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Washington's latest efforts to ban TikTok are symptomatic of a deep dysfunction in thinking about China. The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, the bill now rapidly moving through Congress that would expropriate TikTok, does not address the core concerns that many Americans share about social media apps like TikTok, such as the loss of privacy and lack of protections for personal data, the targeting of children, or the addictive nature of social media. Any effort to address these real challenges — which exist on all networks, not just those with foreign ownership — would require comprehensive internet privacy legislation applying to all social media companies. Such an approach would not only confront the real problems, it would also address the security concerns around TikTok without singling out China in a way that exacerbates already alarming levels of hostility and xenophobia in the relationship between the world's two most powerful countries. Instead, this effort gives the executive branch broad authority to restrict companies across the entire information technology sector if a minority owner or combination of owners holding as little as one-fifth of shares hail from an "adversary nation." Rather than providing evidence to the public of the harm that TikTok and other targets are doing to American security, backers of the bill point only to the formal legal possibility that the Chinese government could pressure the company to act in such a way. And rather than demonstrating Chinese government control over TikTok, the bill simply waves away its burden of proof. The legislation defines "controlled by a foreign adversary" as nothing more than a company domiciled in one of the four countries that Donald Trump designated enemies of the United States two days before he left office. This advances the alarming contention — increasingly being institutionalized through legislation and policy — that all Chinese people are agents of the Chinese government. While the legislation does require the executive branch to provide a national security determination for any targets other than TikTok (which is automatically designated), it opens wide latitude for abuse in moments of national panic over foreign influence. It also marks yet another example of U.S. leaders refusing to distinguish Chinese actions that are detrimental to American interests from those that are innocuous or even beneficial. If everyone and everything within China's borders is by definition under the control of a "foreign adversary," everything that Chinese people, firms, and agencies do is necessarily a national security risk. The question of how the United States and China could coexist or work together on behalf of shared interests is ruled out of order and a simple conclusion follows: the only way to make America safe is to exclude China from U.S. activities. The campaign to expropriate TikTok will not be the reason that the two countries end up in potentially catastrophic conflict, but it exposes the insecurities, flawed assumptions, and inflated perceptions of threat that are currently moving us in that direction. The potential damage goes beyond U.S.–China relations. To the limited extent the bill has been vetted — it passed a House Committee on Energy and Commerce markup on a 50–0 vote — no consideration has been given to how such measures could accelerate the fragmentation of the global information and communication technology market or what that would mean for U.S. businesses, allied relationships, American consumers, and other important interests. Pushing the disintegration of global markets further could have detrimental effects internationally and domestically, including retaliatory bans on the use of U.S. software and communications technologies in foreign countries, which could accelerate the division of the world into rival information technology spheres protected by "great firewalls." The common rejoinder that "China started it" is certainly true, but it evades the question of how to solve the problem rather than make it worse. It also offers another instance of how the United States is remaking itself in the image of an authoritarian government it continues to denounce. At a deeper level, as measures like this accumulate, bit by bit they repudiate the aspiration of a universally inclusive global system. Those seeking to transform an open global economy into an exclusionary and increasingly militarized battlefield between the great powers should make the case in public rather than taking us quietly in this ominous direction. Given the massive risks posed by U.S.–China confrontation — whether an intensified trade war or a conflict over Taiwan — policymakers should be making every effort to build on the Biden administration's efforts to stabilize the relationship through constructive engagement while managing our real differences through dialogue and negotiation. China plays a complex role in the serious social problems facing the United States. Seeking a false unity behind the exclusion of a foreign power does not confront those problems but papers them over while pushing us toward geopolitical conflict that would make our problems far worse.
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Henry Kissinger will be one hundred years old in a few weeks and has published five books since he turned ninety. Along with President Nixon, he futilely prolonged and escalated the Vietnam War for four years when defeat was already inevitable. But he also received the Nobel Peace Prize precisely for negotiating the ceasefire for that same war. His doctrine also has these two faces. On the one hand, he conceives international politics as the interaction between states seeking power. On the other hand, he favors the balance of powers so that no one is able to fully impose its dominance on the others. In the academic literature, Kissinger's approach is called "realism" and is widely accepted. The main alternative is the so-called "liberal" approach, which trusts in the ability of institutions to prevent wars and keep peace. From there arose the League of Nations, which failed, and the United Nations and its specialized organizations, which have had significant success on many issues, but are also currently showing their insufficiency. The most accurate postulate of the realists is that the world is more peaceful when there are multiple powers than when there are only two, as in the Cold War, or a single super-dominant one, as seemed to be the case with the United States after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The success of the formula requires that the multilateral equilibrium could only be overthrown by an effort of a magnitude too difficult to mount. As a historical example, Kissinger has analyzed and praised the so-called Concert of Europe that was formed, after the defeat of Napoleon's France, by Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, Austria, and also recovered France. According to his interpretation, the Concert "came close to constituting the government of Europe" and achieved a long period without European-wide wars. The balance was upset by the unification of Germany at the end of the 19th century and its consequent aggressive expansionism, which led to the absurd and catastrophic First World War. Taking a similar approach, Kissinger continues to praise the construction of the European Union, which has prevented new general wars on the continent. During his time in government, the biggest concern was that communism would end up dominating the world according to the domino theory, whereby the fall of a piece like Indochina would be followed by Burma and Thailand, as well as Indonesia (which, in fact, was very close), and from there, India, Japan, the Middle East... That's why the Vietnam war extended to Laos and Cambodia. But this is also the reason for the diplomatic opening to China, to break the Sino-Soviet bloc and achieve a certain multilateral balance. The current interest of the discussion is that the role of the United States as the only superpower may be less exclusive and exclusionary than it seemed. A version of political realism in academia tends to analyze international relations "after hegemony" as a ground for "anarchy", that is, destructive conflicts and wars. However, the changes around the Ukrainian war can be read as a new opportunity for multilateral cooperation. The United States has the initiative and many economic and military resources, but, paradoxically, it may have a good opportunity to expand pluralism. In the new situation of divided government between the Presidency and Congress, the most ambitious projects in domestic policy are paralyzed, so Joe Biden can focus on foreign policy, where he has more power, and expand multilateral cooperation. The European Union is beginning to develop, for the first time, a spirited common international policy, in contrast to the dissent during the Iraq war, when the governments of Britain and Spain were on one side and those of France and Germany on the other. The rulers of China and India, which are rivals to each other, have told Russia that the world is not ready for war. This configuration with more than three major powers points to a balance of powers capable of avoiding polarization, since, otherwise, a coalition of two-to-one preludes conflict. Specifically, the Group of Seven, which is the nucleus of a latent world government, needs to work more closely with some members of the Group of Twenty, which includes India and China, so that its decisions are widely accepted and effective. Negotiations between the US and the EU for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), in which substantive agreements had been reached, were paralyzed by Trump, and could now be revived. The Trans-Pacific Agreement for Economic Cooperation was also abandoned by Trump, but the other eleven initial countries went ahead on their own and ended up signing the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), to which China has presented its candidacy. Many in the United States are clamoring for re-entry in what had been its own initiative. And after the war in Ukraine, a new international structure will have to be defined, especially for Central and Eastern Europe, in which, as Kissinger said in a recent interview, "Russia should find a place." Realism shows that the seeking for power explains many things, and the balance of power can prevent a general war. But when there is neither a single dominant power nor a confrontation between two, "liberal" rules and institutions may be the best mechanism for peace and multilateral cooperation.Also in Spanish in the daily La Vanguardia-click
