Saturday, July 31, 2021

Domingo Amuchastegui «Cambiamos o nos hundimos» ["We Change or We Sink"]--The Current Central Contradiction of Cuban Society Under Current Conditions

 

Cambiamos

Like all things that have even the slightest connection with Cuba, the popular protests of the Cuban masses that erupted in globally noticed form on 11 July 2021 have presented the situation in Cuba in very specific and ideologically conscious forms. It is one given particularly pointed discursive form in the shadow of the intensifying disagreements between the Cuban state and its artistic and intellectual communities since the reinforcement of Leninist discipline on their work, and spiced by the divisions among the U.S. intellectual left (the U.S. right is divided but its discourse does not drive policy in the US at the moment),  The same is true of the countermeasures--discursive and physical--of the Cuban state apparatus. Both discursive approaches tend to skew analysis if only because analysis has bee aligned with political and ideological objectives at least since the ate 1950s. In all of this Cuba continues to play its critical global role as an abstract terrain into which other materialize their own fantasies about idealized political normative realities.

It is in this quite lively and heated context that Domingo Amuchastegui has published a clear eyed analysis that is worth reading. I agree substantially with its viewpoint and assessments. I particularly appreciated the subtext: that the reason that things remain unchanged for the last 40 years or so is because it is in the interests of the major players (and their intellectual servants) to ensure that everyone is committed to change but that change does not occur. The bottom line, as it always tends to be in these erupts of popular protest, revolves at a conceptual level around battles for control of the narrative of representation, of oppression, and of legitimacy offering solutions (abstract or concrete.  Domingo notes that this narrative remains up for grabs.
On the other hand, both parties claim the monopoly of embodying "the people" [its demos]. Big mistake. Vast segments of the polity populate both sides of this conflict. There are thousands of Cubans protesting and thousands still loyal to the government; a scenario that recalls that of "masses against masses." Such polarization stems from the current situation of hardships, extreme shortages, total lack of incentives (both material and socio-cultural), dollarization (beyond what is usual in the Cuban context) and, in particular, the reaction to the effects of the so-called «Ordenamiento».
That is, of course, less obvious to most people than I would have thought possible, but people tend to be blinded by their desires—and so both left and right (and especially in this country what passes for its intelligentsia) can be easily managed with the appropriate inducements. And Cuba has been an ideological fetish object for consumption by global intellectuals (of all political schools) since 1959. The current situation in Cuba has produced a stability (with the appearance of dynamic possibilities) that serves those who have made careers or fortunes or achieved positions of prominence on their maintenance.  The cultivation of hope, and the jabbing of the status quo at the margins is a very profitable endeavor for everyone on all sides of the  conflict.  The overarching themes are frustration.  And the undertones of that frustration tend to be avoided precisely because of the ideological investment in the resolution of the "problem" of Cuba by the antagonists on both sides of the Straits of Florida. Those undertones underline the constant disjunctions between what the antagonists say (their discursive positions) and what they do (their performance of meaning).

On the other hand, and here Domingo and I tend to disagree; I still believe the Cuban state apparatus will follow some contextually appropriate variant of the Hong Kong playbook (because that is what they want and because the utility of that approach is likely being whispered in the ears of those with authority over such matters in Cuba by those whose whisperings tend to be influential). That playbook involves patience, provocations on the ground to change the optics, a strong focus on discourse and optics (the listening sessions with local academics was a nice touch); and then discipline of everyone identified as a "troublemaker" or "instigator" certainly since 11 July, especially those who it may be worth making an example (and those who have not made some sort of accommodating arrangement with the state or PCC).  And the efforts of intellectuals to foment some sort of "internationalism form below" will meet the same fate as the similar movement toward international autonomy within sovereignty movement at the heart of the Hong Kong street protests--especially given the anemic support from international actors "from above." But again ideology and the fantasy-fetish that is the "ideal-ideal" of Cuba drives these actions on both sides.
 
