Human security issue from racial discrimination in the United States

Nội dung text: Human security issue from racial discrimination in the United States

1. HUFLIT International Conference On Ensuring A High-Quality Human Resource In The Modern Age - Oct 16, 2020 doi: 10.15625/vap.2020.0053 HUMAN SECURITY ISSUE FROM RACIAL DISCRIMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES Pham Thi Yen Department of International Relations, Ho Chi Minh City University of Foreign Languages and Information Technology (HUFLIT) yen.pt@huflit.edu.vn ABSTRACT: The article briefly describes the concept of human security and the components of human security. On that basis, the author analyzes the issue of human security through the picture of ethnic crisis in America. The results show that racial discrimination in the US is rooted from American history and policies that partly favor the white supremacy of the President Donald Trump administration. Racism has affected all aspects of human security and makes human security in the US not as good as what the world‟s largest country should be. With that situation, American national security is also affected, through a decline in its economic power and influence. Because, racial discrimination in American society has exacerbated the consequences the United States has suffered in the covid-19 pandemic, racial sentiment is also a profound cause for widespread protests after the death of George Floyd. All has brought the United States into the third crisis - the economic crisis, and at the same time, it also reduces the image of the United States in engaging in some similar international issues, such as the Hong Kong issue. Keywords: human security, racism, anti-racism protest. I. DEFINITION OF HUMAN SECURITY The United States has been at the top of the world for decades with the prominent strength of economy, defence and cultural spread. In particular, American culture is always considered an important auxiliary channel to strengthen American influence on the global scale. The US‟s cultural identity is the ethnic diversity that has been shaped from its history of formation and development. This diversity has made America different, becoming an attractive country for many laborers around the world, and thereby helps the US to mobilize forces, develop national power, spread its influence. On the basis of ethnic diversity, the values of democracy, equality and respect for differences are the values that the United States always emphasizes on, creating its identity. The United States has become the dream destination of many people around the world, being the place where recognizes citizens‟ competency with the real values of life, where human security is guaranteed, all in terms of food, health, economy, personal and political freedom. Previous presidents of the United States, despite of differences in how they do it, always follow the direction of opening up to immigrants, at least for talented immigrants who can benefit the United States. But at the time of President Donald Trump, the story seemed to be completely different. The reckless statements of the incumbent President had triggered many debates on immigration issues in particular and racism in general in the United States. President Donald Trump's motto is "America first", but America in what he showed seems to be for white Americans only. Historical outstandings, especially racial psychology deeply ingrained in people's minds and repressed by the values of democracy and human rights, now have an opportunity to rise up. The covid-19 pandemic erupted with the failure of the government to control, making the United States the largest outbreak in the world, and the death of George Floyd has triggerred for spread of anti-racism protests. This ethnic crisis revealed the truth about xenophobia and racial discrimination that always existed in America. It also shows that human security for US citizens is not really as good as what it‟s supposed to be. In international relations, the previous concept of "security" always referred to national security, to the extent of threats to sovereignty, territorial integrity, or issues associated with the survival of a country like war, arms race, proliferation of mass destruction weapons. However, since the early 1990s, the world scene had changed greatly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, ending the Cold War; new threats and conflicts had created new insecurity for each nation and the world community. In this context, the question of the role of nation states and the concept of power, strength - the top object of security - were reconsidered. Accordingly, the theory of "people-centered security", or human security, had started to be researched and developed. In 1994, the Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) first mentioned "human security" as a targeted concept of national security, because after all, national security was to serve the people and once human security was guaranteed, national security was also guaranteed. On this basis, UNDP introduced the concept of human security, with 7 components including: economic security, food security, health security, environmental security, personal security, community security and political security [United Nations Development Program, 1994, p.24-33].
