 percent of the population to have antibodies. There is still a long way to go to achieve this level of population immunity.

Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead on the COVID-19 pandemic at the WHO, said at a recent press brief: “That means a large proportion of the population remains susceptible. Studies are underway to document the immune response to the virus to see how strong it is and how long it lasts. We do not have a complete picture of this yet.”

The policy of herd immunity: The case of Sweden

Sweden's chief epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, a proponent of a controlled approach to exposing the less vulnerable to the virus, wrote in an email on March 14 to his Finnish counterpart, Mika Salminen, “One point might speak for keeping schools open in order to reach herd immunity more quickly.” Salminen replied, “we have also considered that, but over time the children are still going to spread the infection.” Tegnell wrote in response, “True, but probably mostly to each other because of the extremely age-stratified contact structure we have.”

Johan Giesecke, who served as the state epidemiologist from 1995 to 2005, wrote to a Swedish insurance company in March, “I believe the virus is going to sweep like a storm over Sweden and infect basically everyone in one or two months. I believe that thousands are already infected in Sweden … it will all come to an end when so many have been infected and become therefore immune that the virus has nowhere else to go.” Secondary schools and universities were reopened in June.

Cumulative new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million: Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Germany

The policy was an abject failure. When Sweden was compared to neighboring nations, after the initial surge that led to lockdowns, Sweden's cases continued to accumulate fivefold higher. What is interesting to note was that once secondary schools and universities were reopened in June and the lockdown was lifted, the spike in new cases doubled, while in Denmark, Finland, and Norway, daily COVID-19 cases remained suppressed. When cumulative deaths are compared to the US, Sweden’s policy can be seen for what it was—herd slaughter.

Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people: Sweden vs the US

According to STAT News, “the Swedish approach was to allow businesses to largely remain open. And at first, it seemed to work, with a death count nowhere near what it was in countries such as Italy, Spain, and the UK. But even as Sweden was hailed as a model, its cases were steadily rising, and its death rate now exceeds that of the US. Sweden also did not seem to stave off the economic damage it was aiming to avoid.”

In a recent publication in The Lancet, in reply to correspondence from Johan Giesecke, 21 Swedish scientists wrote on August 8, “Giesecke's further assertion that, as of April 29, 20 to 25 percent of the Stockholm region have been infected only serves to reinforce his opinion of unreported cases. But this assertion is based on a narrow view of available data at that time. Of the three preliminary and unpublished serology studies from Stockholm in April, only one study, testing 527 of 2000 healthcare workers at a single hospital, is close to this estimate (20 percent seropositive). However, community estimates range from 7.5 percent to 10 percent, and suggest considerable clustering.”

Herd immunity was not a policy based on science, but a political endeavor phrased in scientific jargon to lull the population to adapt themselves as fait accompli that which was preventable and remains still stoppable. However, this requires recognizing that on a global scale, socialism is the cure for eradicating this pandemic, a disease that erupted as a byproduct of conditions created by capitalism.

Population studies on children and schools

Indeed, data on children, COVID-19, and the impact on the community have been limited. As Dr. Fauci even admitted, once schools were closed, the role of children in the spread of community was difficult to ascertain, though, as cited above, there was no reason to assume that children were impervious or noncontagious.

In mid-March, over a period of ten days, all 50 states closed K-12 schools and childcare centers with almost all colleges and universities following suit. The number of children affected included 21 million in daycare, 57 million in K-12, and 20 million college students, or close to 30 percent of the population. The quick measures taken had been based on previous experiences with pandemic respiratory pathogens, meaning officials clearly understood the potential that children were both vulnerable in acquiring infections and transmitting it to others. The lockdowns, including the rapid closure of schools, led to a significant reduction in community transmission of the virus, and without a doubt, a multitude of lives was saved.

Placing the impact of school closures on the pandemic in a national context, the authors Auger et al., in their study, published in JAMA Network on July 29, found that during the period from March 9 until May 7, school closures were associated with a 62 percent relative decline in COVID-19 incidence per week, which corresponded to an estimated absolute difference of 424 cases per 100,000. Additionally, school closures were associated with a 58 percent relative decline in mortality per week, an absolute decrease in 12.6 deaths per 100,000. Taking the US population under consideration, this implies that school closures were associated with 1.37 million fewer COVID-19 cases over 26 days and 40,600 fewer deaths over 16 days. These are quite significant figures.

In a study published in Nature, Hsiang et al. looked at the effect of large-scale containment policies on the COVID-19 pandemic across six countries, including the United States. They found that prior to the initiated lockdown measures across the country, the viral infection was doubling every three days. However, by April 6, when there were 365,304 cases, they estimated 4.8 million fewer cases developed because of the measures to close schools, commerce, and all nonessential work. Across the six countries, interventions prevented or delayed upwards of 61 million confirmed cases.

In a recent study published in The Lancet on July 30, scientists from the University College London reported on a modeling analysis they performed to determine the optimal strategy for reopening schools. Under several scenarios that included hybrid vs full-time school and various contact tracing and testing strategies, they concluded that for schools and society to reopen, a sufficiently broad coverage of a test-trace-isolate program would need to be implemented to avoid a second COVID-19 wave. The authors write, “Our modeling results suggest that full school reopening without an effective test-trace-isolate strategy would result in R0 [the growth factor for the transmission] above one and a resulting second wave of infections that would peak in December 2020, and be 2.3 times the size of the original COVID-19 wave.”

Though the US is not the UK and social interactions vary considerably, as a general analysis, the study highlights the urgent need for a robust public health strategy of tracing-testing-isolating. These population studies not only emphasize how communities can halt the spread of the contagion but also warn that without these measures, the pandemic will accelerate again. In this sense, the present change in guidelines by the CDC to avoid testing asymptomatic individuals is a criminal policy being enacted at all levels of the government in coordination with the very same institutions created to prevent diseases, essentially advocating for herd immunity. It is a deliberate effort to conceal the true nature of the health catastrophe to ensure the markets remain fully viable—a policy endorsed by the Democrats as much as the Republicans.

It should be mentioned, the seroprevalence studies, blood tests that look for antibodies against COVID-19 in the population, of the hardest-hit nations are on the magnitude of being five to tenfold less to achieving herd immunity.

Human rights lawsuits used by Chilean “left” to mask preparations for authoritarian rule

Mauricio Saavedra

Two officers of Chile’s Carabinero paramilitary police have been placed under preventive detention in connection with the violent police-state repression unleashed against last year’s massive demonstrations against social inequality. The arrests came as only two dozen symbolic cases have been allowed to proceed out of many thousands of lawsuits that have languished in the courts. They have been cynically selected by the Stalinist Communist Party and their political acolytes to sow dangerous illusions in so-called Chilean democracy and parliamentarism.

Public prosecutors announced last Friday the arrest of ex-Capt. Patricio Maturana for his role in the shooting of Fabiola Campillai, 36 and a mother of three. On the evening of November 26, Campillai was shot at close range by special forces with a tear gas canister in the face, then denied assistance and left to die. It was only because of the intervention of neighbours that she survived. Fabiola has undergone numerous intrusive operations and lost her sight and her senses of taste and smell.

Maturana was removed from his post earlier that month in what was a purely administrative procedure: his superiors dismissed the sadistic cop for refusing “assistance to a victim and omitting the corresponding legal procedure.” No charges were laid. Capt. Jaime Fernández was also discharged for refusing to deliver assistance as well as giving contradictory statements—Fernández withheld his GoPro body camera that implicated Maturana in the assault on Campillai.

Alejandra Arriaza, Campillai’s lawyer, confirmed to the media what is a well-known fact: that Carabineros lie, withhold information and continually create obstacles to human rights cases brought against the institution.

“Carabineros have not made themselves available to the investigation from the first day,” Arriaza told CNN Chile, but “consistently … obstruct justice.” Arriaza raised that many of the cops involved in the current cases are accused of previous human rights abuses, which had been left to languish in the courts.

“Had they been investigated [and] sanctioned in a timely manner, today these people would not have enjoyed the power they have to remain on the streets, to use weapons and attack the people,” she said.

These points apply especially to former Lt. Col. Claudio Crespo, who on August 21 was placed under preventive detention by Judge Marcia Figueroa, who ruled that the “accused constitutes a danger to the security of society” and posed a “danger of escape.”

The court heard that on November 8 last year Crespo, “abusing his position and with the intention of punishing,” fired 170 cartridges from a distance of 24.5 metres aiming specifically at the upper third of the bodies of demonstrators. At 6:10 p.m. psychology student Gustavo Gatica received multiple pellets to the face, resulting in his total loss of vision. The court has granted 90 days to public prosecutors to conduct a criminal investigation.

As with the Campillai case, international media attention played a role in moving Gatica’s case along. After human rights groups leaked the names of Crespo and Col. Santiago Saldivia in June, the Carabinero high command transferred Saldivia to a cushy job in the Directorate of Welfare, and discharged Crespo for an administrative infringement of manipulating the records of his GoPro camera before submitting it to internal auditors.

Had the cases not drawn the international attention, all of these cops would have remained in their posts and quite possibly received promotions. This is not conjecture but confirmed by Crespo, who has moved up the ranks despite a decade-long career of extreme violence.

In 2013, a medic from the Valparaiso region testified to an Ethical Commission against torture that Capt. Crespo tortured minors in his police van during the student demonstrations of 2011 and 2012. In 2018, Maj. Crespo was accused of firing at a protester’s face from less than five metres. During last year’s demonstrations, the now Lt. Col. Crespo was caught on camera strangling youth, threatening to shoot a firefighter as well as indiscriminately firing at protesters.

This is the modus operandi of Chile’s state apparatus. Whether under military rule or civilian government, it has resorted to violence to quash rebellious youth and militant actions by the working class. The police and the armed forces are the repressive arm of the state that maintains bourgeois law and order and protects capitalist private property.

The fascist-military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet unleashed in the first five years after the 1973 military coup a reign of bloody terror against the political left. The working class suffered torture that oftentimes ended in forced disappearances and mass graves. The armed forces, Carabineros and secret services were permitted, with a nod from their backers in Washington, unprecedented levels of state criminality and lawlessness.

Enshrined in Pinochet’s constitution were anti-terror laws that criminalised all social protest as a threat to national security. He militarised the police and made frequent use of the military in controlling civilians. These measures were an attempt to intimidate the working class and prevent the formation of any form of independent organisations as the dictatorship rammed through its free-market economic shock therapy against the population. Both centre-left and right-wing civilian governments have since only added their own authoritarian laws and sharpened old ones, especially with the outbreak of radical student protests against private education beginning in the 2000s.

Another turning point was reached with the eruption of strikes and demonstrations involving millions of workers and youth last year in opposition to social inequality, government corruption and state repression, as the deepening world economic crisis began to assert itself. In response ultra-right billionaire President Sebastian Piñera gave his “we are at war” speech that set in motion a series of draconian laws to outlaw protests. He decreed for the first time in the 30 years of civilian rule a State of Constitutional Emergency.

This allowed the military, Carabineros special forces and black berets to up the ante, knowing full well that they had institutional protection: Carabineros head Gen. Mario Rozas secretly told officers that they had his support and backing and he would not “discharge anyone by police procedure.”

During the last three months of 2019, militarised police and the military fired 152,000 12-calibre cartridges, tear gas cartridges and irritant gas grenades that resulted in dozens of deaths and thousands of injuries and mutilations. There were a growing number of reports of mock executions, rape, torture and torture chambers, of severe beatings resulting in death, and forced disappearances, state crimes that have continued to occur to this day as the coronavirus pandemic tears through the country.

Amid the greatest crisis of bourgeois rule since the revolutionary period of 1968–1973 and the growing danger of police-state dictatorship, the Chilean parliamentary “left” and its satellite organisations are working to conceal the class nature of the capitalist state. This task has especially fallen to the Chilean Stalinists, who have made a political career of promoting the “parliamentary road to socialism.”

