To Promote the Constitution One Must First Promote the Leadership of the Party!--Reflections on 持续推动宪法深入人心 [Continuously Promoting the Constitution to Take Root in People's Hearts] and 抓住“关键少数”的理论意蕴 [Grasping the Theoretical Implications of Focusing on the "Key Few"]

 

Pix credit here (1954 Poster "Uphold/Defend the Constitution"

The role of the Chinese State constitution has generated a tremendous amount of smoke, and precious little fire. The odor of that smoke, in turn, reflects the ideological wood type that is burned in the service of its own cognitive imperatives. Even within China. These are important discussions, certainly; discussions made all the more so because they are, at their root not so much about the constitution itself (as object/artifact, as signifier of the rationalizing of power relations in politics; and as the incarnation of the collective meaning/manifestation f the political order--the perfect semiotic vessel), but if the virtue of the ruling order that these textual containers, these 九鼎 (nine cauldrons) represent.

You know the story: Nine bronze tripods– cast back in the mists of great antiquity– were treasured by ancient Chinese Kings as a symbol of their right to rule. Passed down from dynasty to dynasty– for nearly 2,000 years (or so the story goes) until the time when the First Emperor, Shihuangdi, finally toppled the last Zhou King– and rather than see their transfer to Shihuangdi’s new dynasty– the last Chu King flung the nine bronzes forever into the River Si.* * *Given their symbolic significance, Shihuangdi actively attempted to dredge up the sacred bronzes from the river, but it was to no avail; and scholars of later dynasties saw this as further evidence of the lack of moral virtue of the First Emperor. (Enchantment and the Nine Bronze Tripods九鼎).

 

Pix credit here

In some respects, perhaps, the Chinese state constitution now serves as one of the generative or representational cauldrons of the authority of governance through the State. That cauldron serves as the expression of the Communist Party of China's fundamental or basic political line as expressed in the institutional and governance apparatus poured into State institutions and animated through a cage of regulations that reflect the mass line dialectics between the people and the vanguard of social forces as a framework through which appropriate movement along the Socialist Path may be undertaken. The other cauldron--for there are now two--is the CPC itself, whose virtue serves as the animating principle that drives the institutions of State for the masses as a function of its own internal virtue to govern itself appropriately to the ends of correctly applying the fundamental principles of the political-economic systems towards its wends at every stage of the nation's historical development and in the face of the general contradiction that defines each historical stage. 

That, anyway, is the theory.

Pix credit Ministry of Justice 2022; also here

And it is a theory that perhaps helps clarify the functional relationship between the (state) constitution, the CPC, and the masses that remain the masters of the country (人民当家作主). More specifically, it may help in better understanding the role of the constitution within the political economic order of Marxist Leninist States within a Chinese context.  In the current historical era of Chinese development, the General Secretary of the CPC, almost from the start of his leadership, has emphasized the role of the (state) constitution within the ordering structures of Chinese political life. An example:

President Xi Jinping has stressed promoting the spirit of the Constitution and upholding the Constitution's authority. * * * [He] called for making efforts to guide all people to loyally uphold, willingly comply with and firmly safeguard the socialist rule of law. The priority of upholding law-based governance is to stick to Constitution-based governance, Xi stressed. It's necessary to develop effective and comprehensive institutions to ensure compliance with the Constitution, strengthen constitutional oversight and safeguard its authority, so as to elevate constitutional enforcement to a new level, he said. Educational campaigns should be launched within the entirety of the Party and society to promote the spirit of the Constitution and establish its authority, said Xi. (Xi calls for safeguarding Constitution, socialist rule of law, 2018)

These are ideas and objectives that resurface from time to time as part of the effort to advance the development of the masses in a dialectic the value of which is forward movement in the engagement between the masses coming closer to the patriotic ideal and the State organs that reflect the refinement of the engagement between people and CPC through the formalized structures of whole process people's democracy (全过程人民民主) (discussed here).

Two recent essays suggest the contemporary contours of this approach to Leninist Constitutionalism with Chinese characteristics. The first, 持续推动宪法深入人心 [Continuously Promoting the Constitution to Take Root in People's Hearts] was published in tThe December 2025 issue of Red Flag (or perhaps more comprehensively transliterated as Revolutionary Banner) Journal 《红旗文稿》2025年第23期 (on the semiotics of flags, banners and the like, see here), speaks to the nature of and the need to more deeply embed the (state) constitutional text among the masses in an appropriate way. The second,  抓住“关键少数”的理论意蕴 [Grasping the Theoretical Implications of Focusing on the "Key Few"], published earlier in the People's Daily, speaks to the incarnation of the virtue of the country through which the connection between constitution (and constitutional organs) and the leading and guiding forces of the country may be aligned. 

The first is a consequence of renewed efforts from the Central Propaganda Department of the Ministry of Justice to further proper education of constitution and constitutional values among the masses [近日，中央宣传部、司法部、全国普法办联合印发通知，以“学习宣传贯彻习近平法治思想，推动宪法深入人心”为主题，在全国范围内开展宪法宣传教育活动。] (持续推动宪法深入人心).  The cauldron of the (state) constitution stands on three legs /as is appropriate for a ritual symbolic vessel with ancient roots). "The Constitution is the fundamental law of the state, the general charter for governing the country and ensuring national security, and a concentrated embodiment of the will of the Party and the people" [ 宪法是国家的根本法，是治国安邦的总章程，是党和人民意志的集中体现。] (持续推动宪法深入人心) The reference is not filler. With respect to the state, the constitution serves as the fundamental operating system of its structures and operation. With respect to the country, the constitution serves as the blueprint for governance (specification of rights and duties) and the paramount obligation to protect the security of the state. With respect to the Communist Party, the constitution serves as the materialization, from time to time (recall this is a dynamic process of temporal iterative dialectics), of its leadership and guidance of the state (apparatus), the country, and the people. The rest follows--with the CPC necessarily at the center. 

