☉ This article is from the October issue of TI Observer (TIO), an online publication of Taihe Institute. Please indicate the source if you hope to share this article.
☉ 点击“阅读原文”，查看本期精彩内容。（文件加载需要时间，请耐心等待）
☉ Click "Read More" to access the full text of TIO vol. 49. (It may take some time to download the PDF text.)
正文1100字，读完约需5分钟。
Wordcount: 1100. The article will take about 5 minutes to read.
阿诺德·豪威特
Arnold Howitt
·清华大学苏世民书院杰出访问教授
·哈佛大学肯尼迪政府学院危机领导力项目联合主任
·Distinguished Visiting Professor of Schwarzman College at Tsinghua University
·Faculty Co-Director of the Program on Crisis Leadership at the John F. Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University
Introduction
The interconnected nature of today's global challenges calls for unity among nations. However, escalating geopolitical instability and deepening divisions are obstructing paths toward collaborative international efforts. To explore potential avenues for global cooperation amidst an increasingly complex and polarized international landscape, the Sub-Session on International Relations of the 8th Taihe Civilizations Forum (TCF) was convened on September 20, 2024 in Beijing. The following speech was given at the event and has been edited for clarity.In the present world exists an area where there is not only minimal competition, but also many opportunities for international cooperation. The need for that cooperation is growing and reflects some of the risks that the world faces in dealing with disasters - being able to respond to, prepare for, and recover from those kinds of events. On one hand, in the last 20 years, there have been many advances in emergency management that have been made by large countries and many small ones. Mostly, those advances have come as a result of the recognition of flaws in our preparation, as a result of shocks to the system. Some examples of these disasters here in China including SARS in 2003, the major blizzards in 2008, earthquake of 2008, H1N1 in 2009, and COVID-19 drove China appropriately to build much stronger emergency management capabilities, planning systems, institutions, exercises, and personnel training systems. For the United States, similar things happened as a result of shocks from the terrorist attacks in 2001, the failures of response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. These led the US to refine its systems to improve the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and to develop a national response framework, a national incident management system, and a whole-community approach at the local level. We can see many countries around the world building this capacity. These events have spurred a great deal of improvement. Yet on the other hand, the US faces many challenges in the future that are likely to demand not only better national preparation, but also international cooperation on levels that have not existed before. So what are some of the forces driving this? One of them is climate change, which creates many hazards. We know that the frequency, intensity, and duration of weather-related events like typhoons, hurricanes, cyclones, and tornadoes are increasing. We know that climate change is creating a chronic emergency that could include drought and possible famine. It's driving the migration of populations away from areas that can't be supported economically. In addition, the growth of population and the location of populations in potentially hazardous areas - such as seacoasts threatened by rising sea levels or areas subject to seismic activity - create further risks. This means that we have potential disruptions of increasingly complex and vulnerable human systems, like food distribution, energy systems, communications, and others. The increasing dependence of the world on technology also increases the vulnerabilities that we have to disasters of various sorts. Some of this is because some of these technologies are inherently dangerous: nuclear power, for example, is tainted by the Three Mile Island accident in the United States, the Chernobyl explosion in the Soviet Union, and the Fukushima Daiichi explosion in Japan in 2011. All of these indicate to us that nuclear power can be very threatening. The world, for good reasons, is expanding its use of nuclear power, not least here in China. Yet this means that the massive building programs for nuclear power create new risks and vulnerabilities we have to be conscious of. The question is, given these risks, are individual countries - even if they're large, prosperous, and capable ones like China or the United States - ready for these kinds of events? The answer, I would argue, is "No." National capabilities will need to be reinforced or even supplemented in some cases, especially by developing nations or smaller countries when they've been overwhelmed by some of the events we may face in the future. Why is that the case? First of all, emergency events don't necessarily respect political boundaries. The world has discovered this, if it didn't know it already, with the COVID-19 crisis. Infectious disease outbreaks like SARS, H1N1, and COVID-19 reflect the dangers of infectious disease spreading across borders with lightning speed, abetted by modern transportation. COVID-19, for example, spread around the world in a very short period of time. There are also situations where political boundaries don't protect people from events that may occur in one place, but affect other nations, even though they're not directly affected by them. For example, the supply chain disruptions that occurred under COVID-19 created terrible problems for China, the United States, and others. Another example from a few years ago was the terrible 2011 flooding in Bangkok, affecting factories that made disk drives for laptop computers. It was discovered that in almost all laptops, the disk drives were made in the area around the Bangkok metropolitan area. As a result, computer manufacturers in China, Japan, and the United States were unable to complete their products and sell them. A second kind of problem that occurs is that frequent disasters require a scale of response that is beyond the capabilities or the planning horizons of the jurisdictions. This is certainly true for smaller or developing countries, but sometimes it's true for larger ones. Finally, there may be a need, in certain disasters, for expertise and specialized technical resources that one country may not have, but another can supply. There are a variety of needs that are expanding due to the nature of the threats we face in the future, and this means we need to take action in advance that prepares nations better for these kinds of situations. We need better integration of non-governmental resources and organizations with state resources for better coordination. In many countries, the military - such as the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in China and the National Guard in the United States - is the prime resource for responding to large-scale disasters. Yet those resources have to be integrated better, especially when there is a need for international cooperation, as there was in the Nepal earthquake in 2015, when about a dozen countries, including China, sent military resources. The rivalries, tensions, or conflicts among international powers make it hard to improve these kinds of situations in terms of disaster response. I firmly believe that these are areas that reflect great need, but there needs to be a substantial effort in that regard. These are areas where there is a possibility of cooperation, because values from one country to another in the domain of disasters are very much congruent. We value human life and the protection of the lifestyles of people in our countries. As a result, this is a critical and hopeful area.
The above contents only represent the views of the authors, and do not necessarily represent the views or positions of Taihe Institute.
TI Observer (TIO) is an online monthly English publication produced by Taihe Institute. TIO is dedicated to promoting transnational interaction and mutual understanding, thus bridging the gap of misunderstanding and bringing China and the world closer to each other.