2. 10 HUMAN SECURITY FROM RACIAL DISCRIMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES Among them, the factors of economy, food, health and environment are all basic factors for the existence and development of people and closely related. Economic security refers to ensuring the basic level of human income (through jobs in public or private sectors or government welfare). The main threat to economic security is poverty. Food security ensures all people have access to basic food sources to ensure sufficient nutrients for an efficient and healthy life. This means that, the availability of food is not enough to guarantee food security because people can still starve to death due to the inability to access food that caused by the ineffective distribution system or the fact people cannot afford to buy and produce for themselves to use. Health security is meant to guarantee health for all people from threat of fatal diseases such as infectious diseases (epidemic, pandemic) and non-communicable diseases (cancer, diseases related to blood circulation). Diseases are also associated with unsafe living conditions such as the effects of water or nutrient deficiencies. The threat of disease and health damage is particularly greater for the poor, especially for women and children in both developed and developing countries. Environmental security is understood as protecting people from environmental threats. Environmental threats are divided into two categories: natural disasters such as floods, droughts, earthquakes, tsunamis and man-made disasters, including water pollution, land pollution, air pollution, deforestation. Climate change and ecological disasters are mainly derived from human activities. Regarding the personal security, this is the most important aspect of modern human security. Citizens of any nation, whether rich or poor, need to be protected from violence in many forms and from many subjects, such as threats from the state (torture, hard labor); threats from other countries (wars, armed conflicts between transboundary groups); threats from other groups of people (ethnic tensions and conflicts); threats from individuals or gangs against other individuals and gangs (crime, and organized crime, transnational crime, street violence); threats directly to women and children (domestic violence, trafficking, child abuse); threats to self (suicide, drug addiction). In different countries and ethnic groups have different forms of threats to personal security with different characteristics. For community security, it is understood as the safety for people when they are members of a certain group, such as in a family, a community, an organization or an ethnic group, a religion and, more broadly, the security of each person is guaranteed when he or she lives in a given country, including many different communities. If a group or community is safe, the security of its members is also guaranteed. The threats to community security comes from the practices of repression, disrespect for men or for racial discrimination, armed conflict, or rebel organizations. Meanwhile, political security is also one of the important aspects of human security associated with the guarantee of respecting basic human rights when people live in a society. Ensuring political security is to protect people from the oppression, mistreatment, intimidation, or abuse of state political forces or the authorities. Although countries have not yet fully agreed on the concept of human security, these contents are not much debated except for how to ensure the security of people based on those criteria. The formation of the definition of human security created important changes in many countries' perception of the concept of "security", in which the most important is awareness of two aspects: security for whom and security against what kinds of threat [Dao Minh Hong – Le Hong Hiep, 2018, p.18]. If, according to the traditional understanding, security is synonymous with national security, in which the nation is the subject that needs to be protected in terms of security, then in the new approach, element “human” becomes the main subject of security which should be given priority for protection. In addition, if national security concerns about foreign threats to sovereignty and territorial integrity of the nation, human security focuses on threats of "low-level politics" such as poverty, underdevelopment, environmental pollution, epidemics, social unrest, etc [Dao Minh Hong – Le Hong Hiep, 2018, p.19]. Despite of different approaches, national security and human security are related. As mentioned by The United Nations Human Security Commission, without human security, national security will not be guaranteed. Therefore, improving human security is a key to ensuring national security and vice versa. II. THE CURRENT SITUATION OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES The largest country has been in an unprecedentedly bad period since the Cold War, when it has to struggle with a double crisis: the Covid 19 pandemic and anti-racism protests that spread throughout the country. With the first crisis, the United States has been the worst-hit country of the global pandemic, with 3,040,833 cases and 132,979 deaths, as of July 7, 2020 [Worldometer, 2020]. The problem is that, in addition to efforts to cope with the spread of the disease, a part of the American population is xenophobic and discriminatory with Asians. According to them, this pandemic originated in Asia (Wuhan - China), so, all Asian people become "pathogens", even "causes" for the losses that the United States are bearing. This ideology is further reinforced in the context of increasing US-China conflict and the Trump administration is also constantly blaming China for the breakout of pandemic.