It is not so much that the constitution is not itself of paramount importance in the construction of the meta-bars of the cognitive cage of Chinese Marxist Leninism applied to the conditions of the country and the needs of the people with an eye towards the objective to which all national productive forces must be developed. No; it is that it occupies a space between the normative authority of the CPC as the embodiment of politics, and the institutional forces through which that embodiment is operationalized in ways that protect the people from abusive exercises of administrative discretion by state officials, and as a guide toward proper conduct--within law--by everyone else. On top of all of this construction is 鼎, the constitutional cauldron, that is itself the vessel in which authority may be activated and through which it is manifested. But the 鼎 is neither itself the authority, nor is it the phenomenon of activation.

All of this abstraction makes no sense unless translated into concrete (pragmatic) manifestations in historical context. In this case the reader's attention is brought to three areas of socialist development of socialist administrative constitutionalism over which is the constitution of the people in and through the CPC. The essay identifies the categories around which constitutional success may be measured.

The first touches on sub-systems of rationalized legislation that translate the more abstract directives of the constitution into the everyday operational frameworks and structures f officials in institutions--and describes in more detail the nature of their regulatory cages. 重点领域、新兴领域、涉外领域立法不断加强，国家治理急需、满足人民日益增长的美好生活需要必备的法律制度不断健全，以宪法为核心的中国特色社会主义法律体系日益完善。[Legislation in key areas, emerging areas, and foreign-related areas has been continuously strengthened, and the legal system urgently needed for national governance and essential for meeting the people's growing needs for a better life has been continuously improved, resulting in an increasingly perfect socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics centered on the Constitution. ] (持续推动宪法深入人心). Note the connection between the objects to be measured (legislation) and the measure against which they are to be valued (a perfected socialist legal system).

The second touches on constitutional review. That has been itself an object of decades long debate among the global intelligentsia and others. "The system and capacity building for constitutional review and record-filing review have been strengthened, and the level of constitutional supervision has steadily improved. " [加强合宪性审查、备案审查制度和能力建设，宪法监督水平稳步提高。] (持续推动宪法深入人心). These have been undertaken within the State rather than as part of the dialectic between the people and the State or the people and the CPC. That makes sense as a function of the basic ordering premise of the constitution itself (as the operating system of institutional governance) rather than as the space within which the political dialectics of the mass line may be applied. Constitutional controversy, then, is assumed to be technical--a matter of aligning constitutional text and practice with the will of the Party and People, rather than as the place within which that will is rendered through constitutional text. That is the inherent Leninism of socialist constitutionalism and one of its key points of difference with fundamental ordering characteristics of liberal democratic constitutional spaces. All of that, of course, is to be distinguished from disciplining and inspecting officials and correcting their errors--but even there, the role of discipline and inspection is left to the state (technical compliance and abuse of authority) and the CPC (compliance with the fundamental political line) (eg here).

And the third emerges from an application of the mass line for socialist legality generally and the constitution in particular--the need for educating the masses appropriately with respect to the nature and proper relationship between the constitution, the state, the Party, and the masses themselves. 宪法学习宣传教育深入开展，全民宪法意识显著提升，尊法学法守法用法的社会氛围日益浓厚。[In-depth constitutional learning, publicity, and education have been carried out, the constitutional awareness of all citizens has been significantly enhanced, and a social atmosphere of respecting, learning, abiding by, and applying the law has become increasingly strong] (持续推动宪法深入人心). The nature of education is grounded in awareness and abiding, both of which are stressed. Here, again, the three legs of the 鼎cauldron of the constitution. This time the 鼎is not the constitution itself, but rather the three legs of the constitutional system itself. "宪法的根基在于人民发自内心的拥护，宪法的伟力在于人民出自真诚的信仰。" [ The foundation of the Constitution lies in the heartfelt support of the people, and the power of the Constitution lies in the sincere belief of the people.] (持续推动宪法深入人心).

That leaves the question of what is left to be done. The march toward perfection requires both refinement and the better engagement of the CPC itself, through its own structures. Part of that requires a stronger focus on the unification of law. Perhaps more importantly is a focus on the connection between the critical legs of the cauldron of constitution itself: 

 在推进全面依法治国的新征程上，要牢牢把握党对宪法工作的全面领导这一根本原则，充分彰显我国宪法制度的独特优势。将宪法实施深度融入治国理政各环节，持续提高党依宪治国、依宪执政的能力水平。[On the new journey of advancing the comprehensive rule of law, it is essential to firmly grasp the fundamental principle of the Party's overall leadership over constitutional work and fully demonstrate the unique advantages of my country's constitutional system. The implementation of the Constitution should be deeply integrated into all aspects of national governance, continuously improving the Party's ability to govern and administer the country in accordance with the Constitution.] (持续推动宪法深入人心).

That, in turn, requires focus on key areas:  例如，保证宪法全面实施的制度体系有待进一步健全，合宪性审查、备案审查工作有待进一步提质增效，广大干部群众特别是领导干部这个“关键少数”的宪法意识、宪法观念有待进一步全面提升。[For example, the institutional system for ensuring the full implementation of the Constitution needs to be further improved; the quality and efficiency of constitutional review and record-filing review work need to be further enhanced; and the constitutional awareness and understanding of the general public, especially leading cadres who constitute a "key few [critical minority]," need to be comprehensively improved.] (持续推动宪法深入人心).

Pix credit here

 

It is that last reference--the one to  “关键少数” [key few or critical minority] that connects the constitutional order to its normative center in and through the CPC. That concept was the subject earlier in 2025 of a People's Daily article projected toward the masses (as part of their constitutional education)-- 抓住“关键少数”的理论意蕴 [Grasping the Theoretical Implications of Focusing on the "Key Few"].

