The Semiotics of Resignation: A Brief Reflection on Joe Kent, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center,

 

Pix credit here

The New York Times reported it this way: "Joe Kent, a top U.S. counterterrorism official who had been a contentious choice for the post because of his promotion of conspiracy theories, resigned on Tuesday, citing his opposition to the Iran war. Here is his resignation letter in full." (Read Joe Kent's Resignation Letter). Mr, Kent's announcement of hisd resignaiton, as is now the c ustom among members of the political lclass, was, in part distributed through X (Twitter):

After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today. I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby. It has been an honor serving under  @POTUS and  @DNIGabbard and leading the professionals at NCTC. (here)

The President, of course, was more than willing to play. He had this to say:

In response, Trump said Tuesday he "always thought" Kent was a nice guy but also "was weak on security, very weak on security." "I didn't know him well, but I thought he seemed like a pretty nice guy, but when I read his statement, I realized that it's a good thing that he's out because he said that Iran was not a threat. Iran was a threat to every country," Trump said during an Oval Office event. (here)

I generally do not bother with the details of the harem politics that tend to mark the inter-personal relations and the politics of high level government organs, whatever the political ideology within which those organs operate.  This case would have been no different though it does appear to provide a nice story lines that crisscross the current strategic positions on President Trumps  engagement with Iran. (eg here).

But I did take the New York Times up on its invitation to read the letter, which, with thanks to the NYT is also reproduced below. Mt reflections, which follow focus on the semiotics of resignation. 

1. Mr. Kent's resignation brought back memories of another resignation, which like this one, was mean t to provide fodder for politics--that of Mr. Bolton during Mr. Trump's first Administration. I wrote reflections about that here:  Ruminations 91: Very Brief Reflections on John Bolton's "Secret History" of Mr. Trump, and the Art of Political Burlesque. Much of its starting points might well apply here:

The Bolton "Secret History," salaciously (well, we all "Gotta Have a Gimmick") titled "The Room Where it Happened"will be published in late June 2020 by Simon and Schuster, subject of course, to legal action on the Trump Administration's claims that the work contains materials which may not be published (Trump administration sues Bolton over book dispute). Like the Procopius work, it is brimming with accusation and demonization. His former master is not fit for office (ABC News video); and that he sacrificed national interest to further is own career. There is more. Like Procopius, the material is meant to incite political maneuverings--in early Byzantine imperial politics centered on the Hippodrome factions (Blues and Greens); in the United States among political parties and disaffected but powerful elements of the elite shut out of office with the loss of the 2016 election. All of this, of course, is fair play given the mores, the morally binding customs of a particular group (in this case of the high functionaries), of early 21st century America, And perhaps it augurs, like much of what is happening in 2020, the start of a new era, the character of which is still up for grabs. The brief Ruminations are . . . not focused on the "truth" of the allegations made--as saucy as many of them are. Instead it considers Mr. Bolton's "Secret History" in the context of the type to which it relates. It is an act of revenge, and betrayal as a payback for a perceived betrayal or thwarting of ambition, and is built on the believability of its demonizing revisionism the most potent element of which is its power to scandalize.The power of Secret Histories lie in the invitation for the target's enemies to treat as fact the interpretations of the disloyal author.

 That appears to be the point here--the object is not the act but rather the act provides the opportunity to engage in the sort of politics "outside" that were rejected "inside." Betrayal is a bloody business and it is passionate. And here one encounters the sort of passion that, in some instances, usually erupt on the streets, and so erupted sometimes are successful and sometimes serve as a blood sacrifice. 

2. What, though, is resignation. The word itself provides a space nest into which the words of that act may be nested. Its etymology suggests the central element of meaning of the term: "late 14c., resignacioun, "abdication, act of resigning" (an office, claim, etc.), from Old French resignation, resignacion (14c.) and directly from Medieval Latin resignationem (nominative resignatio), noun of action from past-participle stem of Latin resignare "annul, cancel, give back, resign" " Yet there is more to it than this. That etymology also suggests this: "From c. 1500 ("Imitation of Christ") as "surrender to God, resignation to God." The non-spiritual meaning "quiet submission, unresisting acquiescence" is from 1640s." This notion is emphasized in the verb form of the word "resign"--"late 14c., "give up (something), surrender, abandon, submit; relinquish (an office, position, right, claim)." And it is in this latter sense that one might best approach the lamentation that is the letter projected put from Mr. Kent to the nation, and the world. It is, however, a submission not to the President, but to a higher power. And in the process it suggests that this surrender, this abandonment is a natural product of himself being abandoned by his superior. That, indeed, it is not Mr. Kent that is resigning, or relinquishing his principles and moral stances--it is the President who has betrayed his, and in that betrayal  puts Mr. Kent's immortal (political) soul at risk of external damnation. The religious element of this performance ought not to be under estimated. The essence of the semiotics of this resignation. The betrayal that is itself prompted by betrayal produces the sort of semiotic "pong" that constructs object/significance from the object/significance that is both it and the oppositye of it, but at the same time that reflect it and between which the field of play is produced. In this case within MAGA, with bleed over effect beyond it b y those who would feed on the detritus of this match. 

3. The reciprocating betrayal produces a sort of interesting semiotic resonance. The key, and much quoted line is this: 

"I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby." (Kent Resignation Letter, below). 

Marvelous. . . from a semiotic perspective. It is object--the grand normative vision, the faith, that compels both judgment (the President as betrayer of the community of the faithful) and action (the "surrender to a (higher) God. 

Still it is worth taking these short but rich sentences apart for their semiotic presumptions. First, the "can not." Mr. Kent's "cannot" is a physical manifestation of the incarnation of ritual of rejection. The question isn't focused on inability; it is instead focused on unwillingness; and that unwillingness in turn is focused on Mr. Kent's construction of his own faith universe, the betrayal of which produces the inevitable "cannot." That cannot, then is a function of his "good conscience. HIS good conscience, a conscience which Mr. Kent is willing to export onto the belief and preferences of his faith community. In that sense, it is not his conscience, but rather his projection  of that expression of a conscience of a community of the faithful outward to that community that is of interest. In the absence of that projection that is no semiotic corporeality to his conscience, something that he might have, in his own good conscience, kept to himself.

