THE GEOPOLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE COVID-19: A CATALYST FOR AN ASIAN-PACIFIC CENTRE OF GLOVAL SUPERPOWER.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, the world was in a process of transition from the unipolar system which had ruled the world since the end of the Cold War to an increasingly multilateral order. With this regard, there was a kind of consensus between academics, decision-makers and other interested actors in the international arena in the sense that the world was transitioning towards a much more multipolar order in which the US would lose gradually its status of the only superpower for the benefit of mainly China but also for other Asian-Pacific states. The aim of this paper is to examine the extent of the consequences of the COVID-19 at the geopolitical level in the framework of global power redistribution. In this sense, this paper will analyse if the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly altered the US and Chinese social, economic and political scenarios in the framework of the great power competition and also if the pandemic will substantially shift the geopolitical balance of the world. This study will try to answer which have been the effects of the pandemic in terms of geopolitics and the prospects of its impact on the global power redistribution and international leadership competition at the short and medium term. In this sense, the main question to be answered in this research is: Has the COVID-19 pandemic lead to a faster than previously expected Western loss of economic and political power able to lead to new world order transition dynamics with significant consequences for the international security architecture? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]