I think that Domingo's objection that might be made to this line of reasoning also has power: that Cuba is not HK and the local conditions and historical circumstances will not produce a similar result. That also is correct I think—but it will not prevent people from trying the HK approach—especially those very panicked members of the Cuban nomenklatura who refuse to face the changing economic and social conditions that their lack of vision since the VIth Congress has produced. For them this is personal, ironically in the same way that it has become personal for the masses on the streets (once one wades through the post hoc ideological discourse that is packaged for the consumption by prospective allies). And it ia always worth remembering that Raul Castro and the Cuban military establishment (FAR) have not yet disappeared.  Domingo is absolutely correct in noting that this is a problem brought on by the stubborn intransigence of the Communist Party itself--not merely one of implementation, but of a deliberately rigid dogmatism that refused to acknowledge the emerging realities even as other Marxist Leninist states showed that this was not merely possible but power reinforcing in ways appealing to the sensibilities of developing states (discussed at length HERE).  What made this intransigence tragic was that any number of officials have understood this since almost the beginning of the 21st century but have been unable to move the core Party leadership. U.S. policy provides the cover. . . and the excuse (echoed by nomenklatura sympathizers in the US Congress and the social movement intelligentsia in the US. . . an ironic pity) . . . but is it its cause. That lies squarely with the leadership whose choices and ideological risk aversion has brought current conditions to this point. 
 
Domingo's discussion of this point is worth careful consideration. His closing suggestion, that "The short term will be decisive, and it will be undertaken on the basis of the forgotten premise that: 'We change or we sink'" is nicely juxtaposed against the action of decades by the state and other actors.  It is a reminder that explosions occur in an instant, but that its character is the product of layers of decisions, of personal and institutional politics, of changes caused by or exogenous to, the society now confronted by the central contradictions all of this actions finally bring to their decisive stage. In this case the central contradiction  is not those critical to the development of Chinese Marxist Leninism (class struggle to the development of productive forces to the more equitable distribution of social goods). It is instead this: the alignment of the political vanguard with its people, and of its ideology with the conditions of the present historical era.The failure of the Party's leadership to do either (or to do them well, even though its leaders know very well what must be done) will contribute to the factors that will determine a decisive outcome in the short term.

The essay was originally published in Spanish in the blog La Joven Cuba, auspiciously enough on the 26th July 2021 (a very important date in the Cuban revolutiobary calendar which marks this year the 68th anniversary of the Fidel Castro led raid on the Moncada Barracks that marks the start of the revolutionary movement).  La Joven Cuba was started by students at the University of Matanzas in 2010. It describes itself as "un proyecto de análisis e incidencia política en Cuba con más de una década de historia. Sus miembros y colaboradores se extienden por varias provincias de la isla, América Latina y Estados Unidos." (a project of analysis and political events in Cuba with more than a decade of history. Its members and collaborators can be found in several provinces of the island, Latin America and the United States. LJC emerged in 2010 as a blog based at the University of Matanzas). 

 
It is republished here with permission, along with my translation of the original Spanish into English. 
 
Domingo Amuchastegui has had a long and distinguished career. He has served as Cuba's Chargé d'Affaires in Guatemala, was Department Head of Socialist Countries at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Department Head of the Organization Departament at the Tricontinental Organization (1960s-70s), Chief Analyst in the Intelligence Directorate and "Liberación", and a Professor of Contemporary History and Regional Conflicts at the Universidad Pedagógica and the Instituto Superior de Relaciones Internacionales (Cuba). He is the author of Historia Contemporánea de Asia y Africa (4 volumes), Palestina: Dimensiones de un Conflicto, Angola in the XX Century (1988)and the co-author of Intelligence and the Cuban Missile Crisis. In addition he has written hundred of articles and essays for Cuba News, Cuba Standard, and various Cuban publications. He participated in fact-finding missions throughout Africa, Asia and Chile, served as Chief analyst during Fidel Castro's visit to Chile and adviser to the Angolan Government (1986-1988). He has resided in the United States since 1994.

 
 


Friday, July 30, 2021

16. Conversations About the Book "Hong Kong Between 'One Country' and 'Two Systems': Chapter 15 (Tuesday 18 September 2019) “Two Systems” Internationalism: Congressional-Executive Commission on China Hearings on "Hong Kong’s Summer of Discontent and U.S. Policy Responses"


 
Pix Credit HERE


“言有尽而意无穷” [Words and meanings are endless]. 