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to travel to Beijing this week in the latest round of high-level diplomacy between the U.S. and China. Since the U.S.–China relationship hit new lows in late 2022 and early 2023 — thanks to incidents like then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan and a Chinese spy balloon's visit to U.S. airspace — both sides have made a welcome effort to slow the slide toward crisis and conflict.This effort has focused on top leaders exchanging views through in-person meetings. Last year, Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, and climate envoy John Kerry all made the trip to China. China's top diplomat Wang Yi and top economic official He Lifeng visited the United States, culminating in President Xi Jinping's trip to California to meet with President Joe Biden alongside the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November. This year, a new round of exchanges began with Yellen's trip to China several weeks ago.All this back and forth has been accompanied by attempts from both sides to show they are mindful of some of the other's concerns, such as U.S. reassurances on the One China Policy, which has maintained stability in the Taiwan Strait for decades, and Chinese support for U.S. restrictions on the production of fentanyl, the drug helping to drive America's ongoing opioid crisis. Discussions between the two militaries on crisis communications are now proceeding well after years of paralysis.Despite these promising small steps toward reviving the relationship, however, the two sides are now in danger of complacency toward the prospect of serious conflict. As the State Department signals that no new positive initiatives are on the agenda for Blinken's visit, U.S.–China diplomacy increasingly seems devoted to talks for the sake of talks, without any ambition to make progress on the deep and powerful underlying forces driving both sides toward confrontation.As my colleague Michael Swaine explains in a recent research brief, the appearance of stability between Washington and Beijing is likely a product of political expediency on both sides rather than a durable foundation for coexistence. Biden, facing a difficult reelection campaign against an opponent with a predilection for making conflict with China the center of every conversation, has made the wise calculation that maintaining calm around China will help him focus on his preferred themes. Xi Jinping, for his part, is preoccupied with economic difficulties, a far-reaching anti-corruption campaign in the military, and last year's purge of several top leaders. As the wars in Ukraine and Gaza rage on, both Washington and Beijing have reason to avoid adding another international crisis to their plates.On the one hand, these short-term considerations reflect a deeper potential for alignment. The United States and China are both status-quo powers with an interest in limited reforms to the current global system. The dynamic economies of the two countries flourish when the global system is politically stable and increasingly connected. Both countries see clear diplomatic and economic benefits to supporting the Global South's hunger for development. Leaders on both sides recognize the terrible threat posed by global economic instability, large-scale forced population movements, transnational crime, pandemic disease, and the climate crisis. Because existing arrangements including the domestic institutions of both countries face these dire risks, both governments are exploring promising techniques — including industrial policy, expanded development financing, and revisions to global governance issues like business taxation and the U.N. Security Council — that could chart a path out of today's global turmoil.Instead of joining forces and coordinating their potentially complementary efforts, leaders on both sides are seeking to reconstitute domestic unity around efforts to repel the threat posed by the other. Rather than working together on a reform agenda, the United States has been rallying its alliance network to isolate China while China has been impugning U.S. conduct to gain favor in the Global South.Each country sees the initiatives of the other as a challenge to its own prospects rather than a potential contribution to a stable and prosperous world. This zero-sum hostility is increasingly institutionalized in all levels of government on both sides, devoting ever more resources to and establishing ever more careers on the proposition that success on the other side means suffering and failure on "our" side.In the last month alone, U.S. officials have attacked China's trade with Russia and prepared sanctions to punish it; blamed the problem of weak consumer demand in the global economy on Chinese "overcapacity"; added a new "minilateral" alliance network joining the United States, Japan, and the Philippines to its complement of trilateral and quadrilateral arrangements meant to hem in China militarily; and advanced legislation that now looks likely to become law that would expropriate TikTok because of its association with China.Also in the last month, China opened a WTO dispute claiming that the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden's signature climate and industrial policy bill, violates trade law and established rules that will eliminate Intel microprocessors and Microsoft software from Chinese government computers and servers. In a call with Biden, Xi said that U.S. restrictions on Chinese business are second only to Taiwan in the potential for inciting conflict — a notable escalation in the urgency of Chinese warnings.This suggests the pressures to conflict continue to build. Beijing and Washington's current mutual interest in keeping up the appearance of stability is only temporary. The fragility of the relationship leaves open the possibility that some unforeseen event could quickly push either side to change its calculus away from détente toward conflict. Even if the short-term desire on both sides to focus on domestic challenges keeps the calm for the rest of 2024, the two countries, having squandered the opportunity to move in a new direction, are at risk of entering another escalatory spiral next year.What could Washington and Beijing do if they wanted instead to seize this opportunity and confront the problems at the root of the U.S.–China conflict? In a research report last year, I argued that they should embrace "common good diplomacy," a new framework for a stable bilateral relationship. Through joint efforts to build an inclusive global system, the United States and China could create the basis for genuinely healthy forms of competition and cooperation by overcoming the structural pressures for zero-sum conflict, including the exclusionary system of global authority, weak and inequitable global economic growth, and the climate crisis.The new rapprochement routine is certainly better than a march to war — but it will not do much to avert that worst-case scenario, either. A genuine attempt at mutual understanding, recognition of shared interests, and embrace of difficult negotiations is the only path to achieving security for either country.
In: Højbjerg , K & Hindhede , A L 2018 , ' University-teachers' strategies to enhance activity and participation of non-traditional students – Greenlandic University teachers as case ' , ECER , Bolzano , Italy , 04/09/2018 .
Keyword: widening participation, non-traditional students, teacher strategies, postnational educational system According to Hickling-Hudson et al. (2004:6) 'Indigenous peoples and Indigenous knowledges are marginalized by a view of the world through 'imperial eyes', a view which (re)inscribes the dominant, exclusionary Western beliefs'. Other things being equal, teachers in general are said to draw on three main interrelated and changing knowledge bases: knowledge of content, knowledge of teaching processes and knowledge of their students (Shulman, 1987; Turner-Bisset, 1999). As a dimension of pedagogic practice, the management of non-compliant classroom behavior is varied and historically shaped, subject to ideological, legislative and policy shifts over time. The relation between university teachers and students has to all times been characterized as an asymmetric relation since the teachers have the power of definition of what counts as academic standards. We have seen considerable studies on student perspectives (Stuart, et al 2012). However, a review reveals scarce knowledge about how university teachers try to compensate and include the non-traditional and first-generational students. In this paper, we pay special attention to curricular and pedagogical traditions or management strategies in postnational educational systems, where the majority of students are first-generation and at higher risk of attrition. Assuming that the academic staff (Both Greenlandic and Danish) has bodily incorporated an awareness of these circumstances since they are part of common knowledge of Greenlandic history, an ideal of emancipatory approach derives from compensating both teacher- and postcolonial dominance. The research question asked is how university teachers navigate in this context, what are their experiences and how do they manage to integrate and make students participate more actively and achieve what they consider to be academic standards? The experiences of teachers working in these contexts have rarely been reported in the literature. Our aim is to highlight the ambiguous nature of change of a particular educational system, the Greenlandic University which can be considered a representative of a neocolonial university with Western conceptions of curriculum, pedagogy, and language. In this way the Greenlandic case can be seen as an institution struggling to match western/European standards and at the same time acknowledging the non-traditional behavior. The theoretical framework is based on Bourdieus theory of practice and selective concepts. To understand how the teachers act when teaching, the notion of strategy is used referring to something that rests on a practical 'feel for the game.' Strategies are the result of combining practical good sense with commonly accepted practices. Symbolic power is used to understand and explain the nature of the strategies. The structures of the field arise from differentiation, which is grounded in a defining principle of what is of value. Thus, teachers have the authority and the means to assess students, and do so based on a certain set of assumptions, expectations, and values that are not always explicit. The notion of cultural capital is therefore used to understand the experiences of teachers' strategies in higher education. (Bourdieu, 1986). Methods This study is based on classroom observations and interviews of teachers who joined a university requested pedagogic course to improve their teaching. 