When historians look back to the early 21st century I suspect 2020 will be a notable year: the year of the global pandemic that precipitated a global economic depression. The question now is whether those historians will rate 2020 equal to 1946, when British prime minister Winston Churchill warned of the descent of an “iron curtain” between Western and Eastern Europe.

At the opening of the UN General Assembly debate last month UN chief Antonio Guterres warned that “our world cannot afford a future where the two largest economies split the globe in a Great Fracture”. He urged the world to do everything possible to avoid a new Cold War. It appears no-one was listening...

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