In the run up to the book launch scheduled for 13 July 2021 (registration required but free HERE), the folks at Little Sir Press have organized a series of short conversations about my new book, "Hong Kong Between 'One Country' and 'Two Systems'." 

About the Book: Hong Kong Between “One Country” and “Two Systems” examines the battle of ideas that started with the June 2019 anti-extradition law protests and ended with the enactment of the National Security and National Anthem Laws a year later. At the center of these battles was the “One Country, Two Systems” principle. By June 2020, the meaning of that principle was highly contested, with Chinese authorities taking decisive steps to implement their own understanding of the principle and its normative foundations , and the international community taking countermeasures. All of this occurred well before the 2047 end of the 1985 Sino-British Joint Declaration (中英联合声明) that had been the blueprint for the return of Hong Kong to China. Between these events, global actors battled for control of the narrative and of the meaning of the governing principles that were meant to frame the scope and character of Hong Kong’s autonomy within China. The book critically examines the conflict of words between Hong Kong protesters, the Chinese central and local authorities, and important elements of the international community. This decisive discursive contest paralleled the fighting for control of the streets and that pitted protesters and the international community that supported them against the central authorities of China and Hong Kong local authorities. In the end the Chinese central authorities largely prevailed in the discursive realm as well as on the streets. Their victory was aided, in part by the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. But their triumph also produced the seeds of a new and potentially stronger international constitutional discourse that may reduce the magnitude and scope of that success. These essays were written as the events unfolded. Together the essays analytically chronicle the discursive battles that were fought, won and lost, between June 2019 and June 2020. Without an underlying political or polemical agenda, the essays retain the freshness of the moment, reflecting the uncertainties of the time as events unfolded. What was won on the streets of Hong Kong from June to December 2019, the public and physical manifestation of a principled internationalist and liberal democratic narrative of self-determination, and of civil and political rights, was lost by June 2020 within a cage of authoritative legality legitimated through the resurgence of the normative authority of the state and the application of a strong and coherent expression of the principled narrative of its Marxist-Leninist constitutional order. Ironically enough, both political ideologies emerged stronger and more coherent from the conflict, each now better prepared for the next.

The book may be purchased through AMAZON (kindle and paperback), 

I am delighted, then, to make available the next in the series of video recordings of conversations about the book with my former research assistant Matthew McQuilla (Penn State International Affairs MIA 2021). Today we discuss Chapter 15 (Tuesday 18 September 2019) “Two Systems” Internationalism: Congressional-Executive Commission on China Hearings on "Hong Kong’s Summer of Discontent and U.S. Policy Responses."

Pix Credit HERE

This Chapter marks the first real emergence of something that begins to loo like a coherent counter discourse to the discursive narratives developed by the Chinese central authorities since June 2019. It was odd for a number of reasons. First it was driven by the United States rather than by the U.K. Second, it was grounded on internationalism and the conception of international treaties imposing constitutional constraints on the exercise of national sovereignty (even when that sovereignty was undisputed). And it was driven as well from the oddest of sources, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China,rather than by the President of the State Department. Nonetheless, the CECC intervention represented the first time the sensibilities of the liberal democratic camp were (finally) exposed.  

These are the sensibilities that underlie both the international community’s approach to the protests in Hong Kong and to its own perceptions about the status of Hong Kong . It is grounded in a normative internationalism memorialized in hard and soft law produced by and through the U.N. and regional systems of state collectives that present both collective normative authority and a set of constraints on national action.That grounding is meant to produce the ideal toward which all states aspire and with respect to which all states have a duty to help one another attain. In some respects it provides the mirror image of the Marxist internationalism emerging in its forms in the New Era of Chinese historical development under Xi Jinping (sometimes referenced as “socialist internationalism”and more traditionally in Western Marxist thought as proletarian internationalism). For that reason it has produced--though very late given the transparency of this process, fear and caution on the part of vanguard elements of the liberal democratic camp. And perhaps more importantly, it made visible the connections between the discursive outlooks and perceptions of elements of the Hong Kong protest movement with those of the liberal democratic and internationalist camps.  The interventions of several protest leaders would have dramatic effects in the form of countermeasures eventually adopted by the central authorities.  But its framework is exposed here first.  