Second, the "support." Mr. Kent's "support"is apparently an important element, but also a specifically directed one--"support the ongoing war in Iran." That support is personal to Mr. Kent. That was made clear by Mr. Kent's "cannot"--though the personal assumes semiotic significance only is a relflection of a communal "cannot"--one which Mr. Kent presupposes. What he cannot support is "war." Yet the term "war" has lost all general significance. The concept of war as a construct of law, of mythology, of prior practice, of tradition, of habit, etc. are all now in flux--not a flux created by the Trump Administration, but one whose contradictions  proved ready to be blown up at this time. To assume that the situaiton is a war is to presuppose the basis on which the term is used, and more importance, its semiotic interpretive significance. Some would disagree that the term is the correct one, or for that matter that the term has any value except as propaganda and as an instrument of legal warfare. That "war" is not just any "war" but a specific instance of bellicose behavior--that directed toward Iran. Apparently, there is no problem with the wars against bandits and law breakers in Venezuela, even if one purports to be the sitting president of that place. It is just Iran. 

Third, it is not immediately clear why "war" in Iran, as he might define it, is special to Mr. Kent. But then clarity is provided--this is a war of the Jews. It is a war of the Jews into which the U.S. was "pressured"--and it was pressured by a lobby the power and breadth of which reduces the rest of the political  landscape of the United States to insignificance. That is what separates blowing things up elsewhere and attacking the peace loving government of Iran, one apparently happy to live pacifically among its neighbors without any projection of power or ambitions beyond its borders (etc.), and one that "posed no imminent threat to our nation". . . except for the Jews. (and their "lobby"). One encounters here not a semiotics of war but of Jews. A semiotics that conflates war-Iran-Jews in a way that then necessarily excludes the US.

Here one constructs two object/significs--the first is Iran, and the second is that now useful stand-in for world Jewry (does one still use that term; probably less so but in this context the old words have punch), Israel. With respect to the first Mr. Kent draws on the customary efforts over the last several generations to rebuild, and legalize, what might be termed the "spirit of Pearl Harbor"--that is that until one has a significant amount of people and thing blown up on national soil, then one is hardly in a position to declare an other nation's actions as "imminently threatening." Closely tied to that is the notion of proportionality--that is an enemy state blows up some thing, one has the "right" only to blow up an equivalent amount of things (and people presumably) but no more. In this case, unless Iran would have blown up a substantial part of the United States there was no "imminent" threat to the national heartland. That makes sense semiotically is one is willing to invest the word "imminent" and "threat" with specific meanings drawn from a cognitive cage that starts from the presumption that war is to be avoided even at the cost of life and property. That might have made sense for that briefest of moments between 1989 and 2010. One wonders, though, whether its presumptions, and indeed its pretensions, are worthy subjects of debate.  And, indeed, they are. And perhaps that debate has moved from significs to objects which signify, that is from the signification of meaning through law/policy text, to law/policy constructed on the ground, producing a set of data that itself may be aggregated into meaning. That suggests a movement from deductive to inductive cognition that is already evident in tech based systems. What one encounters now are centers of belief, and belief communities; orthodoxy is ascribed to text but that is hardly plausible where text becomes more and more the symbols of interpretive opportunity.

Semiotically, then, Mr. Kent's fine paragraph might be signified this way: it embraces objects--faith, war, lobbies, Israel, threat, Iran--and invests them with a specific significs which are then valued, and interpreted in ways that are meant to reach out to a community of believers who together might produce a vision of the world, and the values against which actions are assessed, that for the orthodoxies embedded in the way that Mr. Kent has chosen to absorb and judge the world, justifies this quite operatic performance, a performance that is meant to signal solidarity with a community from which. it would seem, President Trump is meant to be declared heretic and excommunicated. Fair enough, b it that is politics, even if it is clothed in the language and sensibilities of faith; and it is semiotics in the way on which Mr. Kent fights for a specific significs to key terms and ideas which he presumes his readers will either agree or accept.

4. And speaking of Jews and discomfort around Jewish "machinations," one is known by the company one keeps. And in this case Mr. Kent appears to enjoy the company of Tucker Carlson (see eg here, "'Key decision makers were not allowed to express their opinions. There wasn't a robust debate,' Kent told Tucker Carlson on Wednesday."). I have nothing else to say about this--except this: semiotic transposition suggests that the site in which one produces objects and gives them significance provides the structural/normative framework within which that significance can be situated within a larger cognitive framework. In this case that is the larger cognitive framework of the reality spheres ion which Mr. Carlson operates. Mr. Kent's presentation of his faith performance within the territories of the collective semiotic rationalizations of the world of Mr. Carlson then suggests that Mr. Kent's words and idea must be mediated against and through those of Mr. Carlson. To perform with Mr. Carlson is to become a party of Mr. Carlson's semiotic universe. That is also something Vice President Vance might consider.

5. Betrayal begets betrayal. Mr. Kent then pleads; he pleads for President Trump to abandon his current heresies, and the control of the Jews, and return top the values on which he was perceived--or semiotically which have been reconstructed out of time as the meaning universe he offered his community of the faithful up until 2026. To that end, Mr. Kent offers a nice Catholic opportunity--to confess, to show contrition, to do penance and to seek absolution among the community of the faithful he has abandoned. . . but; Mr. Kent has not. At the center of this is the signification of "never ending wars." Mr. Kent suggests that the proper construction, the proper signification of that concept is the occasional missile aimed at a leading figure or two from time to time. That, of course, leaves open the question of imminent threat which appears not to apply when one is merely blowing up the occasional personality that is irritating and that might have caused harm and might in the future cause more--like Iran, perhaps in the mind ofg the President, but things are easier to evaluate against a  "no endless war standard" when what one does is the periodic assassination.  All of this suggest a peculiar application of abstraction ("no endless wars") which, when combined with the "no Jewish wars" abstractions,  might provide the semiosis of the protection of what is by implication assumed to be a peace loving enough Iranian regime (or peace loving enough when it comes to the US) in the context in which the current hostilities arose. All of this makes sense only as and to the extent that Mr. Kent's faith in his own semiosis remains relevant to him, and then, by projection of that resignation, also as an object of evangelization meant to convert others to or invite them into the communion of his like minded fellows. 

6. The rest suggest the semiosis of self-construction, and the power of marginalization in driving an acolyte to apostasy. What makes it interesting from a semiotic perspective is the way that the letter reframes apostasy--it is not Mr. Kent's apostasy but rather that of President Trump that requires Mr. Kent to preserve his immortal soul by a rupture with the offending person.  Mr. Kent sought to project his views but was denied; he might have been excluded, he might have been rejected (or his  views anyway). He speaks of echo chambers managed by the Jews but longs for the echo chambers of an orthodoxy from which Mr. Trump strayed. Thus it is not the echo chamber itself that is bad--it is the echo chamber of infidels, heretics and Jews that is distasteful. His echo chamber, on the other hand is one that approaches the purity in which semiotically at least a proper system of self referencing objectification of signification of things and actions can be undertaken inc ways in which that signification reinforces the premises of interpretation on which the community of the faithful build their world views, and then measures its attainment by the measures they themselves great through meaning measures--the no endless war theme for instance. Not that is is bad; just that this is semiotic performance that is powerful precisely because it establishes a structure inside of which the entirety of the world can be captured and understood--and from which everything else can be understood as corrupt or just wrong. It is appropriate, then, that Mr. Kent calls President Trump back from the abyss of heresy before heresy becomes apostasy. For that evangelization and faith are needed; and both are much in abundance here.

 7. And that is the fundmental character of the letter--not its politics, but its faith in its politics; not its policy choices, but the belief in policy choices as the way one lives one's faith in policy as the lived expression of a faithful community; not marginalization of his voice but the sin of refusing to hear the word preached. Mr. Kent has produced a marvelous semiosis of faith, the expression of which is politics. This is nic e old fashioned stuff, the stuff with which the politic al community of Iran is also built--at least in its current form. Perhaps that explains the affinity--two semiotic communities the building blocks, the foundational objectification of its community is faith in belief, that is in objects imbued with signification that transcends argument and requires the resignation of faith, the "surrender to God, resignation to God." expressed in the faith objectification of politics as the "quiet submission, unresisting acquiescence"to the cognitive universe of the faith community, in communion with which political solidarity serves as its evangelizing expression:

(1) object (semiotic "firstness"--faith, internalized as conscience, but an individual conscience that is itself merely a singular expression of a collective conscience among the faithful expressed in OTHER objects (policy) and action), (2) signification (semiotic "secondness" the structured meaningfulness of policy and action that reinforces faith as object/action by fusing faith and and in action that expresses each other; a thing is important as a matter of faith--faith is signified by its expression), and (3) communal interpretation (semiotic "thirdness" the communion of the faithful made stronger by its catechism, the language and vocabulary of belief, the values of which must be collectively infused into objects and actions around political objects, such as the precise interpretation of forever war and imminent threat, not as policy but as expression of faith (object) evangelized) 

build to the triumphalism of the surrender to the faithfulness of the community of believers that is the ultimate sacrifice of Mr. Kent. Against this Mr. Kent draws on the semiosis of the Great Satan into whose traps and deceit President Trump has fallen. And that leads inevitably to sacrifice--Mr. Kent's as a prelude to the sacrifice of the great man fallen into sin who must either be brought back from heresy or consumed in the fires reserved for the torment of sinners.

And, of course, by failing to take any of this into account, by providing analysis detached from meaning, most of the coverage of this spectacle will tend to "get it" right only from their own perspectives and reflecting only their own needs. That, too, is the politics of cognition. 

 

Pix credit here

Jürgen Habermas (18 June 1929 – 14 March 2026)

 

 Jügen Habermas, one the giants of 20th century thought died 14 March 2026. Many will write excellent obituaries of a mind that was, in its own way, fearlessly honest, even if it meant displeasing an audience that from time to time assumed that he "belonged" to them or to the orthodoxies their praxis appeared to define as inevitable.  Among my favorite was his confrontation of  elements of the student movement--the "left fascists"("linken Faschismus" and the APO (Außerparlamentarische Opposition) in the late 1960s, then radical, now perhaps (or at least some of them) grown into something quite different.  (See here).

I celebrate his life with a snippet from a work that I have always found a source of inspiration: Knowledge & Human Interest, 1968, publ. Polity Press, 1987. 

Marx, however, conceives the moral totality as a society in which men produce in order to reproduce their own life through the appropriation of an external nature. Morality is an institutional framework constructed out of cultural tradition; but it is a framework for processes of production. Marx takes the dialectic of the moral life, which operates on the basis of social labour, as the law of motion of a defined conflict between definite parties. The conflict is always about the organisation of the appropriation of socially created products, while the conflicting parties are determined by their position in the process of production, that is as classes. As the movement of class antagonism, the dialectic of the moral life is linked to the development of the system of social labour. The overcoming of abstraction, that is the critical revolutionary reconciliation of the estranged parties, succeeds only relative to the level of development of the forces of production. The institutional framework also incorporates the constraint Of external nature, which expresses itself in the degree of mastery Of nature, the extent of socially necessary labour, and in the relation of available rewards to socially developed demands. Through the repression of needs and wishes, it translates this constraint into a compulsion of internal nature, in other words into the constraint of social norms. That is why the relative destruction of the moral relation can be measured only by the difference between the actual degree of institutionally demanded repression and the degree of repression that is necessary at a given level of the forces of production. This difference is a measure of objectively superfluous domination. It is those who establish such domination and defend positions of power of this sort who set in motion the causality of fate, divide society into social classes, suppress justified interests, call forth the reactions of suppressed life, and finally experience their just fate in revolution. They are compelled by the revolutionary class to recognise themselves in it and thereby to overcome the alienation of the existence of both classes. s long as the constraint of external nature persists in the form of economic scarcity, every revolutionary class is induced, after its victory to a new “injustice,” namely the establishment of a new class rule. Therefore the dialectic of the moral life must repeat itself until the materialist spell that is cast upon the reproduction of social life, the Biblical curse of necessary labour, is broken technologically. (Chapter Three: The Idea of the Theory of Knowledge as Social Theory).

