Asia Is Watching the US COVID Response
The DiplomatWhen COVID-19 hit the world in early 2020, global confidence in the United States faltered as the country that supposedly led the way in international scientific research struggled to keep the pandemic at bay. Still, as the pandemic continues to rage into 2022 with the latest Omicron variant particularly virulent, confidence in the United States is beginning to take a hit yet again, especially in East Asia. First, the fact that U.S. military bases in Okinawa and Iwakuni became clusters where the Omicron variant first spread shook the Japanese public’s opinion of U.S. adherence to COVID-19 restrictions. While there has been no movement to push out U.S. troops as a result, a growing sense of the deep divide in how the two countries have approached COVID-19 and Japan’s inability to impose its rules on the United States – even on Japanese soil, despite the potential dangers that could pose to its citizens – have been highlighted as a result of the Omicron outbreak.