Public Health in Asia During the Covid-19 Pandemic: Global Health Governance, Migrant Labour, and International Health Crises

Asian countries have dealt with COVID-19 with varying levels of success. The WHO’s lack of effective leadership in the region has resulted in increasingly contested global health governance. The pandemic continues to undermine global health, and the highly interdependent economies in Asia have exposed the speed with which pandemics can now spread. The security of migrant workers is more precarious than ever. Millions have been stranded and face limited access to health services. Public Health in Asia during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Global Health Governance, Migrant Labour, and International Health Crises provides an accessible framework for understanding the COVID-19 pandemic in Asia through the lens of global governance in health and labour.

Anoma Phichai VAN DER VEERE is a Researcher of Modern Asia within the Leiden Asia Centre at Leiden University, and a Research Fellow at the IAFOR Research Center at the Osaka School of International Public Policy. He is currently based at Osaka University, Japan, and has published on health and labour policy, sports, technology, and human rights in Asia and Europe. His latest publications include: Japan’s Fragmented Response: Technology, Governance, and COVID-19 (Leiden Asia Centre, 2020), ’The Tokyo Paralympic Superhero: Manga and Narratives of Disability in Japan’ (Asia Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, 2020), and ’The Technological Utopia: Mimamori Care and Family Separation in Japan’ (AsiaScape: Digital Asia, 2019). He is currently the principal investigator in the Road to Tokyo 2020 project about local policymaking in disability sports in Tokyo in the run-up to the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and the ’Understanding the Limitations and Future of Transnational Migrant Labor and Global Health Governance in Asia’ project, both funded by the Leiden Asia Centre. Florian SCHNEIDER, PhD, Sheffield University, is Senior University Lecturer in the Politics of Modern China at the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies. He is managing editor of Asiascape: Digital Asia, director of the Leiden Asia Centre, and the author of three books: Staging China: the Politics of Mass Spectacle (Leiden University Press, 2019, recipient of the ICAS Book Prize 2021 Accolades), China’s Digital Nationalism (Oxford University Press, 2018), and Visual Political Communication in Popular Chinese Television Series (Brill, 2013, recipient of the 2014 EastAsiaNet book prize). In 2017, he was awarded the Leiden University teaching prize for his innovative work as an educator. His research interests include questions of governance, political communication, and digital media in China, as well as international relations in the East-Asian region. Catherine Yuk-ping LO is an Assistant Professor at University College Maastricht, Maastricht University. She specializes in international relations and global health. Her current research interests include HIV/AIDS in China and India, infectious disease responses in Northeast and Southeast Asian states, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) challenges in the Global South and North, and also global health diplomacy. She is the author of HIV/AIDS in China and India: Governing Health Security (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). Her book won the 2017 International Studies Association (ISA) Global Health Section Book Prize. Her works appear in such journals as the Australian Journal of International Affairs, Health and Policy Planning, Globalization and Health, and the Journal of Global Security Studies.