It, like its author, speaks both to itself and to the structures within which it is possible to construct that self and then elaborate worlds around the construct.  It points as much to the foundations of triumphant left orthodoxy from liberal lite liberal democratic theory to the most formalized expression of Marxist Leninist theory. But it also points to the cognitive structures of systems most interesting explored by Niklas Luhmann, and to the coming construction of the digitalized simulacra of human struggle formed through the digitized transformation of the struggle of the human, now reconstituted as a simulation of itself, at the heart of some of Habermas' thought developed in complex ways over a lifetime. And that is the fundamental insight of a lifetime--to overthrow a system is to create it anew. What is revealed at the end of a system is. . .  a system. 

 

Los Principios Rectores de las Naciones Unidas y la evolución del gobierno corporativo/The UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights and the Evolution of Corporate Governance

 

 La gobernanza global está evolucionando y, en buena medida, ello responde a cambios regulatorios en materia de responsabilidad social empresarial. En un contexto en el que estos desarrollos tienen un carácter crecientemente transnacional, nos complace anunciar el primer evento con invitado internacional del del Semillero de Derecho Societario de la Universidad Icesi.

El profesor Larry Catá Backer, de Penn State Dickinson Law, ofrecerá la conferencia “Empresas y derechos humanos en la práctica: los Principios Rectores de las Naciones Unidas y la evolución del gobierno corporativo”.

La conferencia abordará el papel que los Principios Rectores sobre Empresas y Derechos Humanos de las Naciones Unidas han tenido en la transformación de las discusiones contemporáneas sobre gobierno corporativo, responsabilidad y propósito empresarial.

Este espacio busca reunir a estudiantes, académicos y profesionales interesados en reflexionar sobre los desafíos actuales que enfrentan las empresas en la integración de estándares de derechos humanos en su actividad económica.

📅 Jueves, 19 de marzo de 2026
🕔 5:00 p.m.
📍 Auditorio Delima, Universidad Icesi

El evento será principalmente por invitación, con un número limitado de inscripciones abiertas en el siguiente enlace: https://lnkd.in/ekYGrCu4

¡Los esperamos!

 Global governance is evolving and, to a large extent, this is due to regulatory changes in corporate social responsibility. In a context in which these developments are increasingly transnational in nature, we are pleased to announce the first international guest event of the Corporate Law Incubator of the Icesi University.

Professor Larry Catá Backer, from Penn State Dickinson Law, will give the lecture "Business and Human Rights in Practice: The United Nations Guiding Principles and the Evolution of Corporate Governance".

The conference will address the role that the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights have played in transforming contemporary discussions on corporate governance, responsibility and business purpose.

This space seeks to bring together students, academics, and professionals interested in reflecting on the current challenges faced by companies in integrating human rights standards into their economic activity.

📅 Thursday, March 19, 2026
🕔 5:00 p.m.
📍 Delima Auditorium, Icesi University

The event will be primarily by invitation, with a limited number of registrations open at the following link: https://lnkd.in/ekYGrCu4

We hope you can join us!

CFP: Panel on Travelling Laughter in the Context of Chinese Migration to Europe

Pix credit here

Delighted to pass along this call for papers:

CFP: Panel on Travelling Laughter in the Context of Chinese Migration to Europe
Panel Proposal for the CERPE International Workshop 2026, Hong Kong, Hong Kong Metropolitan University, https://www.hkmu.edu.hk/ss/2026-cerpe-international-workshop/

Laughter is a complex cultural and physical phenomenon. It can release tensions and reveal ideas or feelings that remain otherwise unspoken, whether individually - through the partial lifting of repression, as described by Freud - or collectively - through shared forms of social and folkloric laughter, as theorised by Bakhtin. Either way, laughter is profoundly shaped by cultural context. What counts as humorous, when laughter is appropriate, and who becomes its target are governed by social codes that audiences learn and recognise.
Yet humour - much like human beings - rarely remains confined to the cultural contexts in which it originates. Jokes, comedic performances, and humorous narratives circulate across languages, media, and geographical spaces. When they do, their meanings may shift in unpredictable ways. Cultural references may become opaque, stereotypes may be reinforced or transformed, and audiences may interpret the same ‘joke’ differently depending on their social and cultural position.
This panel will ask: what happens to laughter when it travels? How do humour and comedic forms change when they move across linguistic, cultural, and geographical boundaries? And how are culturally specific codes - such as forms of ‘Chineseness’ and ‘Europeanness’ embedded in humour - reconfigured when audiences, readers, or performers encounter them in new contexts? The focus will be on laughter in and between Chinese and European cultures.
Researching migratory communities and diasporas offers a unique perspective and informs us about how distance from home is affectively humourised, how leaving one political system translates into satire about state leaders, and how humanity is satirised when encountering racism in a new host society. Studying translations of humorous (literary) texts, comedic series, films, memes, etc, can furthermore enlighten us about whether, and in what way, laughter in translation can create a space of ‘cultural coevalness’ (following Chow, 2014).
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

laughter in translation
diasporic comedy
stand-up comedy and migration
circulation of humour on digital platforms
intercultural misunderstanding and laughter
laughter as/at cultural stereotypes
affective humour
aesthetics of humour

Please send your proposal (250 words) and a short bio (100 words) to Linde Luijnenburg (l.luijnenburg@uva.nl) and Rui Huang (r.huang2@uva.nl) by 26 March.

China's New Draft Ecological & Environmental Code (生态环境法典) Together with An Explanation prepared by Li Hongzhong, Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the NPC

 

Pix credit here (Make the Motherland Green, 1973)

China’s National People's Congress is expected to adopt a new Ecological & Environmental Code (生态环境法典). It is a compiling of current law in an organized way along with modifications. The text is long and may be accessed here (Chinese only for the moment). 

