Cuando esté al borde de un abismo, considere saltar: el Estado y el aparato del partido cubanos adoptan su "Programa Económico y Social del Gobierno 2026"

 

Foto credito aquí

 ENGLISH LANGUAGE VERSION HERE.

 Hace una década, en un acto de reverencia asombrosamente magnífico hacia el pasado —ejecutado mediante los «tres arrodillamientos y nueve postraciones» (三跪九叩) ante los antepasados ​​(incluso aquellos que aún no habían fallecido del todo)—, el aparato del Partido Comunista Cubano adoptó su «Conceptualización del modelo económico y social cubano de desarrollo socialista» (analizada aquí en un informe de contexto del CPE). Es decir —para parafrasear libremente a Marx—, el espectro que hoy acecha a Cuba. Un espectro que, en 2026, no fue ni exorcizado ni confrontado; sino uno bajo cuyo influjo parecen haber quedado consumidos tanto el Estado como el Partido.

La *Conceptualización* destacó, ante todo, como un repliegue que paralizó de hecho los movimientos hacia la reforma o el desarrollo —dentro de un marco marxista-leninista— del modelo económico-político cubano, y que subrayó su alineamiento con el modelo operativo propuesto originalmente por el I Congreso del Partido Comunista de Cuba en 1976. Calificar de «decepción» el sentir de aquellos que, aun permaneciendo comprometidos con el modelo marxista-leninista cubano, buscaban reformarlo para adaptarlo a las realidades imperantes en la etapa histórica de desarrollo que atravesaba Cuba en aquel momento, sería quedarse corto. Sin embargo, las élites —al menos oficialmente— retrocedieron ante la posibilidad de un cambio «novedoso» (y, en gran medida, de corte «oriental»); y, ciertamente, no quisieron saber nada de mercados ni de estructuras operativas marxista-leninistas al estilo asiático. Ese viraje hacia los mercados —incluso hacia mercados marxista-leninistas bien gestionados— fue considerado una vía directa hacia la corrupción del marxismo y, con ello, hacia la desarticulación del proyecto leninista tal como ellos lo concebían. Ya en 2012, Fidel Castro dejó claro en sus «Reflexiones» que el modelo que representaba la cúspide de un sistema marxista-leninista debidamente organizado era el elaborado por Erich Honecker (Alemania Oriental), y no el ideado por Deng Xiaoping (República Popular China). (Véase: *Fidel Castro sobre Deng Xiaoping y Erich Honecker: Comprender los fundamentos de la política económica y política cubana*; «Más que ninguna otra cosa, es probable que estas breves reflexiones constituyan lo más cerca que lleguemos a estar de comprender las razones por las que Cuba se halla en su actual y particular encrucijada. Una situación basada, tal vez, en la nostalgia por lo que pudo haber sido —Alemania Oriental—, y en el miedo y la aversión hacia lo que podría llegar a ser: un marxismo de mercados al estilo chino»). 

Fidel Castro siempre había visto con considerable recelo la política de apertura marxista de Deng (véase, por ejemplo: *The UnRepentant: Fidel Castro Confronts Cuban Globalization*, en *Law at the End of the Day*, 15 de septiembre de 2007); una postura que estaba profundamente arraigada en los esquemas conceptuales del aparato del Estado y del Partido (nuevamente en 2019, y ahora en 2026), y, muy especialmente, en su insistente expresión ideológica de corte soviético: no solo soviética en sensibilidad y perspectiva, sino un «sovietismo» osificado e impermeable a las realidades del paso del tiempo (entre otras cosas). Esta suspicacia —y la arquitectura que la sustentaba— no fue compartida en igual medida por su hermano (véase, por ejemplo: *On the Anniversary of the Attack on the Moncada Barracks: Cuba Moves Forward towards its Chinese Future*, en *Law at the End of the Day*, 27 de julio de 2007). El resultado fue —al menos dentro de los sectores económicos sobre los que se otorgó autoridad a las fuerzas armadas— un sector de empresas estatales más o menos (según los estándares cubanos, al menos) dinámico y orientado al mercado, que se fue expandiendo bajo el liderazgo de los militares (a quienes se encomendó la gestión de una parte considerable de la economía formal cubana); y, por otro lado, un aparato de planificación centralizada dentro del sector estatal —de estilo soviético y obstinadamente ortodoxo— que veía a los mercados con gran desconfianza y se mostraba reacio a tolerarlos, salvo en los márgenes y, muy especialmente, durante los periodos de emergencia.

El año 2026 ha sido testigo del estallido de una catástrofe para la economía cubana, para su infraestructura y para todo aquello que pueda considerarse su economía formal. Se trata de una crisis autoinfligida; una crisis que hace que la actual versión del marxismo-leninismo estalinista cubano resulte particularmente vulnerable ante los acuerdos transaccionales derivados de la política de «Estados Unidos Primero» (*America First*) de la Administración Trump, tal como esta es aplicada por el Secretario de Estado Marco Rubio, una figura con un interés sustancialmente más refinado en los asuntos de Cuba. En tiempos de crisis como el actual, el Estado-Partido cubano tiende a actuar con celeridad, especialmente en lo que respecta a la concesión de reformas en torno al núcleo de sus estructuras operativas de corte soviético. Estas medidas han tendido a complacer a la intelectualidad y a los responsables políticos fuera de Cuba —particularmente en los Estados Unidos—, al tiempo que no suponen para el gobierno prácticamente ningún coste en términos de presión externa para implementar siquiera aquellos cambios que sus propios tecnoburócratas de filiación marxista-leninista llevan años reclamando. Este patrón, ya tan trillado, parece manifestarse nuevamente —hasta cierto punto—, dado que el Estado cubano ha dado indicios de sugerir una... una mayor tolerancia hacia las actividades basadas en el mercado, aunque —una vez más— solo en los márgenes y de maneras que no amenacen el núcleo de su sector estatal (o, dicho sea de paso, los negocios de las fuerzas armadas a través de GAESA).