Pix Credt HERE

 


 

The video of the conversation about Chapter 15 may be accessed HERE.

All conversations are posted to the Coalition for Peace & Ethics YouTube page and may be found on its Playlist: Talking About the Book: "Hong Kong Between 'One Country' and 'Two Systems'." All conversation videos are hosted by Little Sir Press. I hope you find the conversation of some use. 
 

 

A pre-publication version of some of the book chapters may be accessed (free) on the Book's webpage (here). All videos may also be accessed through the Little Sir Press Book Website HERE.

Wednesday, July 28, 2021

Posting New Discussion Draft: "Trust Platforms: The Digitalization of Corporate Governance and the Transformation of Trust in Polycentric Space"

 

Pix Credit HERE


I have been thinking about the way that digitalization has been transforming the institutional spaces through which humans operate and the cultural presumptions through which human collectives impose meaning on the world.  The transformations have been a long time coming, and they arrive unannounced. One of the most interesting areas of transformation touches on corporate governance in general, and the constitution of trust in particular.  Trust is an ancient concept intimately tied to perceptions of risk in interactions with institutions and institutional actors. It is also now aligned with fundamental cultural approaches to views of human nature and their transposition to institutional behavior. Where once those connections and alignments were personal and grounded in assumptions about character, now they are increasingly bound up in inferences (or judgments) derived from measurable actions, events or conditions that are judged against an ideal derived from standards that are relevant to assessing communities.
 
 
Pix Credit HERE
Digitalization has made that possible.  Compliance cultures and accountability regimes have made it acceptable. And trust remains a critical facet of effective corporate governance.  But it has become a critical aspect of inter and intra-institutional operations for a much wider constellation of communities, each of which approaches issues of trust, and the risk parameters that trust represents in their relationships with the institution and its activities. Trust has fractured as a concept, an object, and a framework for risk and relationship assessment. Compliance has also fractured, along with the standards used to measure governance and assess trustworthiness. Human rights due diligence, legal and business compliance, sustainability and climate change compliance each are grounded in standards of risk, mitigation and remedy that are distinctly centered on different data sets and affect different consumers of trust differently. 
 
 
Pix Credit HERE
 
In the process of these transformations, the components of corporate governance assessments, and the standards deployed to assess its effectiveness, have migrated. More than migrated, the conception of trust has shifted from trust in an enterprise or individual, to trust in the systems used to assess trustworthiness in that institution or individual for the functionally differentiated communities for whom this matters. Trust systems, then, appear to become more autonomous. And that autonomous system-object, now resides elsewhere; it resides in platforms. The components from which trust based assessments of 'good' corporate governance is made have become inputs and resources that are developed, utilized, produced and consumed not within an enterprise  but within platforms in which users--consumers, producers, and regulators of governance analysis factors can converge.  These platforms exist within and beyond the institution and the individuals who may be their objects. 

It was with the intent to work through some of these ideas that I produced an essay the discussion draft of which I am delighted to post here for comments. The essay is entitled "Trust Platforms: The Digitalization of Corporate Governance and the Transformation of Trust in Polycentric Space".

The ABSTRACT and INTRODUCTION follow below.  The discussion draft may be accessed HERE. 

Sunday, July 25, 2021

15. Conversations About the Book "Hong Kong Between 'One Country' and 'Two Systems': Chapter 14 (Monday 2 September 2019) ‘Two Systems’ Internationalism Against ‘One Country’ Nationalism--Reflections on the G7 Declaration and the (Re)Construction of New Era

 

“言有尽而意无穷” [Words and meanings are endless]. 

In the run up to the book launch scheduled for 13 July 2021 (registration required but free HERE), the folks at Little Sir Press have organized a series of short conversations about my new book, "Hong Kong Between 'One Country' and 'Two Systems'." 

