Search results

The United States has cast a values veil over its multifaceted match of punishments and restrictions with China. When he dismisses Chinese leader Xi Jinping as a "dictator," the Cold War veteran is making a pointed value judgement that puts a moral spin on the relationship. According to many in Washington, there is a new "axis of evil" out there, and China is the fallen angel, supported by Russia, North Korea, and Iran.If global diplomacy was a morality play, there would surely be no actor more devoted to principles and the fight for good over evil than the Vatican, arguably the consummate values-driven state, despite its own cardinal sins in the human resources department. Of course, in the past, the Roman Catholic church has strayed from the straight and narrow and made soul-wrenching deals with the devil — consider Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, the juntas in Chile and Argentina, and the communist regimes of Eastern Europe. With China, the Holy See is not trying to drive the Communist "Satan" away or turn it into a paragon of religious freedom. The main mission has been to find ways to build trust and gain confidence. Religious affairs and China specialists have drawn parallels between the Vatican and the Chinese Communist Party in the way they are organized, function and exercise authority, leading some to consider the similarities a source of affinity if not mutual understanding. For example, the city-state's diplomatic efforts have remained consistent and persistent from one papal administration to the next, starting arguably with the progressive world-traveling Paul VI back in the 1970s and through the conservative reigns of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, to the liberal non-judgmental crowd-sourcing faith of Francis. Today, there may be no need to pray to Saint Jude for a papal visit to China. It could happen, although the incumbent shepherd, who requires a wheelchair to meet his flock, would seem physically unable to take on such a pilgrimage — there are some 20 cathedrals and basilicas in the mainland. In September, however, he came close, spending five days in neighboring Mongolia, which has only about 2,000 Catholics, compared to about 12 million in China. If, as many papal succession oddsmakers who try to divine the mysterious ways of the Holy Spirit believe, the next pope is from Asia, then hopes for a China trip will surge. And the momentum of goodwill and history could bring the bishop of the Eternal City to the Forbidden City.The Holy See's diplomatic agenda with China is less complicated than Washington's. The Vatican has simple objectives — to unify the Roman church so there is coherence in its management and in catechism and theology, and to protect Catholics everywhere so that they are free to worship in churches and practice their faith openly. The missionary work here is not as much of a priority, though in other parts of the world, the Church is battling to keep souls on pews and recruit priests.In 2018, the Vatican signed an agreement with Beijing on a process for appointing bishops in the patriotic Chinese church — the open part of the church that pays allegiance to the state. In the order of the mass in the patriotic church, the pope does get mentioned, along with the bishop of the diocese, while the state does not, exactly as is the practice in churches around the world. Catholics in China who are loyal to the pope have worshipped underground in secret, or at least discreet, locations. The Vatican-Beijing agreement on bishops, with the pope having the last word on Chinese-approved candidates, essentially recognizes the spiritual authority of the Holy Father, with the state nominally a regulator or monitor of religious affairs. The hopeful prayer is that if the selection process works smoothly, this would make it possible for underground Chinese Catholics to surface and eventually allow the Vatican to establish formal relations with Beijing. For now, the Holy See has diplomatic relations with and representation in Taiwan as the Republic of China, with a nunciature or embassy in Taipei. There has been no nuncio appointed since 1971; a chargé d'affaires is the highest-ranking resident official. Meanwhile, the Holy See maintains a "study mission" in Hong Kong — a de facto consulate — that is manned by a Vatican diplomat, typically a monsignor, or clergyman of stature.These diplomatic missions are by no means the only means of engagement. Two Chinese bishops, both of whom Pope Francis nominated from a list put forward by Beijing, participated in the October synod convened by the pope to discuss church issues and policy. After the Holy See complained that China had appointed a bishop earlier this year who had not received the papal imprimatur, no Chinese prelates were on the initial list of synod participants. But on the eve of the gathering, the two were included on the final roster. While they turned up, they left midway through the three-week conference. Francis has also reached out to Beijing in other ways. Hong Kong archbishop Stephen Chow, whom the pope recently made a cardinal, visited Beijing in the spring before receiving his red biretta. In November, the head of the Chinese Catholic church, Bishop Joseph Li Shan paid a return visit to Chow's archdiocese. When his plane entered Chinese airspace en route to Mongolia, Francis issued a message of greetings. "I ask Chinese Catholics to be good Christians and good citizens," he said days later to the congregation at a stadium mass in Ulaanbaatar, which Catholics from China and around the region attended. That same month, the Vatican sent its envoy on the Ukraine conflict to China. Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, who had been to Kyiv, Moscow and Washington prior to Beijing, was received by the special envoy for Eurasian affairs, the first-ever meeting in the Chinese capital between the Holy See and a senior Chinese official. This effort was reminiscent of the Holy See's behind-the-scenes efforts to reconcile the U.S. and Cuba. Contrary to its crusading past, the Vatican has been brokering peace among nations since even before the establishment of the city-state in 1929. It was involved in the negotiations to end both world wars and sought to mediate between the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.China and the Vatican have engaged in high-level talks before. In 2020, at the Munich Security Conference, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican secretary for relations with states, considered to be the Holy See's foreign minister, met Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi. The two discussed the agreement on bishops, which has been renewed twice despite disputes over certain appointments, increasing restrictions on religious freedom, and reports of the destruction of churches in parts of China. The pope, who, as his predecessors did, faces criticism, including from his own cardinals for engaging Beijing, acknowledged in a Reuters interview last year that the deal was "slow going," but stressed that the Church had to take a long view and that imperfect dialogue was better than nothing. The diplomacy lesson offered by the world's chief values-card player is that pragmatism, patience and consistency are the best tools for doing the godly work of peace and security building. With China, there will be setbacks to endure and sacrifices to make. A workable deal requires painstaking negotiation and may not be ironclad. But with faith and perseverance, an understanding can be reached — and eventually a miracle might happen.

After months of will-they-won't-they speculation, the Xi Jinping-Joe Biden summit in San Francisco next week is on. Unless of course some black swan should spoil the diplomatic inertia drawing the two leaders together.After jumping the hosting queue to take on the convening duties for this year's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders' Meeting, the U.S. has now guaranteed that its own agenda for the summit — supply chain resilience, digital trade, connectivity, small and medium-sized enterprises, climate change and sustainability — will be well and truly overshadowed by the focus on the face-to-face between the two most powerful leaders in the world. The sideline session will be the main event.In the world of "omnicrisis" — in particular, the Ukraine conflict and the Israel-Hamas war and siege of Gaza, and the global challenge of climate change — China and the U.S. have to be in communication, settled into a working rivalry based on the Biden administration's "three Cs" framework of cooperation, competition and confrontation. Washington and Beijing are both an indispensable partner and an inevitable adversary — they can and will clash, even in a manner reminiscent of the brinkmanship of the Cold War, but for global stability, peace and environmental sustainability, they must work together on critical international crises, or at least talk about them. A China-U.S. war, which strategists in both countries have spent countless hours gaming out, would be a meaningless contest, with no winner, only losers and unfathomable collateral damage.Biden and Xi could have met in September at the G20 summit in Delhi, but Xi was a no-show — possibly to avoid a visit to India, the geopolitical belle-of-the-ball with which China has a bubbling border dispute. More likely he needed instead to attend to urgent domestic matters such as China's weak economy and troubles with two disappeared ministers who were eventually sacked. The Chinese have remained officially non-committal about Xi's attendance at APEC too, but Foreign Minister Wang Yi's two-day October visit to Washington, capped by an hour-long encounter with Biden at the White House, has apparently confirmed the appointment.Both sides appear willing to keep the tête-à-tête on track. For one thing, the stream of high-level contacts since Secretary of State Antony Blinken went to Beijing in June, a visit postponed by the "spy balloon" brouhaha, has continued unabated. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was in China shortly after, followed by Biden's climate envoy John Kerry. Commerce chief Gina Raimondo, the administration's point person on economic sanctions and trade restrictions, arrived in August. There have been telling cameo appearances, too. In July, centenarian Henry Kissinger flew in to be celebrated as an "old friend" by the Chinese leadership including Xi. In October, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer led a bipartisan congressional delegation to Beijing, meeting Xi two days after the surprise attack on Israel by Hamas terrorists. Later in the month, California Governor Gavin Newsom breezed through China on a tour pointedly focused on climate change. Widely regarded as a presidential hopeful, Newsom was the first American governor to visit China in over four years and the first to be received by Xi in over six years. Signs that China is eager for the Biden-Xi meeting to go ahead and for the two countries to put their relationship on a more productive footing have been discernible. Wang Yi has been meeting for hours of talks with both Blinken and Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan at different venues around the world. Besides receiving American officials in Beijing, China has reciprocated with visits to the U.S. by Commerce Minister Wang Wentao in May, Wang Yi at the end of October, and on the eve of the APEC meeting Vice Premier He Lifeng, Yellen's counterpart. But possibly the most significant re-engagement move so far was the resumption of defense contacts at the end of October when Chinese and American officials met briefly at a multilateral security forum in Beijing. The U.S. had been trying to restart military-to-military talks which China cut off after then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August 2022. American Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had reached out to his counterpart Li Shangfu, also a U.S.-sanctioned individual, requesting a meeting on the sidelines of a conference in Singapore in June, but was refused. Li was removed from his position on October 24. Austin has requested a meeting with his yet-unnamed counterpart at an ASEAN defense ministers gathering in Jakarta on November 16. Where does all this put the China-U.S. relationship? There is little expectation that the Biden-Xi meeting will yield any significant outcome. When they met in Bali in November 2022, the two had discussed "guardrails" to prevent the contentious relationship from deteriorating into conflict. Some of those preventive mechanisms are now in place. The two governments launched working groups on economic and financial issues in September, with the former meeting for the first time by video conference on October 24. Both groups are supposed to convene again when Yellen and He confer in San Francisco on November 9-10.The diplomatic exchange between China and the U.S. is arguably the highest and broadest since the eighth and final round of the bilateral Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) in 2016. The S&ED was a series of senior-level discussions launched in a limited format during the George W. Bush administration and expanded in 2009 by Barack Obama. While the two nations are not yet back to that level of engagement, the launch of mechanisms for regular consultations goes against the persistent narrative of utter negativity. To be sure, the two sides may be talking at cross purposes, merely airing grievances. China is seeking relief or at least a pause from all the sanctions and exclusions, particularly on advanced technology transfer and financial flows. The U.S., however, is unlikely to comply, especially with the 2024 election campaign already underway. One of Beijing's demands for Xi's presence in San Francisco is for Washington to refrain from announcing fresh trade restrictions before, during or soon after the Biden meeting. Other complications are on the horizon. Some regional analysts argue that Beijing will want to challenge Washington at this geopolitically fraught time. But the Chinese are no less stretched diplomatically and, more to the point, are facing serious economic challenges at home. The Taiwan presidential election in January will surely be preceded and followed by the mainland's customary military menacing. Washington's drift away from its traditional ambiguity on defending the island is the biggest irritant in China-U.S. relations. Actions by both China and the Philippines in the South China Sea have raised fears of a conflict that could draw in the U.S., which has a mutual defense treaty with Manila. Meanwhile, Hong Kong is planning on passing more security laws in the first half of 2024. As the U.S. elections approach, the political rhetoric and policy making in Washington are likely to get more performative and provocative.This is not (yet) a G2 world, but Xi and Biden could capture imaginations by together engineering a diplomatic masterstroke in San Francisco if they were to announce a trio of cooperative projects: first, a joint effort to convene relevant parties to resolve the Israel-Hamas war and set a pathway to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; second, a collaborative initiative to bring peace to Ukraine; and third, an agreement to catalyze countries to increase commitments at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai in December. And while they are at it, they should endorse rebounding post-pandemic bilateral cultural and educational exchange (Washington can reinstate the Fulbright program with Hong Kong and the mainland), renew the U.S.-China science and technology agreement set to expire early next year, and reboot China's program to loan pandas to American zoos. An impossibility? Optimists in these dire times should dare to dream.