3. Pham Thi Yen 11 In that context, the event of George Floyd became a shot of firecrackers that triggered racial discontent. On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, an unarmed black man died in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States after a white police knelt on his neck for nine minutes. The video of the incident was broadcasted, leading to anti-racism protests across the United States and many countries around the world. The crisis became serious when large-scale racial protests turned into looting, and for the first time in decades, a series of states in the United States had to simultaneously activate curfew to curb losses from the tide of anger that was spreading across the country. The reasons why George Floyd's death caused such a violent reaction are in historical racism and policies that partly advocate ethnic discrimination of President Donald Trump's administration. Racial discrimination is the historical issue of the US The United States is a multi-ethnic nation, including white, black, American Indians, Asian people, and a large percentage of Hispanic and Latino Americans. However, basing on the unwritten law, color is still a criterion to recognize and evaluate a person because American history has been closely linked to racial discrimination. More than 150 years after the passage of the 13th Amendment (1865), officially abolished slavery and more than 50 years after the Civil Rights Act was passed (1964), outlawed discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; the issue of ethnic conflict exploded again in the United States after George Floyd's death. But, the George Floyd event was only the “last drop” for a glass spilled with the racial disagreements that had existed since the history of the United States. In fact, racism is a long-running cracks of the past and there has not almost been any American presidential administration can solve the problem from its root. After 1964, these cracks were temporarily covered with values of "equality", "freedom" or "American democracy" which the US had aimed at building. But cases or incidents of ethnic discrimination still continued to be found. A survey in 2017 showed that, nearly half (45 %) of African Americans experienced racial discrimination when trying to rent an apartment or buy a home. 18 % of Asian Americans said they had experienced discrimination when interacting with police. Indian-Americans were much more likely than Chinese-Americans to report unfair police stops or treatment. Nearly 1 in 5 Latinos had avoided medical care due to concern of being discriminated against or treated poorly [The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2017a]. Actually, African-Americans are not the only group of colored people to be discriminated, although cases involving African people are more serious than those involving other colored groups. In the context of covid-19 pandemic, Asian-Americans seem to suffer the most prejudice and discrimination. According to Stop AAPI Hate, an organization specializing in tracks and statistics of complaints of Asian-Americans who being discriminated, in the last 2 weeks of March 2020, there were more than 1,100 cases in which Asian people were victims of discriminatory acts and words [Asian Pacific Policy & Planning Council, 2020]. Most of the incidents were not too serious or too violent but also annoying in the community, such as the case of an Asian girl being pushed off her bicycle by a stranger in a park or an Asian family was caused trouble at a supermarket, for allegedly carrying SARS-CoV-2 virus to the United States. It could be seen that, the discrimination against colored people, including Asians, didn't just happen recently when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, it had existed since immigrants first arrived in the United States hundreds of years ago. Professor Janelle Wong, an Asian-American researcher at the University of Maryland, said that discriminatory actions against Asian people originating from the thinking of a part of white Americans who always considerred other races to be foreigners and did not want Asians, no matter how many years they lived in the US, to become Americans [Hải Vân, 2020]. The former governor of Washington-Gary Locke, a Chinese American also stated that, Asian Americans, whether of the second, third, or fourth generation, are still considered foreigners [Li Zhou, 2020]. Going back on American history, racism toward Asian Americans was enshrined into law in the Page Act of 1875 and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. These were the first two laws on immigration, which were passed to ban Chinese laborers from entering the United States due to xenophobia and fears that Asians might compete with white workers for job opportunities at the time. In addition to restricting immigration, these US laws also aimed at preventing Chinese or Asians from becoming US citizens for decades. Obviously, from the early days of the United States, Americans did not want Asians and other non-white races to be part of their community. According to the historian-Beth Lew Williams (Princeton University), the psychology of many Americans in the 19th century was very xenophobic and despised colored people, who, from the whites‟ point of view, were unhygienic and sick-carried. The ideas of being “dirty” or illness-ridden being inextricably tied up with xenophobia has also been used for other many people of color, including Mexican Americans and African Americans [Li Zhou, 2020]. Asian discriminatory laws in the US had been abolished since 1940, but the discriminatory spirit remains unchanged, even in these days of the 21st century. It is interesting to note that, despite being discriminated for so many generations, racial incidents against Asians are seldom a hotly debated topic in the United States like cases involving African Americans. As explained, this is because cases involving Asian Americans are usually less severe and more difficult to identify. Therefore, Asians are clearly influenced by racism in the United States, but their struggles are less fierce.
4. 12 HUMAN SECURITY FROM RACIAL DISCRIMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES However, no matter what race it is, along with African-Americans, Asian-Americans and other races of colored people are still considered as “forever foreigner” and hardly to become fully Americans. Racial discrimination is very tenacious, very familiar to many Americans, and is always easily activated. And it seems that, President Donald Trump sowed the seeds of division to motivate it. The policy of Donald Trump administration As mentioned, the psychology of discrimination has been kept deeply in minds of white Americans, despite the good values this country has always relied on and upheld. That historical outstanding, under President Donald Trump, is once again strongly activated. Clearly, the president's thoughts and actions have contributed to the spread of racial discrimination, causing social unrest within the United States. From the moment before entering the White House, Donald Trump showed clearly the thought of racial discrimination when at home, he emphasized on white Americans, at regional and global levels, he always negotiated in the spirit of "America first". The racism is firstly reflected through the incumbent president's anti-immigration policy, which is one of the Donald Trump‟s arguments at the time of the election to mobilize the support of white Americans. Shortly after his election, on January 25, 2017, Trump signed an executive order to begin a plan to build a border wall with Mexico. Then, on January 27, 2017, the new US President issued an executive order banning US entry to citizens from 7 Muslim countries1, in order to prevent terrorists from entering the United States. Along with resolutely recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, in spite of this action triggered the return of conflict between Arab countries and Israel, these executive orders affirmed the "anti-Islamic" of the Donald Trump administration. Also regarding the immigration, on January 11, 2018, when discussing a draft of new immigration law with Senators Dick Durbin and Lindsey Graham, President D.Trump asked a question on why the United States should accept immigrants from Haiti or the "dirty" countries in Africa, but not those from Norway (where is home to the majority of the white population) [Reuters, 2018]. This was a question that, from the viewpoint of Richard Blumenthal – a Democratic senator, was “smacks of blatant racism, the most odious and insidious racism masquerading poorly as immigration policy” [Serina Sandhu, 2018]. In a broader perspective, Mia Love, a Haitian-American congresswoman from Utah, concerned about American identity, condemned Trump's statement as “unkind, divisive, elitist, and fly in the face of American values” [Reuters, 2018]. Donald Trump's racist ideology was also expressed by the way the US president responded to domestic problems, especially through his careless "Twitter culture". In August 2017, when the clash involved the "Unite the Right" rally in Virginia between one side, members of KKK (Ku Klux Klan) and groups of white supremacy with the other side, anti-racist people (mainly the group supporting the Black Lives Matter movement) broke out; Trump condemned the “hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides” [Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Brian M. Rosenthal, 2017], but did not specifically criticize the groups or organizations behind the conflict that left one dead and 35 injured. Although, after that, the US president signed a resolution condemning the white nationalist groups and naming who were behind the rally (on September 14, 2017), however, Trump's delay, the fact he failed to mention the words "KKK", "fascist" or "white supremacy" from the beginning (until being criticized), strenthened the American President‟s racial discrimination. His racist trend continued to be reflected in the messages that Trump shared on Twitter on July 14, 2019, when he criticized the colored congresswomen, telling them to go back to the countries they came from to “help fix the totally broken and crime infested places”, then “come back (the US) and show how it is done" [Katie Rogers and Nicholas Fandos, 2019]. These sarcastic words made the House of Representatives under the control of the Democratic Party, on July 16, 2019, passed a resolution condemning the incumbent President of the United States. With a history of racism, American president‟s discriminatory attitude and behaviour have contributed to increasing of racist groups in the US. According to a new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), white nationalist hate groups in the US have increased 55 % throughout the Trump era, with 155 such groups counted in 2019 [Jason Wilson, 2020]. These groups were present in most states and counted separately from Ku Klux Klan groups, racist skinheads, Christian Identity groups, and neo-Confederate groups, all of which also express some version of white supremacist beliefs. Obviously, behind the diversity that has become the identity of the modern and prosperous United States, fierce contradictions between different ideological groups and ethnic hatred still exist. These contradictions are like a disease that has only been treated for "surface symptoms", but its pathogen is still in a "hibernating" state, being able to be 1 7 countries includes Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. However, two states-Washington and Minnesota, sued Trump's decree to federal court in Seattle. The federal court judge then ruled to suspend the decree. On March 6, 2017, President Donald Trump signed a revised immigration decree that temporarily prohibited refugees and citizens of 6 predominantly Muslim countries from entering the US, removing Iraq from the list. In September 2017, Trump extended the entry ban to eight countries, adding North Korea, Chad and Venezuela, but removing Sudan from the list. The remaining countries include: Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen.
