Michael Bociurkiw, Author of Digital Pandemic: Covid-19: How Tech Went From Bad to Good; Regular contributor to CNN Opinion; Global affairs analyst; Former spokesperson for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine
Moderated by Serhii Plokhii, Mykhailo S. Hrushevs'kyi Professor of Ukrainian History, Department of History, Harvard University; Director, Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University
Register for the Zoom webinar or watch on YouTube
Mark Twain once said history never repeats, but it often rhymes. So it proved 30 years after Chornobyl with the first cases of Covid-19. In China, adopting a “nothing to see here” attitude eerily reminiscent of Soviet authorities after Chornobyl (Chernobyl), officials in Beijing and Wuhan misled their own citizens and blocked outside investigators. Just like the Soviet leaders tried to conceal Chornobyl, the CCP attempted to carry on with its business as usual. It got rid of crucial evidence, detained or imprisoned citizen journalists, scrubbed social media, silenced local officials and engaged in vicious accusatory diplomacy whenever a foreign official dared criticize China in public.
Looking back over 2020, the parallels between the two catastrophes keep piling up.
Michael Bociurkiw will elaborate on these parallels, speak to how Russia increasingly operates from China’s playbook and how Ukraine - caught in China’s vaccine diplomacy embrace - faces an extremely grim next few months as the virus exploits weaknesses and government missteps.
Michael Bociurkiw is the author of Digital Pandemic: Covid-19: How Tech Went From Bad to Good. A live reporting project which also serves as an early post mortem of the coronavirus pandemic, the book offers many forward-looking predictions on the likely changes to geopolitics, diplomacy, journalism, social media, the workplace and home, our relationship with China, and much more.
Bociurkiw is a writer, global affairs analyst, and two-time TEDx speaker. His geopolitical commentary is regularly featured on CNN Opinion. Having worked on the frontlines of humanitarian emergencies, he’s become a familiar voice on BBC World Television, CNN, CNN International, Al Jazeera, and Bloomberg Television. His writing has appeared in several media outlets, including: The Los Angeles Times, Forbes, the South China Morning Post, Asia Times, the Globe and Mail, and MSNBC.com. He is the founder and co-host of the popular podcast/vodcast, Global Impact.
Bociurkiw is a former spokesperson for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, and a former global spokesperson for the United Nation’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF). A resident of Sidney, BC, Canada, he is of Ukrainian heritage.
Moderated by Serhii Plokhii, Mykhailo S. Hrushevs'kyi Professor of Ukrainian History, Department of History, Harvard University; Director, Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University.
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LOCATION:Zoom (registration required) and YouTube (public) STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20210915T160000Z DTEND:20210915T171500Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR