>> cox along with these television companies support c-span2 as a public service. >> every saturday events and people that explore our nation's past, american history tv will bring to the latest nonfiction books and authors. television for serious readers. merck, discover, explore, weekends on c-span2. >> my name is edward lewis, i'm the editor of the financial times, i'm delighted to'm be hee at the club of california to talk to thomas wright about his new book which you should all

read. pandemic politics. in the end of the old national order. it's a great book. i've actually read it and i strongly recommend it. tom is an old friend but he knows if your friend writes a mediocre book and have a conversation with him in california and i don't like thee

of the articles that you've written around the book that 2020, the beginning of the pandemic is likely to be one of the strong years in modern history much like 2018 financial crisis 2001, 9/11 covid-19 89 the end of the cold war. this is a seminole date that weo should pay attention to. can you elaborate on what is so

paradigm shifting about covid-19? >> thank you so much, it is great to be doing this and thank you to california for the opportunity. i think when you look at its co-authored and we spoke april and may of last year about doing a book. i think we taught at that time that 2020 was an incredibly important year because it was the year in which there was a global crisis and there was no international cooperation. instead there ison nationalist government, populism, totalitarianism and many leaders were speaking to each other. we hope this is interesting to document and study in real time to see how the world will cope and in 2020 i do think it's lived up to the billing because

it really did show us the cost of the global crisis without any cooperation it accelerated u.s. china rivalry and it will have repercussions in many parts of the world they don't get a lot of attention in many years if not decades to come. it also sets the stage for the futurer pandemic and the global health system and it may not abandon the book in the same way the cold war and the events of 47, 48, 49. future rivalries and be shaped bywill the events of 2020 and maybe beyond. >> a lot of people for the cancel for him relation is that

this pandemic accelerated pre-existing trends. i think you're saying it actually created a new trend in ivterms of the nosedive and chia relations. can you elaborate a little bit moremo on that. >> there is something to the acceleration argument and particularly with the u.s. and china and i don't think it really captures everything, populism was on the rise prior to covid and arguably we can talkta about it but covid set us back. it might've reversed a trend in the case of populism. some of the populist as you know coming out of the pandemic but is the stumbling block for those who power. that's an acceleration of the trend in the developing world

they reversed decades and plunges countries back. to me i don't think acceleration captures this most applicable with the u.s. and china. even there a dramatic acceleration in my mind is not the continuation of the trend it's different scenario because if we need to take forward very rapidly that has the momentum and character all in its own. >> that's a happening 2020. >> in china's case we might come to this in a second period it is actually reversed 17 years or so of reforms on public health where was be more cooperative and more transparent for the most part. 2020 brought that to a halt in reversed it.

i think in aate dynamic not just a continuation of what we have w previously. >> i'll get to the subtitle the end of the old international order. just on the u.s. china you had a lot of fascinating material about china's lack of cooperation with the w.h.o. trump i'm not sure the language. >> there is a family audience. >> trump>> says something very feisty about what xi jinping has done to him and to him personally. talk to so little bit about what you discovered in terms of w.h.o. politics. >> in trump's case to hear him shut down the economy really caused him to turn and xi

jinping and endorse those in the administration wanted a more comprehensive approach. but at the w.h.o. loses really fascinating the w.h.o. in january find out that they have a global crisis in number one dictator in china who they believe is less willing to tolerate any criticism from the minternational community the chinese were in 2003 with sars and their leader of donald trump and the director general who basically believed in his own canuasion that he thinks he navigate by a personal leader to leader diplomacy and he will praise publicly in exchange and in the hope of getting incremental concrete cooperation in a practical sense.

that leaves him in january that are manifestly at odds at what w the w.h.o. own assessment is. they're fully cooperating is a perfectpe approach but privately from documents that had been reported and others we know that was not true. that really led the u.s. to react with theory and if not criticize them at least act like you described the doing and if you praise them their counterproductive and that set the stage and the economy on all sides of the u.s. and tried to withdraw from w.h.o. in the middle of the global pandemic which is an astonishing thing to do but throughout this ted is trying to stay close to the

leaders and trying to work the system to get some cooperation but this enormous gap between that and what was needed. >> if you are the w.h.o. this is a sobering case and would apply to any other natural into solution to have the labels in. icing to have your two biggest members at odds with each other. in any way, if you're a believer and multinational corporation, what lessons can you draw from that with the w.h.o.? >> i think we learn global public health, i'm sure the people t who worked. it may be one of the most sensitive areas of international cooperation. we like to think this is a common challenge so we should