China and the United States, like sports captains picking sides, have been engaged in a considered effort to enlist partners. In the recruitment rush, the Biden administration has given short shrift to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its much vaunted balancing, or "centrality" in the Asia Pacific. Washington, like Beijing, has favored certain ASEAN members over others, frustrated no doubt by the group's lack of cohesion and effectiveness. But in the new multipolar world, these hinge countries and their groupings can be as important as power poles. There has been a lot of coalition building lately. In August, the BRICS bloc — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — invited six new members to join at the start of 2024. In March, Iran and Saudi Arabia reestablished ties after years of antagonism in a deal brokered by Beijing. In July, China signed an accord on law enforcement and security with the Solomon Islands and announced a strategic partnership with Georgia. This month, China upgraded its relationship with American bugaboo Venezuela to an "all-weather" partnership.The U.S. has been similarly busy — perhaps more so to make up for Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) bridge-building over the past decade. In August, President Joe Biden and his Japanese and South Korean counterparts launched a trilateral grouping at Camp David. The U.S. and the Philippines in February revived an agreement giving increased American access to Filipino military facilities. In May, the U.S. and Papua New Guinea concluded a defense pact. At the G20 summit in New Delhi this month, the leaders of the U.S., the European Union, India, Saudi Arabia and other countries committed to developing an India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor for cooperation on clean energy, power grids and telecommunications. After the G20, Biden traveled to Hanoi where the U.S. and Vietnam announced that they were elevating relations to a "comprehensive strategic partnership," deepening cooperation in cloud computing, semiconductors and artificial intelligence — all areas of contention between Washington and Beijing. In a 2021 lecture, Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan described how the administration was assembling a "latticework of alliances and partnerships globally." This was "not just about refurbishing the old bilateral alliances," he explained, "but modernizing those elements of the latticework and adding new components." Sullivan cited as examples the upgrading of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, known as the Quad (Australia, India, Japan, and the U.S.), to leader level and the creation of AUKUS, the partnership among Australia, the United Kingdom and the U.S. to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Canberra and collaborate on advanced technologies.Both Washington and Beijing say they are not forcing countries to pick sides, though the impression that they do just that is unavoidable. Beijing has applied economic pressure on states for actions that it perceives to hew too closely to American positions — Canada, Australia, South Korea and Japan have had to deal with such coercion. In network building, the U.S. has offered more carrots than sticks, particularly when it comes to courting pivotal states that Washington deems to have distinct geostrategic importance and — more to the point — the capacity to contribute to countering or containing China. In the Indo-Pacific, India, the Philippines and Vietnam have been the chief recipients of American courtship. But what about ASEAN? Washington insists that it values ASEAN centrality, but the proof of its perspective is in its actions. Biden skipped ASEAN's annual leaders' jamboree with dialogue partners, leaving it to his vice president to go to Jakarta, but squeezed in a visit to Hanoi just days later. The president's participation in the G20 was a not-to-be-missed opportunity to butter up Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who only in June had been feted at the White House. India is the most-prized pivot country in the Indo-Pacific (that status so obvious in the term). Under Modi, it sees itself as a power pole in its own right. New Delhi has proven its multi-alignment credentials, with its participation in the Quad, the BRICS and the China/Russia-conceived Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and its refusal to turn against traditional ally Moscow since the Ukraine war broke out. Biden is oiling the Indian hinge so it swings more Washington's way — and may be succeeding, given India's border clashes with China and its participation in joint military activities in the Pacific, Quad initiatives and Biden's Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF).ASEAN should be as critical a hinge player if not to win over, at least to keep "central" as the region's balancer — a crucial section of the lattice that would act as a security blanket for peace and stability. Some member states, worried that the China-U.S. rivalry undermines their agency, have warned the two great powers against forcing them to choose sides. ASEAN has not bought into the American Indo-Pacific construct, merely articulating an "outlook" on the concept. Southeast Asian nations will profit more not by putting on any one team's jersey, but