Pix credit here

“关键少数”是指在党和国家治理体系中发挥关键作用的领导干部群体。习近平总书记在党的十八届四中全会第二次全体会议上，强调推进依法治国“必须抓住领导干部这个‘关键少数’”。* * * 抓住“关键少数”是马克思主义中国化时代化的创新成果[The "key few" refers to the group of leading cadres who play a crucial role in the Party and state governance system. At the second plenary session of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that promoting the rule of law "must focus on leading cadres, the 'key few'."  * * *  Focusing on the "key few" is an innovative achievement of the Sinicization and modernization of Marxism.]

The concept of the "key few" then, aligns key conceptual framing elements of Chinese Marxist Leninism in its new era. The first is the alignment with socialist modernization, which after the 3rd Plenum in 2024, heightened the focus not just on development (socialist modernization) that moves the nation forward along the Socialist Path, but innovative or high quality development of all of the productive forces of the nation (including the CPC itself) to accelerate that forward movement. (here, and here)

*       *       *

Perhaps it might be best to end these reflections with an old story that may, in the end, provide a sounder basis for analysis than many modern efforts (I use the version in Baidu):

王孙满对楚子: 楚子伐陆浑之戎，遂至于luò雒，观兵于周疆。定王使王孙满劳楚子。楚子问鼎之大小轻重焉。对曰：“在德不在鼎。昔夏之方有德也，远方图物，贡金九牧，铸鼎象物，百物而为之备，使民知神奸。故民入川泽山林，不逢不若。chi螭mèi魅wǎng罔liǎng两，莫能逢之。用能协于上下，以承天休。桀有昏德，鼎迁于商，载祀六百。商纣暴虐，鼎迁于周。德之休明，虽小，重也。其奸回昏乱，虽大，轻也。天zuò祚明德，有所厎止。成王定鼎于郏鄏，卜世三十，卜年七百，天所命也。周德虽衰，天命未改。鼎之轻重，未可问也。” [Wang Sunman's Reply to the King of Chu: The King of Chu attacked the Rong people of Luhun and then advanced to Luoyang, displaying his troops on the borders of Zhou territory. King Ding of Zhou sent Wang Sunman to greet the King of Chu. The King of Chu inquired about the size and weight of the tripods. Wang Sunman replied: "It is virtue that matters, not the tripods.  In the past, when the Xia dynasty possessed virtue, people from distant lands presented images of their local products, and the nine provinces offered metal, which was used to cast tripods depicting these objects.  All things were represented, allowing the people to recognize benevolent and malevolent spirits. Therefore, when people entered rivers, swamps, mountains, and forests, they encountered no misfortune.  Even mythical creatures and evil spirits could not harm them.  Thus, harmony prevailed between heaven and earth, and they received Heaven's blessings.  When Jie possessed corrupt virtue, the tripods were transferred to the Shang dynasty, where they remained for six hundred years. When Shang Zhou was tyrannical, the tripods were transferred to the Zhou dynasty.  When virtue is flourishing and bright, even a small tripod is heavy. When there is treachery, corruption, and chaos, even a large tripod is light. Heaven bestows its blessings upon virtuous rulers, and there is a limit to its favor. King Cheng established the tripods in Jiayu, and the oracle predicted thirty generations and seven hundred years of rule; this was Heaven's decree. Although the virtue of Zhou has declined, Heaven's mandate has not changed. The weight of the tripods is not something to be questioned."]

The essay 持续推动宪法深入人心 [Continuously Promoting the Constitution to Take Root in People's Hearts] follows below in its original Chinese and in its English translation.

Upcoming Program: "Business & human rights: The international advisory opinions on climate change" 12 Feb. 2026

 

 

Happy to pass along the announcement what what s sure to be an excellent program:

ILA Canada is pleased to collaborate with the Human Rights Research and Education Centre of the University of Ottawa on a webinar series on Business & Human Rights, a multidisciplinary field of research that examines the human rights and environmental implications of business activity and considers how to prevent and redress such harm. It is also an area of social advocacy, legal practice, and consultancy.

Register here:
https://lnkd.in/e5qptN4A

This first webinar will consider the recent ground-breaking advisory opinions on climate change rendered by the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea, (ITLOS), the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), and their implications for business and human rights. Experts will discuss the genesis of these cases, the issues before each of the courts, and aspects of the rulings that have implications for the business and human rights normative framework.

With Professor Sara Seck, Schulich School of Law, MELAW, Dalhousie University
Salvador Herencia Carrasco, Director of the Human Rights Clinic, HRREC, University of Ottawa
Assistant Professor Chiara Macchi, Law Group, Wageningen University
Moderated by Professor Penelope Simons, Director of HRREC, University of Ottawa
Introduction by Dr. Oonagh Fitzgerald, president of ILA Canada

More information follows below

Event Announcement: Pusey House Oxford, "A Geneology of Post-Liberalism" (4 March 2026)

 

 

I am delighted to pass along this notice of a mini colloquium hosted at Pusey House, Oxford and co-sponsored by the Telos-Paul Piccone Institute:

This afternoon mini-colloquium will consider the following questions:

--What is “post-liberalism”?
--What is the origin of this idea?
--And how can we better understand our own political moment by grasping the genealogy of this idea?

Overview:

“Liberalism is in crisis. Or so it seems. In the aftermath of Brexit and Trump’s election, a plethora of books and articles reporting the end of liberalism emerged from both ends of the political spectrum. While the majority of voices from the American left and mainstream right mourned this perceived decline, a new faction within the right saw it as an opening for envisioning a fresh political paradigm beyond the constraints of liberalism. Many of these right-wing thinkers and activists, with whom U.S. Vice-President J. D. Vance publicly identifies, call themselves postliberals. Yet the early uses of the term ‘postliberal’ were strikingly different, denoting communitarian attempts to transcend liberal individualism rather than the illiberal rejection of liberal-democratic norms.”