work together and it's easier than cooperated in north korea or afghanistan but actually it's about getting into the sovereignty of other countries, inquiring why they had no outbreaks and how they handle that. they're demanding more from that as a transparency of the regimes it could be pretty secretive. all of that came to a head in. the lesson to me there is absolutely no reason to believe if there is a future pandemic that may be worse that china's behavior or the behavior of others would be different. we handle a lotad of w.h.o. bad, they believe they handled it pretty well. there has been a repeat in america we have a president who's rejected the previous attempt to collapse but the previous president and someone like him can be in. the next time as well. i think the lesson for me, we should work with the w.h.o. but

the w.h.o. actually been infected because we can't count on china's cooperation and we can't even fully count onou the u.s. being supported either. if it's one take away i think it's nationalism and rivalry are not necessarily going away but we should try to change that if we want to change that domestically in our own country but we need to be ready, that is problematic politically speaking and prepared to see who these political challenges despite those constraints. >> we should've mentioned at the beginning that we will have q&a later but it'll be me leading your question, if you want to pose a question to tom put it in the text box and they will be relayed to be. is it fair to say given what

china has not fully fast up if you like with all the data. and that it must've had even beforehand the 2019 and 2020. we still could not rule out a lab leak. >> this is one of the most sensitive issues out there and we really talked about how to deal with this. we agreed on a few things or we knew a few things for sure. the first that were not scientist and vernacular play scientist in the book and were not going to assess the science on either side. we did not do that but what we did do after talking to a number of experts and officials from interrupted parties in the w.h.o., the u.s., some other government, this is the position of the w.h.o. as well.

we don't have the evidence to make an assessment. givenme that is a matter of poly howe should proceed, we should e worried about animal to human transmission and we should be worried about a lab leak in the future. if we don't have enough evidence. >> both are plausible and from a public policy perspective. that is where we come up that is a plausible but those being experts we have not seen the necessary information to draw that conclusion. >> is actually the director of the w.h.o. >> it strikes me if there were a lab leak with incentivized to

cover up and a lot of people to do things may be incorrectly that the likelihood there was a lab leak is higher but if china would incorporated with the w.h.o. and other investigations. >> this makes it pretty irrational act on china's part and self-defeating. is there any sign that china acknowledges that may be learning from it? >> there is no sign that they're acknowledging it. i s think obviously as you know it's difficult to draw adjustment from the famous cooperate therein wrapped as well leaders can have all the reasons for not cooperating with inspections. but it's definitely not the thing to cooperate.

the main take away that i draw from this is not whether or not it makes a lab leak less likely and if they were not getting cooperation from china we shouldn't expect to have transparency in the future that is hard to particularly in the implication about them, what do we do about that, that is more important than where it came from because we should know nown that in the future contingencies like this we will have cooperation either. we need to be prepared to act with the cooperation or to accept. i think that's what people are experiencing but there avoiding as well because they're so focused on the question of a transmission. we may never know that we need

to continue to prep but we do know, the reason why we don't know is because they cooperated. >> we do know the reason why we don't know which is a wicked way of looking at it. >> trump had as you recall when xi jinping was a spicy unprintable one followed by the comment in late march of 2020. followed by in extraordinary propaganda campaign between the trump administration and xi jinping and they are saying this is a virus that might would've come from thehe united states. in its fake news that it came from wuhan and the trump administration, mike pompeo and others branding it the china virus and implying very heavily

that this is perhaps a biological weapon. what did the sinister war propaganda between china and the united states tell you about the strengths and weaknesses of each country. >> the most remarkable thing in the middle of a global pandemic. the twoe leading perils engaging in different ways with the primary objective is disinformation and a propaganda work and i know most people think it's absolutely crazy p when you have the secretary of state there is legitimate questions about the investigation and legitimate questions about the official story in thend lab leak

hypothesis. but to have the middle of the pandemic in the u.s. secretary of state basically blowup different international meetings like the g7 because the other ministers won't use the words china virus to communicate. it just boggles the night given that there's so much needed to be done. that upset the europeans and others to the extent there are legitimate questions, those can be dealt with but we are in the middle of a global pandemic, can we also talk a about that in the diagnostics and the treatment and the vaccine cooperation and pro vacs and developing world and the economic side. all of these things basically were set aside. that was the most remarkable. the other thing on china's side was a shift in the propaganda

technique, the king were russian, is basically to say i'm saying this about you but you're saying this about me, you say it's a lab leak but i'm saying, they used to help me do that and they embrace n that fully and they're quite counterproductive. i was think it's more interesting to compare its effect on europe and the united states because europe was actually appalled by what trump many respects and they're quite open to working with china on the pandemic and china's actions on the diplomacy and propaganda during the course of the pandemic. any change in europe and their attitude towards china. that gives you a clear h illustration of how counterproductive itro actually was. >> australia from the

