2021, the year that was for world: A chaotic return to the usual

2021 started on a sour note for the democratic world and it remained under pressure from a dominant communist China

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As the US Congress gathered to certify then President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral win on January 6, a mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the Capitol — scaling walls, shattering windows, breaking into federal offices, taking over the Senate floor, and stealing furniture. The insurrection was probably the first major attack on the Capitol since 1814 — when British forces burnt it down.

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Many blamed Trump, who for months claimed the presidential election results were rigged; he skipped Biden’s inauguration as the 46th US president. The Republican leader faced a second impeachment trial, which concluded with his acquittal.

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When a giant container ship, Ever Given — as big as four football pitches — was buffeted and wedged across Egypt’s Suez Canal on March 23, it blocked one of the world’s busiest trade routes. At least 369 ships remained queued to pass through the canal for six days until the vessel registered in Panama and operated by shipping company Evergreen was freed. The obstruction prevented an estimated $9.6 billion worth of daily trade and sent oil prices climbing on international markets. About 12% of global trade passes through the Suez Canal.

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Twenty years and $2.3 trillion later, the US’ longest war ended in a Taliban victory. As soon as the Taliban captured Kabul without any resistance on August 15, thousands of Afghans thronged the airport, crowded the tarmac, and pushed onto the last few flights leaving the war-torn nation; some even fell to their death as an American Air Force plane took off. At least 183, including 13 American soldiers, were killed when the IS targeted the fleeing Afghans. In a botched-up operation, 10 civilians, including seven children, were killed in a US drone strike. US President Joe Biden faced criticism at home and abroad over his administration’s unpreparedness for the Taliban’s quick assault — and the way in which US troops retreated. Worse, the scenes witnessed at Kabul Airport were just a fraction of the disaster unfolding in the country.

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Xi Jinping looks increasingly likely to win a third term as president during the CPC’s 20th Congress in 2022 and can potentially retain power for the rest of his life. Chinese schools introduced ‘Xi Jinping thought’ in their curriculum, even as his philosophy of ‘common prosperity’ wreaked havoc on the technology sector amid China’s worsening ties with the US. The country also turned more aggressive to bring Taiwan under communist rule. China’s influence growing, the US-brokered AUKUS — a partnership between it, the UK, and Australia — to promote stability in the Indo-Pacific region.

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Myanmar’s military seized power on February 1, after detaining Aung San Suu Kyi and other democratically elected leaders, effectively ending the 10-year democratic experiment. Widespread protests ensued against the army that earlier ruled the country for 49 years, leading to thousands of civilian deaths. In December, Suu Kyi was convicted on two charges — of incitement and violating Covid curbs — and handed a four-year sentence that was reduced to half.

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For the first time in their 125-year history, the Olympics were hosted without fans in attendance. Delayed by a year, the 2020 Games were eventually played from July 24 to August 9 without spectators as Tokyo struggled with a steep rise in Covid cases. Several athletes, support staff, and others tested positive. Many sponsors withdrew. According to various estimates, the Tokyo Olympics may have lost as much as $30 billion.

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Olaf Scholz took over as Germany’s new chancellor, ending Angela Merkel’s historic 16 years as the country’s leader and 31 years as a politician. Scholz’s centre-left Social Democrats govern alongside the Greens and the business-friendly Free Democrats

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One of China’s biggest developers with over 1,300 projects, Evergrande is now at the centre of a property crisis in the country. The firm has liabilities worth over $300 billion. The firm has been labelled a defaulter by S&P Global Ratings after it failed to make coupon payments. Long considered by many investors as too big to fail, Evergrande is the largest casualty of President Xi Jinping’s campaign to tame China’s overindebted conglomerates and overheated property market. Chinese borrowers have defaulted on $10.2 billion of offshore bonds in 2021, with realty firms making up 36% of the total, according to Bloomberg data.

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In his 1992 science fiction novel, Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson first imagined a ‘metaverse’ where lifelike avatars would meet in realistic 3D buildings and other virtual reality environments. By 2021, this isn’t fiction anymore. From Big Tech — including Facebook, which rechristened itself as Meta in October — to gaming firms like Epic that organised a musical journey into magical new realities where Fortnite and popstar Ariana Grande collided, all are staking claim to the metaverse. There is a rush to buy virtual realty in this new imagined reality, with platforms like Decentraland and The Sandbox providing such services; Boeing, too, is planning a factory of the future and designing its next plane in the metaverse.

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Billionaires fuelled the new space race. First, Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson boarded his space plane, VSS Unity, to soar 85 km above earth

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Jeff Bezos, brother Mark, and others boarded Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket for a 107-km journey upwards; and Elon Musk’s SpaceX sent four non-professional ‘astronauts’ to space.

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The year ended with Japan’s Yusaku Maezawa — the first self-paying space traveller since 2008 — spending 12 days at the ISS. The year also witnessed the first feature film, Challenge, with a Russian crew being shot in space.