— Jacob Williams and João Pinheiro da Silva, “Postliberalism: A Genealogy,” Telos 212 (Fall 2025)

Timetable

2 - 2.45 pm: João Pinheiro da Silva (University of St. Andrews) and Jacob Williams (Oxford) will introduce their essay “Postliberalism: A Genealogy” (Telos 212, Fall 2025), why they wrote it, and what its thesis is.

2.45 - 3.30 pm: First response will be given by Professor John Milbank (Emeritus, Nottingham).

3.30 - 4 pm: Break for tea and coffee.

4 - 4.30 pm: Second response will be given by Professor Paul Kelly (London School of Economics), author of Against Postliberalism: Why 'Family, Faith and Flag' is a Dead End for the Left (Polity, 2025).

4.30 - 5.20 pm: Panel discussion with all of the speakers, moderated by a chair, and Q&A with the audience.

Speakers

Professor Paul Kelly (London School of Economics)
Professor John Milbank (Nottingham, Emeritus)
Mr João Pinheiro da Silva (St. Andrews)
Mr Jacob Williams (Oxford)

Tickets

Attendance is free, but registration is required. For tickets and other information, please visit the event website at Pusey House Oxford.

The essay was one of a number of quite interesting contributions published in Telos 212 (Fall 2025): Debating Postliberalism.

 

Just Distributed--Academe Vol 112(1) (Winter 2026): What is Academic Labor Now?

 

 

 Delighted to pass along the announcement of the availability of Vol. 112(1) of Academe, the magazine of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). This from their Press Release:

The winter issue of Academe—edited by Alissa Karl, associate professor of English at SUNY Brockport and vice president for academics of United University Professions—considers the structure and conditions of academic labor today. Who performs the type of knowledge work we call academic labor, of what does it consist, and what might its appropriate aims be? Contributors to the issue examine the realities of teaching, research, and service within a highly tiered and increasingly contingent academic workforce; graduate students and the reproduction of academic labor; the stakes of AI for faculty work; and the demographic changes that are transforming the academic labor movement.

 The featured articles, with links, follows below, along with Alissa Karl's essay: From the Guest Editor: What Is Academic Labor Now?. The essays provide a very useful starting point for considering the sociology and politics of labor and value in a society where both are being transformed. The difficultly, and a common one, is that sometimes  one tends to engage in analysis holding for time; or more often of attempting an analytics in which one element in a dialectal ecology is dynamic and the rest are assumed to stay in ace (and time), The surprise always comes when these premises do not reflect the realist on the ground. It is at that point that one may be inclined to invoke normative principles, and more specifically, a specific set of objectives derived from an application of those normative premises, as the basis of critique or in the service of a normative politics of j'accuse. Both are perfectly reasonable, and indeed ought to be expected. These then frame the larger issues within worthy discourse, like that in this volume, may be better situated and on that basis produce an even more profound contribution to knowledge.   

Reflections on a Chinese Reflection on Davis--不能任由世界滑向“无规则”深渊（寰宇平） [The World Cannot Be Allowed to Slide into the Abyss of "Lawlessness" (Global Perspective)]

 

Pix credit here (Zhang Qing, Past & Future,1998)

 The 2026 Davos speeches has appeared to energize even those propaganda organs that tends to ignore it if ony because there is often very little at Davos that is "masses consumable" ready. One rarely sees much reporting on Davos in the popular Western legacy or new information engagement organs, and usually even less in Marxist Leninist organs. Not that Davos is ignored entirely--it is usually best harvested for its celebrity and imagery--a pageant of power, a celebration of celebrity,  that rivals the  US Oscars or the their European equivalents. Davos is useful for the masses only as a function of its utility to more deeply embed the signalling of power and its vanguardist collectivity--with just a smidgen of analysis for near intellectuals who wish to feel "9in the loop" in a near celebrity kind of way. Delightful. .  . and ancient performative semiotics.  

 But apparently not entirely true this year. 

 China's People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party,  may sometimes be a useful barometer of the public facing positions--and the discursive tropes of fundamental importance to--the Chinese political vanguard.  In that way it also provides some insight into the way in which the core of leadership of the nation reflect on and understand critical elements of Leninism evolving into its mature form in this new era of Chinese historical development. And recently it focused on Davos. Not the celebrity; not the pageant; but rather the offal, the odors of which now appear to have stung th4e sensitive nostrils of people in the Chinese homeland.  That, more than the content of the message suggests that the frolic in Davos this year appears to be important enough to be taken seriously in China; and more importantly, that this notice is spiced with a chagrin--a chagrin at the possibility that at the point of a Chinese Leninist insinuation into the interstices of international institutionalism as law, culture, and bureaucracy, someone else has come along and effectively has sought to make that, and undercut the value of the entire enterprise.  That would be bad enough, certainly, but hardly worth any effort that reaches the masses.  What makes this worthy of mass line dialectics is the way that  the alternative suggests the value of a chaos and instability that directly threatens the core ontological premise of Chnese Leninism in its new era. THAT, certainly, is worth a response. 

Pix credit here (1972, The American Nuclear Bomb is nothing but  a paper tiger)

That intervention and response was set out in a prominently situated ion an opinion article: 不能任由世界滑向“无规则”深渊（寰宇平） [The World Cannot Be Allowed to Slide into the Abyss of "Lawlessness" (Global Perspective)]. 

"Although the 2026 World Economic Forum annual meeting has concluded, the concerns raised during the meeting about the world sliding into an era of "lawlessness" continue to resonate in the international community." [世界经济论坛2026年年会虽已落幕，但年会期间关于世界正滑向“无规则”时代的忧虑仍在国际社会持续发酵。] (不能任由世界滑向“无规则”深渊). The criticism. of course, was directed not at the middle powers, whose alarm warmed the hearts of the ancien regime intellectuals and those who look nostalgically at what could have been but for the failing, incompetence, shortsightedness, se4lfishness, and arrogance of the humans charged with its fulfillment (see here). Rather it is directed who rejecting the fundamental organizing managerialism of the bureaucrat and institutionalist, jas robusytñy put forward a sort of post global imperial transactional anarchy (order without a center) that would not merely compete with but seek to upend the structures and premises of the order that China itself has invested heavily and that reflects its own cognitive cages of global management and rationalization. 