About the Book: Hong Kong Between “One Country” and “Two Systems” examines the battle of ideas that started with the June 2019 anti-extradition law protests and ended with the enactment of the National Security and National Anthem Laws a year later. At the center of these battles was the “One Country, Two Systems” principle. By June 2020, the meaning of that principle was highly contested, with Chinese authorities taking decisive steps to implement their own understanding of the principle and its normative foundations , and the international community taking countermeasures. All of this occurred well before the 2047 end of the 1985 Sino-British Joint Declaration (中英联合声明) that had been the blueprint for the return of Hong Kong to China. Between these events, global actors battled for control of the narrative and of the meaning of the governing principles that were meant to frame the scope and character of Hong Kong’s autonomy within China. The book critically examines the conflict of words between Hong Kong protesters, the Chinese central and local authorities, and important elements of the international community. This decisive discursive contest paralleled the fighting for control of the streets and that pitted protesters and the international community that supported them against the central authorities of China and Hong Kong local authorities. In the end the Chinese central authorities largely prevailed in the discursive realm as well as on the streets. Their victory was aided, in part by the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. But their triumph also produced the seeds of a new and potentially stronger international constitutional discourse that may reduce the magnitude and scope of that success. These essays were written as the events unfolded. Together the essays analytically chronicle the discursive battles that were fought, won and lost, between June 2019 and June 2020. Without an underlying political or polemical agenda, the essays retain the freshness of the moment, reflecting the uncertainties of the time as events unfolded. What was won on the streets of Hong Kong from June to December 2019, the public and physical manifestation of a principled internationalist and liberal democratic narrative of self-determination, and of civil and political rights, was lost by June 2020 within a cage of authoritative legality legitimated through the resurgence of the normative authority of the state and the application of a strong and coherent expression of the principled narrative of its Marxist-Leninist constitutional order. Ironically enough, both political ideologies emerged stronger and more coherent from the conflict, each now better prepared for the next.

The book may be purchased through AMAZON (kindle and paperback), 

I am delighted, then, to make available the next in the series of video recordings of conversations about the book with my former research assistant Matthew McQuilla (Penn State International Affairs MIA 2021). Today we discuss Chapter 14 (Monday 2 September 2019) ‘Two Systems’ Internationalism Against ‘One Country’ Nationalism--Reflections on the G7 Declaration and the (Re)Construction of New Era.

This Chapter considers the character of the way that the international law dimension of the situation in Hong Kong re-emerged as an internationalist constitutional counter-narrative. It starts from the fairly bland statement about the situation in Hong Kong issued by the G7--"The G7 reaffirms the existence and importance of the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984 on Hong Kong and calls for violence to be avoided"-- and then considers the response of the central authorities. The G7 in its own way sought to re-inject notions of international constraints on the constitutional dimensions of the "Two Systems" elements of "One Country-Two Systems". It began what would eventually become the outline of an international scope to the constraining of constitutional authority without challenging the territorial sovereignty of a government over the territory to which these internationally developed constraints applied. Here, those international principles were alluded to as the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration. The G7 suggested that the document continued to have force. The Chinese response suggested a counter history in which the utility of that document and its international dimension came to a conclusion on the day that the lease to parts of Hong Kong lapsed and the rest was ceded back to China. It was the instrument, the bridge, through which absolute sovereignty was returned to China under an initial framework the implementation of which was left entirely to the discretion of Hong Kong's sovereign. The question is to what extent do the Hing Kong protestors think this possible, or think this at all; to what extent is the international community willing to make good on this promise with more than words uttered at fancy meetings of high stats people? The Chinese central authorities are banking on the likelihood that the protestors are incapable and the international community too timid, to make good on this. Are they right?

 

 The video of the conversation about Chapter 14 may be accessed HERE.

All conversations are posted to the Coalition for Peace & Ethics YouTube page and may be found on its Playlist: Talking About the Book: "Hong Kong Between 'One Country' and 'Two Systems'." All conversation videos are hosted by Little Sir Press. I hope you find the conversation of some use. 
 

 

A pre-publication version of some of the book chapters may be accessed (free) on the Book's webpage (here). All videos may also be accessed through the Little Sir Press Book Website HERE.