The few symbolic human rights cases that have been permitted to proceed are being cynically exploited to sow illusions in the courts, the parliament and the other institutions of the bourgeois state, including that the police and armed forces can be democratically reformed.

PCCh deputy Hugo Gutiérrez called for a “profound” restructuring of the uniformed police. Senator Alejandro Navarro, ex-Socialist Party and now head of the electoral front Progresista, lamented that “the credibility of the Carabineros is once again in question.” He called on the director “to step aside.” adding that La Moneda [the presidential palace] has not only the moral but also legal duty to ask him.” The Human Rights Commission president, deputy Emilia Nuyado (PS), called on the minister of the Interior and the President to “demand greater collaboration from an institution that is subordinate to political power.”

It is worth recalling that 50 years ago the Popular Unity government headed by Salvador Allende argued along similar lines.

“Sceptics and catastrophists will say [that] a Parliament that served the ruling classes so well is incapable of transfiguring itself into the Parliament of the Chilean people,” Allende said in his first Congressional address on May 1971. “Furthermore, they have emphatically said that the Armed Forces and Carabineros, until now the supporters of the institutional order that we will overcome, would not accept to guarantee the popular will determined to build socialism in our country.”

“For my part, I declare … that since this Institution is based on the popular vote, nothing in its very nature prevents it from renewing itself to become in fact the People’s Parliament. And I affirm that the Chilean Armed Forces and the Carabineros, remaining faithful to their duty and their tradition of not interfering in the political process, will be the support of a social order that corresponds to the popular will expressed in the terms established by the Constitution.” The Stalinists went further as the preparations for a CIA-backed coup became ever more open, declaring the Army to be “the people in uniform.”

Two years after Allende’s speech, the Popular Unity government was overthrown by the US-backed Armed Forces and Carabineros, Allende was assassinated and a 17-year fascist-military dictatorship was installed over the bodies of thousands of worker militants.

It is time for the youth and working class to draw lessons from the bitter and tragic experiences repeatedly suffered under the mis-leadership of the national-reformist Chilean left and turn to revolutionary socialist internationalism advanced by the Trotskyist movement of the International Committee of the Fourth International.

Profiteering leaves UK care homes vulnerable

Thomas Scripps

Roughly 21,600 of the UK’s 410,000 care home residents had died and had COVID-19 mentioned on their death certificates by June 26, according to a tally of official government data by Reuters. This was around 40 percent of similarly recorded deaths nationally.

Many more thousands of lives are again at risk in the UK as the virus resurges across Europe.

The scale of this appalling social crime has been exacerbated by the pernicious involvement of private companies in the provision of care for the elderly and the vulnerable. At least 84 percent of care home beds are now owned by private firms. A quarter of care home places are supplied by the 10 largest for-profit providers. The coronavirus crisis now threatens to accelerate an ongoing collapse of whole sections of the care infrastructure.

Last Thursday, newspapers ran headlines reporting that England’s Care Quality Commission (CQC) and the Care Inspectorate in Scotland are refusing to reveal COVID-19 death tolls at individual care homes. The regulators openly cited as their reason the commercial interests of the care providers responsible.

The news followed several academic studies pointing to a link between high occupancy and resident-to-staff ratios and significant coronavirus outbreaks in care homes.

In July, research by NHS Lothian and Edinburgh University found that large care homes were 20 times more likely to suffer a coronavirus outbreak. The likelihood of infection tripled with every additional 20 beds. A report published by the Office for National Statistics found that more frequent use of a bank of temporary staff—a more common practice in larger homes—increased the risk of infection more than one-and-a-half times.

A related study by University College London, not yet peer-reviewed, reported significantly higher infection rates in more crowded, understaffed care homes. They found a 78 percent increase in the rate of COVID-19 infections between homes that had 0.7–0.85 residents per room, and homes with 0.85–1 per room. There was a 23 percent rise in infection for every 10 percent increase in the bed-to-staff ratio.

Private operators are incentivised to run large, full homes to stay profitable. The average number of beds in a UK care home is 36, but the country’s largest private provider, HC-One, averages 50. Another major for-profit company, Care UK, averages 66. These and other large chains aim to maintain an occupancy level of around 90 percent.

Understaffing and a reliance on temporary workers are similarly the product of a combination of private profit-making and state underfunding—homes are paid the bare minimum by local authorities to house people too poor to pay themselves. The care sector workforce is overwhelmingly minimum wage, has a turnover rate of 30 percent and rising, and around 120,000 vacancies.

The deadly consequences of the pandemic now threaten to send homes out of business, leaving the care of thousands of people disrupted. According to a forecast by real estate consultants Knight Frank, the combination of deaths from coronavirus and residents fleeing unsafe homes will produce a collapse in demand for beds, leaving up to 180,000 empty by the end of next year. This would lead to widespread closures by debt-laden, profit-hungry providers, putting severe additional strain on families and the National Health Service.

The threat of this catastrophe is part of the reason the English and Scottish regulators are refusing to release fatality data for individual care homes. The CQC worries that doing so could have a “significant impact upon providers who are already facing serious financial pressures … reducing the overall availability and choice of care services.”

The elderly must risk their lives blindly entering unsafe care homes, or substantial sections of care provision will disappear.

A collapse of this kind has been long in the making. In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government worked with local authorities to put social care services out to competitive tender. The private company share of the care sector has since exploded, as major international investors looked to squeeze as much money out of Britain’s elderly as possible—drawn by a guaranteed government income.

Private equity firms now own 13 percent of nursing and residential homes, and 15 buyout firms (set up to carry out private equity takeovers) have holdings in care homes, including in some of the largest providers like HC-One, Care UK, and Four Seasons.

HC-One is one of several companies owned by FC Skyfall, backed by US-based private equity firm Formation Capital, with $3.5 billion in assets under management. It runs 271 homes with more than 16,000 beds. CQC inspections over the past few years have rated 24 percent of these facilities “inadequate” or “requires improvement,” compared to a national average of 17 percent.

