英文摘要 |
Since the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) first emerged in Wuhan, China, late in 2019, its multiplier of high transmissibility and fatality has brought the world to an overall standstill. As such a global pandemic is threatening to escalate into another wave of transmission, no country has been spared the impact of Covid-19. The pandemic has caused a huge shock to most affected countries in health, economy, politics, and social life, and indicated a slow recovery. However, the worse scenario may take place in fragile states for lack of good governance, public health policy and resources and national security and stability all of which have not come into existence for years. Covid-19 is not the new cause of fragile states' sufferings, just aggravating it. Before the new virus, some typical fragile states, such as Yemen, Sudan, Haiti, Sierra Leone, Myanmar, Afghanistan, other struggling countries were already beset by poverty, conflict, corruption, and poor governance. Now, these factors leave them especially ill-equipped to deal with the Covid-19 crisis. The damage to fragile states is likely to be even deeper, longer lasting, exacerbating political instability or increasing the likelihood of violence. What is clear is that the potential for the virus to wreak havoc in fragile and conflict-affected states is extremely high. It is not only a communicable disease agenda, bust also a national and global security crisis. To address the impact of Covid-19 on fragile states from a holistic and predictive perspective, an in-depth insight into the concept of "fragility" will be productive in exploring fragile states' weakness and failure in coping with the pandemic and offers an indicative framework for the analysis of the cause and consequence of state's failure or collapse due to health insecurity through the matrix of fragility of governance, security and development. This exploration will highlight the escalating crisis facing fragile states as the pandemic is eroding their shattering survival and stability, and the potential of risk and damage to international security. |