18 teachers participated in the course. The teacher participants (of both Danish and Greeenlandic origin) taught in their practices a range of subjects and used Danish, Greenlandic (and English) as the medium of instruction. In order to explore the types of knowledges taught, categories of teaching process knowledge, and the range of pedagogic identities made available to teachers and students, lectures focused on the teachers' descriptions of the learner characteristics of Greenlandic students, their professional roles whilst teaching at the university, and curriculum and pedagogic design. We were interested in understanding how the various teachers are actually working and exploring their various ethical and epistemological stands on the nature of 'true' knowledge, on the 'right' teacher and the 'right' student. To this end, our interviews focused on episodes of classroom trouble that provoked the respondent's intervention and what moral expectations the teachers invoked and legitimated in their efforts to regulate student behaviour (ex. increase participation or student activation). In the interviews, we also queried the two groups of teachers (Danish and Greenlandic) on the students they taught, their own role, professional and social identity, the knowledge transmitted, and their pedagogical strategies whilst teaching. Expected outcomes / results We have identified 4 teacher strategies which have not yet been refined. Here we present 3. Zero-fault on Greenlandic language-strategy in contrast to "teaching in the dark". A Greenlandic teacher expresses a distinct awareness of how she masters her Greenlandic language when teaching students in her mother tongue, Greenlandic. When she writes major pieces/instructions, she consults what she considers "language experts" within and outside the university. During lectures, she enhances her students to correct her if she uses "wrong" words or grammar. In contrast to this rigorous self-policing, we see how Danish teachers on the opposite are ready to give up on the use of understandable language. Several Danish teachers frame disciplinary discussions followed up by plenary sessions where the students are allowed to discuss and work in Greenlandic which is a language the teacher does not understand. The teachers argue that activating the students is crucial in spite of the fact that they are unable to validate or respond to the academic content. One teacher talks about "teaching in the dark". Teaching formalia-strategy A Greenlandic female teacher in her 50's tries to neutralize a classic problem with students not knowing what is expected from them by making an effort teaching in explaining the learning goals. She makes exercises on how to translate the Danish concepts of the learning goals and the key concepts. She makes a virtue out of the semantic translation of the concepts from Danish to Greenlandic, and argues within the framework of Biggs and Blooms taxonomy. She argues theoretically with the concept of "parallel languaging" where the idea is to use both mother tongue and the second language intertwined or parallel. References: A. Marshall, C. (2016). Barriers to accessing higher education. Widening participation, higher education and non-traditional students: Supporting transitions through foundation programmes (pp. 1-18). Macmillan Publishers Ltd. London: Springer Nature. Ball, S., Hoskins, K., Maguire, M., & Braun, A. (2011). Disciplinary texts: A policy analysis of national and local behaviour policies. Critical Studies in Education, 52(1), 1-14. Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice Cambridge university press. Bourdieu, P. (1990a). In other words: Essays towards a reflexive sociology Stanford University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1990b). The logic of practice Stanford University Press. Bowl, M. (2003). Non-traditional entrants to higher education: "They talk about people like me.". PO Box 605, Herndon, VA 20172-0605.: Stylus Publishing. Chen, X., & Carroll, C. D. (2005). First-generation students in postsecondary education: A look at their college transcripts. postsecondary education descriptive analysis report. NCES 2005-171. (). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Hemsley-Brown, J. (2012). 'The best education in the world': Reality, repetition or cliché? international students' reasons for choosing an english university. Studies in Higher Education, 37(8), 1005-1022. Hickling-Hudson, A., Matthews, J. M., & Woods, A. (2004). Education, postcolonialism and disruptions. Disrupting preconceptions: Postcolonialism and education (pp. 1-16). Flaxton: Post Pressed. Langgård, P. (2002). Greenland and the university of. In D. C. Nord, & G. R. Weller (Eds.), Higher education across the circumpolar north: A circle of learning (1st ed., pp. 77-99). New York: PALGRAVE MACMILLAN. greenland Scott, I. (2012). Access, success and curriculum: Aspects of their organic relationship. Alternative Access to Higher Education: Underprepared Students Or Underprepared Education, , 25-49. Shulman, L. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57(1), 1-23. doi:10.17763/haer.57.1.j463w79r56455411 Shulman, L. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57(1), 1-23. doi:10.17763/haer.57.1.j463w79r56455411 Skatte- og Velfærdskommissionen. (2010). Hvordan sikres (). Denmark: Skatte- og Velfærdskommissionen. vækst og velfærd i Grønland? Spiegler, T., & Bednarek, A. (2013). First-generation students: What we ask, what we know and what it means: An international review of the state of research. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 23(4), 318-337. doi:10.1080/09620214.2013.815441 Thomas, L. (2002). Student retention in higher education: The role of institutional habitus. Journal of Education Policy, 17(4), 423-442. Turner-Bisset, R. (1999). The knowledge bases of the expert teacher. British Educational Research Journal, 25(1), 39-55. doi:10.1080/0141192990250104 ; According to Hickling-Hudson et al. (2004:6) 'Indigenous peoples and Indigenous knowledges are marginalized by a view of the world through 'imperial eyes', a view which (re)inscribes the dominant, exclusionary Western beliefs'. Other things being equal, teachers in general are said to draw on three main interrelated and changing knowledge bases: knowledge of content, knowledge of teaching processes and knowledge of their students (Shulman, 1987; Turner-Bisset, 1999). As a dimension of pedagogic practice, the management of non-compliant classroom behavior is varied and historically shaped, subject to ideological, legislative and policy shifts over time. The relation between university teachers and students has to all times been characterized as an asymmetric relation since the teachers have the power of definition of what counts as academic standards. We have seen considerable studies on student perspectives (Stuart, et al 2012). However, a review reveals scarce knowledge about how university teachers try to compensate and include the non-traditional and first-generational students. In this paper, we pay special attention to curricular and pedagogical traditions or management strategies in postnational educational systems, where the majority of students are first-generation and at higher risk of attrition. Assuming that the academic staff (Both Greenlandic and Danish) has bodily incorporated an awareness of these circumstances since they are part of common knowledge of Greenlandic history, an ideal of emancipatory approach derives from compensating both teacher- and postcolonial dominance. The research question asked is how university teachers navigate in this context, what are their experiences and how do they manage to integrate and make students participate more actively and achieve what they consider to be academic standards? The experiences of teachers working in these contexts have rarely been reported in the literature. Our aim is to highlight the ambiguous nature of change of a particular educational system, the Greenlandic University which can be considered a representative of a neocolonial university with Western conceptions of curriculum, pedagogy, and language. In this way the Greenlandic case can be seen as an institution struggling to match western/European standards and at the same time acknowledging the non-traditional behavior. The theoretical framework is based on Bourdieus theory of practice and selective concepts. To understand how the teachers act when teaching, the notion of strategy is used referring to something that rests on a practical 'feel for the game.' Strategies are the result of combining practical good sense with commonly accepted practices. Symbolic power is used to understand and explain the nature of the strategies. The structures of the field arise from differentiation, which is grounded in a defining principle of what is of value. Thus, teachers have the authority and the means to assess students, and do so based on a certain set of assumptions, expectations, and values that are not always explicit. The notion of cultural capital is therefore used to understand the experiences of teachers' strategies in higher education. (Bourdieu, 1986).