 生态环境法典的编纂，是通过对现行生态环境法律制度规范进行系统整合、编订纂修、集成升华，形成一部以习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想特别是习近平生态文明思想为引领，具有中国特色、体现时代特点、反映人民意愿、系统规范协调的法典。这是一项系统的、重大的立法工程。The compilation of the Code on Ecological Environment entails the systematic integration, revision, and refinement of existing laws and regulations governing the ecological environment. The objective is to create a comprehensive code guided by Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era—specifically Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization—that embodies Chinese characteristics, reflects the spirit of the times, represents the will of the people, and is systematic, well-regulated, and coherent. This constitutes a systematic and monumental legislative undertaking. (关于《中华人民共和国生态环境法典（草案）》的说明（摘要）§1)

As an aid to approaching this rationalization of ecological law, the National People's Congress has reproduced and distributed a still long but much more accessible 关于《中华人民共和国生态环境法典（草案）》的说明（摘要） [Explanation of the Draft Ecological and Environmental Law of the People's Republic of China ( Summary)]. It was prepared for the 14th National People's Congress by Li Hongzhong, Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the NPC, which was originally delivered to the 4th Session of the 14th NCP on 5 March 2026.  受十四届全国人大常委会委托，全国人大常委会副委员长李鸿忠3月5日向十四届全国人大四次会议作关于《中华人民共和国生态环境法典（草案）》的说明。

As explained on the China Daily website:

 【知识点】

生态环境法典是我国第二部以“法典”命名的法律。2025年4月，生态环境法典草案整体亮相。2026年3月，生态环境法典草案提请十四届全国人大四次会议审议。

法典是新时代的法治标识。这部法典的编纂，不是简单的法律汇编，也不是完全的新立新定，而是对现有的生态环境法律制度机制和规则规范的系统整合、编订纂修、集成升华。

据介绍，法典的编纂主要包括三个方面：一是将现行的环境保护、污染防治方面的法律纳入法典，出台后不再保留原法律；二是现行的有关流域、区域、自然资源、生物多样性以及循环经济、节约能源等方面的法律制度规范，择其要旨要则体现到法典中；三是对于应对气候变化、碳达峰碳中和、绿色低碳发展等方面的法治需求，法典就此作出一些原则性、引领性规定，为今后我国相关法律制度建设留有空间，以体现法典的时代性、前瞻性。

【重要指示】

在全面建设社会主义现代化国家新征程上，要保持加强生态文明建设的战略定力，注重同步推进高质量发展和高水平保护，以“双碳”工作为引领，推动能耗双控逐步转向碳排放双控，持续推进生产方式和生活方式绿色低碳转型，加快推进人与自然和谐共生的现代化，全面推进美丽中国建设。

 [Key Points]

The Ecological and Environmental Code is China's second law to be named a "code." In April 2025, the draft of the Ecological and Environmental Code was unveiled. In March 2026, the draft was submitted to the Fourth Session of the 14th National People's Congress for deliberation.

A code is a symbol of the rule of law in the new era. The compilation of this code is not a simple compilation of laws, nor is it entirely new legislation; rather, it is a systematic integration, revision, and enhancement of existing ecological and environmental legal systems, mechanisms, rules, and norms.

According to reports, the compilation of the code mainly includes three aspects: First, it incorporates existing laws on environmental protection and pollution prevention into the code, and the original laws will not be retained after its promulgation; second, it selects the essential points of existing laws and regulations concerning river basins, regions, natural resources, biodiversity, circular economy, and energy conservation, and reflects them in the code; third, regarding the legal needs of addressing climate change, achieving carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, and green and low-carbon development, the code makes some principled and guiding provisions, leaving room for the future construction of relevant legal systems in China, thus reflecting the code's timeliness and forward-looking nature. [Important Instructions]

On the new journey of building a modern socialist country in all respects, we must maintain our strategic resolve to strengthen ecological civilization construction, focus on simultaneously promoting high-quality development and high-level protection, take "dual carbon" work as the guide, promote the gradual shift from dual control of energy consumption to dual control of carbon emissions, continuously promote the green and low-carbon transformation of production and lifestyles, accelerate the modernization of harmonious coexistence between man and nature, and comprehensively advance the construction of a beautiful China.

When one thinks about human rights in China, one thinks development (modernization) and ecological civilization. Development was the subject of the 3rd and 4th Plenum in 2024 ans 2025. Ecological civilization has now been reformed to fall within a cage of regulation giving effect to the ideological line of the CPC now almost a generation in the making. The Explanation follows below in the original Chinese and in an English translation.

Pix credit here

 

OMFIF Program 19 March 2026: "March FOMC meeting: assessment and outlook for US monetary policy"

 

Pix credit here

 

 OMFIF, an independent think tank for central banking, economic policy and public investment, providing a neutral platform for public and private sector engagement worldwide, is offering a live broadcast of its March FOMC meeting: assessment and outlook for US monetary policy, the announcement for which I am happy to pass along.

David Wilcox, Director of US Economic Research at Bloomberg, previously Director of Research and Statistics at the Federal Reserve Board, and Esther George, previously President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, join Mark Sobel, OMFIF’s Chief Economist and Vice Chair to discuss the March Federal Open Market Committee outcomes and the outlook for US monetary policy. Please note the timings for this event are 14:00-15:00 (London) and 10:00-11:00 (New York) [19 March 2026].

 Of course, there is now much to discuss, made all the more interesting and perhaps harder to grasp in light of recent events in the MENA region.

 

Registration link here. 

Colin May：“Neufeld v. British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal: On the Tyranny of Rights” Telos 9 March2026

 

Pix credit here

Colin May, the former Chief of the Alberta Human Rights Commission and an adjunct lecturer in community health sciences at the University of Calgary, has written an essay quite critical of the  decision of the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal in Chilliwack Teachers’ Association v. Neufeld (No. 10), 2026 BCHRT 49 (18 February 2026). As May described it in his essay, “Neufeld v. British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal: On the Tyranny of Rights” Telos (9 March 2026).

The BCHRT decided that numerous statements and social media posts from Neufeld breached provisions of the province’s human rights code, including bans on the publication of hate speech. The Tribunal also found that Neufeld’s actions, taken in his capacity as a school board trustee, created a poisoned workplace for LGBTQ teaching staff. Specifically, the BCHRT ruled that Neufeld’s denial of transgender identity as distinct from sex at birth was an “existential” denial of the existence of trans individuals.