instead playing the field as something of a referee or honest broker in good stead with both sides, however heated the competition.U.S. administrations have never taken the centrality of ASEAN seriously, largely because member states themselves have failed to show what it means to be the region's ballast. It is a systemic problem — ASEAN is no EU in either form or practice. Even though it has launched an "economic community" and has sought to address thorny problems, such as Myanmar and the South China Sea, as a group, it remains a politically divided, economically diverse collection of states, with a reputation for glacial progress and ineffectiveness. It was born this way, though it was successful in its founding mission to be a bulwark against communism's spread.But ASEAN has strengths beyond being the world's fifth largest economy. Its convening power is unmatched, reaching across economic and strategic spheres. Its ASEAN Regional Forum and ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting-Plus are as evolved and inclusive a strategic framework for the region as is possible. ASEAN-led platforms offer a neutral space for the great powers to interact on a wide range of issues. By lavishing attention on certain ASEAN members — the Philippines, Vietnam and Singapore (host of a U.S. military facility) — Washington is mimicking the Chinese divide-and-conquer approach (Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar are reckoned to be on Team Beijing). But even small gaps weaken a lattice. The ASEAN way may be slow and plodding — negotiations with Beijing on a code of conduct in the South China Sea have dragged on for years — but this tortoise cannot be written off.In a speech on September 13 outlining "the power and purpose of American diplomacy," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken tellingly never mentioned ASEAN. Yet, the Biden administration may be smartening up. Seven of the ASEAN 10 are part of the IPEF, the American answer to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), from which the U.S. withdrew, and the ASEAN-China concocted Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade accord. And guess who's coming to the White House for a bilateral with Biden in November? Indonesian President Joko Widodo, the very leader whom Biden "snubbed" in favor of one night in Vietnam. With its sizable population, strategic geographical position, participation in China's BRI, a maritime dispute of its own with Beijing, a growing strategic relationship with Washington, and a critical presidential election next year, Indonesia is the key hinge power in Southeast Asia. Like India, it has proven its agency and pragmatism, particularly in vital areas such as data security standards and infrastructure development. Giving Jakarta more attention would bolster ASEAN's position in the American Indo-Pacific latticework, especially with Laos, a country that tilts towards Beijing and is taking over from Indonesia as ASEAN chair next year.

Countries with consulates in Hong Kong are trying to figure out how to reengage with the Chinese special administrative region (SAR). Diplomacy and people-to-people interaction (including tourism) stopped in 2019 when anti-government demonstrations erupted. The freeze continued as the protests were quelled, first by Covid-19 fears and infection-control measures and then by China's imposition of a national security law (NSL) for Hong Kong.With conferences and big-ticket events resuming, Hong Kong is back in business. Tourists have returned, though arrivals in the first six months of 2023 were less than half the pre-pandemic level. Business, academic and civil society delegations have trickled in, what with mainland China itself open again.On the political front, countries are only gingerly reengaging with Hong Kong. Official visits by foreign government representatives are not happening – with one exception. In May, Dominic Johnson, Britain's minister for investment, became the first UK minister to visit in five years. In a local newspaper op-ed, he explained that, while Britain would engage "robustly and constructively" with China and Hong Kong when interests converge, it would "stand up for our values and be clear about our right to act when Beijing breaks its international commitments or abuses human rights."In March, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Rick Waters spent a few days in Hong Kong on an unofficial visit before making similarly low-key stops in Shanghai and Beijing. Even as the U.S. and China have reengaged in senior-level talks, including between national leaders, Washington seems intent on keeping its distance from Hong Kong. The White House is reported to be barring Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee from participating in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting in San Francisco in November. After the NSL was imposed in 2020, the U.S. sanctioned Lee, then Hong Kong's secretary for security, along with 10 other SAR and Chinese officials. What are the obstacles to U.S. reengagement with Hong Kong? Domestic political pressure from supporters of Hong Kong democracy activists, many in prison in the SAR or in exile, has played a part. The Congressional-Executive Committee on China recently issued a report on the Hong Kong judiciary and the NSL in which it