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The Best Joke in Barbie Years ago I remember encountering Félix Guattari's little essay, "Everybody Wants to be a Fascist." At the time its title seemed more clever than prescient. (Although it is worth remembering how much fascism, and the encounter with fascism was integral to Deleuze and Guattari's theorizing, well beyond the reference to Reich). Now that we are living in a different relation to fascism the problem posed by Guattari (and Deleuze) of desire seems all the more pertinent and pressing. One of the problems of using the word fascism today, especially in the US, is that it is hard to reconcile our image as a politics, a politics of state control of everything, and the current politics of outrage aimed at M&Ms, Barbie, and Taylor Swift. How can fascism be so trivial and so petty? This could be understood as the Trump problem, although it is ultimately not limited to Trump. There are a whole bunch of pundits and people getting incredibly angry about the casting of movies and how many times football games cut away to Taylor Swift celebrating in the expensive seats. The Fox News Expanded Universe is all about finding villains everywhere in every library or diverse band of superheroes. It is difficult to reconcile the petty concerns of the pundit class with the formation of an authoritarian state. I have argued before that understanding Trump, or Trumpism, means rethinking the relationship between the particular and universal, imaginary and real. Or, as Angela Mitropoulis argues, the question of fascism now should be what does it look like in contemporary captitalism, one oriented less around the post-fordist assembly line than the franchise. Or as she puts it, "What would the combination of nationalist myth and the affective labour processes of the entertainment industry mean for the politics and techniques of fascism?"It is for this reason (among others) that Alberto Toscano's Late Fascism is such an important book. As he argues in that book fascism (as well as in an interview on Hotel Bar Sessions) fascism has to be understood as kind of license, a justification of violence and anger, and a pleasure in that justification. We have to give up the cartoon image of fascism as centralized and universal domination and see it as not only incomplete persecution, unevenly applied, but persecution of some coupled with the license to persecute for others. Fascism is liberation for the racist, sexist, and homophobe, who finally gets to say and act on their desires. As Toscano argues, "...what we need to dwell on to discern the fascist potentials in the anti-state state are those subjective investments in the naturalizations of violent mastery that go together with the promotion of possessive and racialized conceptions of freedom. Here we need to reflect not just on the fact neoliberalism operates through a racial state, or that, as commentators have begun to recognize and detail, it is shaped by a racist and civilizational imaginary that delimits who is capable of market freedoms (Toscano is not referring to Tosel, but that is an important part of Tosel's work) We must also attend to the fact that the anti-state state could become an object of popular attachment or better, populist investment, only through the mediation of race." Toscano's emphasis is on race in this passage, but it could be argued to apply to sexism, homophobia, etc., to the enforcement and maintenance of any of the old hierarchies. As Toscano cites Maria Antonietta Macciochhi later in the book, "You can't talk abut fascism unless you are also prepared to discuss patriarchy." Possessive includes the family as the first and most vital possession. At this point fascism does not sound too different from classical conservatism, especially if you take the definition of the latter to be the following: "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." However, what Toscano emphasizes is the libidinal pleasure that comes with this, it is not just a matter of who is in and who is not, who is protected and who is not, but in the pleasure that one gets from such exclusion, a pleasure that is extended and almost deputized to the masses. While conservative hierarchies and asymmetries passed through the hallowed institutions of the state and the courts, the fascist deputies take to the streets and the virtual street fights of social media. As Toscano argues, pitting Foucault's remarks about the sexual politics of fascism in the seventies against Guattari's analysis,"For Foucault, to the extent that there is an eroticization of power under Nazism, it is conditioned by a logic of delegation, deputizing and decentralization of what remains in form and content a vertical, exclusionary, and murderous kind of power. Fascism is not just the apotheosis of the leader above the sheeplike masses of his followers; it is also, in a less spectacular but perhaps more consequential manner the reinvention of the settle logic of petty sovereignty, a highly conditional but very real 'liberalising' and 'privatising' of the monopoly of violence...Foucault's insight into the 'erotic' of a power based on the deputizing of violence is a more fecund frame, I would argue, for the analysis of both classical and late fascisms than Guattari's hyperbolic claim that "the masses invested a fantastic collective death instinct in...the fascist machine' --which misses out on the materiality of that 'transfer of power' to a 'specific fringe of the masses' that Foucault diagnosed as critical to fascism's desirability."I think that Toscano's analysis picks up an important thread that runs from discussions of fascism from Benjamin to Foucault (and beyond). As Benjamin writes in the Work of Art essay "The growing proletarianization of modern man and the increasing formation of masses are two aspects of the same process. Fascism attempts to organize the newly created proletarian masses without affecting the property structure which the masses strive to eliminate. Fascism sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves. The masses have a right to change property relations; Fascism seeks to give them an expression while preserving property. The logical result of Fascism is the introduction of aesthetics into political life."Today we could say that the right of expression includes a deputization of power and the pleasure in exercising it. In a capitalist society, in which the material conditions of existence must belong to the capitalist class, the only thing that can be extended to the masses is the power and pleasure to dominate others. Real wages keep on declining, but fascism offers the wages of whiteness, maleness, cisness, and so on, extending not the material control over one's existence but libidinal investment in the perks of one's identity.All of which brings me to Taylor Swift. I have watched with amusement and some horror as the fringes of the Fox News Expanded Universe have freaked out about Taylor Swift attending football games and, occasionally, being seen on television watching and enjoying the games. It is hard to spend even a moment thinking about something which has all of the subtlety of the "He-Man Woman Hater's Club," but I think that it is an interesting example of the kind of micro-fascism that sustains and makes possible the tendency towards macro-fascism. Three things are worth noting about this, first most of the conspiracy theories about Swift are not predicated on things that she has actually done, but what she might do, endorse Biden, campaign for Biden, etc., I think that this has to be seen as a mutation of conspiracy thinking from the actual effects of an action or event, Covid undermining Trump's presidency, to an imagined possible effect. One of the asymmetries of contemporary power is treating the fantasies or paranoid fears of one group as more valid than the actual conditions and dominations of another group. Second, and to be a little more dialectical, the fear of Swift on the right recognizes to what extent politics have been entirely subsumed by the spectacle fan form. (Hotel Bar Sessions did a show about this too) Trump's real opponent for hearts and minds, not to mention huge rallies, is not Biden but Swift. Lastly, and this really deserves its own post, some of the anger about Swift being at the game brings to mind Kate Manne's theory of misogyny, which at its core is about keeping women in their place. I would imagine that many of the men who object to seeing Swift at their games do not object to the cutaway shots of cheerleaders during the same game. It is not seeing women during the game that draws ire, but seeing one out of her place--someone who is enjoying being there and not there for their enjoyment.I used to be follow a fairly vulgar materialist line when it came to fascism. Give people, which is to say workers, actual control over their work, their lives, and their conditions and the appeal of the spectacle of fascist power would dissipate. It was a simple matter of real power versus its appearance. It increasingly seems that such an opposition overlooks the pleasures that today's mass media fascism make possible and extend to so many. It is hard to imagine a politics that could counter this that would not be a politics of affect, of the imagination, and of desires. Libidinal economy and micro-politics of desire seem less like some relic from the days of high theory and more and more like necessary conditions for thinking through the intertwining webs of desire and resentment that make up the intersection of culture, media, and politics. I think one of the pressing issues of the moment is the recognizing that all of these junk politics of grievances of popular culture should be taken seriously as the affective antechamber of fascism while at the same time not accepting them on their terms; there is nothing really to be gained by rallying to defend corporations and billionaires.