Some countries pursue a logic of might makes right and self-serving dominance, and their bullying behavior is undisguised and unrestrained, whether towards their neighbors or allies. History and reality show that in a world without the constraints of international rules, the foundation of peace and development will inevitably be shaken, and contradictions and conflicts will become increasingly apparent. The international community must rediscover the spirit of unity, jointly safeguard international order and international law, and jointly resist the risks and challenges brought about by hegemonism and power politics. [个别国家奉行实力至上、唯我独尊的逻辑，其霸凌行径无论是对其近邻抑或盟友皆不加掩饰、毫不克制。历史和现实昭示，一个失去国际规则约束的世界，和平与发展的根基必将动摇，矛盾冲突将日益显现。国际社会必须重拾团结精神，共同维护国际秩序和国际法，共同抵御霸权主义、强权政治带来的风险挑战。] (不能任由世界滑向“无规则”深渊).

But, of course, China doesn't care about "some countries"--it cares very much about the conceptual rearrangement that once mocked bit which has become dangerous to it that becomes the foundation of the American rebooting of the global order to its own liking.  

Pix credit here ["The Third World; the world's people can not be bullied; the people of China can not be intimidated." c. 1960s.]

 

It divides the criticism in three parts.

 Part one seeks to draw the discourse within tyhe now well developed Chinese tropes of US hegemonism, which themselves are well worm relics from the Cold War Era repurposes from its Soviet  ham handed utilization to something perhaps more elegant. 

The new changes in US policy towards Europe clearly demonstrate the logic of hegemony: nothing is off the table. The "powerlessness" that Europe is exhibiting in the face of these multiple shocks is, to some extent, the price it is paying for its long-term strategic dependence on the US. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's remarks reflect the mental adjustment Europe is undergoing: "Nostalgia is part of human history, but nostalgia cannot bring back the old order. And delaying things, hoping that everything will soon return to normal, will not solve our existing structural dependencies."  (不能任由世界滑向“无规则”深渊).

Part two then weaves the Davos criticisms within the also well developed discursive tropes of anarchism, and with it if lawlessness. This is not anarchism as order without a center; is is Soviet anarchism as disorder organized around a center that is an empty space. 

 An article on the website of the American bimonthly journal *Foreign Affairs* points out that the United States is leading the world into a state of anarchy "far more chaotic than ever before." * * * Although the international order established after World War II was not perfect, it played an important role in maintaining overall world peace, promoting relatively open global trade, and fostering international cooperation, and is the foundation for the orderly functioning of the world today.* * * Now, the risk of a "ruleless" world is forming a complex of interconnected and superimposed systemic risks in multiple areas, profoundly affecting the living environment of all members of the international community—From the perspective of political security, the principle of sovereign equality is being crushed by the logic of power.

 Part three then aligns the discourse of hegemony with the dangers of anarchy to suggest the emergence not of a post global system but of a state of constant lawlessness beyond the power of institutions to manage. The object is to transform the international order, its structures and systems,  into an anti hegemonic coalition against the United States.

"More and more people are realizing that we cannot return to the previous state of the international order," Michael Froman, chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, remarked at the World Economic Forum annual meeting. * * *  Now, the United States' bullying and wanton destruction of the international order have caused widespread suffering in the international community. The international community must recognize the grave risks and jointly shoulder the responsibility. To prevent the world from sliding into the abyss of "lawlessness," international rule of law must be defended.

Behind all of this is an abhorrence of chaos.  That is a constant without the discourse of Chinese Leninism in the 21st century and perhaps the one great remembering of that period of sustained dialectic between the 1960d and the late 1970's. And it was the foundation of the great discursive turn in  response to the situation in Hong Kong in 2019. (here; Chapter 20: Monday 18 November  2019; Open-Shut (bai he 稗閤) Strategies: 习近平;止暴制乱 恢复秩序是香港当前最紧迫的任务 [Xi Jinping; Stopping the storm and restoring order is Hong Kong’s most urgent task at present] pp. 255-262). The critical normative  trope: 止暴制乱 (Zhǐ bào zhì luàn). This makes perfect sense from the Chinese perspective. It is increasingly incomprehensible in Washington whose core transactional organizing premises are fundamentally incompatible with the foundational ordering premises of institutionalist ordering systems. 

The text of  不能任由世界滑向“无规则”深渊（寰宇平） [The World Cannot Be Allowed to Slide into the Abyss of "Lawlessness" (Global Perspective)] follows below in the original Chinese and in a crude English translation. For the relevant Davos Speeches: 

 

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1. Davos 2026 Part 1--Remarks of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney

2. Davos 2026 Part 2--Remarks of U.S. President Donald Trump

3. Davos 2026 Part 3--Remarks of  China's Vice Premier He Lifeng

4. Davos 2026 Part 4-- Remarks of EU President Ursula von der Leyen

5. Davos 2026 Part 5-- Remarks of Argentina President Javier Milei

6. Davos 2026 Part 6--Address by the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy

 

OMFIF Report: Europe's Place in a Divided World (Feb. 2026)

 

  Happy to pass along this announcement of the availability of the OMFIF's February 2026 Bulletin:

Europe’s place in a divided world

Making accurate predictions on the political and economic outlook for a region is difficult at the best of times. During a period of sustained geopolitical instability, where it seems anything could happen, it is almost impossible. Europe, caught between the consequences of volatile and vengeful policy-making on one side and brutal military conflict on the other, is facing a year that could make or break it as a power on the world stage.