Por otra parte, en la forma en que la (en retrospectiva trágica) visita de Estado del presidente Obama quedó vinculada al repliegue político que supuso la «Conceptualización del modelo económico y social cubano de desarrollo socialista», deliciosamente descrita en su momento por Ann Louise Bardach en "Reacción adversa en Cuba" para la revista Politico el 10 de junio de 2016 (y republicado por Arch Ritter en su blog: aquí), parece que, en sentido inverso, el estado actual de las relaciones entre Estados Unidos y Cuba produce el mismo tipo de reacción: un afianzamiento ideológico con una sensación de reforma. Ante la política de «Estados Unidos Primero» de la administración Trump, aplicada con mayor rigor a la región del Caribe (comenzando quizás con el fin del liderazgo del Sr. Maduro en Venezuela) y sin centrarse en Cuba (aquí, aquí, aquí), el aparato del Estado cubano ha producido nuevamente lo que equivale a un clon actualizado de la «Conceptualización del modelo económico y social cubano de desarrollo socialista» de 2016, ahora con algunos detalles marginales que sugieren la necesidad de apaciguar a los artífices (externos) de la crisis actual (entendiendo, por supuesto, que el propio Estado cubano ha sido el responsable de sus propios desastres durante bastante tiempo). Este repliegue clonado y actualizado (incluida la selección de citas de Fidel Castro que ahora se alinean con las necesidades políticas actuales) se ha distribuido bajo el título de Programa Económico y Social del Gobierno (2026). Así pues… la apariencia de cambios marginales y una firme reafirmación de la permanencia de una posición ideológica de la década de 1970, esta vez sin los subsidios aparentemente interminables del imperio soviético.

El Programa Económico lo esbozado consiste en un plan de 10 puntos, que al estilo de tales cosas en las tecnoburocracias liberales democráticas y marxista-leninistas suenan como vagas exhortaciones a objetivos generalizados de algún tipo: 

Objetivo General 1: Propiciar un entorno macroeconómico que favorezca la actividad productiva y el incremento de los ingresos externos. 
Objetivo General 2: Incrementar y diversificar los ingresos externos del país. 
Objetivo General 3: Incrementar la producción nacional, con énfasis en los alimentos. 
Objetivo General 4: Transformar, modernizar y desarrollar el sistema empresarial cubano fortaleciendo el papel de la empresa estatal socialista, con énfasis en la integración entre todos los actores económicos. 
Objetivo General 5: Avanzar en el perfeccionamiento de la gestión estratégica para el desarrollo territorial. 
Objetivo General 6: Avanzar en el perfeccionamiento de la gestión de Gobierno, la Defensa y Seguridad Nacional. 
Objetivo General 7: Consolidar y desarrollar las políticas sociales, garantizando la protección a personas, familias, hogares y comunidades en situación de vulnerabilidad. 
Objetivo General 8: Avanzar en la implementación de las directivas generales dirigidas a la prevención y reducción del delito, la corrupción, las ilegalidades y las indisciplinas sociales. 
Objetivo General 9: Avanzar en la recuperación del Sistema Electroenergético Nacional, impulsando la soberanía energética. 
Objetivo General 10: Gestionar la ciencia e innovación, los recursos naturales, la comunicación social y la transformación digital para impulsar las esferas de desarrollo sostenible. 

Esto funciona en tiempos de bonanza; carece de la claridad y la intensidad que a menudo se requieren en tiempos de crisis. Nada de esto es nuevo; gran parte es una ilusión; y todo carece de vías efectivas más allá de la esperanza y la miseria porque la esperanza en manos de los que viven solomente en el mundo de ideas jamas tienen tiempo para adivinar como se purede sustener la población sino con el alimento espiritual--salvo a punta de armas. Y de hecho, en su esencia, reside la determinación fundamental de retomar, con renovado vigor, el núcleo de las decisiones ideológicas, y sus consecuencias necesarias, que llevaron al Estado cubano a su situación actual; ese es el banquete dispuesto ante el pueblo cubano, ahora enmohecido tras haber estado expuesto a la intemperie desde la década de 1970, en un clima tropical cálido y húmedo; y ahora sin los servicios financieros Rusos, Chinos, o Venezolanos. . . . :

La Conceptualización del Modelo Económico y Social Cubano, los Lineamientos de la Política Económica y Social del Partido y la Revolución, el Plan Nacional de Desarrollo al 2030, el Programa Económico y Social del Gobierno, el Plan de la Economía Nacional y el Presupuesto del Estado para el 2026, constituyen los documentos rectores que rigen la dirección del desarrollo del país. La correcta comprensión de la naturaleza y funciones de cada documento y, sobre todo, de su interrelación, es crucial para evitar desviaciones en el logro de las metas previstas. Una comprensión adecuada de la naturaleza y las funciones de cada documento —y, sobre todo, de su interrelación— es crucial para evitar desviaciones en el logro de los objetivos proyectados. (Programa Económico y Social del Gobierno (2026), Introducción, sin emfasis en el original)

Bautizada en el concepto de reforma operativa, la sugerencia de que, tras una década o más, abordarán adecuadamente la operacionalización de los documentos clave de la reducción del gasto (y esta vez lo harán bien), es precisamente lo que suelen acoger quienes buscan cualquier tipo de movimiento (incluso en la dirección equivocada) que sugiera "cooperación" o "reforma" cubanas; palabras que pierden gran parte de su significado habitual en este contexto. Sugieren también que la falta de una comprensión adecuada de estos documentos es la causa (junto con el embargo estadounidense) del actual estado de catástrofe, o mejor dicho, del actual estado de miseria en el que se encuentra Cuba (sobre el estado de miseria cubano AQUÍ). Esa es la tragedia. Una verdadera lástima, pero encaja con los patrones de respuesta adoptados en esta primera parte del siglo XXI. Lamentablemente, lo que ya no se necesita es más de lo mismo. Incluso si las transformaciones revolucionarias que algunos anhelan fueran igualmente desastrosas.

Y sobre todo esto, el fantasma de Fidel Castro sigue acechando tanto al Estado como al Partido; no al Fidel revolucionario, sino al Fidel que se convirtió en la encarnación del giro estalinista dentro del marxismo-leninismo europeo. A diferencia de su ídolo Erich Honecker, Fidel no vivió para correr la misma suerte que aquel líder caído: la extradición al lugar donde gobernó y el juicio por sus crímenes se vieron truncados por una enfermedad terminal avanzada. Es imposible predecir qué sucederá con los demás que quedan.