Care UK is backed by UK private equity firm Bridgepoint, with £16 billion in assets. It runs 113 homes with more than 8,000 beds. In the last 10 years, the number of beds run by Care UK has doubled, while the number of staff has fallen from 13,500, to 8,000.

Four Seasons has 203 homes and over 10,000 beds. It is currently in administration, having previously been owned by Terra Firma Capital Partners, with £4.7 billion in assets, and backed by US hedge fund H/2 Capital, managing $14 billion in assets. Thirty-one percent of Four Seasons homes inspected in the past three years were considered “inadequate” or “requires improvement.”

Overall, just 77 percent of for-profit homes were rated positively as of August last year, compared to 84 percent of homes run by local authorities, according to an analysis of regulatory reports by health-care business consultancy LaingBuisson. Investors’ pursuit of short-term profits has seen vast resources looted from the sector and care providers laden with unsustainable debts. Nick Hood, an analyst at Opus Restructuring & Insolvency, told the Financial Times (FT) in February, “What has happened is that care homes have become financialised. Their owners are playing with the debt and expecting returns of 12 or 14 percent and that is simply unsuitable for businesses with huge social responsibilities.”

A 2019 study by the Centre for Health and the Public Interest reported, “Out of a total annual income of £15bn, an estimated £1.5bn (10 percent) leaks out of the care home industry annually in the form of rent, dividend payments, net interest payments out, directors’ fees, and profits before tax, money not going to front line care.” Fifty-nine percent of the £2.5 billion of long-term debt owed by the 13 largest for-profit care home providers is owed to related, often offshore, companies, at high rates of interest. Seven of the 18 largest for-profit providers spend 15–32 percent of their annual income on rent payments, often to related companies, compared to the 2 percent paid by the 8 largest not-for-profit providers.

Four Seasons is a prime example. Ownership changed hands four times in the 2000s with each subsequent buyer paying more than the last and issuing debt to do so—a leveraged buyout. The chain was bought by Terra Firma for £825 million in 2012, with £780 million of outstanding borrowing on the books; Terra Firma loaded it with an additional £390 million. As of March 2019, the group’s holding company, Elli Investments, carried £1.2 billion of interest-bearing debt and loans. H/2 Capital bought Four Seasons’ debt in 2015 and took control of the company in 2017, but a full takeover deal collapsed, and the company entered administration.

As of this February, Four Seasons’ business structure was spread across 200 companies arranged in 12 layers in at least five jurisdictions, including several offshore territories, according to the FT. A 2016 analysis of its finances found “cash extraction tied to opportunistic loading of subsidiaries with debt; and tax avoidance through complex multi-level corporate structures which undermine any kind of accountability for public funding.” In 2017, company directors received a total of £2.7 million in pay, up from £2.3 million the year before.

In addition to Four Seasons, HC-One and Care UK have been up for sale in the last two years and failed to find buyers. In 2011, Britain’s largest care provider at the time with 31,000 beds, Southern Cross, went bust. Many of its homes were passed to Four Seasons, while others closed.

In 2019, care home closures exceeded openings for the eighth year in a row, meaning a loss of 23,452 beds that year. More than 400 operators folded between 2014 and 2018. Between 2017 and 2018, there was a 40 percent increase in the number of care home evictions due to closures. The number of beds per 100,000 people over 75 fell 13 percent from 2012 to 2019, according to the Nuffield Trust.

According to Nick Hood, one in three care home operators are facing failure within the next three years—based on accounts published before the effects of the pandemic took hold. Nearly 800 were technically insolvent with £1.6 billion in negative equity. The 7,203 companies he examined in total had borrowings of £6.4 billion.

Operators are so fragile that a 2 percent decline in occupancy rates at Four Seasons homes caused by the 2017 flu season “badly hit” its profits. The fallout of the pandemic threatens widespread collapse. The CQC stated bluntly in July, “COVID-19 is having a significant impact on the financial viability of adult social care services.”

Hong Kong authorities arrest opposition legislators in further crackdown

Ben McGrath

Authorities in Hong Kong are continuing their crackdown on opposition figures following the passage of a new national security law on June 30.

On Wednesday, two lawmakers from the Democratic Party were arrested for their alleged involvement in protests last year against a controversial extradition bill. The Democrats are the largest party in the pan-democrat bloc, which acts as the official opposition in the city’s political establishment.

Ted Hui and Lam Cheuk-ting, the two arrested legislators, face charges of conspiracy to damage property and obstruction of justice in Tuen Mun on July 6 of last year.

Turning reality on its head, Lam was also charged with rioting on July 21 last year in Yuen Long in connection with an attack in a subway station by pro-Beijing thugs and triad gangsters on protesters returning home from a rally. Lam was a victim in the assault and received injuries as a result.

Wu Chi-wai, the chairman of the Democratic Party, condemned the detentions, stating: “We can easily draw the conclusion that the arrests are revenge against them.” He added an appeal, saying: “The Democrats reiterate that the abuse of power [of the authorities] will not help solve Hong Kong’s difficulties, and call on those in power to change their ways.”

The police and pro-Beijing politicians have been accused of colluding with the gangsters, who used metal and wooden poles to carry out their attacks.

After last year’s assaults, Julius Ho, a prominent pro-Beijing politician, was recorded shaking hands with some assailants, giving them thumbs-ups and later referring to them as his friends. Ho had the audacity to say after Wednesday’s arrests: “Justice may be late but never absent.”

Despite video evidence to the contrary, police superintendent Chan Tin-chu claimed Wednesday there was a “vigorous fight” that day in Yuen Long between two supposedly equal sides, and denounced the victims as rioters. He claimed that the video footage of the attack was “biased.”

Witnesses stated shortly after the July 21 attack that the gangsters attacked people indiscriminately, including people simply returning home from work and even children.

“It’s groundless to say barehanded people were fighting with assaulters armed with metal rods,” Yuen Long district councillor Tommy Cheung said in response to the new charges. “The government is trying to distort the history… but I believe people in Hong Kong can remember the truth.”

