The New Coronavirus and World Geopolitical Transformations

This article studies the major transformations resulting from the global Covid-19 pandemic and how to examine it from the point of view of social philosophy through two sub-themes. The first relates to understanding the state of collective panic in Spain, France, and Italy. It is logical that fear of the pandemic should not turn into a state of collective panic in societies living under technologically advanced political systems, except in cases where these societies lack the basic elements on which social ties are based. Therefore, how do we understand the fragility of these social ties in European countries where mass panic is threatening daily life? The second sub-theme is related to the gestures and features of creating a new geopolitical map that has benefitted from the geopolitical retreat of the West to consolidate other political and regional alliances, mainly the Chinese initiative to tender aid to Italy at a time when other European countries turned their backs on and closed their borders with that European Union member state. How do we understand the contribution of the pandemic in forming new geopolitical alliances that could reset the balance of power in the world? We will observe the political behavior of countries that are supposed to be the first to have shown solidarity with Italy, Spain, and France, which are members of the European Union. We analyze the factors related to the erosion of the basis on which classical European society is based, where collective panic represents one of the manifestations of this disintegration. This panic, which was expressed in the rush to buy foodstuffs and the outbreak of a “toilet paper” buying fever that spread throughout Europe and the United States, saw shelves suddenly empty without a direct reason for this fact. Also, the study determines the relationship that binds these factors to the political disintegration expressed in the lack of solidarity from parts of the European Union with the three countries most affected by the pandemic. The second part of the study discusses how China will benefit from these political developments in the West with the prevalence of collective panic due to the pandemic, especially in the case of Italy, and how China is consolidating solidarity relations with these countries, drawing a map of new international political relations as part of its Silk Road project. Also, there is a discussion of the French philosopher Michel Foucault’s study on plague as a theoretical framework.