Por lo tanto: cuando uno se encuentra al borde del abismo, considera saltar. En este caso, las autoridades cubanas parecen tentadas a hacerlo, aferrándose a un plan diseñado para mediados del siglo pasado y convencidas de que, al menos dentro del territorio cubano, el tiempo se ha detenido. Y esa bien podría ser la lección final para esta variante del leninismo caribeño, nacida de una revolución militar que pretendía detener el tiempo en el momento de su triunfo; solo para descubrir que el tiempo detenido tiene otro significado; y en ello, tal vez, con el tiempo, lleguen a la conclusión que Emily Dickinson sugirió sobre tales esfuerzos:

Un reloj se detuvo -
No el de la repisa -
La habilidad más avanzada de Ginebra
No puede hacer que la marioneta haga una reverencia -
Que hace un momento colgaba inmóvil -

¡Un asombro se apoderó de la baratija!
Las figuras se encorvaron, de dolor -
Luego temblaron de decimales -
En un mediodía sin grados -

No se moverá por los médicos -
Este péndulo de nieve -
El tendero lo importuna -
Mientras frío - indiferente No -

Asentimientos de las agujas doradas -
Asentimientos de los segundos delgados -
Décadas de arrogancia entre
La vida de la esfera -
Y él -

El reloj de Cuba, en efecto, bien podría haberse detenido en este sentido. Ese era el espectro, el cadáver animadao, de un marxismo soviético caribeño osificado, cuya principal perdición radicaba en su negativa a comprender lo que los leninistas chinos sabían desde hacía tiempo (y que resultaba incomprensible para los propios soviéticos): que el leninismo marxista es, por naturaleza, una teoría arraigada en el tiempo, basada en la premisa fundamental de un progreso a lo largo del tiempo por una senda socialista hacia el comunismo, y que el triunfo de una revolución no era el fin, sino el punto de partida.

La Introducción al Programa Económico y Social del Gobierno (2026) se presenta a continuación en su español original y en una breve traducción al inglés. La imagen que sigue, también parte del Programa Económico y Social del Gobierno (2026), se disfruta mejor con una pizca de ironía.

 

foto credito aquí

From Global SWF: "2026 Asia Playbook"

 

Pix credit here

 

Happy to pass along this quite interesting Report from our friends over at Global SWF:

We are delighted to release our 2026 Asia Playbook, i.e., our annual update on 36 territories across the Asian continent, and their respective state-owned investors. The document sheds a light on the latest developments of 36 Central Banks, 48 SWFs and 66 Pension Funds – as well as other major entities key for those public finance systems, including national oil companies, airlines, stock exchanges, royal family offices, and investment promotion agencies. Some of the key takeaways of the 54-page report include:

--Asian SWFs grew tremendously in 2025 and now manage 39% of the world’s total. Together with CBs and PPFs, their assets stand at US$ 22.5 trillion and could reach US$ 27.1 trillion by 2030.

--China alone, including Hong Kong and Macau, has amassed a balance sheet of US$ 8.6 trillion, larger than all the Middle Eastern State-Owned Investors combined.

--The Singaporean duo – GIC and Temasek – dominates the regional dealmaking and completed 77% of all investments coming out of Asian investors in the past 6 years. The most popular destinations of that capital were the US, India, the UK, China including Hong Kong, and Australia.

--Sadly, such impressive growth and deal activity is poised to slow down because of the energy crisis. We expect SWFs will be used differently, according to their mandate and portfolio: stabilization funds may be withdrawn, strategic funds may be “invited” to bail out certain industries or assets, and opportunistic funds may look for bargains.

The report includes a special feature and interview with Mr. Nurlan Zhakupov, the Chairman of the Management Board of Samruk-Kazyna, which is among the world’s top 25 SWFs with US$ 89 billion AuM.

Attached is an Executive Summary of the report, and the full document can be accessed by our subscribers at https://globalswf.com/reports/2026asia. We will host an in-person presentation next Thursday 9 April in Singapore. If you are a delegate of a CB/SWF/PPF and are interested in attending, please let us know.

Of particular interest may be this:

 Since February 28, the US and Israel have been bombing Iran, and Iran has responded by launching over 5,400 missiles and drones – most to the Gulf nations – and by closing the Strait of Hormuz, creating a massive and global energy crisis. This will likely have a large impact on Asian economies, most of which are heavily dependent on foreign oil and gas. In this context, Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) may come, once again, to the rescue of economies, industries and assets around the world. Using our definition of SWF, which is broad and inclusive by design, Asia (excluding the Middle East) is home to 48 such vehicles, collectively managing US$ 6.1 trillion as of April 2026. These include stabilization funds like Azerbaijan’s SOFAZ, savings funds like South Korea’s KIC, strategic-catalyzing funds like India’s NIIF, and strategic-umbrella funds like Indonesia’s Danantara. (Executive Summary)

The Executive Summary follows below.

Just Published International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique Vol. 39(4) with Special Issue: On Ricœur: Justice, Hermeneutics, Responsibility, and Personal Identity

 

 I am delighted to pass along the announcement of the publication of Vol 39(4) of the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique Vol. 39(4). 

This issue includes a number if quite interesting articles in its Special Issue: On Ricœur: Justice, Hermeneutics, Responsibility, and Personal Identity, edited by Peter Langford and Rafe McGregor, and with articles by Pierangelo Blandino, Peter Kangford, Bartosz Wojciechowski and Karolina M. Cern, Adalberto Fernandes, Michael J. Regier, David Grčki, and Nadia Makouar and Maryvonne Holzem. The Introduction to Special Issue: On Ricœur: Justice, Hermeneutics, Responsibility, and Personal Identity also follows below.

In addition  Stefania Yapo and Massimo Leone introduce articles in Reclaiming Aging: Editorial Introduction. 

Articles by  Manotar Tampubolon, and Elżbieta Kużelewska, Mariusz Tomaszuk, & Damian Malinowskiare also included. 

The Table of contents with links follows below and may also be accessed HERE.

 

When at the Edge of an Abyss, Consider Jumping: The Cuban State and Party Apparatus Adopt its "Programa Económico y Social del Gobierno 2026"

 

Pix credit here

 Versión en español aquí

A decade ago, in a stunningly magnificent obeisance to the past, in the performance of the "three kneelings and nine kowtows" (三跪九叩)  to the ancestors (even those not yet quite dead), the Cuban Party apparatus adopted its Conceptualización del modelo económico y social Cubano de desarrollo socialista"(discussed here in a CPE Background Brief). That is, to badly misquote Marx, the specter that is haunting Cuba. A spector that, in 2026 was neither exorcised nor confronted but one into whose thrall the state and the Party appear to have been consumed. 