Currently, it is unclear if the two arrested lawmakers will also be charged under the national security law, which includes four types of criminal offences: subversion, secession, terrorism and colluding with foreign forces.

Since the law’s passage, four students connected to a minor pro-Hong Kong independence group were the first to be arrested on July 29 this year.

On 10 August, 10 people were arrested in a more high-profile police action whose targets included Jimmy Lai, the billionaire owner of the New Digital media company, and activists Andy Li and Agnes Chow. Li was arrested again last Sunday with 10 others on a ship off the coast of Hong Kong, allegedly attempting to flee to Taiwan.

Hong Kong authorities have disbarred 12 prominent opposition politicians from running in the Legislative Council elections, which were originally slated for this month, but have been postponed one year, ostensibly in response to a surge in COVID-19 cases.

The continuing attack on basic democratic rights in Hong Kong is a serious warning to the working class and youth. On one hand, Beijing is sending a message to the population that renewed protests will result in more arrests, with an average youth undoubtedly facing much harsher conditions than a billionaire like Jimmy Lai and others with influential connections.

On the other hand, the pan-democrat bloc is demonstrating that it has no intention of waging a genuine fight for democracy. Democratic Party leader Wu offered little more than a moral appeal for the authorities to “change their ways” after the recent arrests. Nothing in his statement suggested the pan-democrats will lead a renewed protest movement, let alone call for a struggle of workers in defence of their social rights.

In fact, the pan-democrat bloc has always served the interests of big business in Hong Kong, advocating accommodation to Beijing to one degree or another, while giving voice to sections of the city’s bourgeoisie that feels the central government is encroaching too far on their business interests. They, along with many of the student activists given prominence by the media, look to Washington and London in the hopes of pressuring Beijing, while being hostile to the genuine democratic aspirations of the working class and youth.

Furthermore, figures like Lai, whom the bourgeois media is hailing as a tireless defender for democracy, does in fact have close ties to the US government. His longtime assistant Mark Simon is a former US naval intelligence officer with connections to the CIA. Simon has aided Lai in securing meetings over the past several years with top officials in Washington including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Vice President Mike Pence and former National Security Advisor John Bolton.

These representatives of US imperialism do not support democratic rights in Hong Kong or anywhere else. Their only interest is in exploiting the Hong Kong unrest to further the US drive to prevent China from challenging the post-World War II hegemony of Washington across the Asia-Pacific region and globally.

Beijing is chiefly concerned that any apparent opposition could, however inadvertently, trigger a new wave of protests that not only brings Hong Kong’s working class into open struggle, but also unites it with the rest of the Chinese working class on the mainland against the increasingly socially-polarised capitalist state presided over by the Stalinist bureaucracy.

The issues that motivated last year’s protests and brought millions on to Hong Kong’s streets have not been resolved. These include widespread inequality, low and stagnant wages, and a lack of safe and affordable housing.

According to official numbers, one in five Hong Kongers lives below the poverty line. On the mainland, an estimated 80 million workers were without employment in May, while another 600 million were making only $140 a month.

A genuine defence of democratic, social and economic rights in Hong Kong requires the city’s working class and progressive youth to turn to their class brothers and sisters throughout China, Asia and internationally in a united struggle for genuine socialism. This is what Beijing fears the most.

Mass protests in Belarus continue as conflict between Russia and NATO intensifies

Clara Weiss

Hundreds of thousands of people have again taken to the streets in Belarus on Sunday to protest against President Alexander Lukashenko, who declared himself the winner of the August 9 elections. According to Russian and Belarusian press reports, last weekend’s demonstration in Minsk was the largest to date, with more protesters in attendance than two weeks ago, when between 100,000 and 200,000 people participated. Tens of thousands also took part in protests in other cities across the country.

Soldiers behind barbed wire at the protest in Minsk on August 30

The demonstrations were fueled by opposition to an increasingly violent crack-down by the Lukashenko regime. Over the past days hundreds of protesters have been arrested. Among them were striking workers and dozens of journalists, including many reporters for international outlets. Correspondents from Reuters, BBC, Deutsche Welle, Associated Press and other international agencies and media had their accreditations revoked. Lukashenko threatened to call out the army against demonstrators.

In anticipation of Sunday’s protests, the Lukashenko regime mobilized a large number of OMON and military troops and paramilitary formations of the interior ministry. Prisoner transport vehicles were parked in the city center. The residence of the president in Minsk was surrounded by heavily armed security and military personnel, as well as tanks. Like the Sunday before, Lukashenko was reportedly seen with an assault rifle.

At least 140 people were arrested, including a journalist for the Russian TASS press agency. The internet was shut down in Minsk for the entire duration of the protest. The German government summoned the Belarusian ambassador to discuss the revocation of accreditation for German journalists in Belarus.

The renewed mass protests followed days of growing tensions between Russia and the imperialist powers over the crisis in Belarus. On Thursday, Russian president Vladimir Putin for the first time since the beginning of the mass strikes and protests openly declared support for Alexander Lukashenko.

He also publicly stated that he and Lukashenko discussed the formation of special security forces to help bring the situation in Belarus under control, if need be. However, so far, “there is no need” for such a force, Putin stated. This weekend, the Kremlin declared that Russia would recognize the August 9 elections as legitimate. On Sunday, Putin invited Lukashenko to Moscow in another phone call.

Russia and Belarus agreed on a $1 billion loan for the Belarusian economy, which has been brought to the brink of collapse by the ongoing strike movement.

The shift in the Kremlin’s attitude toward the Lukashenko regime, which thus far has been cautious, comes as the imperialist powers have stepped up their intervention in the Belarus crisis.

Putin’s statements on Thursday came on the heels of a tour by US Deputy Secretary of State Steve Biguen, who initiated official discussions with opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya in Lithuania the previous weekend. Biguen spoke to both the Lithuanian and the Ukrainian government before travelling to Moscow to talk with the Kremlin. Details of these discussions have not been published.

