Preserving a Liberal World Order: Role of Shifting Leaderships and International Forums

Soon after the United States announced a temporary halt in its payments to the World Health Organisation (WHO) on 14 April 2020, and called into question the organisation’s impartiality, Australia entered the scene and demanded an independent enquiry into the origins of COVID-19.

Australia also took a lot of hits for leading the effort of pushing China to accept an investigation, within the WHO. Beijing moved quickly, and halted Australian beef imports into China and announced that tariffs on barley coming from Australia would be raised to eighty percent.