The Conceptualización  was most notable as an retrenchment that effectively paused the movements toward reform or development, within a Marxist Leninist framework, of the Cuban economic-political model, and underscored its alignment with the operating model first put forward by the 1st Cuban Communist Party Congress in 1976. To suggest disappointment among those who remained committed to the Cuban Marxist-Leninist model but sought its reform to conform to the then current realities of the historical stage of development in which Cuba found itself was an understatement. But the elites, officially at least, recoiled at the possibility of "newfangled" (and mostly "oriental") change--and they certainly would have nothing to do with markets or Asian style Marxist Leninist operational structures. That turn to markets, even well managed Marxist-Leninist markets, was considered a direct route toward the corruption of Marxism and with it the undoing of the Leninist project as they saw it. As late as 2012, Fidel Castro made it clear in his "Reflections" that it was the model elaborate by Erich Honecker (East Germany) rather than that elaborated by Deng Xiaoping (PRC) that was the apex model of a properly organized Marxist Leninist system (Fidel Castro on Deng Xiaoping and Erich Honecker--Understanding the Foundations of Cuban Political and Economic Policy; "More than anything else, these short reflections are likely to be as close as we will come to understanding the reasons that Cuba finds itself in its particular current predicament.  It is one based perhaps on a nostalgia for what could have been, East Germany, and a fear and loathing for what may be: Chinese style" markets Marxism). 

Fidel Castro had consistently viewed Deng's opening up with substantial suspicion (e.g., The UnRepentant: Fidel Castro Confronts Cuban Globalization, Law at the End of the Day, Sept. 15, 2007), a position that was hard wired into the State and Party apparatus conceptual cages (again in 2019, and now 2026) and especially its insistently Soviet ideological expression--not just Soviet in sensibility and outlook but an ossified Soviet-ism  imperious to the realities of the flow of time (among other things). This suspicion, and its architecture was not shared to the same degree by his brother (e.g., On the Anniversary of the Attack on the Moncada Barracks: Cuba Moves Forward towards its Chinese Future, Law at the End of the Day, July 27, 2007). The result was, at least within the economic sectors over which the military was given authority, a more or less (by Cuban standards anyway) vibrantly markets ready State owned enterprise sector metastasizing under the leadership of the military (to managed a sizeable chunk of the formal Cuban economy) and a stubbornly Soviet style orthodox central planning apparatus within the State sector, one that viewed markets with great suspicion and was loathe to tolerate it except at the margins and especially during periods of emergency. 

2026 has seen the flowering of catastrophe for the Cuban economy, its infrastructure and whatever passes for its formal economy. It is a crisis of its own making, one that makes the current version of Cuban Stalinist Marxist Leninism particularly vulnerable to the transactional engagements with the Trump Administration's America First Policy as applied by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, someone with a substantially more refined interest in the affairs of Cuba.  In times of crisis like this, the Cuban State-Party tends to move quickly especially with respect to concessions around the core of its Soviet operational structures. These have tended to please the intelligentsia and policy makers outside of Cuba, especially in the US, and cost the government virtually nothing in terms of pressure to effect even the changes that its own Marxist-Leninist  techno-bureaucrats have been urging for years. That well worn  pattern appears again to some extent as the Cuban State has appeared to suggest a greater tolerance of markets based activity, but again only around the edges and in ways that do not threaten the core of its State sector (or for that matter, the business of the military through GAESA). 

On the other hand, in the way that the (in retrospect tragic) State visit of President Obama was connected to the political retrenchment that was the "Conceptualización del modelo económico y social Cubano de desarrollo socialista" delightfully described at the time by Ann Louise Bardach, "Backlash in Cuba," for Politico Magazine, June 10 2016 (and reposted by Arch Ritter to his blog site: here), so it appears that, in mirror reverse, the current state of US-Cuba relations produces the same sort of reaction--retrenchment ideologically with a sensation of reform. In the face of the Trump Administration's America First Policy applied in a more robust way to the Caribbean region (starting perhaps with the end of the leadership of Mr Maduro in Venezuela) and no focused on Cuba (here, here, here), the Cuban State-Party apparatus has again produced what amounts to an updated clone of the 2016 Conceptualización del modelo económico y social Cubano de desarrollo socialista" now with a few marginal tidbits to suggest the need to appease the architects (on the outside) of the current crisis (understanding of course that the Cuban State itself has been the master of its own disasters for quite a long period of time). That cloned  and updated retrenchment (including in the choices of quotations from Fidel Castro that now aligns with present political need) has been distributed under the title Programa Económico y Social del Gobierno (2026). So. . . the appearance of changes at the margins and a hearty reaffirmation of the permanence of a 1970s ideological position--this time without the seemingly endless subsidies of the Soviet empire. 

The Economic Program outlined consists of a 10 point plan, which in the style of such things in liberal democratic as well as Marxist-Leninist techno-bureaucracies sound like vague exhortations to generalized goals  of sorts:

Objetivo General 1: Propiciar un entorno macroeconómico que favorezca la actividad productiva y el incremento de los ingresos externos.
Objetivo General 2: Incrementar y diversificar los ingresos externos del país.
Objetivo General 3: Incrementar la producción nacional, con énfasis en los alimentos.
Objetivo General 4: Transformar, modernizar y desarrollar el sistema empresarial cubano fortaleciendo el papel de la empresa estatal socialista, con énfasis en la integración entre todos los actores económicos.
Objetivo General 5: Avanzar en el perfeccionamiento de la gestión estratégica para el desarrollo territorial.
Objetivo General 6: Avanzar en el perfeccionamiento de la gestión de Gobierno, la Defensa y Seguridad Nacional.
Objetivo General 7: Consolidar y desarrollar las políticas sociales, garantizando la protección a personas, familias, hogares y comunidades en situación de vulnerabilidad.
Objetivo General 8: Avanzar en la implementación de las directivas generales dirigidas a la prevención y reducción del delito, la corrupción, las ilegalidades y las indisciplinas sociales.
Objetivo General 9: Avanzar en la recuperación del Sistema Electroenergético Nacional, impulsando la soberanía energética. 
Objetivo General 10: Gestionar la ciencia e innovación, los recursos naturales, la comunicación social y la transformación digital para impulsar las esferas de desarrollo sostenible.

General Objective 1: Foster a macroeconomic environment that favors productive activity and the growth of external revenues.
General Objective 2: Increase and diversify the country's external revenues.
General Objective 3: Increase national production, with an emphasis on food.
General Objective 4: Transform, modernize, and develop the Cuban enterprise system by strengthening the role of the socialist state enterprise, with an emphasis on integration among all economic actors.
General Objective 5: Advance the improvement of strategic management for territorial development.
General Objective 6: Advance the improvement of Government management, National Defense, and Security.
General Objective 7: Consolidate and develop social policies, guaranteeing protection for individuals, families, households, and communities in vulnerable situations.
General Objective 8: Advance the implementation of general directives aimed at the prevention and reduction of crime, corruption, illegalities, and social indiscipline.
General Objective 9: Advance the recovery of the National Electric Power System, driving energy sovereignty.
General Objective 10: Manage science and innovation, natural resources, social communication, and digital transformation to drive the spheres of sustainable development. 