international investigation that we had exports to china. w whatever it might be. >> australia was really interesting when you have china because they kept tightening on them because of the corporate investigation and also because the number of other things that they were doing in terms of political interference in the 5g side w. that was very tense and then australia had almost unique experiences as if continuing with covid with the fear of the travel restrictions on lockdowns. >> you mentioned earlier that we know that china is not going tol cooperate that is in an

actionable take away from this. china is not going to cooperate with such investigation. is that a point combined to the origin of the pandemic or are you making a broader point about china's more general noncooperation with the international community. >> i think it's possible to cooperate on some things but i think it's worth preparing for the possibility that they won't. the transparency for investigation is very clear that they don't want to. other aspects we should test the hypothesis but we should also have a backup plan but if we look at the last month it's quite interesting, the biden of administration has reached out and they have a top mission for china but they also reached out

via the secretary of state and john kerry and president biden in the phone call last week to emphasize the even though the rest is competing with china and the rivalry the two countries should cooperate on exponential questions like climate pandemic and the chinese position at every level has not been so fast that they were to cooperate, you need to unilaterally create conditions through which the relationship can cooperate so we don't agree that we will just cooperate on issues with shared interest if you doing what you're doing with taiwan and hong kong and trade and everything else. that is a current position. we should try to change that and engage, might change next year after the congress. we also need to be ready, if they don't change their mind

that we can tackle the shared problems without their full participation and cooperative endeavors. i'm not saying we shouldn't try, we also need to be ready if the future answer is not a current answer. >> you put it very well inn your book how u.s. china relations under trump after trump realizes the pandemic is in a hoax that it really is going to require a shutdown in the lockdown in the u.s. and the reelection hoax in jeopardy. at that point onwards the china hoax basically had been arguing but not always winning in the white house from then on day one but you make a point that by biden inherited that and hasn't really changed. if you are china maybe that's what you're looking for you just

mention chinese have been linking corporation to change the u.s. behavior on other fronts human rights and hong kong. maybe that's what the chinese are looking to set the clock back in u.s. china relations to pre-pandemic. >> the roots of what were there before the pandemic, they may have ended up in a similar spot to some degree. but i think they did help but at one point, we are careful in the book to not criticize the administration for being tough on china and some of the respects and the rhetoric. some of the laws are justified in the response to what china did. china failed to refuse to cooperate and it became more assertive and crackdown on hong kong.

even though trump sort of change because he thought politically china was given plenty of reasons for the international community to respond in that way. i think by the time biden came in for president biden i don't think it was obvious that he is going to pursue a tough on china policy. i think when he came in the situation that it was prevented and he had chinese activity that he thought was unjustified and he needed to push back. the big question how do we get to the equilibrium where you can piece responsibly and you also have coronation and there are boundaries on the competition, that's a big challenge the china has two figure out how to get to the point. we are not there is going to

take some time. >> i do want to ask the u.s. china questions and may be the viewers due to, they can post questions. just thinking to the u.s. china situation how it looks today from the biden administration point of view. biden has stressed as you mentioned there gonna compete incorporate the rivalry with potential working together. that is a complex no one wants to approach. biden wants to take the china. in the meantime we have a world where the oecd,d, wealthy county contributing to most part the united states. the developing world is behind. you've got 90% of shots in

people's arms taking place in wealthy countries. isn't this an area where those competitions between china and the u.s. the chinese leading in that competition and maybe the russians to the vaccines are nearly as good as the ones to the west but they're sending a lot more from abroad. is this a problem for the west. >> this is a huge problem. to be honest primarily geopolitically but we agree on that is a human problem and it's also geopolitical problem but first and foremost it's a public health problem. it estimates that the cost of m thel pandemic will be around or over 22 or $23 trillion between

the start of the pandemic in 2025. when you think about that number which could grow. the c marginal cost, were talkig about tiny amounts of money in comparison with overall cost of the pandemic. certainly in comparison to the pandemic continuing. thereng is emerging vaccines and they continue for many years. >> we should be willing in terms of getting the world vaccinated is not just about sending vaccines, one of the colleagues wrote that the other day for the financial times for the distribution around the world in that think it's a great start on that but we have to put in not just money but our resourcesur where our words are.

