The perils of political and religious extremism, writes Brahma Chellaney
China’s authoritarianism gave the world the pandemic. Religious zealots accelerated the spread of the disease The current global crisis has no parallel. The Chinese Communist Party, by initially covering up the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak, helped unleash the world’s worst pandemic in more than a century. The “world is paying a big price,” as United States President Donald Trump said, for what the world’s largest, strongest and longest-surviving autocracy did. The inestimable human and economic toll has shown how one country’s authoritarianism can ravage the world. Accentuating the pandemic is another extremism — one grounded in religion. The role of two proselytising fundamentalist organisations in spreading the deadly coronavirus has exemplified how religious extremism threatens public health and national security. South Korea’s secretive Shincheonji Church of Jesus sparked a major crisis by importing the virus from Wuhan, where it organised a congregation. More than half