For that reason, this edition of the OMFIF Bulletin does not attempt to be a crystal ball into Europe’s future. Instead, it lays out the various problems facing the region – including demographic pressures, political fragmentation, defence needs and low growth – and focuses on what it will take for Europe to overcome these challenges. It draws on a vast network of experienced and expert views to offer up a vision of what Europe could become if it can get its act together.

The articles in this publication do not shy away from the fact that Europe is facing an uphill climb on several issues. Contributors from the European Stability Mechanism, BNY, Capital Group, Moody’s Ratings, UBS Asset Management, Scope Ratings, London School of Economics and EY among others examine the geopolitical and geoeconomic shifts underway, observing that there are opportunities for growth amid the uncertainty, if Europe can take advantage of the situation.

The next few years will be a time of political change in Europe as major players are set to come to the end of their terms. Whoever takes on the helm of the European Central Bank will need to navigate difficult waters. As this edition of the Bulletin makes clear, Europe’s strength lies in its numbers – but forming a united front is easier said than done.

The Bulletin is available through this link HERE. 

Brief Reflections on U.S: Council of Economic Advisors--Report: Artificial Intelligence and the Great Divergence (January 2026).

 

For those who missed it, the U.,S. Council of Economic Advisors distributed, in January 2026, their Report: Artificial Intelligence and the Great Divergence; Press Release HERE). The analysis is grounded on  a powerful analogy:

For centuries, most of the world’s economies grew at a similarly slow rate. However, a “Great Divergence” occurred with the Industrial Revolution, causing industrializing nations to accelerate their growth relative to the rest of the world. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a potentially transformative technology that is often compared to the Industrial Revolution. However, we are witnessing clear leaders in AI investment, performance, and adoption metrics across different nations. The Trump administration is laying the groundwork for American AI dominance by accelerating innovation, infrastructure development, and deregulation while establishing global dominance through technology exports. If the AI revolution is as transformative as the Industrial Revolution, should we expect this to lead to a second Great Divergence? (Artificial Intelligence and the Great Divergence)

The object, of course, is not merely dominance, but the protection of a space in which the state can further its ability to ensure the protection of the objectives of its political-economic model--managed protection of individual autonomous self fulfillment in and through markets based interactions in all spheres of social relations. To some significant extent its serves as the great power bookend to similar efforts to consider and situate  the tech revolution  within the cognitive cages of Chinese Marxist-Leninism and its political-social imperatives, which speaks in terms of high quality production fueling a socialist modernization that would push the nation farther along the Socialist Path (eg., here,  here, and here).

At the same time, its consequences for the rest of the world can be understood as deeply divergent. That was the object of the UNDP Report (December 2025), The Next Great Divergence: Why AI May Widen Inequality Between Countries (see also here). This produces a counter analogy, one that focuses not on the consequences of transformative divergence among the great powers, but its effects on those beneath:

Artificial Intelligence is advancing rapidly, yet many countries remain without the infrastructure, skills, and governance systems needed to capture its benefits. At the same time, they are already feeling its economic and social disruptions. This uneven mix of slow adoption and high vulnerability may trigger a Next Great Divergence, where inequalities between countries widen in the age of AI. (The Next Great Divergence:)

Divergence. One word, two meanings; one concept, two lenses; one evolutionary trajectory, two normative approaches;  one factual reality, two analytical perspectives; one challenge, two policy responses. That divide, then, produces variation in values, signification, and approaches that will fundamentally shape policy and the legal structures within which states will seek to shepherd  this challenge/opportunity in ways that advance their interests--or perhaps better put, the positive effects of these changes to their populations as a function of the goals and responsibilities of these states as measured against their ideologies. 

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Taken together one begins to perceive the emergence of two simultaneously significant divergences. The first is temporal and analogical--a new (or the next) iterative occurrence of divergence that must be embraced and informed by whatever can be extracted from the last historical occurrence of an analogous divergence (the industrial revolution). This produces a cognitive cage the bars of which are premised on inductive informed risk taking and the premise of acceleration of of the occurrence itself. This cognitive ordering framework is already well advanced in the Chinese  lebenswelt and expressed in its 3rd and 4th Plenum documents centering socialist modernization in a revolutionary stage of historical development (e.g., here and here). It finds similar expression, with American characteristics, in the 2nd Trump Administration's conceptual documents orchestrated through  Director Kratsios' Office and discussed here, and also embedded in its America First strategies here. The essence in both cases is a race--against each other--to perfect or at least advance the capabilities of tech for the greater glory of the competing systems. See, e.g., "Winning the Race: America's AI Action Plan" (July 2025)--A Reverie on Building and Racing on A.I.'s Structural "Fury Road".

The AI revolution, with its parallels to the Industrial Revolution, presents a profound economic inflection point with the potential to significantly increase the GDP of countries that embrace it. We are witnessing clear leaders in AI investment, performance, and adoption metrics across different nations. The United States, as demonstrated by the comprehensive AI Action Plan and related executive orders from the Trump administration, is pursuing a strategy focused on accelerated innovation, infrastructure development, and establishing global dominance through technology exports and deregulation in order to lay the groundwork for American AI dominance. (Artificial Intelligence and the Great Divergence; p. 26).

The second is re-distributive, capacity sensitive, and risk averse--a cautious approach to technological revolution that value of which is measured against its costs, and the costs of which are measured against a set if value generating premises that tend to balance technological advancement against a specific set of human costs grounded in a specific set of adverse impact valuation measures. That is the essence of the UN approach in its  The Next Great Divergence. But it also fuels middle power and Global South approaches There are variations given the position of the advocates and their place in global political, economic, and other hierarchies. Its lens is capacity, but also in the normative project of global normative ordering--one that foregrounds risk aversion through the foundational inculcation of the primacy of prevention, mitigation, and remedial strategies that in turn foreground prevention. The essential risk aversion and human centered approach suggests much of what passes for AI regulation, for instance, and is much in evidence in the approaches of the EU (eg here). But it also centers capacity--or relative capacity of human collectives and that, in turn, is understood through the lens of equality that then shapes the discourse of capacity building (and the shifting if its costs). 