there is one thing on this at the g7 meeting in the fact that the g7 was agreed to send 870 million new vaccines around the world, 500 billion of those were from the u.s., 370 from the rest ofan the g7 and the w.h.o. estimated that we need, it's less than 10%. we were patting ourselves on the back for the extraordinary acts, it's a good start but it's only a start and we have a narrow window if we don't get this done in the next year or two then it's going to be too late, beyond what you see now and we've consolidated. >> it strikes me when america

could put the bull into. correct me if i'm wrong it estimates it will cost $50 billion to vaccinate 60% of the world by may 2022 which would be ambitious, $50 billion is this then president biden is proposing to spend on amtrak. he referred to the vaccine summit calling it a virtual summit or ang international league and including xi jinping can we expect that and to pay the pledge like that? in your view from the biden administration and the department? >> i don't think they would've't agreed to do a summit with

having big proposals ready. there will be significant proposals and commitments forthcoming around the time of the general assembly at the right time to do it. i hope they turn to that the problem is the situation from the start on president biden took an office the domestic is so consuming it can be easy to think of this problem is a developing problem as opposed to an expert essential challenge. it's not a matter of being generous in its affront in a wider work on covid-19 in the pandemic. to be interesting to see what they come up with is not just biden it's really that you, japan and many others that we all need to significantly gain

in terms of chinese in russia, i think this is one area where competition is positive where they can get vaccinations, that is a good thing in the chinese may not work. i think we should not be discouraging that we should try to get more vaccines distributed in shots and arms. hopefully others will be able to do that to. >> let me change the focus of little bitli you mentioned befoe the pandemic with each country's preparedness with a health emergency on the scale number one was the united states and number two was thee united kingdom. they work very well prepared and if they were they didn't do much with the preparation because these two countries are

notoriously amongst the worst. has this pandemic taught us tois be less complained him and does it change your view of what we think we know not necessarily what we do know. >> it's been a revelation because just like folks say it reveals the true power before a major complex in the assessment of which country is stronger. the pandemic had the same effect on all of us. pretty much every country either did consistently badly or moments that the bad and moments i did better. that was repeated and moments it was doing quite well with theme vaccine development europe in the summer of 2020 but then

plenty after that. >> it's a very good point of porsche on synod donald trump are very good populist but itti had a government in plenty of countries elsewhere in europe a high-quality government. but also perform badly. is it fair to say populist have been more damage than other complex by this pandemic or isli it more complicated than that. i appreciate you mentioned both scenarios remains as popular despite of everything in brazil is owned and journalism can you draw a broader conclusion a populism.

>> two-point the type of government matters but it's interesting ifar you compare the u-2 the u.s. basically knew the end of the pandemic hopefully at a better moment not overall but where we are now in the you eu attire and adjusted for population. you see radically different approaches and you end up netting out at the same level. that is interesting. and i suggest despite all of these different experiments within the u.s. and within europe and between them it makes a huge difference. for populist their incompetence was displayed in the denial but what we did anticipate is they also tapped in to a part of the

population that didn't want the restrictions or felt the cost is excessive, they could not social distance and retain their livelihoods, they resented those who were fortunate to stay home and work and they began to flock to populist leaders and trump loss to that and the election decisively a lot closer thanou many people anticipated. that is part remains popular despite everything that is happened. it's a setback for populism and trump might've won the election if it wasn't for covid but at the same time it did reveal in a partisan divide with populist

interest on public health and are condemning. >> would go too far to say it's been a setback for the west or is most of it vaccines did come from the west against that? >> there are three things that the western democracy did that nobody else really could've done. the first is the vaccine operation warp speed was extraordinary and extraordinarily a combination of unlimited government money plus the pharmaceutical industry. maybe in the u.s. but also in europe with a mrna technology in germany. that was one thing that i don't think anyone else could've replicated in the neoliberal society and economy in the

market economy and the second thing was economic response which we haven't mentioned which is extraordinary central-bank response extremely overwhelming as you and others a have written the long-term implications. the clear thing as ascites did that china could never do display an ability for self correction. we did elect a leader who rejected the previous leaders mistakes and that could happen into other countries also and there was some capacity for policy change and acknowledging heirs that is really important and terms of where we go forward. i'm not so sure i don't really buy, i know there's an argument out there because china is

suppressed by us early on and displays her weaknesses, there is some truth to that but they have vaccines are as effective, they are still struggling with the virus and they have no regime ability for acknowledged air. that makes a big difference. >> you think company been the electorate without the pandemic ? >> it's possible to say but it was sufficiently close in the end and i think it definitely was a possibility and i think there was a dissolution of the confidence in handling this pandemic but over he did benefit from this movement in the country and in terms of protest and existence to some of the lockdown measures.