On Friday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky declared that Ukraine would cut all diplomatic ties with Belarus.

Poland and Lithuania, which have been at the forefront of the NATO military build-up against Russia, have also stepped up their intervention in support of the opposition in Belarus. Two weeks ago, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki from the far-right Law and Justice party (PiS) announced an 11 million euro program in support of the opposition in Belarus. Lithuania declared this weekend that it would spend 150,000 euros to support “civil society” and “independent media” in Belarus.

Opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya has been in Lithuania since the presidential elections. She was invited to address the UN Security Council on Friday. On Monday, the Baltic states introduced sanctions against Lukashenko and 29 other officials of his regime.

These interventions by the imperialist powers and their allies in Eastern Europe are carried out under the fraudulent pretense of the defense of “democracy” and “human rights.” This rhetoric is a sham. The US government has been violently cracking down on protesters regularly within its own borders, and US president Donald Trump is openly inciting fascist violence against immigrants and peaceful demonstrators.

In Germany, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland and neo-Nazi terrorist networks enjoy the support of substantial sections of the political establishment and state apparatus. In Poland, free speech on Polish anti-Semitism and the Holocaust has been banned, and Ukraine and Lithuania are the two countries with the arguably most blatant state-sanctioned glorification of Nazi collaborators and the Waffen-SS in all of Europe.

What these governments are concerned about are not the democratic rights of the population in Belarus. Rather, they seek to exploit the crisis in the country to advance their geopolitical agenda against Russia. A comment in the newspaper Vzglyad, which is close to the Kremlin, noted that the imperialist powers have avoided intervening too aggressively in Belarus for fear of only strengthening the ties between Minsk and Moscow.

However, an escalation of the imperialist intervention in Belarus is actively being discussed in leading circles. A particularly aggressive comment by the German Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, a think tank with close ties to the German government, stated: “There should be clear communication with Moscow about both potential solutions but also the costs of an intervention [by Russia]. There is no reason to fear conflict: The EU is already long engaged in a conflict with Russia.”

The growing influence of China, which has established close relations with the Belarusian government, and is one of the largest investors in the country, is also a thorn in the side of the US and EU. A comment in the Russian Nezavisimaya Gazeta on Steven Biguen’s visit to Moscow stressed that the US was concerned, above all, with the influence of China in Belarus and Europe more broadly.

At the same time, the imperialist powers are deeply concerned about the ongoing, three-week-long strike movement in Belarus, and fear that Lukashenko’s violent crackdown will only further ignite the anger of substantial sections of the working class. These concerns are shared by the Russian oligarchy, which has suffered substantial economic losses because of the strikes and fears that they might spread to Russia.

While concrete numbers are not being reported, strikes at many key factories, including Belaruskali, the producer of 20 percent of the world’s potash, also seem to be ongoing. Last week, a section of teachers also walked-out. According to a report in the German Handelsblatt last week, the strikes at state-owned enterprises have cost the economy “billions of dollars,” sending the Belarusian ruble into “free fall.” The country’s GDP was less than $60 billion in 2019.

Anders Aslund, a long-time operative of US imperialism in the region, noted on the website of the Atlantic Council think tank on Friday that Belaruskali, the fertilizer plant Grodno Azot, and the petrol refineries of Naftan and Mozyr, accounted for 68 percent of Belarus’s exports to the West in 2019. Belaruskali, Grodno Azot and Naftan have been centers of the strike movement. Aslund warned, “A prolonged strike at any of these four state-owned companies would collapse Belarusian export revenues and the Belarusian ruble, bringing Lukashenko to his knees. Nevertheless, the scale of the looming economic threat facing the country is not yet widely understood or appreciated. If the currency collapses, the real strife will start.”

The great danger is that workers who have now entered into struggle remain tied to one or another faction of the ruling class and become pawns in the machinations of imperialism. A genuine fight in defense of democratic rights must be tied to a struggle for social equality and against capitalism. Workers in Belarus can only carry this forward through a complete political break with all factions of the ruling class, and in close alliance with their class brothers and sisters throughout Europe and internationally.

Coronavirus cases top 25 million worldwide

Bryan Dyne

Eight months have passed since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, and more than 25.5 million people worldwide have been infected with the novel virus SARS-CoV-2. There are now nearly 6.9 million people with confirmed active cases globally. Each of them will join either the 18.6 million who have recovered or the 854,000 who have died from the virus.

Health workers screen residents for COVID-19 symptoms at Deonar slum in Mumbai, India. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)

The United States remains the worst hit by the pandemic, with 6.2 million known cases and 187,000 deaths. The latest estimate from the Institute of Health Metrics at the University of Washington—the model largely used by the White House—predicts that 317,000 will die by December 1, assuming the rate of the pandemic’s spread remains about what it is now. If restrictions ease—if, for example, schools and workplaces continue to reopen and provide more opportunities for the deadly contagion to spread—the death toll is projected to jump to 363,000 as the winter holidays begin.

Such data support the statement issued at yesterday’s World Health Organization (WHO) press briefing by Director-General Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus Adhanom, who warned, “The reality is that this coronavirus spreads easily, it can be fatal to people of all ages, and most people remain susceptible.” He added, “Opening up without having control is a recipe for disaster.”

Such a disaster, however, is exactly what is being carried out by the Trump administration, according to a new report from the Washington Post. Instead of pushing for more testing and contact tracing to contain the virus, Trump’s new medical adviser, Scott Atlas, is pushing for a “herd immunity” policy, allowing the virus to spread through most of the population to build up resistance to the disease.

According to the Post, “the threshold for herd immunity may require 2.13 million deaths.” Atlas was selected by Trump after months of open conflict with Anthony Fauci, who recently warned that to achieve herd immunity “the death toll would be enormous.” Atlas comes from the right-wing Stanford Hoover Institution and has been on Fox News regularly, openly supporting Trump’s policies on masks and on reopening the economy and schools. Right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh was most explicit, declaring, “Scott Atlas is now part of the coronavirus task force meeting with the President. And he is countering Fauci.”

