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Editor's Note:
Jorge G. Castañeda is a CNN contributor.
He was Mexico's foreign minister from 2000 to 2003. He is currently a professor at New York University and his next book, “America Through Foreign Eyes,” is scheduled to be published by Oxford University Press in June.
The opinions expressed in this column belong to the author.
See more at cnne.com/opinion
(CNN Spanish) - There
are so many trends that emerged in 2020 that for the first time we glimpsed clearly, it is difficult to select one or two and give them a greater impact than others.
But given that in any reflection on the past it is imperative to rank and choose, for Latin America - and for the whole world, actually - I have two processes that marked the year that is ending.
2020 was both the year of greatest evidence of the globalized character of the world in which we live and the year of the nation state, and of the plain state.
Like few times, all countries on Earth were affected - some devastated - by covid-19.
None of the pandemics, since the influenza of 1918, attacked so many societies with this intensity and simultaneity.
Some held out better than others;
some suffered before others;
but almost no country in the world avoided its ravages.
Even a small nation like Uruguay, which has suffered only 174 deaths to date, has paid the high cost of completely shutting down its economy for several months.
Such an interconnected world could not put up barriers to the spread of the virus, although almost all governments tried.
Even in the Antarctic camps there have been infections.
The damage of the consequent economic contraction could not be avoided either.
No economy, rich or poor, was left out of the terrifying demand and supply effects of the pandemic.
Again, some countries decreased more, others less.
Some overcame the decline in their gross domestic product more quickly;
others remain stuck in seemingly endless vicious circles.
But even the Great Recession between 2007 and 2009 did not present the same severity, duration and universality as the one that began in 2020. If China for its political system, its resilience and the priority in the virus outbreak - perhaps it decreased less and recovered earlier, everything is relative.
It should be noted that there are indications that China showed failures in its initial response to the virus and it is known that the numbers of deaths and actual infections are well above those reported.
LOOK: Wuhan would have had almost 10 times more cases than those reported
Neither the rich nor the poor countries;
neither the more open or more closed economies;
neither the zones of economic integration nor the more autarkic regions;
neither commodity producing countries nor service exporters were spared from the storm.
Needless to say, margins count: some economies fared much better than others.
But they were all decimated.
However, despite the globalization of the origin of the evils and their consequences, the national character of the responses prevailed, both to the covid-19 and to the recession.
In my opinion, to a much greater degree than in 2009, international financial institutions or economic groups such as the International Monetary Fund, the G20 or the G7 were conspicuous by their absence.
In part, due to the very nature of the pandemic, which hampered any face-to-face meeting, without which all negotiation would become more difficult.
Although it should be remembered that the European Union was able, in the midst of the regional health crisis, to adopt the historic decision to finance fiscal programs with community debt.
Another explanation for the weakness of the multilateral response in the withdrawal of the United States.
Without Washington, it is almost impossible for organizations like WHO to work effectively.
LOOK: 2020 was a terrible year for Europe. 2021 is unlikely to be much better
But it is likely that the pre-eminence of national responses is due more than anything to the easy - and only - recourse of modern states to the usual default option: national fiscal, monetary and health policies, even in the face of clearly transnational challenges.
That is what most states know how to do: increase spending, open or close economies, schools, borders, invest in the health and safety of their citizens.
Many states have done this very well in the pandemic: from Brazil, with a far-right government, to Spain, with a left-wing one, and through the nuances of the various welfare states in Europe and East Asia.
The preeminence of the state led to notable paradoxes.
Conservative governments, at least in their professed ideology, incurred fiscal deficits that at other times the so-called "markets" would not have tolerated.
The United States, between its two fiscal packages and the Federal Reserve, could overcome a deficit of 15% of GDP;
the UK, with a Conservative Party government, perhaps more.
Stock markets and exchange rates barely noticed it, understanding that the alternative was a much bigger crash of the "real economy."
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The fight against the pandemic produced other results and other surprises.
The discredited welfare or welfare states of Western Europe, as well as those of Canada, Japan and South Korea faced the ravages of the virus more successfully than the United States, whatever the standard used.
Having a public, universal, centralized and generous health system ended up being a better weapon to tackle the contradictions of Covid-19 than the American scheme, of a private nature, certainly flexible but undoubtedly selective and even discriminatory.
Latin American countries, with health systems facing many challenges, have suffered the worst effects of the pandemic in the world, at least so far.
OPINION | The 2020 testament
The tension between globalization and the strengthening of nation states will, by definition, lead to unforeseeable outcomes.
However, everything indicates that the two most globalized States, and at the same time stronger, before the pandemic, will emerge from it with an increased force, and with a heightened rivalry.
It is obviously the United States and China.
The first demonstrated that despite the weaknesses of its social institutions and the polarization of its population, it was a pioneer in producing a licensed vaccine delivered to a huge number of people in a short time, although the authorities acknowledged that they fell far short of the initial goal of 20 million vaccinated by the end of 2020. It also knew how to inject huge sums of money quickly into its economy, and make the economic contraction less than that of many other rich countries.
China, for its part, beyond the suspicions it aroused for having been the place of involuntary origin of the virus, was able to control its contagion in a minimum period of time, develop a vaccine that at least its rulers considered safe and effective, and dramatically reduce its economic downfall.
The presence of an emerging growing nationalism in China and the American narrative of a Chinese "threat" must be seen in light of this 2020 scoreboard of achievements and failures. A better year certainly awaits us with regard to pandemic tragedies than concludes, but more uncertain and turbulent in its geopolitical implications.
We won't have time to get bored.