Cascading effect of COVID-19: de-globalisation and its impact on global governance

ABSTRACT Just as the multifaceted cascading effect of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has impinged significantly on individual daily life, its impact on globalisation has been no less profound. From its roots in China, the pandemic has swiftly created a chain reaction around the world as the greater interdependence of the global community has taken its toll. This article takes the position that the COVID-19 pandemic is trending towards a de-globalisation of the world. The COVID-19 pandemic has raised serious rethinking on many aspects of social culture such as health care and human-to-human interactions. But global governance has been severely impacted, and this is profound in great power competition, geo-economics, and maritime governance. This essay is structured in three parts. The first explores the impacts of COVID-19 on globalisation, the second looks at how the ‘de-coupling' of the United States – China nexus has ramifications on existing international systems, the reorientation of the world economy and supply chains, and de-globalisation of maritime governance, and the third discusses why these impacts have implications for global openness. De-globalisation has its consequences and is a matter of concern because the impact changes the world into an inward-looking and highly nationalistic and a non-inclusive.