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Previously posted on May 10/22 and Jan 30/23 Kissinger in Washington, May 7, 2022Henry Kissinger will be one hundred years old in a few weeks and has published five books since he turned ninety. Along with President Nixon, he futilely prolonged and escalated the Vietnam War for four years when defeat was already inevitable. But he also received the Nobel Peace Prize precisely for negotiating the ceasefire for that same war. His doctrine also has these two faces. On the one hand, he conceives international politics as the interaction between states seeking power. On the other hand, he favors the balance of powers so that no one is able to fully impose its dominance on the others. In the academic literature, Kissinger's approach is called "realism" and is widely accepted. The main alternative is the so-called "liberal" approach, which trusts in the ability of institutions to prevent wars and keep peace. From there arose the League of Nations, which failed, and the United Nations and its specialized organizations, which have had significant success on many issues, but are also currently showing their insufficiency. The most accurate postulate of the realists is that the world is more peaceful when there are multiple powers than when there are only two, as in the Cold War, or a single super-dominant one, as seemed to be the case with the United States after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The success of the formula requires that the multilateral equilibrium could only be overthrown by an effort of a magnitude too difficult to mount. As a historical example, Kissinger has analyzed and praised the so-called Concert of Europe that was formed, after the defeat of Napoleon's France, by Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, Austria, and also recovered France. According to his interpretation, the Concert "came close to constituting the government of Europe" and achieved a long period without European-wide wars. The balance was upset by the unification of Germany at the end of the 19th century and its consequent aggressive expansionism, which led to the absurd and catastrophic First World War. Taking a similar approach, Kissinger continues to praise the construction of the European Union, which has prevented new general wars on the continent. During his time in government, the biggest concern was that communism would end up dominating the world according to the domino theory, whereby the fall of a piece like Indochina would be followed by Burma and Thailand, as well as Indonesia (which, in fact, was very close), and from there, India, Japan, the Middle East... That's why the Vietnam war extended to Laos and Cambodia. But this is also the reason for the diplomatic opening to China, to break the Sino-Soviet bloc and achieve a certain multilateral balance. The current interest of the discussion is that the role of the United States as the only superpower may be less exclusive and exclusionary than it seemed. A version of political realism in academia tends to analyze international relations "after hegemony" as a ground for "anarchy", that is, destructive conflicts and wars. However, the changes around the Ukrainian war can be read as a new opportunity for multilateral cooperation. The United States has the initiative and many economic and military resources, but, paradoxically, it may have a good opportunity to expand pluralism. In the new situation of divided government between the Presidency and Congress, the most ambitious projects in domestic policy are paralyzed, so Joe Biden can focus on foreign policy, where he has more power, and expand multilateral cooperation. The European Union is beginning to develop, for the first time, a spirited common international policy, in contrast to the dissent during the Iraq war, when the governments of Britain and Spain were on one side and those of France and Germany on the other. The rulers of China and India, which are rivals to each other, have told Russia that the world is not ready for war. This configuration with more than three major powers points to a balance of powers capable of avoiding polarization, since, otherwise, a coalition of two-to-one preludes conflict. Specifically, the Group of Seven, which is the nucleus of a latent world government, needs to work more closely with some members of the Group of Twenty, which includes India and China, so that its decisions are widely accepted and effective. Negotiations between the US and the EU for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), in which substantive agreements had been reached, were paralyzed by Trump, and could now be revived. The Trans-Pacific Agreement for Economic Cooperation was also abandoned by Trump, but the other eleven initial countries went ahead on their own and ended up signing the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), to which China has presented its candidacy. Many in the United States are clamoring for re-entry in what had been its own initiative. And after the war in Ukraine, a new international structure will have to be defined, especially for Central and Eastern Europe, in which, as Kissinger said in a recent interview, "Russia should find a place." Realism shows that the seeking for power explains many things, and the balance of power can prevent a general war. But when there is neither a single dominant power nor a confrontation between two, "liberal" rules and institutions may be the best mechanism for peace and multilateral cooperation.Also in Spanish in the daily La Vanguardia-click While President Biden is not clear, and sometimes he is confusing about how the war in Ukraine could end, some other voices in Washington can speak and suggest more clearly. Several of them did it a few days ago at the Financial Times Weekend Festival, which was held, for the first time outside England, at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.The first surprisingly constructive intervention was from William J. Burns, the current CIA Director. Just a year ago, he came from retirement after a long career as a diplomat, and as such, in his presentation, the conversation with an FT journalist, and the dialogue with the audience, he showed a broader vision than the usual spies. When he was Ambassador in Boris Yeltsin's Moscow in the mid-1990s, Burns already felt that the NATO expansion until the borders of Russia was "premature at best, and needlessly provocative at worst." More specifically, to push for NATO membership of Ukraine and Georgia was "a serious strategic mistake that did indelible damage" –an opinion that at the time was shared by the governments of France and Germany. In an official encounter, Putin had told him that Ukraine in NATO "would be a hostile act toward Russia."Burns emphasized, of course, that there is "absolutely no justification for the invasion of Ukraine." Yet, he resumed that kind of strategic explanation while dismissing the ideological elaborations that pretend either justify or condemn the attack. In short: Russia has "pushed back" after Ukraine moved westward away from Russian influence.In his view, nevertheless, Putin miscalculated regarding the power of the Russian Army (which was sent to a "special operation" not planned by its generals), about Ukrainian resistance, and with the supposition that the West would be distracted by elections in Germany and France. He tried to explain the recent candidacies of Sweden and Finland to NATO as a deterrent against Putin's other potential attacks in the future. But the Director of the CIA did not utter a word that could be interpreted as supporting Ukraine's NATO membership.Even more thrilling was the participation of Henry Kissinger on "the new world disorder." The former Secretary of State is 99 years old this month, announced a new book of immediate publication, and for nearly one hour was focused, clear, and insightful, also in a dialogue with the audience. Kissinger started by using his academic background and remarking that the foreign policy's main priority of Russia, which is the largest country in the world, has always been to protect its huge territory from invasions. From this perspective, after the Cold War, the country's leadership was "offended" by NATO's absorption of Eastern Europe.Now –he noted— public discussion on Ukraine is all about confrontation, but by reflecting on the previous failures of the several governments he advised, he lamented that, again, nobody knows where we are going. Kissinger had already opposed Ukraine's candidacy to NATO when President Bush and Vice-president Cheney launched it in 2008. Six years later, at the Russian occupation of Crimea, he warned that Ukraine should not join either the East or the West, but it should function as "a bridge" between the two. He had predicted that otherwise, "the drift toward confrontation would accelerate."Most striking was his warning about the use of nuclear weapons. "I would not make Ukraine's membership to NATO a key issue," he remarked at the Kennedy Center. It would be "unwise to take an adversarial position," mainly because of the horrible danger of a nuclear war. His approach was certainly in contrast with that in the 1970s, of which he was reminded, when the gibberish theory of the "domino" was used to attack one country after another. Bush and Cheney still used that approach in the early 2000s to justify "preventive wars." I got the impression that with aging, intelligent people like Kissinger may feel that it is not worth trying to deceive himself again, and despite his physical frailness (or perhaps because of that), his more mature brain moves in the direction of more honest and clear thinking. His main argument was that in the past, although confrontation was addressed to "preserve the balance of power" between the US and the Soviet Union, at the same time, he also promoted agreements for nuclear arms reduction and control. Nowadays, modern technology would produce much worse destruction, so he claimed for a "new era" in which the governments should take more care about the consequences of nuclear arms and favor diplomacy above all. Kissinger reminded the audience that, in the past, nuclear countries such as the Soviet Union and the United States accepted military defeats from non-nuclear countries, such as in Vietnam and (both) in Afghanistan. Even more now, "we have to deescalate to conventional arms and learn to live with adversarial relations." Kissinger has met Putin more than twenty times and asserted that "there is still room for negotiation" with him. In Spanish in the daily La Vanguardia
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Since the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, Chinese nationals have commonly entered the US via education programs or H1-B work visas. However, a quickly growing number is arriving via a new path: the southern border. Upon arrival, many claim political asylum, citing fears of President Xi Jinping's authoritarian rule and the experience of draconian zero-COVID policies. Many also express skepticism of the Chinese economy and fears of eventually being cast into poverty.For Chinese migrants, increasingly exclusionary immigration policies spurred by US COVID-era restrictions have cast doubt on historically reliable pathways such as education, work, or tourist visas. In 2021, Chinese B-visa applications saw a rejection rate of more than 79%. Though that number came down to 30% in 2022, the visa refusal rate to Chinese nationals has steadily increased from just 9% in 2014. Tourist visas have also become unfeasible for those eager to leave: the waiting time for an interview has risen to more than six months.In the first nine months of 2023, the US Border Patrol made 22,187 arrests of Chinese nationals entering the country from Mexico. This was 13 times the number from the same period in 2022. Most of the previous figure stems from people traveling from much further south than Mexico. Over 15,500 Chinese migrants were counted in Panama after traversing a dangerous stretch of jungle beginning in Colombia known as the Darién Gap. This figure is nearly eight times as many from the same period in 2022, and more than 40 times that of 2021.The US Border Patrol experienced record high numbers of migrant encounters at the US-Mexico border toward the end of 2023. Though the proportion of Chinese migrants is still relatively small when compared to other nationalities, they have become the fastest growing migrant demographic. To grasp the full picture of migration to the US today, policy makers must understand the migration drivers and routes, and asylum outcomes for those coming from non-traditional origin countries including China. An understanding of these factors will illuminate the role of social media, human