What made the decision more interesting was the determination that the defendant "pay the CTA $750,000 as compensation for injury to the Class members’ dignity, feelings and self-respect" (¶334(c )). As Mr. May noted some likened  the fine "to a new form of social justice blasphemy laws." (“Neufeld v. British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal: On the Tyranny of Rights”). It comes as no surprise that Mr. Neufeld will appea the judgment (here).  

May considers three elements of the case: 

First, using my own scholarship on the self-incriminating dynamics of a cancellation event, I will demonstrate how the BCHRT was complicit in and exploited Neufeld’s self-condemnation. Second, engaging a critical theory lens, I will consider how the contemporary notion of human rights as monopolized by the state through punitive administrative tribunals narrows the boundaries of acceptable public speech. Finally, I will analyze the response to the Neufeld decision as an instance of the growing efforts of non-state-authorized actors to counter the homogeneity of contemporary disciplinary rights with dissenting heterogeneous sources of authority. (Ibid.).

Those on the other side suggest, with equal vigor, that what was considered here was not speech but something else. Moreover, the legal effects of speech in a context that may be deemed to have a functional effect on context " the ability of others to engage equitably in Canadian life. This is a tension well-known to the law, though its resolution is not always straightforward." (Chilliwack Teachers’ Association v. Neufeld; ¶ 16). In this case the legal standard was a prohibition of the publication of speech that “is likely to expose a person or group or class of persons to hatred or contempt” based on their characteristics protected by the Code. This prohibition requires a somewhat more nuanced balancing of interests, but again the law is well-established. Restrictions on free expression are justified to limit speech that seeks to marginalize individuals based on their membership in a protected group." (Ibid., ¶ 18).

In this sense, the essay continues a long conversation that, depending on the speech at issue, energizes extremes on either side of the political spectrum ( from marginalization  rooted in sexual or gender diversity to the Israel-Palestine discourse) would either broaden or limit speech rights to suit context and desire. That makes the critique far more interesting than any politics that might be read into the essay. One aspect merits foregrounding--the constrcution of a theory of cancellation as a matter of legal compliance augmenting its effect, not in the social but in the public sphere. 

I have identified three parties that are necessary for a cancellation event to occur. These include: (a) the cancelers who initially call out a statement for the purposes of virtue signaling to their own political in-group; (b) the target who routinely implicates themselves in an alleged harm by issuing a subtly coerced apology or statement; and (c) third-party institutions such as employers who complete and verify the cancellation dynamic by terminating or otherwise deplatforming the target. In Neufeld’s case, we immediately encounter this hermetic and self-confirming tripartite structure in the decision’s initial pages. (Ibid.),

For a rational actor, this suggests that the only way to avoid augmenting legal risk is to avoid apologies--coerced or otherwise. That suggests that the structures of legal protection built into the staties may eventually produce effects that run counter to its overarching intent--to build solidarity in the social sphere and reduce discrimination. That course of auction might be augmented under threat of fine--and where identity groups view each other without much love the threat of mutually assured desctruciton through simultaneous fining looms somewhere in the bacjground. The issues run parallel to other systems designed to reduce adverse human rights impacts--for example in the context of the structures of business and human rights and mandatory human rights due diligence. There are no solutions given the parameters around which these systems are built. There is for the moment, only discourse and counter doscourse, each suggesting the limits and ocntradicitons of the other. Resolution I leave to others. 

The text of the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal in Chilliwack Teachers’ Association v. Neufeld (No. 10), 2026 BCHRT 49 (18 February 2026) and Colin May's essay, “Neufeld v. British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal: On the Tyranny of Rights” Telos (9 March 2026) follow below..

 

Reflections on 习近平. . . 充分发挥 政治建军特有优势 凝心聚力推动国防和军队现代化行稳致远 [Xi Jinping... Fully leverage the unique advantages of political building of the military to unite and promote the steady and long-term modernization of national defense and the armed forces]

 

Pix credit here

There are various non-proletarian ideas in the Communist Party organization in the Fourth Red Army which greatly hinder the application of the Party's correct line. Unless these ideas are thoroughly corrected, the Fourth Army cannot possibly shoulder the tasks assigned to it in China's great revolutionary struggle. The source of such incorrect ideas in this Party organization lies, of course, in the fact that its basic units are composed largely of peasants and other elements of petty-bourgeois origin; yet the failure of the Party's leading bodies to wage a concerted and determined struggle against these incorrect ideas and to educate the members in the Party's correct line is also an important cause of their existence and growth. In accordance with the spirit of the September letter of the Central Committee, this congress hereby points out the manifestations of various non-proletarian ideas in the Party organization in the Fourth Army, their sources, and the methods of correcting them, and calls upon all comrades to eliminate them thoroughly.(Mao Zedong, On Correcting Mistaken Ideas in the Party; December 1929)  

Xinhua News Agency reported that on 7 March 7 2026 Communist Party of China General Secretary Xi Jinping attended the plenary meeting of the delegation of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the Armed Police Force to the Fourth Session of the 14th National People's Congress and delivered remarks important enough to merit wide circulation. 习近平在出席解放军和武警部队代表团全体会议时强调 充分发挥 政治建军特有优势 凝心聚力推动国防和军队现代化行稳致远 [Xi Jinping, while attending a plenary meeting of the delegation of the People's Liberation Army and the Armed Police Force, emphasized the need to fully leverage the unique advantages of building a politically strong military and to unite efforts to steadily advance the modernization of national defense and the armed forces.]

The meeting and the speech come at an important moment  in the history of the relationship between the military and the CPC.

Pix credit here (Tracking China's Military Purges)

On January 24, 2026, China’s Ministry of National Defense announced that the military’s top general, Zhang Youxia, and the chief of the Joint Staff Department, Liu Zhenli, had been placed under investigation for serious disciplinary and legal violations. * * * The removal of Zhang, Liu, and several other generals from the Central Military Commission (CMC) has left only one general, Zhang Shengmin, serving on China’s top military decisionmaking body alongside Xi. However, the purges within the CMC are only the tip of the iceberg. Since 2022, over 100 senior PLA officers from across virtually all areas of the armed forces have been swept aside or gone missing, amounting to an unprecedented purge of China’s military. The scope and depth of these purges showcase Xi’s resolve to renovate the PLA, root out corruption, eliminate obstacles to his ambitious military modernization objectives, and ensure absolute political loyalty.(CSIS here).