it was more complicated in the pandemic politically. >> we have questions coming in let me ask one more before i relay those to you. you make an analogy in comparison between today and th9 great influence of 1919 and say there's a lot of parallels including the sense that we are gone and that is in your subtitle of your book. >> what can we learn. it wasn't until this pandemic as well known nobody been overshadowed by the rate were what canat we learn how to manae a disintegrating order from back

them with the conditions were facing today. >> integrate question rededicated to chapters it was important and overlooked. the level for extraordinary highest they were many contributing factors to fascism and the like we do thank you had an effect on the i postwar perid and it's interesting there's a lot less institutionalized weng didn't have the institutions we had today but in some respects

we were not any better this time than we were. the numbers are higher but in terms of the response there was not a exception of the vaccinehe we think the main lesson in society of democracy has to work and concentrate together to shape the post pandemic order and that's what broke down. today were not reliving the 30s but pandemics climate change will arrival only. we should try to work with all major powers to deal with those. but we also need to be ready to work with those that we see if the further efforts fail.

i think that is the main investment. >> let me move to the question, the first is how much responsibility did mr. trump after creating the international climate of distrust and noncooperation around the pandemic? >> what share responsibility goes to trump. >> i'm not sure the question what is asking that all relay to the broader point. there is a argument that we have china cooperation prior to the pandemic a number of cdc officials out of china and ended public health cooperation of china and that led to the unraveling and we dug into that in the book and we talked to a lot of different political appointees and others and it

tedidn't hold up because they dd withdraw some cdc officials and they were redeployed to uganda another cdc officials working on infectious disease the administration was trying to recap. the efforts. there the trump administration is not bringing the same but we did see greater problems and cooperated with the w.h.o. and news writing up to document those in years to covid were generally the biggest mistake to

write was february of 2020, he could abuse that the making necessary investment. instead he felt that he did enough with the travel ban that he didn't need to do anymore they told him this is 1918 this is 100 years ago we need to be ready that was a single digit air more so than the press conference with the disinformation because that real consequences and that time is lost. >> next question communist like xi jinping don't admit their failures. i guess the chinese have opened the chinese version but not

require a chinese klobuchar. >> xi jinping has done many things but is not global trial.b they worry about that we seen a greater degree of secrecy. i think from their perspective and his perspective they suppress far fewer deaths than they were organized and they don't believe that the lack of cooperation is a problem they created this for domestic assumption for conspiracy against them. they see the opportunity. i don't think that they see as far as we can tell, we don't see

this consideration that that is a huge air or the mistakes certainly for the audience that we have over 650 dead in the united states and the same in europe. >> let me continue the question of my own what your prediction for this pandemic when do you think, this is a two-part question when you think this will bee basically over and sees to be a pandemic.

what arere the longer geopolitil consequences that we haven't discussed? >> i was hoping it would be the sheer but we may not be out of this for a couple more years in terms of the world. we're likely to see more restrictions we won't be back to pre-2020 for a couple of years that is quite concerning what it will become an endemic but will also deal with as a major challenge or special responses. one thing we haven't talked about as much we talked about in the context of the vaccine there will be a long-term application and the effect on global inequality and the fact that we may have a safe world in an

unsafe world part of it is heavily vaccinated part of the world is not part can socially distance and can work by zoom and technical problems, they can do all of that economic activity and many other places because of the economic models. i don't think we talked enough about it i hope this comes up in the vaccine summit but this is the world that we want to live in do we want to go back to the globalized world with modification and greater management of the excesses but basically the notion that were in this together and were connected or do we need to evolve into blocks and are concerned about the other parts of the roadblock.

>> i thought that was really good of your book that were facing. thank you so much tom for being in the conversation with me in california. hold on i gotta give you the correct e-mail address. thank you to you as well for having us. >> thank you. >> sunday december 6 on in-depth historian and commentator victor david hanson joins us live to talk about war, politics and citizenship in the united states the book titles include the

father of assault, the case for trump and as late as the dying citizen the idea of american citizenship and the ideal that associated with our disappearing. joining the conversation over phone calls, facebook contents, for victor davis hanson sunday december 5 at noon eastern on in-depth on the tv. before the program visit c-span shop.work to get your copies of his books. >> a new mobile video app from c-span, download today. >> it is nice to see everybody today thank you for joining us and thank you for joining us at the heritage foundation. my name is jessica anderson i'm the executive director which is the nation's most effective and largest grassroots organization in the country. we represent over 2 million activists and 20000 fat nulls who are fighting every single day for freedom at the local state andio