The White House was forced to respond after the Post’s story broke, issuing a statement in Atlas’s name that stated, “There is no policy of the President or this administration of achieving herd immunity. There never has been any such policy recommended to the President or to anyone else from me.”

Such statements are belied by the actual actions of the Trump administration, which since late July has been reducing testing nationally. Brett Giroir, who is in charge of the administration’s testing strategy, recently claimed that reduced testing was warranted because the share of COVID-19 tests that are positive is going down.

The test positivity rate on Our World in Data, however, has been rising for the past few days, indicating that the pandemic continues to spread in the US and the current level of testing is insufficient to know where the virus is, and thus contain it.

The lower testing levels came after repeated statements from the president claiming that there were so many coronavirus cases in the US only because of the supposedly high level of testing in the country. Data from New York shows this to be false, with more than 100,000 tests in that state alone and a positivity rate that is currently below 1 percent.

The catastrophic implications of an untrammeled policy of herd immunity are underscored by recent reports from Hong Kong, Europe and the US of confirmed reinfections of COVID-19, all occurring only a few months after the victim was infected the first time. These studies show both that immunity is not long-lasting and that the virus is mutating and infecting people with multiple strains. In short, “herd immunity” is a pipe dream, making the pursuit of such a policy all the more murderous.

Trump has repeatedly demanded that workplaces and schools reopen, asserting at last week’s Republican National Convention that it will be safe as long as “those at highest risk, especially the elderly” are somehow sheltered, “while allowing lower-risk Americans to safely return to work and to school.” The states, he added, “have to be open, they have to get back to work.”

Some of the worst outbreaks in recent days have been in Iowa and South Dakota, among the many states Trump is demanding be more fully reopened. Iowa had stayed at about 500 new cases each day since March, until last week, when schools were reopened. Since then, the average number of daily cases has spiked above 1,000. Similarly, South Dakota had fewer than 100 new cases per day from mid-May to early August. Now it is approaching an average three times as high and climbing.

Cases continue to climb in the most affected states. California now has 711,000 cases, more than every other country in the world except Brazil, India and Russia. Texas and Florida are not far behind, with 642,000 and 623,000 cases, respectively. Combined, the three states have officially counted more than 37,000 dead.

Of course, the actual number of dead from the pandemic is known to be much higher. New data from the Economist shows that from March through July, the official record of those killed from COVID-19 amounted to only 71 percent of deaths from the virus in the United States. While some were undoubtedly missed cases, the article makes clear that other “excess deaths” are the result of people not being treated for other conditions because health care systems are overwhelmed and because people are afraid to go to a hospital for fear of catching the coronavirus.

This is not just a US phenomenon. The same study found that coronavirus deaths in Peru were only 34 percent of total excess deaths during the past spring and summer. The figure for South Africa was 47 percent; for Spain, 65 percent. Data was also collated for certain cities, showing that only 32 percent of excess deaths from March through July in Mexico City were officially attributed to the pandemic, 34 percent in Moscow, and just 12 percent in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Not only do these statistics provide a more complete picture of the impact of the pandemic over the past several months, they also reveal how health services have been disrupted internationally. A recent WHO survey found that 90 percent of countries have suffered from this problem, and that “low- and middle-income countries have been most affected.”

The WHO also revealed that “up to 70 percent of services have been disrupted for essential services including routine immunization, diagnosis and treatment for non-communicable diseases, family planning and contraception, treatment for mental health disorders and cancer diagnosis and treatment.” Such impacts on the global public health system will have an incalculable long-term impact.

Amid mounting domestic crisis, US imperialism lashes out at Russia and China

Andre Damon

Amid a deepening domestic political crisis made all the more explosive by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the United States has over the past week carried out a simultaneous escalation of its conflicts with Russia and China.

In a dizzying array of standoffs, escalatory gestures and open clashes, the US has inflamed, on an almost daily basis, conflicts involving the world’s major nuclear powers that could rapidly spiral out of control.

In the most direct clash, a vehicle forming part of a Russian convoy in Syria rammed an American armored vehicle, which the Russian military said was attempting to block the Russian patrol, leaving American personnel “injured.”

The incident was the most direct acknowledged clash between US and Russian military forces in the history of the nearly decade-long Syrian war. (In 2018, US soldiers engaged in a four-hour-long firefight with Syrian government forces, including Russian military contractors, but no Russian government troops were involved.)

The clash prompted calls for retaliation from within the US political establishment, and in particular from Trump’s ostensible political opponents in the Democratic Party. On Monday, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden declared that the American president should make clear that “there’d be a heavy price to pay if they dare touch an American soldier.”

He added, “It’s been reported that Russian forces just attacked American troops in Syria, injuring our service members. Did you hear the president say a single word? Did he lift one finger? Never before has an American president played such a subservient role to a Russian leader.”

On Monday, the US military announced that over the next 10 days it will be conducting live-fire exercises just 70 miles from the Russian border.

Last Friday, the US Air Force flew six nuclear-capable B-52 bombers over 30 NATO countries in a major show of force. Two of the bombers carried out a flyover of the United States and Canada, while four more flew over the European NATO states.

While two of the bombers were flying over the Black Sea, they were intercepted by two Russian fighter jets, which crossed within 100 feet of the nose of one of the bombers, reportedly disrupting its ability to maintain its bearing.

The day before, the Russian guided missile submarine Omsk surfaced off the coast of Alaska. The Omsk had been one of 50 Russian vessels participating in live-fire exercises in the Bering Sea. On August 27, the Russian military published a video of the submarine firing one of its missiles.

Also on Thursday, NORAD sent two F-22 jets to intercept three groups of Russian military maritime patrol aircraft off the Alaskan coast.

Even as it is ramping up tensions with Russia, Washington is escalating its conflict with China. On August 24, the Wall Street Journal published an article by Secretary of Defense Mark Esper headlined “The Pentagon Is Prepared for China,” in which he denounced the Chinese military as the instrument of the Chinese Communist Party.