This works in good times; it lacks the clarity and intensity often required in times of crisis. None of this is new; much of it is a tease; and all of it lacks any effective pathways other than hope. . . and misery—for hope, in the hands of those who live solely in the realm of ideas, never finds the time to discern how a population might be sustained by anything other than spiritual nourishment (here)--other than at the point of a gun.  And, indeed, at its core is the fundamental determination to re-embrace, with renewed vigor the core of the ideological choices, and their necessary consequences, that brought the Cuban State to its present situation; that is the banquet feast laid before the Cuban people moldy now having been exposed to the elements since the 1970s in a hot and humid tropical climate; and now, without Russian, Chinese, or Venezuelan financial services:

La Conceptualización del Modelo Económico y Social Cubano, los Lineamientos de la Política Económica y Social del Partido y la Revolución, el Plan Nacional de Desarrollo al 2030, el Programa Económico y Social del Gobierno, el Plan de la Economía Nacional y el Presupuesto del Estado para el 2026, constituyen los documentos rectores que rigen la dirección del desarrollo del país.  La correcta comprensión de la naturaleza y funciones de cada documento y, sobre todo, de su interrelación, es crucial para evitar desviaciones en el logro de las metas previstas. 

[The Conceptualization of the Cuban Economic and Social Model, the Guidelines for the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution, the National Development Plan through 2030, the Government’s Economic and Social Program, the National Economic Plan, and the State Budget for 2026 constitute the guiding documents that govern the direction of the country's development. A proper understanding of the nature and functions of each document—and, above all, of their interrelationship—is crucial to avoid deviations in the achievement of projected goals.] ( Programa Económico y Social del Gobierno (2026), Introduction)

Dressed up around operational reform, the suggestion that they will, after a decade or more, now properly approach the operationalization of the key documents of retrenchment (and get it right this time), is precisely what tends to be embraced by those looking for any sort of movement (even in the wrong direction) that suggests Cuban "cooperation" or "reform"--wprds that lose much of their usual meaning in this cntext. They suggest as well that it is the failure to properly understand these documents that is the cause (along with the American embargo) of the present state of catastrophe, or better put, the current State of Misery in which Cuba finds itself (on the Cuban State of Misery HERE). That is the tragedy. A pity really but it fits that patterns of response adopted  in this early part of the 21st century. Lamentably, more the the same is precisely what is not now needed. Even if revolutionary transformations of the sort hungered for in some quarters would be disastrous as well. 

And over all of this the ghost of Fidel Castro continues to haunt both State and Party--not revolutionary Fidel, but the Fidel that became the embodiment of the Stalinist turn in European Marxist-Leninism.  Unlike his idol Erich Honecker, Fidel did not live to copy that fate of that fallen leader--extradition back to the place of his leadership and trial for his crimes cut short only by an advanced fatal illness. What happens to those others who remain is impossible to predict. 

And thus: when on the edge of the abyss, consider jumping in. In this case the Cuban authorities appear well tempted to do just that, holding tightly onto a playbook scripted for the middle decades of the last century and utterly convinces that, at least within the national territory of Cuba, time has, indeed, stopped.  And that may well be the final lesson for this variation of Caribbean Leninism born of a military revolution that sought to stop time at the moment of its triumph; only to discover that time stopped has another meaning; and in that they may, in time, come to the realization that Emily Dickinson suggested about such efforts:

A Clock stopped - 
Not the Mantel's -
Geneva's farthest skill
Can't put the puppet bowing -
That just now dangled still -

An awe came on the Trinket!
The Figures hunched, with pain -
Then quivered out of Decimals -
Into Degreeless Noon -

It will not stir for Doctors -
This Pendulum of snow -
The Shopman importunes it -
While cool - concernless No -

Nods from the Gilded pointers -
Nods from Seconds slim -
Decades of Arrogance between
The Dial life -
And Him - 

Cuba's clock, indeed, may well have stopped.  That was the spector of an ossified Soviet Caribbean Marxism whose principal undoing was its unwillingness to understand what the Chinese Leninists have long known (and which was incomprehensible to the Soviets themselves)--that Marxist Leninism in inherently a temporally embedded theory grounded in the core premise of a progress through time along a socialist path toeard communism, and that the triumph of a revolution was not the end but the starting point. 

The Introduction to the  Programa Económico y Social del Gobierno (2026) follows below in the original Spanish and in a quick English translation. The picture which follows, also part of the Programa Económico y Social del Gobierno (2026) might best be savored with a garnish of irony.

 

From Telos Press: Luo Feng, 中国的古典学建设与文明自觉 ["The Construction of Classics and the Question of Civilizational Self-Awarenes"]s

 

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I am delighted to share this quite interesting essay produced for the Telos-Paul Piccone Institute’s five-year China Initiative. Each essay is published in Chinese with a brief summary provided in English. This essay is authored by Luo Feng and is entitled 中国的古典学建设与文明自觉 ["The Construction of Classics and the Question of Civilizational Self-Awareness.]" Luo Feng is a Professor at the School of Foreign Languages, East China Normal University. Her academic focus is primarily on Greek tragedy, Shakespearean drama, and the study of classical Chinese and Western poetics. She is the author of Dionysus and the World Polis: An Interpretation of Euripides’ “The Bacchae.”

The English summary of the Essay is this:

In November 2024, the First World Conference of Classics was held in Beijing, and Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter, marking the formal endorsement of classics at the state level. The rise of classics in China—which remains highly controversial—is part of a century-long intellectual effort to reassess Chinese civilization in response to the crises of Western modernity. In ongoing debates over antiquity and modernity, China and the West, Chinese scholars have turned to canonical traditions in both civilizations to seek intellectual resources for addressing shared challenges. This civilizational self-awareness ensures that classics in China will not simply replicate Western models but will also involve sustained engagement with China’s own classical heritage.