rights violations, and underreported resettlement and integration patterns. Meaningful policy to address the rising numbers of Chinese asylum seekers will strengthen the US asylum system, impact the US' relations with China, and increase the US' global standing.Zero-COVID Policy and AuthoritarianismChina was one of the last countries to continue a zero-COVID policy. Geared toward acting "dynamically" when new cases surfaced, health authorities used tools such as mass PCR testing and digital health data tracking to justify supervised quarantines and even the shutdown of entire cities. In December 2021, the city of Xi'an, home to 13 million, was shut down, and residents were forbidden to exit their homes. In April 2022, an increase in cases of the milder Omicron variant triggered a lockdown of Shanghai and its population of more than 26 million. Residents waited in massive lines to stock up on goods with only several days' notice. During the lockdown, many faced food shortages, pets were beaten to death on the streets for fear of transmitting the virus, and authorities entered homes unannounced to forcefully sanitize. In November 2022, frustrations over zero-COVID policy boiled over as cities across the country saw protests that, in their open expressions of anger and defiance, were rare for China. Chants of: "Step down, Xi Jinping! Step down, Communist Party!" were heard amongst crowds in Shanghai. "We don't want lifelong rulers. We don't want emperors!" was heard in Chengdu, a criticism of Xi Jinping's unprecedented third presidential term.Despite an end to zero-COVID in December 2022, a decision that was accelerated by these protests, the disillusionment felt by many persisted. Though repression by the government in Beijing is not a new phenomenon, the experience of constant surveillance and unexplained quarantines struck a more personal chord. Reporting along the US-Mexico border revealed this to be a major driver for Chinese migrants. "Zero-COVID policies severely harmed ordinary Chinese people…many people didn't care about politics before, but the pandemic awakened them. They realized there's really no freedom in China," immigration expert Zheng Cunzhu told Axios. Zheng has advised more than 100 such migrants.Economic DriversDespite the end to zero-COVID, China's economic recovery has been turbulent. In the second quarter of 2023, the GDP grew by just 0.8%. A contributing factor has been the centralization of economic policy, manifesting in regulatory crackdowns on fast-growing industries such as technology, financial services, and private education. The slowdown in the macroeconomy coincides with frustrations among the Chinese middle class about a depleted job market. In 2021, seven in ten unemployed urbanites held degrees, and the youth unemployment rate in June 2023 was 21.3%. With few professional opportunities available, university graduates have taken temporary jobs including as delivery drivers.Data from migrant detentions suggests that while some fleeing China to the US-Mexico border are working class, many come from middleclass backgrounds: Chinese migrants typically spend between $5,000 and $7,000 for self-guided trips, and up to $35,000 for the aid of smugglers, three times what Latin American migrants typically pay. Small business owners who were hit hard by pandemic restrictions, teachers and professors, and white-collar workers are among detainees.Through the Darién GapDuring the lockdown of Shanghai, a new term gained steam online. Runxue is a combination of the Romanized character 润 which sounds like "run" and the character for study, xue (学). The pun translates to "runology." As more and more people sought ways to practice runxue, the emergence of the Darién Gap as a way of escape flooded social media channels. Though this path was once virtually unknown beyond migrants from Latin America, posts on Weixin (WeChat), Douyin (TikTok), and Telegram taught Chinese viewers how to apply for passports, where to fly, how to pack, and how to navigate around cartels and border officials. In the more than two dozen Mandarin-language interviews conducted by Reuters at the US-Mexico border, every respondent credited social media and private internet groups for how they learned about this new route to the US.Flying to Ecuador where they are not required to present a visa, Chinese migrants gather with migrants from across Latin America at Colombia's northern border. Assessments from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimate that crossing to the Panamanian side can take up to ten days for the most vulnerable. Migrants are not only exposed to natural hazards, but also violence from bandits and from fellow migrants. Since 2014, the IOM has verified the deaths and disappearances of 379 migrants travelling through the Darién Gap. Because of the lack of official data, difficulty accessing the area, and little media coverage, most migrant deaths and disappearances in the jungle remain unverified. Recordings of deaths and disappearances are likely biased towards high-profile incidents and should be treated as underestimates of the true number of fatalities. From the verified records, the primary cause of death is drowning, although other causes include lack of shelter, hunger, dehydration, illness, and violence. While social media can help provide migrants with valuable information about the journey, it can also convey an inaccurate picture of the dangers they will face. Facebook pages of self-proclaimed travel agencies advertise the trek as an "exciting journey" and make bold promises of safe passage. In a TikTok post viewed more than 13 million times, vignettes of smiling and waving migrants, some jumping into pools of water to cool off, set optimistic expectations of the crossing.After registering with authorities in Panama, migrants continue their journey via car or bus to the US-Mexico border. Still getting advice from social media, they may contact smugglers who deliver them to drop-off points inside the US. They are then instructed how to surrender to border patrol officers, who have had to quickly adapt to the challenge of processing Chinese-speaking asylum seekers. Most are released with an immigration court date after several days of detention.Asylum and IntegrationAbout 70% of Chinese asylum applications decided in 2023 were adjudicated through the affirmative process, as opposed to 16.3% across all nationalities. This indicates that most Chinese migrants claim asylum as they arrive. Most Chinese cases are adjudicated in New York, where more than 17,000 are on backlog. Where do these asylum seekers go as they await their court dates? What resources and opportunities exist for them, and how are they received by their communities?New York City is a top destination for migrants from all nations, offering many city resources including over 200 shelters. However, Chinese migrants rarely opt for these; instead, they choose to go to neighborhoods with large Chinese populations. By living in these longstanding Chinese enclaves, newcomers can find housing, jobs, and immigration lawyers through community networks without needing to speak English. The self-sustaining character of urban Chinese American communities is true across the country. In Los Angeles, newcomers find housing in packed "family hotels," which host up to 10 people to a room with upwards of 30 sharing a bathroom.Where informal networks are insufficient, community centers and nonprofit organizations help fill the gap. In Chicago's Chinatown, the Pui Tak Center provides services such as reading and translating mail, scheduling medical appointments, and help filling out immigration forms. Pui Tak Center Executive Director David Wu explained that their popular English classes provide language training and introduce new arrivals to city resources. The center began new classes in January teaching over 600 students. 140 of these students were new, and over half of these were recent migrants. Students learn about a wide range of resources including housing, healthcare, and public transportation.Despite the self-reliant nature of new arrivals, the reception from the pre-existing Chinese community has been mixed. Wu pointed to linguistic differences and different immigration pathways among other factors that reduce sympathy. In the 1980s, 9 in 10 new immigrants to Chicago's Chinatown spoke Cantonese. However, most of the new arrivals from China today are Mandarin speakers. Legal status has also been a point of contention, as those who arrived years ago on work and education visas may complain about "border crossers" who come by "walking the jungle," phrases that have entered Chinese American lexicon.Despite this mixed reception, the outlook is largely positive for Chinese asylum seekers in terms of their actual cases. In December 2023, the approval rate for Chinese asylum applications was 73.7% (87.2% in New York City). This is a significantly higher rate than the 48.5% average of all applications across the US that were accepted in December. Even when an application is denied and all appeals are exhausted, it is highly unlikely that a Chinese migrant is deported. Of all people with deportation orders in the US, 1 out of 13 are Chinese. However, China is particularly uncooperative when taking back deportees as the US cannot leverage aid, as it has with other origin countries.Media NarrativesAs Chinese migrants continue to make the journey over multiple countries and across miles of jungle to arrive at the US border, rumors are spun about their motivations for arriving. Some news media and political figures have described the phenomenon as an influx of "military age men," stoking fear of these migrants having ties to China's military or allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party. In a speech on January 31, 2024, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) discredited factors such as a repressive government, political and religious persecution, and economic fears, saying "these [Chinese migrants] are not huddled masses of families seeking refuge and asylum."This narrative is misleading for a variety of reasons. US Customs and Border Protection does not publish data on the gender or age of migrants encountered. Because China does not compel military service from its citizens, and "military age" means different things in different countries, such phrasing is both unsupported by data and too broad to be a meaningful classification. It is unsurprising that younger, single adult men would be the most likely to travel a route as physically demanding as the Darién Gap. Young people are also more likely to be well-versed in social media, the primary source of information for Chinese migrants travelling through Central America. Clayton Dube, senior fellow at the University of Southern California US-China Institute, put it succinctly in an interview with PolitiFact: there is no proof that Chinese migrants arriving at the US are "motivated by anything other than individual desire to forge new lives in the US."Ways ForwardIronically, these narratives which target domestic fears of the Chinese geopolitical rival ignore opportunities to improve US standing in its competition with China. To take seriously the claims of political persecution would also reaffirm US standing as a global leader for human rights. China has long been considered