called for sanctions to be imposed on 29 of the city's judges, including the chief justice. The Hong Kong government has not made it easy for the U.S. and other countries to reengage. The announcement of bounties for fugitive dissidents, prosecutions of politicians and activists, the closing down of media outlets, refusing visas to overseas scholars or blocking civil-society figures from entering the SAR, the legal effort to force online platforms to remove a protest anthem from the internet, and other actions by the SAR government have meant that diplomatic outreach can be politically problematic, especially for Washington, given that it no longer recognizes Hong Kong's autonomy. Apocalyptic narratives about life in the SAR have only gained currency inside the Beltway.Has the NSL eviscerated "one country, two systems?" Hong Kong continues to have agency, but under pressure, the government chooses to act in ways that it perceives Beijing would want it to. For example, Hong Kong's ban on seafood imports from Japan after Tokyo began to release Fukushima waste water into the ocean on August 24 hewed to Beijing's position. Second-guessing the sovereign has been a well-established modus operandi of Hong Kong public administration since British colonial days. That the common law still underpins Hong Kong's rule of law remains evident – the legal system continues to function as before, albeit with security-related cases in a separate domain. Consider court judgments such as the rejection of the government's request to remove the protest song from online platforms. (The government is appealing.) Or the overturning of the conviction of an investigative journalist for making false statements. Or a judgment by the Court of Final Appeal on a sentencing case that rejected lower-court references to mainland legal texts. As British minister Johnson argued for his country, it is still in the interest of the U.S. to engage with Hong Kong. The SAR will remain an important international financial center — granted, an international financial center in China – closely aligned with China's growth needs. Hong Kong's role in China's financial and economic development is secure, especially now that the city has restored law and order and moved beyond Covid. Should the U.S. continue to work with the SAR, despite the argument that doing so would benefit China and the Chinese Communist Party? American business and the market will answer that question, if Washington will let them rather than fixate on escalating decoupling. Ask local business leaders or foreign investors in Hong Kong, and many will say that the NSL has at least restored order, public safety and predictability. Whatever one's perspective on the law, what is clear is that the SAR's operating system remains distinct from the mainland's. Indeed, for some in Hong Kong, that Beijing moved ahead with the NSL, despite expectations of sharp criticism from the U.S. and the West, has put paid to the idea that China is setting up Shenzhen or Shanghai to eclipse the SAR. One China watcher in Hong Kong points to the city's universities and their academic freedom, still broader than in mainland institutions, as another key indicator.Cora Chan, a law professor at The University of Hong Kong, has analyzed the relationship between the Hong Kong and Chinese legal orders using German political scientist Ernst Fraenkel's "dual state" framework, which is useful for understanding why it is crucial for the U.S. and other countries that have had robust working relationships with Hong Kong to continue doing so. It is critical to bolster the normative state, which includes the judiciary and higher-education system, that exists in the SAR even as mechanisms of the prerogative state, as represented by the national security apparatus, are applied. Those who care about defending norms should step up — not limit — people-to-people exchanges and other contacts. Now is not the time to shun Hong Kong. In the aftermath of the 2019 protests, the U.S. and other nations sought to attract immigrants from Hong Kong. Facilitating a brain drain may help the destination country in manpower and skills development, but it does not benefit Hong Kong's people and society. For Washington, finding politically palatable ways to work with Hong Kong is challenging. There are collaborative frameworks already in place that could be strengthened, including those for academic exchange, countering human and drug trafficking, customs facilitation, and programs such as the U.S. Container Security Initiative for safeguarding maritime trade and the China-US agreement to allow a U.S. accounting oversight board to investigate audit firms in Hong Kong and the mainland. One obvious low-hanging fruit: the restoration of the Fulbright educational exchange programs for Hong Kong, which Donald Trump suspended in 2020 along with those for China. In March, three members of the House of Representatives introduced a bill to restart the exchanges for both China and Hong Kong. Congressional staffers familiar with the proposed legislation are skeptical that it will pass, especially with the 2024 elections looming. Joe Biden could be politically "bold" and reinstate the exchanges — even if just for Hong Kong — with one signature. Doing so would be a significant sign of support for the SAR's daily norm defenders.