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The essay is divided into three broad sections The first, 古典学的何种“传统” (which tradition of classical studies), describes the taxonomy of the classics canon adopted in China.  It includes a quite elegant discussion of the state of academic debate around that construction. All of this under the heavy shadow of the crisis of Chinese modernity that serves as the central element of the essence of the late Qing. The second,  中国的古典学建设与文明自觉 (the development of classical studies in China and the emergence of civilizational self-awareness), considers the quite interesting contradiction of classical canons in the face of modernity. what makes this somewhat ironic is that modernity has now aged enough to find itself also entombed in a historical canon of its own. That, of course, is the essential paradox of modernity, once recognized as such it no longer is. And thus it is the archeology of classical studies and its utility in the constitution of the cognitive cage of civilizational awareness that becomes fascinating. The third,  如何建设中国的古典学 (how to construct a Chinese field of classics), then serves as the vessel within which it may be possible to contain an autonomous Chinese approach to classics from out of which structural coupling is possible with other non-Chinese classical communities, and which, in turn, constitutes its own field of knowledge with Chinese civilizational characteristics.  

The essay ends with a warning; one that reverts back to the darker side of modernity in its dialectic with the classical, and more importantly in its study by those outside of its traditions. Referring to recent critical observations by certain collectives of Western scholars who appear to embrace a new orthodoxy about the nature of approaching the classics and apparently an older orthodoxy about who can authentically engage in such studies, Luo Feng notes:

这种偏见与傲慢本身提醒我们：西方古典学在日益考古学化、人类学化乃至反古典的转向中背离古典精神而不断衰落，不啻为一记警钟。这同样警示我们，中西古典学者若不能超越意气之争，摈弃门户之见，回归古典的德性教养旨归，注定无法以平和的心态正确看待古典学在中国的兴起。 [This very bias and arrogance serve as a stark reminder: as Western Classical Studies increasingly gravitates toward archaeology, anthropology, and even an "anti-classical" stance—thereby deviating from the true spirit of the classics and falling into steady decline—it sounds nothing less than an alarm bell. It further serves as a warning that if classicists from both China and the West fail to transcend petty squabbles, cast aside parochial biases, and return to the fundamental aim of the classics—namely, the cultivation of virtue—they are destined to remain incapable of viewing the rise of Classical Studies in China with the necessary equanimity and clarity. ]

In a way that is a very interesting way of producing a cross civilizational challenge to the classics community--one that intersects culture, politics, bias and the cognitive cages that make each plausible.  All of this can only enrich classical study. . . and critique. . . across borders of social, cultural, and "civilizational" spaces.

The original essay is reproduced below and may be accessed int he original HERE.

From the NPC Observer: NPC 2026: Documents and Votes

 

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The NPC Observer has compiled a quite useful list of all released official documents from the 14th National People's Congress. These include: Work Reports; 15th Five-Year Plan; Annual Development Plans; Central and Local Budgets; Legislation; and  Other work product.

The fourth session of China’s 14th National People’s Congress (NPC) concluded on Thursday, March 12. Below we have compiled a list of all official documents from this session (except for several legislative reports the NPC has so far neglected to release). We have also included the submitted (i.e., draft) versions of key documents for your reference. Documents are available in Chinese only unless otherwise noted. The vote results for each bill and resolution are listed below in brackets, in the order of for–against–abstention, followed by the number of delegates not voting (NV), if any.

The Description and links follow below and may be accessed from the NPC Observer website HERE.

Panel Discussion: "From Closet to Consequence: Sustainable Fashion, Global Inequality, and Human Rights" UConn 14 April 2026

 

I am delighted to pass along this announcement of this Panel Discussion sponsored by the Goldstein Family Human Rights Institute Business and Human Rights Initiative:     From Closet to Consequence: Sustainable Fashion, Global Inequality, and Human Rights   Tuesday, April 14 | 12:00 PM - 1:15 PM  Join Virtually on Zoom (or) In Person in The Dodd Center, Conference Room 162   The global fashion system links everyday consumer choices to complex questions of environmental harm, labor rights, and social inequality across borders. This hybrid panel brings together scholars and practitioners to examine fashion not only as an environmental issue, but as a human rights challenge embedded in global production, trade, and waste flows.

About this Event Opening with a systems-level overview of ethical dilemmas and policy responses, the discussion moves through comparative perspectives from the U.S. and India, lived experiences of textile waste and creative resistance in Ghana, and material-level insights into textile production and life-cycle impacts. Together, the speakers explore how sustainability efforts can either reinforce or challenge global inequalities and what more just alternatives might look like. The event centers on social sustainability, workers’ rights, community-based solutions, and the role of policy and accountability in shaping fairer fashion futures.

Join Us!

About the Speakers Dellasie Aning is a rising Ghanaian-American polymath artist, philanthropist, and CEO who bridges the creative worlds of New York City and Accra, Ghana. Known for her Afro-fusion music, she is also a dedicated humanitarian and entrepreneur focused on health advocacy and sustainable fashion. She is the founder and CEO of an e-commerce sustainable clothing business for women (Panalove Online). As a humanitarian, her work centers on skin cancer and skin disease in Africa due to skin bleaching (Panalove Foundation). She is also an alumna of Emory University, holding a degree in political science and marketing. Imran Islam, is an Associate Professor in Textile Development and Marketing Department at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). He specializes in sustainability, textile waste management, textile fibers and yarns, knit development and analysis, textile testing and analysis, and application of textile technology to design. Dr. Islam has served on the New York City Task Force on Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Use and Disposal of Textiles (Local Law 112). He is a recipient of the State University of New York (SUNY) Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching and an active member of the International Textile and Apparel Association (ITAA) and the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (AATCC). Meital Peleg Mizrachi, Ph.D., is an adjunct faculty member at UConn and postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Economics at Yale University, where she conducts research in the realm of sustainable fashion with a particular focus on regulation and textile waste. Her ongoing research initiatives encompass the assessment of policies within the New York Fashion Act—a pioneering global regulation in the fashion industry—and the exploration of textile waste issues in Ghana, often resulting from clothing donations.   Swayam Sampurna Panigrahi, Ph.D., is a Fulbrighter currently hosted at the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute, University of Connecticut, where she is pursuing a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Fellowship since May 2025. Her research lies at the intersection of sustainable supply chains and business and human rights, with a specific focus on labor practices and human rights due diligence in the textile and apparel sectors of India and the United States. Back home, Dr. Panigrahi is an Assistant Professor in the Operations Management department of IFMR Graduate School of Business, Krea University, India. About the Discussants Rachel Chambers – Assistant Professor of Business Law, UConn School of Business; Director of the Business and Human Rights Initiative. Shareen Hertel – Professor of Political Science and Human Rights, UConn; Director of the Research Program on Economic & Social Rights.

