The coronavirus pandemic has sent firms into a frenzied dash to raise cash, a somber sign that the worst of the coronavirus is still ahead of us. Central banks may be called on yet again to prevent a global funding crisis.

China developed an app to help make a return to "normal life".

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused global production to come to a grinding halt, and the economic fallout is far more abysmal than economists and leaders seem to recognize. The plan for recovery that is currently being enacted will do little to mitigate the inevitable devastation in our near future.

Global financial conditions, including heavy debt, are nearing a tipping point that could lead to protracted trouble. Protectionism and other factors risk disrupting the world’s fragile supply chains and driving the world into a 1930s-grade catastrophe.

East Asia’s underlying regional identity has always emerged in moments of crisis. The current pandemic provides an opportunity to more formally develop the mechanisms of community.

With the global COVID-19 crisis quickly escalating, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has had to accept a hard truth, rightly taking the initiative in telling the Diet (parliament) this week that the Tokyo Summer Olympic Games may need to be rescheduled, and ultimately reaching an agreement with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to postpone the event until 2021.

The two countries followed dramatically different paths in managing the pandemic, inviting comparisons of their governance models. Certainly, this is a test of leadership. The country that drives the international response will be in the driver’s seat in reshaping globalization.

Can the premier forum for international coordination, survive the turbulence created by the confluence of nationalism and COVID-19? Or will it be relegated to a diminished role? The answer isn’t clear.

The COVID-19 pandemic could ignite economic calamity in the foreseeable future. It will require policymakers around the globe to engage in cooperation to halt a crisis before it is too late.

COVID-19 bodes ill not only for the global economy, but for Donald Trump’s re-election and U.S.-China relations at large.