The amount of information available thanks to the advances on the technology has been increased in the last years. The storage media and formats can be of varied nature. The amount of available multimedia repositories is increasing; there are collections of text, images, audio and video. However these collections are not useful if we can't organize them to identify the pertinent elements to a necessity of information. It's exactly this problem the one that deal the Information Retrieval. Of course, the information retrieval methods vary depending of the collection. In this thesis we focus on the task of Spoken Document Retrieval. By the term Spoken Documents we mean to speech recordings as political speeches, conferences, news. The approach of this thesis is to deal with the problem generated by the automatic transcriptions of speech recordings. Unfortunately, the transcriptions generated by the automatic speech recognition are not perfect, so is common to find several transcription errors (such as word substitutions, insertions and deletions). The result of this situation are documents with own characteristics, different to those find in text written manually. Therefrom, that the traditional methods of information retrieval don't work appropriately, and become necessary to define methods focused to the treatment of this type of documents. In this thesis we propose an original method based on the phonetic codification of the automatic speech transcriptions. The idea of the method consists on enriching the representation of the documents to deal with the errors generated by the automatic speech recognition. Thanks to the phonetic codification it's possible represent with the same code words whose pronunciation is similar. The method was evaluated using the same set of data proportionate for the evaluation forum CLEF CL-SR. These allow us to compare the performance of our system objectively. In comparison with the rest of the teams that participate in the forum, our system was located in the second place, demonstrating that the method is appropriate for this task. ; La cantidad de información disponible gracias a los avances de la tecnología se ha incrementado enormemente en los últimos años. Los medios y formatos en que esta información está conservada, puede ser de muy variada naturaleza. Actualmente existen enormes colecciones de textos, de imágenes, de audio, de video, etc. Sin embargo, estas colecciones no son útiles si no llegamos a organizarlas para identificar aquellos elementos pertinentes a una determinada necesidad de información. Es justamente este problema el que aborda la Recuperación de Información. Por supuesto, los métodos de recuperación varían dependiendo de la naturaleza de la colección. En este trabajo de tesis nos enfocamos a la recuperación de información en documentos orales. Por documentos orales nos referimos a grabaciones de habla tales como discursos políticos, conferencias, noticieros radiofónicos, etc. El enfoque de esta tesis para abordar el problema parte de las transcripciones automáticas de esas grabaciones. Desafortunadamente, las transcripciones generadas por un reconocedor automático del habla no son perfectas, de tal forma que es común encontrar errores de inserción, eliminación o substitución de palabras en las transcripciones automáticas. Esta situación tiene por resultado documentos con características propias, diferentes a las que se encuentran en texto escrito manualmente. De ahí, que los métodos tradicionales de recuperación de información no funcionen adecuadamente y sea necesario definir métodos enfocados al tratamiento de este tipo de documentos. En esta tesis se propone un método original basado en la codificación fonética de las transcripciones automáticas. La idea del método consiste en enriquecer la representación de los documentos para tratar de abordar los errores inducidos por el reconocedor. Gracias a la codificación fonética es posible representar con un mismo código palabras cuya pronunciación es similar. El método utilizado fue evaluado utilizando el mismo conjunto de datos proporcionado por el foro de evaluación del CLEF CL-SR, lo cuál nos permite comparar objetivamente el desempeño de nuestro sistema. En comparación con los resultados de otros equipos en este foro, nuestro sistema se ubicó en el segundo lugar, demostrando que el método es adecuado para esta tarea.

Este artículo es un avance de un trabajo más amplio sobre una zona de Lima conocida como los Barrios Altos. El autor se plantea reconstruir la trama demográfica, social y económica de sus calles y familias, teniendo como material de trabajo la documentación de los archivos de Lima.

La generación de peruanos que nació en los albores del siglo XIX tuvo la oportunidad de «hacer dinero» así como algunos cientos de extranjeros que llegaron a nuestras tierras. Dos modalidades practicaron estos hombres para conseguir una fortuna y lograr un nuevo estatus social en el Perú en el siglo XIX: la actitud oportunista y mercantilista, utilizando los mecanismos del Estado, y la otra, la «moderna» acorde con las ideas de trabajo responsable y creativo, ahorro, inversión, reinversión, educación, respeto a las leyes, valorización del tiempo, vida frugal y otras ideas modernas. Don José Sevilla se inscribe en esta generación de peruanos del siglo XIX. La primera parte del ensayo busca presentar las vías de acumulación de la fortuna de don José Sevilla. La segunda, analiza el contenido de su testamento y su legado filantrópico a instituciones públicas, familiares y amigos en el Perú del siglo XIX. Previamente, como marco general, reconstruiremos la demografía, economía y sociedad del Perú y la costa norte durante la prolongada vida de don José Sevilla, el origen de su fortuna, la metodología de su trabajo financiero y su legado filantrópico.