Our Sponsors This event is hosted by the Business & Human Rights Initiative (BHRI) and co-sponsored by the Research Program on Economic & Social Rights (ESRG) at the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute. Part of the 2025-26 ‘Why Human Rights Matter’ series.

Klaus Larres--"War & ITS DISCONTENTS: The Wars in Iran & Ukraine and their Global Repercussions": April 1, 2026

 

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  Dr Klaus Larres, Richard M Krasno Distinguished Professor of History & International Affairs at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, USA, and the Director of the Krasno Global Affairs & Business Council/Krasno Global Events Series has announced the first of the Krasno Lecture Zoom events of 2026:"War & ITS DISCONTENTS: The Wars in Iran & Ukraine and their Global Repercussions": April 1, 2026, featuring Ian Brzezinski, (Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council; former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense) in conversation with Prof. Klaus Larres (UNC-Chapel Hill). Here is the announcement:

PLEASE JOIN US on Wednesday, April 1, 5.30pm, by Zoom — ALL WELCOME — open to the public

Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Ian Brzezinski is one of the nation's leading defense and military analysts. He will analyze the military and political developments in Ukraine and Iran and the role of NATO. He will provide us with some information regarding whether or not these terrible wars can be settled soon.

For Ian Brzezinski's impressive bio, see our website HERE

This is an online event only • ZOOM LINK: https://zoom.us/j/98072415115 (no registration or RSVP necessary)

 

“ESG in the Boardroom and Shareholder Proposals” April 28 | 2:00 to 5:30 pm | Wilmington

 

Image generated with ChatGPT

 Delighted to pass along this announcement of a panel discussion,  “ESG in the Boardroom and Shareholder Proposals” April 28 | 2:00 to 5:30 pm | Wilmington.

Now in its fifth year, our ESG in the Boardroom program returns, hosted by Richards, Layton & Finger. As proxy season winds down, this will offer among the first and best informed gatherings to tally results and consider what the year’s debates mean for boards.
John White (Cravath) (Co-Moderator); Larry Cunningham (Weinberg; PubCo Director) (Co-Moderator); Peggy Foran (PubCo Director); Andrew Jones (The Conference Board); Tom Riesenberg (Ceres); Jane Sadowsky (PubCo Director); Christina Thomas (SEC); Paul Washington (Society for Corp. Gov.); John Mark Zeberkiewicz (Richards); Jennifer Zepralka (Mayer Brown); and Leo Strine (Wachtell, U. Penn.)

Register for the program here

 

“一国两制”下香港维护国家安全的实践 [The Practice of Safeguarding National Security in Hong Kong Under "One Country, Two Systems" February 13, 2026, 22:42]

 

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In May 2020, as the Hong Kong National Security Law was being revealed, I noted its foundations and consequences:

It is the voices of those who will stay, rather than the others, that perhaps ought to be given greater weight by those with the power to make decisions about the issues. The voices of those that will stay ought to be reassured, they are told, by the marginal effect, the intended national security measures, will have on them. “A new national security law tailor-made for Hong Kong will only target “a small group of people” to plug a legal loophole exposed by violent anti-government protests in the city and will not affect the livelihood of ordinary citizens, Vice-Premier Han Zheng has assured local deputies to Beijing’s top advisory body.”11
And, indeed, the national security law draft fits nicely into the response developed by the central authorities since the start of the protests in June 2019, that sought to develop a taxonomy of Hong Kong people distinguishing between those who were committed to Hong Kong on its terms, and everyone else. National security offers a deeply developed taxonomic base founded on important notions of patriotism. And patriotism, in turn, could be managed in a way that welcomes patriots into the nation under the protection of the national security law, excludes others, and manages the rest as foreigners whose protection is dependent on the state of relations between state officials and their correspondents abroad.  (Larry Catá Backer, Hong Kong Between One Country and Two Systems: Essays on the Year that Transformed the Hong Kong SAR 2019-2020 (2021), p. 325 quoting in part Natalie Wong , Gary Cheung and Lilian Cheng, “Two Sessions 2020: Hong Kong national security law will only target ‘small group of people’, Vice-Premier Han Zheng says as Beijing hits back at critics,” South China Morning Post 23 May 2020)).

 Over the last half decade or so, the implications of this start, the elaboration of this framework, has become as clear, and as clearly directed, as one might have seen coming in 2020.  One measure of that trajectory, in its pacing and directing, might be gleaned by the Chinese State Cοuncil's periodic White Papers on Hong Kong.  These are foreigner-facing performances, or perhaps announcements, projected outward from China and directed onto the global stage, with special focus toward foreigners and their elites, some of whom may still harbor an eagerness to "re-boot" their discourse around the special status of Hong Kong in international space, one that cane too late in the end. On 10 February 2026, the Chinese State Council announced (in English) the release of its latest White Paper on Hong Kong: China releases white paper on Hong Kong's efforts in safeguarding national security under One Country, Two Systems framework. It sought to summarize the text of the much longer White Paper (in English as Hong Kong: Safeguarding China's National Security Under the Framework of One Country, Two Systems; in Chinese “一国两制”下香港维护国家安全的实践 ; from the website of the Chinese Embassy to the United States). 

And, indeed, the struggle against foreign interference and what the Chinese authorities see as an unrelenting effort to detach Hong Kong from the rest of the nation, that produced both the 2026 White Paper and the need and justification for the National Security Law. Thus the White Paper Preface notes: 

Since its return to China, the goal of the central government and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) has always been to develop a stable and prosperous Hong Kong, but our effort has been obstructed and undermined by anti-China agitators in Hong Kong and hostile external forces, who have employed all possible means in their attempt to turn Hong Kong into an independent or semi-independent political entity, severely challenging the One Country, Two Systems principle. The struggle to safeguard national security in Hong Kong is persistent. (Preface)

Nonetheless there is a positive as well as defensive objective. National Security  frameworks  are not just produced to defend against foreigners but also to ensure domestic prosperity. The White Paper's Preface explains the reasons for its publication: "The Chinese government is publishing this white paper to review Hong Kong's endeavors in safeguarding national security and the experience and insights gained in the process, and also to clear up confusion and misunderstandings surrounding the issue to build consensus, and to ensure the high-quality development of the policy of One Country, Two Systems with high-standard security." To these ends the White Paper is divided into five sections: I. An Unrelenting Fight for Safeguarding National Security in Hong Kong; II. The Central Government's Fundamental Responsibility for National Security Matters Concerning Hong Kong; III. The HKSAR's Achievements in Fulfilling Its Constitutional Responsibility for Safeguarding National Security: IV. Hong Kong: From Disorder to Stability and Prosperity; and V. Creating High-Standard Security for High-Quality Development of the One Country, Two Systems Policy.

