Lessons From Covid 19 Responses In East Asia

Existing commentaries on government responses to COVID-19 have focused on such factors as competent leadership, policy instruments, or cultural dispositions. Yet few have provided a synthesis that examines how these factors relate to each other. This article fills this gap in the debate by comparing COVID-19 responses among five advanced economies in East Asia: Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, and Japan. While agile actions and competence of top leadership are necessary to confront an unprecedented crisis, they are by themselves insufficient. Equally critical is whether a society has the necessary institutional infrastructure in place when a crisis strikes. Policy instruments are more likely to succeed when existing institutional infrastructure supports their administration and implementation. For an instrument to generate enduring impact, it must be compatible with a polity's underlying culture; instruments that accommodate the underlying cultural orientations are more likely to elicit public cooperation and voluntary compliance over time. Policy instruments must also address equity issues by reaching marginalized groups across all layers of the population. Progress in emergency management may be visible in mainstream society but masking brewing problems among marginalized groups. A comparison across the five advanced economies in East Asia yields several implications for comparative research and policy.

On March 12th 2020, World Health Organization (WHO) declared the spreading of the new virus, 2019-nCoV, a pandemic. In Asia, the virus, more commonly referred to as COVID-19, has been spreading since the end of December. To contain the public health threat, almost all countries enforced a variety of measures, including lockdowns, to minimize face-to-face human interactions between the infected and the susceptible.While these vigilant measures save lives, they also generate a substantial negative economic shock that immediately halts demand and significantly disrupts supply, global production value chain and trade. The consequences are dire — considerable decline in output, massive surge in unemployment, countless bankruptcy cases, and unrelentless worries over financial stability. The result, a worldwide economic setback, is more severe than that experienced during the Great Financial Crisis of 2008-2009.Asia's experiences with COVID-19 precede that in the West. This fortuitous timing allows Asia to share its learnings drawn from experiences to benefit the world.The Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research's (ABFER) community has gathered a collection of insights to inform the public. Besides providing access to research on the pandemic conducted in Asia, these commentaries offer comprehensive information on the effects of the pandemic, the effectiveness of measures employed to contain it and the subsequent economic impacts from such implementation. With granular analyses of government policies and their associated economic rescue packages, these commentaries elucidate the hard trade-offs between public health protection and economic security. Finally, the commentaries address the broader impact of the pandemic on international trade, global value chains and society.

The global health and economic threats from the COVID-19 pandemic are not yet behind us. While the development of multiple safe and highly effective vaccines in less than a year is cause for hope, several significant dangers to recovery of global health and income are still clear and present: New concerning variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, continue to emerge at an alarming rate in different parts of the world; at the same time, vaccine rollouts have been shockingly inefficient even in some rich countries, while much of the developing world waits in line behind them for vaccines to arrive. The Briefing covers several policy areas in which cooperative forward-looking policy action will materially improve our chances of truly escaping today's pandemic and making future pandemics less costly.

This publication explores strategies, mechanisms, and innovations applied by the Republic of Korea, Thailand, and Viet Nam to combat the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. The three case studies analyze pandemic-related challenges in the context of universal health coverage and identify good practices for emergency and crisis planning, management, coordination, and response. They also describe how the three countries mounted whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches for their respective pandemic responses. The publication distills key lessons that may be useful for other countries in the region to address the current, and any future, pandemic.

The Covid-19 pandemic triggered the first global public health emergency since 1918, the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, and the greatest geopolitical tensions in decades. Global governance mechanisms failed. Yet, East Asian countries (with caveats) managed to control Covid-19 better than most other countries and to increase their cooperation toward economic integration, despite their position on the security frontline. What explains this East Asian Covid paradox in a region devoid of strong regional institutions? This Element argues that high levels of institutional preparation, social cohesion, and global strategic reinforcement in a context of situational convergence explain the results. It relies on high-level interviews and case studies across the region.

COVID-19 has presented huge challenges to governments, businesses, civil societies, and people from all walks of life, but its impact has been highly variegated, affecting society in multiple negative ways, with uneven geographical and socioeconomic patterns. The crisis revealed existing contradictions and inequalities in society, compelling us to question what it means to return to “normal” and what insights can be gleaned from Southeast Asia for thinking about a post-pandemic world. In this regard, this edited volume collects the informed views of an ensemble of social scientists – area studies, development studies, and legal scholars; anthropologists, architects, economists, geographers, planners, sociologists, and urbanists; representing academic institutions, activist and charitable organisations, policy and research institutes, and areas of professional practice – who recognise the necessity of critical commentary and engaged scholarship. These contributions represent a wide-ranging set of views, collectively producing a compilation of reflections on the following three themes in particular: (1) Urbanisation, digital infrastructures, economies, and the environment; (2) Migrants, (im)mobilities, and borders; and (3) Collective action, communities, and mutual action. Overall, this edited volume first aims to speak from a situated position in relevant debates to challenge knowledge about the pandemic that has assigned selective and inequitable visibility to issues, people, or places, or which through its inferential or interpretive capacity has worked to set social expectations or assign validity to certain interventions with a bearing on the pandemic’s course and the future it has foretold. Second, it aims to advance or renew understandings of social challenges, risks, or inequities that were already in place, and which, without further or better action, are to be features of our “post-pandemic world” as well. This volume also contributes to the ongoing efforts to de-centre and decolonise knowledge production. It endeavours to help secure a place within these debates for a region that was among the first outside of East Asia to be forced to contend with COVID-19 in a substantial way and which has evinced a marked and instructive diversity and dynamism in its fortunes.

Using "risk" as a conceptual lens, this book analyzes how communities across East Asia responded to the disruption unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The contributors to this book look at how governments, societies, and individuals have perceived, experienced, dealt with and interpreted the pandemic and the transformations it has brought across countries like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, and the Philippines. They examine pressing concerns such as infodemic, digital health literacy, media cynicism, telework, and digital inequalities in conjunction with issues such as public trust, identity formation, nationalism, and social fragmentation. They look at a wide range of questions relating to communication, mediation, and reactions to the challenges of the pandemic. An insightful resource for scholars of risk studies and of East Asian societies, the book is also a valuable reference for students and researchers of media and communication studies and sociology.

Aslam and Gunaratna bring together a broad analysis of the responses of states in Asia to the threats presented by the COVID-19 pandemic in its early phase. While the impact of the pandemic has undoubtedly been disastrous, it has also taught many lessons about social, political, economic, and security norms in modern civilization. The contributors to this book look at how these lessons have been learned—often the hard way—by a range of states including India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Brunei Darussalam, and Jordan, as well as by international organizations including ASEAN. They look at a range of issues, going beyond the most apparent healthcare concerns to also look at challenges such as the gig economy, terrorism, extremism, religious identity, and cybersecurity. Using these country-based case studies, this book establishes a framework for understanding these challenges and establishing best practice and scalable solutions for addressing them. A valuable resource for scholars and practitioners trying to understand how the world will and won’t be changed by the impact of COVID-19, especially in the realms of security, society, and economy.

This edited book provides a range of perspectives on the handling of particular aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic across the principal states of South Asia. As the first academic volume to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic in South Asia, it examines such issues as how India has dealt with the fallout of the pandemic on its substantial diaspora in the Middle East; the competitive Sino-Indian vaccine diplomacy strategies in Bangladesh; Nepal’s attempts to cope with the pandemic in light of its limited health infrastructure; Sri Lanka’s differential treatment of its population based upon ethnic preferences; and how Pakistan’s civil-military relations shaped its handling of the pandemic. The Introduction and the first section summarize the responses to the pandemic made by each principal state in the region. These chapters assess the process of decision-making within each state, with special attention placed on identifying and analzying the actors involved. The Covid-19 pandemic is also reshaping international relations of the subcontinent and the pandemic has laid bare several new cross-border challenges and opportunities that states will have to contend with in the future. The book also considers five of the most pressing issue areas. First, it considers how diaspora communities in the Gulf were affected by the pandemic, and what lessons South Asian sending states can take from protecting their citizens in the future. Second, the Covid-19 pandemic will affect how countries engage in status politics, shaping which countries will be able to lead in regional relations. Third, the Covid-19 pandemic is likely to affect prospects for regional cooperation, both for dealing with the current pandemic as well as future crises. Fourth, it will shape how South Asian states engage in global governance. Fifth, South Asian states may revisit their relations with China in light of the pandemic. This book will be of much interest to students of South Asian politics, human security and international relations.

Hawksley and Georgeou bring together scholars and practitioners from across the region to analyse the main effects of the first two years of the COVID pandemic in a range of case studies from Southeast Asia, East Asia, South Asia, and Oceania. The book provides a broad survey of how Indonesia, Bangladesh, Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Nepal, Australia, Cambodia, Taiwan, and New Zealand attempted to manage the COVID pandemic; the challenges they faced; and how they fared. Drawing on insights from politics, economics, sociology, law, public health, education, and geography, most authors are nationals of the cases they discuss. Written in non-specialist language, ten case studies are examined, providing a useful analysis of the first two years of COVID in the Asia-Pacific from the emergence of COVID in January 2020 to the lifting of restrictions in December 2021. Chapters focus on different issues according to the scholar’s academic expertise, and a wide diversity of national pandemic experiences, challenges, and responses are showcased. An essential read for scholars and students interested in the areas of Asia-Pacific politics, sociology, and public health.