The speech provides a framework for understanding what areas of focus, what sort of analytical lens, may be framing the rectification of Chinese military leadership at a time when military preparedness is critical.  While one may be tempted to compare the contemporary Chinese purges with Stalin's "great purge" of the 1930s, the analogy may not work except at a very high level of generality. A recent examination by Alexei Zakharov and Konstantin Sonin, entitled “The Anatomy of the Great Terror: A Quantitative Analysis of the 1937-38 Purges in the Red Army,” suggests the limits of comparison.

Pix credit here

“Very little is known about the logic behind these sweeping episodes of elite repression, despite their fame,” Sonin said. “Stalin did not leave memoirs, and most of the records remain closed to the public in modern-day Russia. This paper allows us to look inside this black box and attempt to understand what Stalin intended and how he went about executing his plan.” The scholars’ analysis suggests that Stalin’s actions were preventive rather than reactive, aiming to neutralize possible challengers before they could gain any real power. One key finding of their study is the likelihood of repression of younger officers and those who had achieved high ranks at a young age. This challenges conventional wisdom by suggesting that Stalin’s purges were not entirely driven by loyalty or political affiliation, but rather by a desire to eliminate competent officers who might pose a potential threat to his rule. 

 What General Secretary Xi emphasized was Party loyalty, and the alignment of military reform with the broad aims of socialist modernization, high quality production (and innovation), and political work within the military. That is, to be an effective fighting force, General Secretary Xi suggests, the military must first be an efficient CPC lead political force, and second, it must be filly integrated in the CPC's basic line on modernization as elaborated in the 3rd and 4th Plenum documents of the 20th CPC Congress. That suggests that functional differentiation within the various elements of the state apparatus is, in the first instance, merely a consequential division of function within a politically unified single political mass.  "军队是拿枪杆子的，军中绝不能有对党怀有二心之人，绝不能有腐败分子藏身之地，必须坚定不移推进反腐败斗争。" [ The military wields the gun; there must be no one in the military who harbors disloyalty to the Party, and there must be no hiding place for corrupt elements. We must resolutely advance the fight against corruption.] (习近平在出席解放军和武警部队代表团全体会议时强调 充分发挥 政治建军特有优势 凝心聚力推动国防和军队现代化行稳致远 ). 

There is thus an economic element to political objectives; a patriotic military force, then, must be politically aligned with the CPC and must evidence that not just with respect to military preparedness but in the business of being ready to defend the State.  "要完善促进人才发展的制度和条件，体系推进联合作战指挥、新型作战力量、高层次科技创新、高水平战略管理“四类人才”培养，实现人的能力素质同强军实践协调发展。" [We must improve the systems and conditions for promoting talent development, systematically advance the cultivation of four types of talent: those in joint operations command, new types of combat forces, high-level scientific and technological innovation, and high-level strategic management, and achieve coordinated development of personnel capabilities and qualities with the practice of building a strong military.] (Ibid.).

Pix credit China Poster.net (1967; "Hold High the great red banner of Mao Zedong Thought; turn our army into a truly great school of Mao Zedong Thought")

That, perhaps, might explain the close connection between loyalty to the CPC and its expression within the language and operational expectations of socialist modernization under the 3rd & 4th Plenums. 

“十五五”一开局就要立起从严监管硬规矩，紧盯资金流向、权力运行和质量管控等关键环节，加强重大项目监管，强化军地融合监督，确保在监管前提下搞建设。要推进军费预算管理改革，搞好军费供需动态平衡，强化经费使用全链条管控和绩效评估，把每一分钱都用在刀刃上。[At the outset of the 15th Five-Year Plan, strict supervision and regulations must be established, closely monitoring key aspects such as fund flows, power operation, and quality control. Supervision of major projects must be strengthened, and integrated military-civilian supervision must be reinforced to ensure construction is carried out under strict oversight. Reform of military budget management must be promoted, a dynamic balance between military expenditure and demand must be achieved, and full-chain control and performance evaluation of fund usage must be strengthened to ensure every penny is used effectively. ] (习近平在出席解放军和武警部队代表团全体会议时强调 充分发挥 政治建军特有优势 凝心聚力推动国防和军队现代化行稳致远 ).

Pix credit here

Military, political. and economic performance are thus aligned, and all under the leadership and guidance of the CPC. Put differently, again, functional separation  is a contextual expression of an aligned and coordinated system in which every part draws on the functional  work of the others; there is no strict functional differentiation that suggests autonomy; there is only differentiated work that expresses a unified whole directed by, through, and under the CPC. "习近平指出，要加强革命化专业化人才队伍建设，坚持不懈用党的创新理论铸魂育人，打牢官兵听党话、跟党走的思想根基，确保现代化武器装备掌握在革命化人才队伍手中。"[Xi Jinping pointed out that we must strengthen the construction of a revolutionary and professional talent pool, unswervingly use the Party's innovative theories to cultivate and educate personnel, solidify the ideological foundation for officers and soldiers to listen to the Party and follow the Party, and ensure that modern weaponry and equipment are in the hands of a revolutionary talent pool.] (Ibid.)