 

Friday, July 23, 2021

Leveraging the XXIV Winter Games in China Using Transnational Private Law Mechanisms Part II: Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) Commissioners Ask IOC President To Postpone and Relocate the 2022 Winter Olympics


 The Congressional-Executive Commission on China was created by the U.S. Congress in 2000 "with the legislative mandate to monitor human rights and the development of the rule of law in China, and to submit an annual report to the President and the Congress. The Commission consists of nine Senators, nine Members of the House of Representatives, and five senior Administration officials appointed by the President." (CECC About). The CECC FAQs provide useful information about the CECC. See CECC Frequently Asked Questions. They have developed positions on a number of issues.

CECC tends to serve as an excellent barometer of the thinking of political and academic elites in the United States about issues touching on China and the official American line developed in connection with those issues. As such it is an important source of information about the way official and academic sectors think about China. As one can imagine many of the positions of the CECC are critical of current Chinese policies and institutions (for some analysis see CECC).

Recently CECC has begun to coordinate, in concert with administrative departs (see Human Rights Due Diligence Comes to the United States: Xinjiang Supply Chain Business Advisory), its focus on soft law efforts (that is on efforts to influence the decision making and risk calculations under transnational private law) aimed at the conduct of US companies (especially those managing global production chains) under private law managed regimes of international norms grounded in human rights and sustainability, including standards not recognized in the home country itself. To that end, CECC announced that it "has invited the U.S.-based companies who sponsor the Olympics through The Olympic Partner (TOP ) Programme of the IOC to . . . [July 27, 2021 10:00am] hearing to address how they can leverage their influence to insist on concrete human rights improvements in the People’s Republic of China and how they will manage the material and reputational risks of being associated with an Olympic Games held in the midst of a genocide." (CECC, Press Release: Corporate Sponsorship of the 2022 Beijing Olympics). For a discussion of this effort see HERE

Now CECC has invoked yet another lever--this time not international soft law frameworks that change risk calculations for business--but instead the mechanisms of international private organizations to add another layer of pressure on the Chinese central authorities.  The focus this time is on the troubled International Olympic Committee, an organization that is not n a position to lose friends at the moment. It is a Swiss entity that describes itself as the 

"the guardian of the Olympic Games and the leader of the Olympic Movement. A truly global organisation, it acts as a catalyst for collaboration between all Olympic stakeholders, including the athletes, the National Olympic Committees, the International Federations, Organising Committees for the Olympic Games, the Worldwide Olympic Partners and Olympic broadcast partners. It also collaborates with public and private authorities including the United Nations and other international organisations." (HERE).  

It is the locus of the IOC at the intersection of public and private, and as the guardian of the very popular Olympic games, that provides the CECC with another lever in its campaign to advance its position on Chinese policies in Xinjiang.  The object here is to engage with public soft power--the management of the Olympic games--in furtherance of the U.S. position by adding pressure touching on a highly visible prestige event.  To that end, in a Press Release of 23 July 2021, the CECC announced: 

Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Representative James P. McGovern (D-MA), the Chair and Cochair, respectively, of the bipartisan and bicameral Congressional-Executive Commission on China, released today a letter to Thomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) asking him to postpone the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and to relocate them if the host government does not end its egregious human rights abuses, saying that “No Olympics should be held in a country whose government is committing genocide and crimes against humanity.” (CECC Press Release)

CECC, of course, is again focusing its energy on coordinated efforts, this time one that includes the uncoordinated but aligned efforts of other public and private actors. Some of these efforts have been long in the making: "More than 160 human rights groups around the world have signed a letter calling for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to reverse its decision to hold the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, citing allegations of widespread rights abuses by the Chinese government."  (CNN September 2020). Some efforts are quite recent. "Members of Congress’ Human Rights Commission, in a rare display of bipartisan unity, on Tuesday called on the International Olympic Committee to remove the 2022 Winter Olympics from Beijing, accusing the IOC and its corporate partners of being complicit in human rights violations by the Chinese government. " (Orange County Register May 2021). The Congressional action is particularly interesting because it also folds back on an intimation of complicity with global business interests supporting Chinese Olympic efforts under current circumstances. (Ibid). Complicity appears to be the mechanism that is increasing utilized in the deployment of the markets sector for public ends, and represents another step forward in the alignment between market activity and public purpose. 