5. Pham Thi Yen 13 awakened by motivating factors. And the United States of the Donald Trump era created those awakening factors. As a comment on the Guardian following the 2017 protests in Charlottesville, Virginia that, the president of the United States “has played a role in emboldening the hate groups to come out of the shadows” [Al Sharpton, 2017]. With the promise to protect the interests of white Americans during the election, a series of racial decrees and tweets with clear discrimination, President Trump has sowed the seeds of division in America and made hate, bias and racism empowered and taken from the margins into the mainstream. III. THE IMPACTS OF RACISM ON HUMAN SECURITY As the world's largest country in terms of economic power and military power, with the top modern health care and the typical trias politica (separation of powers) which emphasizes on human rights; generally, the US citizens seem to be guaranteed human security in almost all aspects: economy, politics, health, food. On this basis, personal security and community security in the United States are also highly appreciated. In a nation with the most diverse ethnic groups, with the status of a superpower which has policies promoting democracy, human rights, equality and charity; America has often been praised for its description of progress, freedom and openness. This status of progress, freedom and openness forms the characteristics of American culture as a "American democracy" - a feature that the United States has always been proud of and also that make the US become dream destination of so many people in the world. However, behind these very civilized values, racism still exists in America, seem to never disappear. This situation has made human security in the US not as good as what it had been thought about. The above-analyzed discriminatory incidents proved that, living in a multi-ethnic country does not mean that such ethnic diversity is respected and appreciated. Basing on definition of human security and it‟s components, it can be said that, racism has affected American human security in most aspects, firstly, is in the economic and food security. The existence of racial discrimination in the United States still be identified through daily behaviours among Americans from different communities. According to Eduardo Bonilla-Silva - a sociologist of Duke University, it is possible to see that racism exists systematically in many parts of the United States: from schools, workplaces, courts, to police stations. Those are places where white people seem to hold key positions, being the ones who can make decisions, and if there are some colored people, somehow, in the same position, that‟s because they have paid many times more efforts than their white counterparts [Hai Van, 2020]. The results of social surveys show that the current human resource chart of the colored people in the United States is in the form of cone, that is, the more important the position, such as positions of CEO in large corporations or senior officials in government, the fewer colored people there will be. Looking at the survey data in 2013 of Federal Reserve Bank (FED) on the rate of ownership of wealth in society, the white Americans hold up to 90 % the assets of the United States, Latin Americans hold 2.3 % and African Americans hold 2.6 % [Hai Van, 2020]. Another research of Center for Global Policy Solutions (CGPS) in 2014 also found that, most Latino families lack access to the necessary savings and investments to climb up the economic ladder [Center for Global Policy Solutions, 2014]. Racial discrimination, obviously, has categorized groups of colored people as low-classes, making it harder for them to achieve high incomes. With this current situation, America's wealth seems to be the wealth of white Americans, not all American citizens‟. Therefore, the basic component of economic security in the United States have not been fully guaranteed as the way it has often been imagined by people around the world. Or if yes, this kind of security is uneven. In addition to economic security, food security issue for colored people are also of concern. As described, the availability of food is not a sufficient condition for food security, because people can still starve when food is plentiful. The United States is the richest country in the world, but in 2015, there were still more than 43.1 million Americans living below the level of poverty [Nick Timiraos and Janet Adamy, 2016], and most of them were colored people [KFF, 2015]. Basically, the inefficient distribution of food and the citizens‟ inability of payment are the causes of poverty in rich countries. Thereby, it can be seen that apart from the impact of natural disasters on the ability of food production, the policies and socio-economic management of governments also contribute a great part to ensuring food supply as well as income for the people. Particularly for the US, systematic racial discrimination also contributed to that problem. The second impact of racism is on health security. In the context of covid-19 pandemic, the government‟s failure in controlling the spread of corona virus has put all Americans (from all races) into health risks. However, as mentioned, racial discrimination is also one of the causes making the situation more serious, even, racism itselt is a health issue. A survey of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 2017 showed that, African-Americans lived sicker and died sooner than whites in America. Heart disease was the number one cause of death in the United States and death rates of middle- aged black males and females were about twice as high as their white counterparts [The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2017b]. Disparity of death rates were also evident for other non-communicable diseases such as cancer, stroke, diabetes, kidney disease. And, even if they had a higher education level - which could help them to have higher incomes and the ability to live in healthier neighborhoods and to access high-quality health care – it couldn‟t protect