The Summary in the Press Release, which will likely be what most people read (rather than the 18 page White Paper itself), and thus serve as its authoritative reductive element (and the elements that Chinese officials might wish emphasized) described its thrust this way:

Consisting of five parts in addition to a preface and a conclusion, the white paper details the unrelenting fight for safeguarding national security in Hong Kong and the central government's fundamental responsibility for national security matters concerning Hong Kong.  It also expounds on the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR)'s achievements in fulfilling its constitutional responsibility for safeguarding national security, Hong Kong's transition from disorder to stability and prosperity, and efforts in creating high-standard security for high-quality development of the One Country, Two Systems policy. (China releases white paper on Hong Kong's efforts in safeguarding national security under One Country, Two Systems framework)

These, of course, served as the central themes of Chinese discourse developed to a fine point during and around the unrest in Hong Kong in 2019-2020 until COVID-19 rather than its own forces, intervened in  sort of miraculous way, to collapse the unrest and to provide another means of developing measures for managing large bodies of a population. 

The principal element, and one central to the structuring  of the cognitive ordering of reality for officials is the fundamental tension between order and prosperity, on the one hand, and chaos and disorder on the other. Embedded within that are the foundational driving force of the principles now built into socialist modernization memorialized in the 3rd and 4th Plenum of the 20th CPC Congress. These were themes discursively foregrounded by the Chinese General Secretary of the CPC by the end of 2019 in the context of the Hong Kong protests, and they have served in more generalized form since then. And, of course, the foundational understanding of One Country Two Systems as focused on economic rather than political variation (see essays in Hong Kong Between One Country and Two Systems). Much of this tends to be discounted outside of China, producing the sort of distorted and fantasy analysis that, through a pragmatic lens (anyway) does few much good (however that concept is measured or understood).  

And then, the White Paper picks up and elaborates the fundamental element of People's Democratic Dictatorship (Mao Zedong, On the Peoples Democratic Dictatorship (1949)), through the discourse of ruling through a patriotic front, a state of governance with respect to the fulfillment of which a National Security Law is a necessary element. 

The white paper says that the central government has applied a holistic approach to national security, and effectively exercised overall jurisdiction over the HKSAR in accordance with the country's Constitution and the HKSAR's Basic Law. It has enacted the Law on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region -- which has been enforced in the region -- and ensured that Hong Kong is administered by patriots. The central government supports the HKSAR in fulfilling its constitutional responsibility to safeguard national security by effectively preventing, halting, and punishing any activities that endanger national security, according to the white paper. (China releases white paper on Hong Kong's efforts in safeguarding national security under One Country, Two Systems framework).

The HKSAR is administered; it is administered by patriots. Patriotic elements become the core of democratic elements, as democracy is practiced within China, though with some variation given the historical context of Hong Kong and the goal of integration by the 2040s--endogenous and consultative, with an element of electoral functions in the constitution of its legislative organs (“Whole Process People’s Democracy” (全过程人民民主) as Applied Constitutionalism: Linking People to Governing Institutions through Socialist Constitutional Democracy and Leninist Political Parties). This is the core element of the White Paper's Section IV (Hong Kong: From Disorder to Stability and Prosperity).

The contemporary development, probably the more significant part of the White Paper beyond the affirmation of the discursive and operational framework for HKSAR developed in 2019-202, is its incorporation into the trajectories and expectations , as well as the analytical lens, of socialist modernization in China's New Era of historical development. That is a topic taken up in the White Paper's Section V. Nonetheless, that embedding has a quite distinctive Hong Kong element that is worth  foregrounding.

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Security is a prerequisite for development, and development provides a guarantee for security. A firm commitment is required to both safeguard security and advance development. Hong Kong's unique status and strengths have formed through development, and their consolidation and improvement will also be achieved through it. * * * Under the new circumstances, a dynamic balance between development and security should be achieved so that the two reinforce each other. Innovation should be promoted while risks are prevented. Hong Kong's unique status and strengths should be consolidated and boosted, and new driving forces for development should be continuously strengthened. Greater attention should be given to security in unconventional areas such as finance, shipping, trade, and the protection of overseas interests. Intervention and sabotage by hostile external forces must be guarded against, and the systems and mechanisms for countering foreign sanctions, intervention, and long-arm jurisdiction should be further improved. Risk monitoring and early warning systems should be improved to effectively defuse major risks, so as to achieve high-quality economic development and maintain social stability in Hong Kong. White Paper: Creating High-Standard Security for High-Quality Development of the One Country, Two Systems Policy).

This concept now appears not just in the context of Hong Kong but generally within emerging trade and investment regimes elsewhere. National Security has, indeed, become the critical element of global relations for some of the principal trading regions. Consider the U.S. version:

Together with the National Security Strategy of the United States for 2025 (November 2025) (discussed here: America First as the Essence of National Security and the American Post-Colonial 'Howl': Reflections on the 2025 National Security Strategy of the United States (2025)) and the U.S. Department of State Agency Strategic Plan Fiscal Years 2026-2030 (January 2026) discussed here: Reflections on the Normative-Institutional Architecture of America First: U.S. State Department "Agency Strategic Plan: Fiscal Years 2026-2030, the 2026 National Defense Strategy rounds out the elaboration of the America First basic political line of the Republic when it comes to the role and focus of the Republic's external relations with its (re) focus on the general contradiction of the Republic in its "new era of historical development" from the now foundational orienting lens of the protection and elaboration of a transactional ordering framework--the fundamental need of ensuring peace (the territorial space of a transactional universe projected outward and directed inward) for the appropriate forward movement along the path to the realization of the Republic's rebirth in its new golden age. (Fleshing Out the America First Framework as Peace Through Strength Projections: Brief Reflections on the 2026 National Defense Strategy (US Department of War January 2026))

Where does that leave us? The White Paper emphasizes the critical element of national security at the core of national development. It suggests that socialist modernization, even in its HKSAR variations, cannot be achieved except as a function of national security. And it suggests that national security is not possible without socialist modernization. What one now encounters is the emergence of the national security State of which China provides one, but by no lams the only, variation on this theme for the constitution of political economic systems form the 3rd decade of the 21st century. 

 

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The Press Release (English), and the Chinese and English Text of the White Paper follow below.