 Sections 1 and 2 of the Report: Artificial Intelligence and the Great Divergence follow below and the entire report may be accessed HERE.  And below is its semiotics as imagery.

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OMFIF: Gender Balance Index 2026

 

 

Happy to pass this along.

Gender Balance Index 2026

Live broadcast | Virtual | Wednesday 22 April 2026 | 14:00 – 15:30

OMFIF’s Gender Balance Index 2026 analyses the state of gender parity in senior leadership roles across the financial sector. This edition examines how far we are from achieving gender balance, drawing data from more than 300 institutions and 6,000 individuals. Be the first to explore these insights at the virtual launch event.

Reserve your spot now

Last year, for the first time, three organisations – Banco Central de Chile, Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan and Norges Bank Investment Management – achieved perfect scores of 100, though they represent just 1% of the total sector. Will this year do better? Join us for the Gender Balance Index 2026 launch event to explore the findings and discuss the path forward.

Secure your place

 

The Four Advantages [四大优势] of Chinese Style Modernization in the New Era; Reflections on 深刻理解“十五五”时期我国经济社会发展优势更加彰显 《红旗文稿》2025/23 张占斌 [A Deeper Understanding of the Even More Prominent Advantages of China's Economic and Social Development During the 15th Five-Year Plan Period," Red Flag Journal, 2025/23 Zhang Zhanbin]

 

Pix Credit here (1956, "Today's Soviet Union is Our Tomorrow")

 

Times change; so do the general contradictions that frame the realities of political-economic systems. . . at least those political-economic systems with a strong desire to survive. 

The advantages of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics, the advantages of a super-large market, the advantages of a complete industrial system, and the advantages of abundant talent resources together constitute the strong foundation and solid support for Chinese development during the 15th Five-Year Plan period. These four advantages are closely interconnected and mutually reinforcing, forming an organic whole, which will enable China to gain strategic initiative in a complex and ever-changing international environment and inject strong impetus into achieving the grand goal of socialist modernization. 中国特色社会主义制度优势、超大规模市场优势、完整产业体系优势、丰富人才资源优势，共同构成了“十五五”时期我国发展的强大底气和坚实支撑。四大优势紧密相连、相互促进，形成一个有机整体，将为我国在复杂多变的国际环境中赢得战略主动，为实现社会主义现代化建设的宏伟目标注入强大动力。(Commentary [要论], 深刻理解“十五五”时期我国经济社会发展优势更加彰显 /张占斌 [A Deeper Understanding of the Increasingly Prominent Advantages of China's Economic and Social Development During the 15th Five-Year Plan Period / Zhang Zhanbin].)

 And so it is with that great engine of Leninist Marxism applied to a population that must be guided scientifically by its vanguard of leading forces  toward the inevitable establishment of a communist society but faster through the equally inevitable historical stages of development in which, in the case of China in the 1940s, the nation lagged its advanced capitalist peers.  The initial model was Soviet, what Stalin had wrested from the ideological ideas of Lenin and Trotsky (the later a name that could not be uttered in polite Leninist society not just form the moment of Trotsky's exile in the 1920s but most definitively from the time of his apotheosis into the firmament of Leninist Gods  by Stalin's hammer blows in Mexico in 1940); the ideological model German encrusted with the bar5nacles of the Soviet mind and in that form bequeathed to China's vanguard from the 1920s. 

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That gave Leninism a vessel--modernization--into which it could pour manifestations of developing not just the appropriate consciousness among the proletariat and all like minded peoples including those of the intelligentsia infused with the spirit of Yan'an. But it also gave modernization a purpose--to serve as the conceptual infrastructure on which it would be possible to move forward along the Socialist Path under the leadership and guidance of the vanguard of social forces whose task it was to ensure that movement was scientifically precise. To those ends, economic activity was initially critical--and by the 21st century central--to the larger project of developing the proper Marxist spirit that aligned economic progress with progress in the reshaping of social, cultural, and political consciousness that moved toward its Marxist ideal. 

To those ends scientific approaches were necessary. Because time has a way of changing everything, and because forward movement itself was both change and its catalyst, such planning was required to be undertaken in temporal segments. Among the most important were the 5 year planning cycles that were meant to serve as the expression of the dialectics between realization, manifestation, and theorization of the Leninist project of this forward movement in concrete terms. It was, in effect, the carrot dangling before the donkey held by the driver that represented the cart of productive forces now moving along the proper path at the proper speed and toward the proper ends. 

And so the Five year plans have become the great clock and timer of socialist modernization, and with it the means of measuring progress along the Socialist Path toward Communism. And with that, of course, a means of measuring the effectiveness of the Communist Party's fundamental line as applied in any fice year cycle, and with that (phew) the means for assessing the forward movement of the Communist Party itself as the model, not just a vanguard, but the incarnation of the sort of working style and productive modes toward which the nation ought to aspire. Each five year plan, then, becomes an important assessment and policy element of each cycle of the Congresses of the Communist Party of China. 

The 4th Plenum of the Central Committee of the 20th CPC Congress was one such node in this sequence of planning. Like others in these cycles, it incorporated the policy and theoretical bases for approaching modernization in each nodal stage of historical development produced in the 3rd Plenum (traditionally focusing in the applied theory of  modernization) and turned that work product into working documents focusing on application--via governance, rule of law, and party building, which could then be implemented in more precisely measurable ways by cadres and patriots across the nation. 