6. 14 HUMAN SECURITY FROM RACIAL DISCRIMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES African-Americans from the differences leading to higher mortality rates. The reasons explained in the research was that, daily experiences of African-Americans created physiological responses that leaded to premature aging2, or, as described in the American Behavioral Scientist, “experiences of racial discrimination are an important type of psychosocial stressor that can lead to adverse changes in health status and altered behavioral patterns that increase health risks” [David R. Williams, Selina A. Mohammed, 2013]. It proved that, before the pandemic arrived, the US‟s health security was not fully guaranteed for black people. Thirdly, racial discrimination also affect personal and community security. In the United States, in many cases (as mentioned), people of color are discriminated against because they belong to a community other than the whites. Also, because of racial difference, when any incident related to a non-white community happens, all citizens of that community suffer hateful treatment. That explained why Japanese American citizens were sent to detention camps solely on the basis of their ethnicity after the world war II ended. White Americans were suspicious that they were abetting the Japanese government in some way. Besides, in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Islamophobia toward Muslim Americans and prejudice toward South Asian Americans were similarly increased by the thought that people did not like the United States because of their religion, ethinicity and external appearance. And, in such a way, Asians were also discriminated after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Under the unwritten law, differences of color, religion, culture are still features to recognize and evaluate a person in the United States. Fouthly, racism affects another important component of human security is political security. For a democratic republic country following the typical trias politica, the United States always promotes freedom of speech, democracy, and human rights. However, racist sentiment makes these values not as ideal as what America is proud of. And the fact that George Floyd being killed by a white policeman despite repeatedly pleading is one of many examples illustrating the current situation in the US that colored people are not treated normally by public authorities. Violent clashes, murders in terms of skin color, even manslaughter, have not always occurred, but the existence of racial discrimination in the United States still be identified through the way these cases solved by public authorities. In a survey taken in 2017, among African-American respondents, 60 % said that they or their family members had been unfairly stopped or treated by police; 31 % had avoided calling the police when in need to avoid potential discrimination [The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2017b]. Day-to-day experiences had given them a lesson and made them minimize choices to contact governmental officials. Even in American government, non-white people don‟t seem to be respected. The Trump administration's responses toward the mentioned black congresswomen proved that political security of colored American was fully disrespectful. Here, the freedom of speech, the freedom to express their views was criticized only for the color of the skin. All of these points show that racism has an important impact on ensuring human security in the United States. IV. CONCLUSIONS In conclusion, the ethnic crisis has revealed the inner face of America. The reaction of white Americans toward Asians in the context of pandemic and large-scale protests related to G.Floyd's death have shown that racism is a prominent and critically important matter in American social life. Ethnic discrimination naturally nourished in people's minds has had a significant impact on ensuring human security of America, in almost all aspects: economic security, food security, health security, personal security, community and political security. Because of the racial discrimination, even though living in the richest country, many black Americans still don't have enough food; also by color, though living in a civilized and progressive country, people of color have not been treated equally, have not enjoyed equal career opportunities as whites. Also, because of being non-white Americans, they are also easily suspected, prejudiced by public authorities and many cases have resulted in tragic deaths (such as George Floyd‟s). This realistic picture illustrates a point that, human security in the US is not as good as people often imagine about America. And, as mentioned, once human security is not guaranteed, national security is also affected, respectively. This time, the protest crisis has clearly added more difficulties to the US in the context the largest country in the world is also the place most affected by the covid-19 pandemic. Moreover, the lockdowns to cope with the spread of coronavirus, along with curfew orders to avoid damage from the wave of anti-racism protests, have caused another crisis for the US - the new economic downturn, reducing American economic power. In addition, the fact that the US has to deal with large-scale protests in the country is likely to diminish America's image in engaging in international affairs of similar nature, such as the Hong Kong issue. All of which will affect America's position in the world and decrease this country‟s competitive power in the race with China – that the US does not expect. V. REFERENCES [1] United Nations Development Program (1994), Human Development Report 1994, Oxford University Press. [2] Đào Minh Hồng – Lê Hồng Hiệp (chủ biên) (2018), Thuật ngữ quan hệ quốc tế, Nxb. 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