Esper went on to participate in the Rim of the Pacific 2020 military exercises, which included “over 16,000 rounds of small arms munitions shot, over 1,000 large caliber weapons fired, 13 missiles expended,” according to the Pentagon.

Last Wednesday, as the exercises were ongoing, China launched a series of so-called “carrier-killer” missiles into the South China Sea. These missiles are reputedly able to sink US aircraft carriers, potentially sending billions of dollars worth of military hardware and thousands of US sailors and airmen to the bottom of the ocean.

The missile launches were accompanied by a belligerent editorial in China's Global Times declaring, “We can tell the US military that the PLA [People's Liberation Army] will not fire the first shot, but the DF-21D and DF-26B may be the second.”

The next day, Esper tweeted, and then deleted without explanation, a video of himself watching a missile launch at sea. In response to the Chinese missile launches, the United States carried out yet another “freedom of navigation operation” in waters claimed by Beijing. These developments follow the assertion by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on July 14 that all of China’s claims in the South China Sea are “unlawful.”

This latest round of military brinksmanship directly targeting Russia and China, the most aggressive in recent memory, follow the US withdrawal from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty last year, setting off a major new nuclear arms race with Russia and China. The Trump administration has continued and escalated the Obama White House’s multi-trillion-dollar nuclear buildup, emphasizing the need to build “usable” small nuclear weapons.

The systematic escalation of tensions with Russia and China is in keeping with Washington’s doctrine of “great power conflict,” spelled out in the 2018 National Defense Strategy, which declares that “Inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in US national security.”

While the US has been preparing to fight a “hot war” with Russia and China for years, these conflicts have been dramatically intensified by the crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The US ruling class, confronting a social disaster at home, with 180,000 people dead and tens of millions unemployed, is desperately lashing out. With millions of people having participated in demonstrations against police violence, and a growing mood of militant struggle in the working class, there is a very real danger that the Trump administration, acting for the ruling class as a whole, may see in war the means to divert internal social tensions outward.

As workers throughout the country enter into struggle against the ruling class’s drive to force them back on the job under unsafe conditions, they must take up political demands. Among the most critical is the fight against war through the mobilization of the global working class in a common struggle the capitalist system.

More than a Bargaining Chip: Health Diplomacy and India-Taiwan Relations

Ashutosh Nagda

With 487 confirmed cases and seven deaths as of 24 August, Taiwan has been a global success in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic. This success has invited praise and attention to the country’s robust healthcare system, and foregrounded health as a potential area of cooperation between Taipei and others. This was demonstrated by US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar’s visit earlier in August, the highest-level visit by a US official to Taiwan in four decades.

India has been a reluctant collaborator with Taiwan. But the health sector is an opportune platform for New Delhi: both to diversify collaboration, and give a fillip to more geostrategic ambitions. While a ministerial-level bilateral visit might not be an option for India, a secretary-level bilateral conversation on health can be a good start. Further, India can also explore secretary-level trilateral cooperation on the subject with Taiwan and the US. 

Health Diplomacy: Unifying; Pacifying

Taiwan’s health preparedness and proactive response during the ongoing pandemic helped it contain the virus effectively; in a way that did not bring life to a standstill as in the rest of the world. Taipei’s successful measures allowed the Tsai administration to shift focus from “pandemic containment to a campaign of health diplomacy.”

These measures has been lauded across the world. It is in this context that a case was made by the US for Taiwan’s inclusion in the workings of the World Health Organisation (WHO). China opposed this proposal, while India, with its reluctance, trod carefully.

While China’s shadow looms large over any engagement between India and Taiwan, New Delhi must constantly attempt to test waters. Health cooperation can be a good start given the ‘soft’ nature of the subject and its current significance. India has a lot to gain substantively from Taiwan on public health. Taipei’s willingness to collaborate was reflected in President’s Tsai’s April op-ed in which she concluded with the phrase, “Taiwan can help.”

Crisis-time joint action and shared learning can positively impact public and institutional memories in partner countries. Indian health diplomacy with Taiwan will not only open a new door of collaboration but could also have a positive impact on their trade and investment relationship. Such a move could also ease some of the tension caused by its reluctance to support Taiwan’s candidacy at the World Health Assembly (WHA).

Scope for Trilateral Cooperation

The India-China Galwan Valley clash of 15 June has led to several observers suggesting that India drop its adherence to the ‘One-China’ policy to open up hitherto closed areas of engagement. This includes calls for New Delhi to intensify cooperation with Taipei. However, India cannot afford to completely antagonise China, and the status quo cannot be changed overnight.

New Delhi could thus be reluctant to extend bilateral outreach to Taipei even on the matter of health. The second-best option then would be exploring the possibility of secretary-level trilateral talks on health with Taiwan and the US. An arrangement like this carries dual advantage for India: of substance and of posture.

India appears to be interested in displaying a stern posture against China at this time. It has sought to do so by banning fifty nine Chinese software applications operating in India. A trilateral of the nature discussed above would be a useful addition in bulking up said posture. It can also act as a symmetric diplomatic response to China’s recently held quadrilateral virtual meeting with Pakistan, Nepal, and Afghanistan.

This trilateral approach lays equal emphasis on substantial cooperation and geostrategic posturing. For starters, New Delhi could take a cue from its own SAARC COVID-19 template, and pitch a common research platform on controlling epidemic diseases. Experts from the three countries could also work on the long-term economic consequences of COVID-19, and how internal trade and local value chains can be safeguarded from its many negative impacts.

This arrangement thus does two things: it allows India to play the Taiwan card against China, and reflects its interest in engaging Taiwan for reasons beyond bargaining.

Conclusion

Any attempt by New Delhi to improve ties with Taipei will invite Beijing’s rebuttal. The best way forward for India is to constantly test the waters with China on the subject. New Delhi’s approach must be to strongly and steadily advance on this issue without causing disruption to Beijing. A trilateral health collaboration between India-Taiwan-US could hold the answer.