recalcitrant in repatriating Chinese nationals with deportation orders from the US. This unwillingness to accept their nationals has been seen as a political tool, for example, something that can be leveraged against the US when it engages with Taiwan. Rather than alienating people in search of political, religious, and economic freedom—values that the US espouses on the world stage—the US should take advantage of the benefits that come with resettling refugees, defanging this threat.Access to Regular PathwaysHeightened barriers to obtaining work and education visas for Chinese students and professionals have increased the pressure to find alternative routes. Chinese nationals are the primary source of international students in the US, but the student visa refusal rate in 2022 was an unprecedented 35%. These refusals come after students are already accepted to an accredited university. According to the Cato Institute, these refusals from 2022 will amount to an estimated loss of $26.4 billion in tuition payments and living expenses for the US economy over four years. For Chinese nationals applying for employment-based visas, some backlogs stretch as far back as 2013.To address this, the US should expand access to F-1 student visas and H1-B visas across the board. The current statutory cap for H1-B employer-sponsored visas is 65,000 per year. This cap was exhausted in August 2022 for fiscal year 2023, and demand from US employers regularly outstrips supply. Expanding access would not only provide a safer and more regular pathway for Chinese migrants but also help fill employment gaps in many STEM industries.A groundbreaking study recently published by the Department of Health and Human Services revealed that refugees and asylees generated $123.8 billion in net fiscal benefit to the US economy and government budgets from 2005-2019. Reporting from the southern border suggests that integrating Chinese migrants into the US economy would prove additionally beneficial. According to data from the US Census Bureau, Chinese immigrants employed in the US civilian labor force are 17% more likely than US-born workers to be employed in management, business, science, and arts occupations. Though this figure does not account for undocumented immigrants, many of the Chinese migrants arriving to the US-Mexico border come from highly educated or business backgrounds that would qualify them for these same occupations if given access to regular pathways.Managing the Flow of MigrantsTo better manage the flow of migrants to the US southern border, federal agencies should establish a robust presence across social media. Social media has become a primary source of information for migrants and asylum seekers. The Department of State boasts official accounts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, but their messaging cannot keep pace with that of "influencers" and potential bad actors. Agencies such as the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security must establish a greater presence on a wide range of social media, including platforms that Chinese migrants commonly use such as WeChat and TikTok. Despite the ban of TikTok on government devices and efforts to ban the use of WeChat and TikTok, it is important for US agencies to find ways of providing accurate and accessible information about the risks and dangers of different migration pathways on the platforms most used by migrants.Providing the resources for Chinese language training for US Customs and Border Protection officers at the southern border is also urgent. With the influx of Chinese migrants arriving alongside more migrants from across Latin America, it is essential to minimize delays that the language barrier may pose to an already strained registration process.Improving IntegrationFollowing their arrival, three tiers of resources help integrate migrants: informal and personal networks, community centers and nonprofits, and city and state services. Because many newcomers hesitate to enroll in government services that they qualify for, it is important to strengthen partnerships with community centers that can bridge the gap. A model to replicate is the Illinois Welcoming Center (IWC), a consortium of community centers, which includes the previously mentioned Pui Tak Center, which supports immigrants across backgrounds. Sponsored by the Illinois Department of Human Services, the IWC connects newcomers to health care, job-training, nutrition, and cash assistance programs regardless of immigration status.
Eine dauerhafte Verfügbarkeit ist nicht garantiert und liegt vollumfänglich in den Händen der Herausgeber:innen. Bitte erstellen Sie sich selbständig eine Kopie falls Sie diese Quelle zitieren möchten.
Since the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, Chinese nationals have commonly entered the US via education programs or H1-B work visas. However, a quickly growing number is arriving via a new path: the southern border. Upon arrival, many claim political asylum, citing fears of President Xi Jinping's authoritarian rule and the experience of draconian zero-COVID policies. Many also express skepticism of the Chinese economy and fears of eventually being cast into poverty.For Chinese migrants, increasingly exclusionary immigration policies spurred by US COVID-era restrictions have cast doubt on historically reliable pathways such as education, work, or tourist visas. In 2021, Chinese B-visa applications saw a rejection rate of more than 79%. Though that number came down to 30% in 2022, the visa refusal rate to Chinese nationals has steadily increased from just 9% in 2014. Tourist visas have also become unfeasible for those eager to leave: the waiting time for an interview has risen to more than six months.In the first nine months of 2023, the US Border Patrol made 22,187 arrests of Chinese nationals entering the country from Mexico. This was 13 times the number from the same period in 2022. Most of the previous figure stems from people traveling from much further south than Mexico. Over 15,500 Chinese migrants were counted in Panama after traversing a dangerous stretch of jungle beginning in Colombia known as the Darién Gap. This figure is nearly eight times as many from the same period in 2022, and more than 40 times that of 2021.The US Border Patrol experienced record high numbers of migrant encounters at the US-Mexico border toward the end of 2023. Though the proportion of Chinese migrants is still relatively small when compared to other nationalities, they have become the fastest growing migrant demographic. To grasp the full picture of migration to the US today, policy makers must understand the migration drivers and routes, and asylum outcomes for those coming from non-traditional origin countries including China. An understanding of these factors will illuminate the role of social media, human rights violations, and underreported resettlement and integration patterns. Meaningful policy to address the rising numbers of Chinese asylum seekers will strengthen the US asylum system, impact the US' relations with China, and increase the US' global standing.Zero-COVID Policy and AuthoritarianismChina was one of the last countries to continue a zero-COVID policy. Geared toward acting "dynamically" when new cases surfaced, health authorities used tools such as mass PCR testing and digital health data tracking to justify supervised quarantines and even the shutdown of entire cities. In December 2021, the city of Xi'an, home to 13 million, was shut down, and residents were forbidden to exit their homes. In April 2022, an increase in cases of the milder Omicron variant triggered a lockdown of Shanghai and its population of more than 26 million. Residents waited in massive lines to stock up on goods with only several days' notice. During the lockdown, many faced food shortages, pets were beaten to death on the streets for fear of transmitting the virus, and authorities entered homes unannounced to forcefully sanitize. In November 2022, frustrations over zero-COVID policy boiled over as cities across the country saw protests that, in their open expressions of anger and defiance, were rare for China. Chants of: "Step down, Xi Jinping! Step down, Communist Party!" were heard amongst crowds in Shanghai. "We don't want lifelong rulers. We don't want emperors!" was heard in Chengdu, a criticism of Xi Jinping's unprecedented third presidential term.Despite an end to zero-COVID in December 2022, a decision that was accelerated by these protests, the disillusionment felt by many persisted. Though repression by the government in Beijing is not a new phenomenon, the experience of constant surveillance and unexplained quarantines struck a more personal chord. Reporting along the US-Mexico border revealed this to be a major driver for Chinese migrants. "Zero-COVID policies severely harmed ordinary Chinese people…many people didn't care about politics before, but the pandemic awakened them. They realized there's really no freedom in China," immigration expert Zheng Cunzhu told Axios. Zheng has advised more than 100 such migrants.Economic DriversDespite the end to zero-COVID, China's economic recovery has been turbulent. In the second quarter of 2023, the GDP grew by just 0.8%. A contributing factor has been the centralization of economic policy, manifesting in regulatory crackdowns on fast-growing industries such as technology, financial services, and private education. The slowdown in the macroeconomy coincides with frustrations among the Chinese middle class about a depleted job market. In 2021, seven in ten unemployed urbanites held degrees, and the youth unemployment rate in June 2023 was 21.3%. With few professional opportunities available, university graduates have taken temporary jobs including as delivery drivers.Data from migrant detentions suggests that while some fleeing China to the US-Mexico border are working class, many come from middleclass backgrounds: Chinese migrants typically spend between $5,000 and $7,000 for self-guided trips, and up to $35,000 for the aid of smugglers, three times what Latin American migrants typically pay. Small business owners who were hit hard by pandemic restrictions, teachers and professors, and white-collar workers are among detainees.Through the Darién GapDuring the lockdown of Shanghai, a new term gained steam online. Runxue is a combination of the Romanized character 润 which sounds like "run" and the character for study, xue (学). The pun translates to "runology." As more and more people sought ways to practice runxue, the emergence of the Darién Gap as a way of escape flooded social media channels. Though this path was once virtually unknown beyond migrants from Latin America, posts on Weixin (WeChat), Douyin (TikTok), and Telegram taught Chinese viewers how to apply for passports, where to fly, how to pack, and how to navigate around cartels and border officials. In the more than two dozen Mandarin-language interviews conducted by Reuters at the US-Mexico border, every respondent credited social media and private internet groups for how they learned about this new route to the US.Flying to Ecuador where they are not required to present a visa, Chinese migrants gather with migrants from across Latin America at Colombia's northern border. Assessments from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimate that crossing to