All of this suggests the interplay between politics, economics, and technology in the military context, but also of the central role of coordination built from out of the core of the CPC and its leadership apparatus. In a sense, it is all about socialist modernization, and socialist modernization is all about moving forward along the Socialist Path, and moving forward can only be undertaken by tose committed to accepting the guidance and leadership of the CPC. "Xi Jinping emphasized that ultimately, achieving the modernization goals of national defense and the armed forces during the 15th Five-Year Plan period depends on the leadership and advancement of Party organizations at all levels." [习近平强调，完成“十五五”时期国防和军队现代化目标任务，归根到底要靠各级党组织来领导和推进。] (习近平在出席解放军和武警部队代表团全体会议时强调 充分发挥 政治建军特有优势 凝心聚力推动国防和军队现代化行稳致远 ). All of this is organized around political work; nevertheless it is disciplined through the traditional devices of CPC supervision: anti-corruption, educational campaigns, rectification, criticism/self-criticism now better understood as a military variant of self-revolution and social revolution (see (1) Social Revolution (社会革命) as Self-Revolution (自我革命) and the New Quality Production of CPC Modernization: 习近平 深入推进党的自我革命 [Xi Jinping, Deepen the Party's Self-Revolution] (Part of a speech at the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection on January 8, 2024));  (2) Brief Reflections on 深入学习贯彻《中国共产党思想政治工作条例》[Thoroughly study and implement the "Regulations on Ideological and Political Work of the Communist Party of China"]). In the language of Secretary General Xi: 要坚持党管军事、党管干部、党管行业，提高科学决策能力，在攻坚重大任务、化解突出矛盾、解决发展难题过程中发挥关键作用，把党的领导优势转化为发展优势。[We must adhere to the Party's leadership over military affairs, cadres, and industries, improve our ability to make scientific decisions, play a key role in tackling major tasks, resolving prominent contradictions, and solving development problems, and transform the Party's leadership advantages into development advantages.] (习近平在出席解放军和武警部队代表团全体会议时强调 充分发挥 政治建军特有优势 凝心聚力推动国防和军队现代化行稳致远 ).

 And there it is:

Xi Jinping emphasized that it is essential to vigorously inherit and carry forward the fine traditions of our Party and our army, promote the construction of a strong military culture in the new era, strengthen the cultivation and incentive of advanced models, ensure that the red gene is passed down from generation to generation, and make the new atmosphere and positive spirit even more abundant. [习近平强调，要大力传承和弘扬我党我军优良传统，推进新时代强军文化建设，加强先进典型培养和激励，让红色基因代代相传，让新风正气更加充盈。] (Ibid.)

It is only in this way that the military can serve as a capable fighting force, not just in technical terms, but also as a political force in tune with the working style of socialist modernization, by "attaching importance to fundamental, long-term, and sustainable work, and laying a more solid foundation for the construction and combat effectiveness of the armed forces" [重视抓好管根本、利长远、增后劲的工作，把部队建设和战斗力基础打得更加牢靠] (Ibid.).  In that respect little has changed from the 1920s, at least with respect to the structural premises around which the CPC organizes and leads those elements necessary first for the furthering of revolution, and then, for the appropriate forward movement along the Socialist Path for patriots for which the defense of the nation is also necessary from internal and external threat. 

Pix credit here ("I listen to Chairman Mao's words, my gun listens to me", 1966)

Now Available--Vol 35 No 158 Journal of Contemporary China (Jan. 2026)

Pix credit here

I am delighted to pass along a message from Professor Suisheng Zhao (赵穗生), and Editor of the Journal of Contemporary China (JCC) announcing the publication of Volume 35, Issue 158, March 2026 issue of The Journal of Contemporary China (JCC) is now available online. If the library of your institution subscribes to the JCC, you can view the full text of the article and others online at:http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cjcc20/current.

Of particular interest to some may be the essays published around the issue's research focus: "China’s News Censorship and Surveillance in the Digital Era." The introduction, authored by Ariane Ollier-Malaterre, Emilie Szwajnoch, Alexander Trauth-Goik, Ausma Bernot, Fan Liang & Ashley Poon, "Navigating Through The Fog: Reflexive Accounts on Researching China’s Digital Surveillance, Censorship, and Other Sensitive Topics" sets out aims of the six essays that comprise this special focus:

Researching China’s sensitive topics, such as digital surveillance and censorship, exposes scholars to mounting challenges including difficult field and internet access to quality information, scrutiny and security of research participants and researchers, and positionality amidst geopolitical tensions. This article presents self-reflexive accounts from six scholars of diverse backgrounds, fields, and career stages who work through varied methods, positionalities, and epistemic approaches. We share our research journeys’ challenges and coping strategies to aid scholars, beyond China or digital surveillance and censorship. We propose that reflexivity is essential for scholarly work on contentious or opaque topics; that the China studies research community should organize knowledge sharing and cross-training; and that academia should create emotional support structures for researchers who encounter surveillance and restrictions.

The full essay is open access.  For your convenience, below is the Table of Contents of the March 2026 issue of The Journal of Contemporary China, and the essay "Navigating Through The Fog: Reflexive Accounts on Researching China’s Digital Surveillance, Censorship, and Other Sensitive Topics".

Asociación para el Estudio de la Economía Cubana: El Repositorio de Investigación de ASCE Cuba ya está disponible en versión beta

crédito foto acquí

 

foto credito acquí

 English language version here

Me complace comunicarles esta noticia de Rafael Romeu, presidente y director ejecutivo de Dev Tech Systems, Inc., y presidente de la Asociación para el Estudio de la Economía Cubana, miembro de su junta directiva. Gracias a su labor, ya está disponible todo el repositorio de artículos e informes de investigación elaborados desde la década de 1990 para la Asociación. El comunicado de prensa explica el proyecto de la siguiente manera:

Durante más de tres décadas, ASCE CUBA ha estudiado una pregunta central: ¿cómo sería realmente una transición de la dictadura a una economía de mercado y una democracia en Cuba? Desde 1990, este trabajo ha generado más de 1000 artículos de investigación, creando uno de los corpus académicos más completos sobre el futuro económico de Cuba. Hoy, Cuba enfrenta quizás su crisis económica más grave en décadas. La escasez de energía, el colapso de la infraestructura y el rápido deterioro económico están impulsando conversaciones serias sobre el futuro del país. Esto hace que este repositorio sea más relevante que nunca.

SAGE, de DevTech Systems, Inc., convierte 36 años de investigación en algo interactivo. En lugar de revisar manualmente cientos de artículos, investigadores y legisladores pueden explorar el archivo, hacer preguntas y ver exactamente de dónde proviene la evidencia. La plataforma se encuentra actualmente en fase beta, pero dada la urgencia del momento, consideramos importante ponerla a disposición ahora y comenzar a compartirla con la comunidad investigadora y política. Si trabaja en políticas para Cuba, transiciones económicas o desarrollo en América Latina, le animo a explorar la plataforma y agradecemos sus comentarios a medida que continuamos mejorándola.

A continuación, encontrará el comunicado de prensa y los enlaces al repositorio de la ASCE