In his 深刻理解“十五五”时期我国经济社会发展优势更加彰显 [A Deeper Understanding of the Even More Prominent Advantages of China's Economic and Social Development During the 15th Five-Year Plan Period] (Red Flag Journal, 2025/23), Zhang Zhanbin [张占斌 ] elaborated these old notions its new form wrapped around the concept of the 四大优势 [Four Major Advantages] . "Achieving socialist modernization is a step-by-step, continuously developing historical process. The 15th Five-Year Plan period holds a crucial position in the process of basically achieving socialist modernization, serving as a critical period for consolidating foundations and making comprehensive efforts." [实现社会主义现代化是一个阶梯式递进、不断发展进步的历史过程。“十五五”时期在基本实现社会主义现代化进程中具有承前启后的重要地位，是夯实基础、全面发力的关键时期，] [ 深刻理解“十五五”时期我国经济社会发展优势更加彰显 ].

Underlying this structure, and supporting the contemporary forms of socialist modernization are the advantages that China enjoys. These constitute the  四大优势 [Four Major Advantages]:

长期向好的支撑条件和基本趋势没有变，中国特色社会主义制度优势、超大规模市场优势、完整产业体系优势、丰富人才资源优势更加彰显。这四大优势，是我国在长期发展过程中积累的宝贵财富，是应对外部挑战、实现内部发展的底气所在，更是推动我国经济社会持续健康发展、实现社会主义现代化的关键支撑。[ 深刻理解“十五五”时期我国经济社会发展优势更加彰显 ]. [The underlying conditions and fundamental trends supporting long-term positive development remain unchanged. The advantages of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics, the advantages of a super-large market, the advantages of a complete industrial system, and the advantages of abundant human resources are becoming even more prominent. These four advantages are valuable assets accumulated during China's long-term development, the source of confidence in responding to external challenges and achieving internal development, and crucial support for promoting the sustained and healthy development of China's economy and society and realizing socialist modernization.]

 On that basis the  follow seamlessly, and reflexively:

1. The Advantages of the Socialist System with Chinese Characteristics: A Solid Cornerstone for National Stability and Prosperity. The socialist system with Chinese characteristics is a scientific system formed through the arduous exploration of the Communist Party of China leading the Chinese people in long-term revolutionary, construction, and reform practices. [一、中国特色社会主义制度优势是定国安邦的坚固基石. 中国特色社会主义制度，是中国共产党带领中国人民在长期革命、建设与改革实践中艰辛探索形成的科学制度体系]

2.  The advantage of a super-large market is a powerful engine driving domestic demand. It acts as a "booster" for the dynamic balance of supply and demand. China's super-large market advantage has become a key force in promoting healthy interaction between supply and demand. [二、超大规模市场优势是内需驱动的强大引擎. 供需动态平衡的“助推器”。我国超大规模市场优势成为促进供需良性互动的关键力量。]

3. The Advantage of a Complete Industrial System: Building a Solid Foundation for the Real Economy. The "accelerator" of cost and innovation synergy. China's complete industrial system demonstrates strong cost control and collaborative innovation capabilities in the manufacturing of complex products. For example, the production of new energy vehicles involves multiple key systems such as batteries, motors, and electronic controls, as well as the supply of numerous components and raw materials.  [三、完整产业体系优势筑牢实体经济的坚实底盘. 成本与创新协同的“加速器”。我国完整的产业体系在复杂产品制造中展现出强大的成本控制与创新协同能力。比如，新能源汽车的生产涉及电池、电机、电控等多个关键系统，以及众多零部件和原材料的供应]

4.  Abundant Talent Resources Constitute the Core Driving Force of Innovation. A "vanguard" for scientific and technological self-reliance and self-improvement. China's abundant talent resources play a pivotal role in the process of achieving scientific and technological self-reliance and self-improvement. [丰富人才资源优势构成创新驱动的核心动力. 科技自立自强的“先锋队”。我国丰富的人才资源在科技自立自强进程中发挥着中流砥柱的作用。] [ 深刻理解“十五五”时期我国经济社会发展优势更加彰显 ].

What then are the four advantages? Ideological clarity, large unified market, integrated and self-contained supply chains, and self-perpetuating vanguard talent. And this loops back on itself: vanguard talent makes possible the development and operation integrated suppl chains, that enhance market power within a single territorial unit, that then strengthens ideological clarity from practice.

The essay follows below in its original Chinese and in an English translation.    

 

 

Video of Krasno Global Event Series Gareth Evans (fmr. Minister for Foreign Affairs of Australia) with Prof. Klaus Larres - “Navigating between the Giants in a World Under Stress: Dealing with the US, China & Russia in the Indo-Pacific, Ukraine and elsewhere"

 

A quite interesting conversation with one of the great personages of the ancien regime.  I suppose that "dealing with" is the appropriate signifier here, though not without a bit of irony.

The Krasno Global Event Series welcomes The Hon. Prof. Gareth Evans (fmr. Minister for Foreign Affairs of Australia) in discussion with Prof. Klaus Larres - “Navigating between the Giants in a World Under Stress. Dealing with the US, China & Russia in the Indo-Pacific, Ukraine and elsewhere" Gareth Evans was a Cabinet Minister throughout the Hawke and Keating Australian Labor Party Governments from 1983-96, including as Foreign Minister from 1988-96, where he played central roles in the Cambodian peace process, the creation of APEC and the ASEAN Regional Forum, and in bringing to conclusion the Chemical Weapon Convention. After leaving politics he was President of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group from 2000-09, and Chancellor of the Australian National University from 2010-19, where he is now Distinguished Hon. Professor. He co-chaired the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (2001), which initiated the ‘responsibility to protect’ concept, and the Australia-Japan International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (2009), and has written or edited fourteen books, including Good International Citizenship: The Case for Decency (2022), Incorrigible Optimist: A Political Memoir (2017), The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and for All (2008) & Cooperating for Peace (1993). For further information, see Gareth Evan's personal website: www.gevans.org/

The video of the event may be accessed HERE.