the Panamanian side can take up to ten days for the most vulnerable. Migrants are not only exposed to natural hazards, but also violence from bandits and from fellow migrants. Since 2014, the IOM has verified the deaths and disappearances of 379 migrants travelling through the Darién Gap. Because of the lack of official data, difficulty accessing the area, and little media coverage, most migrant deaths and disappearances in the jungle remain unverified. Recordings of deaths and disappearances are likely biased towards high-profile incidents and should be treated as underestimates of the true number of fatalities. From the verified records, the primary cause of death is drowning, although other causes include lack of shelter, hunger, dehydration, illness, and violence. While social media can help provide migrants with valuable information about the journey, it can also convey an inaccurate picture of the dangers they will face. Facebook pages of self-proclaimed travel agencies advertise the trek as an "exciting journey" and make bold promises of safe passage. In a TikTok post viewed more than 13 million times, vignettes of smiling and waving migrants, some jumping into pools of water to cool off, set optimistic expectations of the crossing.After registering with authorities in Panama, migrants continue their journey via car or bus to the US-Mexico border. Still getting advice from social media, they may contact smugglers who deliver them to drop-off points inside the US. They are then instructed how to surrender to border patrol officers, who have had to quickly adapt to the challenge of processing Chinese-speaking asylum seekers. Most are released with an immigration court date after several days of detention.Asylum and IntegrationAbout 70% of Chinese asylum applications decided in 2023 were adjudicated through the affirmative process, as opposed to 16.3% across all nationalities. This indicates that most Chinese migrants claim asylum as they arrive. Most Chinese cases are adjudicated in New York, where more than 17,000 are on backlog. Where do these asylum seekers go as they await their court dates? What resources and opportunities exist for them, and how are they received by their communities?New York City is a top destination for migrants from all nations, offering many city resources including over 200 shelters. However, Chinese migrants rarely opt for these; instead, they choose to go to neighborhoods with large Chinese populations. By living in these longstanding Chinese enclaves, newcomers can find housing, jobs, and immigration lawyers through community networks without needing to speak English. The self-sustaining character of urban Chinese American communities is true across the country. In Los Angeles, newcomers find housing in packed "family hotels," which host up to 10 people to a room with upwards of 30 sharing a bathroom.Where informal networks are insufficient, community centers and nonprofit organizations help fill the gap. In Chicago's Chinatown, the Pui Tak Center provides services such as reading and translating mail, scheduling medical appointments, and help filling out immigration forms. Pui Tak Center Executive Director David Wu explained that their popular English classes provide language training and introduce new arrivals to city resources. The center began new classes in January teaching over 600 students. 140 of these students were new, and over half of these were recent migrants. Students learn about a wide range of resources including housing, healthcare, and public transportation.Despite the self-reliant nature of new arrivals, the reception from the pre-existing Chinese community has been mixed. Wu pointed to linguistic differences and different immigration pathways among other factors that reduce sympathy. In the 1980s, 9 in 10 new immigrants to Chicago's Chinatown spoke Cantonese. However, most of the new arrivals from China today are Mandarin speakers. Legal status has also been a point of contention, as those who arrived years ago on work and education visas may complain about "border crossers" who come by "walking the jungle," phrases that have entered Chinese American lexicon.Despite this mixed reception, the outlook is largely positive for Chinese asylum seekers in terms of their actual cases. In December 2023, the approval rate for Chinese asylum applications was 73.7% (87.2% in New York City). This is a significantly higher rate than the 48.5% average of all applications across the US that were accepted in December. Even when an application is denied and all appeals are exhausted, it is highly unlikely that a Chinese migrant is deported. Of all people with deportation orders in the US, 1 out of 13 are Chinese. However, China is particularly uncooperative when taking back deportees as the US cannot leverage aid, as it has with other origin countries.Media NarrativesAs Chinese migrants continue to make the journey over multiple countries and across miles of jungle to arrive at the US border, rumors are spun about their motivations for arriving. Some news media and political figures have described the phenomenon as an influx of "military age men," stoking fear of these migrants having ties to China's military or allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party. In a speech on January 31, 2024, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) discredited factors such as a repressive government, political and religious persecution, and economic fears, saying "these [Chinese migrants] are not huddled masses of families seeking refuge and asylum."This narrative is misleading for a variety of reasons. US Customs and Border Protection does not publish data on the gender or age of migrants encountered. Because China does not compel military service from its citizens, and "military age" means different things in different countries, such phrasing is both unsupported by data and too broad to be a meaningful classification. It is unsurprising that younger, single adult men would be the most likely to travel a route as physically demanding as the Darién Gap. Young people are also more likely to be well-versed in social media, the primary source of information for Chinese migrants travelling through Central America. Clayton Dube, senior fellow at the University of Southern California US-China Institute, put it succinctly in an interview with PolitiFact: there is no proof that Chinese migrants arriving at the US are "motivated by anything other than individual desire to forge new lives in the US."Ways ForwardIronically, these narratives which target domestic fears of the Chinese geopolitical rival ignore opportunities to improve US standing in its competition with China. To take seriously the claims of political persecution would also reaffirm US standing as a global leader for human rights. China has long been considered recalcitrant in repatriating Chinese nationals with deportation orders from the US. This unwillingness to accept their nationals has been seen as a political tool, for example, something that can be leveraged against the US when it engages with Taiwan. Rather than alienating people in search of political, religious, and economic freedom—values that the US espouses on the world stage—the US should take advantage of the benefits that come with resettling refugees, defanging this threat.Access to Regular PathwaysHeightened barriers to obtaining work and education visas for Chinese students and professionals have increased the pressure to find alternative routes. Chinese nationals are the primary source of international students in the US, but the student visa refusal rate in 2022 was an unprecedented 35%. These refusals come after students are already accepted to an accredited university. According to the Cato Institute, these refusals from 2022 will amount to an estimated loss of $26.4 billion in tuition payments and living expenses for the US economy over four years. For Chinese nationals applying for employment-based visas, some backlogs stretch as far back as 2013.To address this, the US should expand access to F-1 student visas and H1-B visas across the board. The current statutory cap for H1-B employer-sponsored visas is 65,000 per year. This cap was exhausted in August 2022 for fiscal year 2023, and demand from US employers regularly outstrips supply. Expanding access would not only provide a safer and more regular pathway for Chinese migrants but also help fill employment gaps in many STEM industries.A groundbreaking study recently published by the Department of Health and Human Services revealed that refugees and asylees generated $123.8 billion in net fiscal benefit to the US economy and government budgets from 2005-2019. Reporting from the southern border suggests that integrating Chinese migrants into the US economy would prove additionally beneficial. According to data from the US Census Bureau, Chinese immigrants employed in the US civilian labor force are 17% more likely than US-born workers to be employed in management, business, science, and arts occupations. Though this figure does not account for undocumented immigrants, many of the Chinese migrants arriving to the US-Mexico border come from highly educated or business backgrounds that would qualify them for these same occupations if given access to regular pathways.Managing the Flow of MigrantsTo better manage the flow of migrants to the US southern border, federal agencies should establish a robust presence across social media. Social media has become a primary source of information for migrants and asylum seekers. The Department of State boasts official accounts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, but their messaging cannot keep pace with that of "influencers" and potential bad actors. Agencies such as the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security must establish a greater presence on a wide range of social media, including platforms that Chinese migrants commonly use such as WeChat and TikTok. Despite the ban of TikTok on government devices and efforts to ban the use of WeChat and TikTok, it is important for US agencies to find ways of providing accurate and accessible information about the risks and dangers of different migration pathways on the platforms most used by migrants.Providing the resources for Chinese language training for US Customs and Border Protection officers at the southern border is also urgent. With the influx of Chinese migrants arriving alongside more migrants from across Latin America, it is essential to minimize delays that the language barrier may pose to an already strained registration process.Improving IntegrationFollowing their arrival, three tiers of resources help integrate migrants: informal and personal networks, community centers and nonprofits, and city and state services. Because many newcomers hesitate to enroll in government services that they qualify for, it is important to strengthen partnerships with community centers that can bridge the gap. A model to replicate is the Illinois Welcoming Center (IWC), a consortium of community centers, which includes the previously mentioned Pui Tak Center, which supports immigrants across backgrounds. Sponsored by the Illinois Department of Human Services, the IWC connects newcomers to health care, job-training, nutrition, and cash assistance programs regardless of immigration status.