These are, of course, the techniques of aggressive counter-engagement well refined by American elites during the Trump Administration.  They are also an increasingly useful example of the way that states may use the techniques of the Second Pillar of the United Nations Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights to good effect--and certainly to advance a normative-political agenda.  In a sense this represents the  fulfillment of some of the promise of the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights relating both to the obligations of state owned enterprises and to businesses from abroad that may have dealing with them and the state policies that they further (e.g., UNGP Principles 4-6, and 17).  Particularly relevance are two strategies that bear emphasis.  The first is the refinement of the use of complicity to drive risk calculations and to align business conduct in markets with state objectives.  The second is the importance for this effort of deploying multilateral institutions--and now especially private or hybrid institutions--to leverage aligned market-public policy objectives. In this context the Commentary to UNGP No. 10 is particularly relevant. "Collective action through multilateral institutions can help States level the playing field with regard to business respect for human rights, but it should do so by raising the performance of laggards. Cooperation between States, multilateral institutions and other stakeholders can also play an important role."

It bears noting, of course, that the Chinese central authorities are also fast learners.

 The text of the Press Release and the Letter follow:

Thursday, July 22, 2021

ESIL Interest Group on International Business and Human Rights Pre-Conference Workshop, "International Business and Human Rights: Changes in International Lawmaking" (8 September 2021)

 

With great thanks to its convenors--(1) Prof. Belen Olmos Giupponi, Kingston University, London; (2) Dr. Mara Tignino, University of Geneva ; (3) Dr. Mihaela Barnes, Visiting Fellow, Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, University of Cambridge; and (4) Prof. Angelica Bonfanti, University of Milan--I am delighted to pass along this announcement for a very exciting workshop organized by the ESIL Interest Group on International Business and Human Rights.  The Workshop, International Business and Human Rights: Changes in International Lawmaking, will be held on 8 September 2021.  The Workshop brings together academics and law practitioners to consider some of the most current issues in the field.  These include convergence, divergence and interconnectivity of domestic and international law; a closer look at private law ordering through the lens of the Palm Oil sector; a consideration of tipping points in regulatory principles; the role of intermediaries and investment treaties; and on complicity in the context of economic activities that produce both human rights wrongs and benefits.  

The announcement nicely frames the event:

On the occasion of the 16th ESIL Annual Conference on Changes in International Lawmaking: Actors, Processes, Impact the Interest Group on International Business and Human Rights invites its members and other interested academic and experts to join a discussion about recent changes in international lawmaking as applicable to international business and human rights.

BACKGROUND

The theme of the 16th ESIL Annual Conference retrospectively takes us to a time when international lawmaking and its national implementation was relatively easy to understand and control. At that time, international lawmaking took place primarily through international agreements that were initiated, negotiated and concluded via diplomatic channels and then submitted to national legislators for legislative approval or underwent though other processes of domestication. This status quo could not be more different now. Today international lawmaking includes not only new mechanisms, but also new actors such as international government organisations, inter-agency networks, non-governmental organisations, corporations and other private entities. Against this background, the Workshop organized by the ESIL Interest Group on International Business and Human Rights seeks to re- examine changes in international lawmaking, as applicable to international business and human rights. The aim of the Workshop is to assess how, and to what extent new forms of lawmaking, new mechanisms and new actors impacts on the field of international business and human rights in general.

 

The Program follows.  The event, originally scheduled as an  in person program has been converted into a virtual event out of an abundance of caution given the contemporary situation.

The Program follows.

 

Wednesday, July 21, 2021

14. Conversations About the Book "Hong Kong Between 'One Country' and 'Two Systems': Chapter 13 (Thursday 22 August 2019) Reflections on Zheng Yongnian: "The Capital of Protests" Who Controls Hong Kong?" [郑永年:“抗议之都” 谁主香港?]

 


“言有尽而意无穷” [Words and meanings are endless]. 

In the run up to the book launch scheduled for 13 July 2021 (registration required but free HERE), the folks at Little Sir Press have organized a series of short conversations about my new book, "Hong Kong Between 'One Country' and 'Two Systems'." 

About the Book: Hong Kong Between “One Country” and “Two Systems” examines the battle of ideas that started with the June 2019 anti-extradition law protests and ended with the enactment of the National Security and National Anthem Laws a year later. At the center of these battles was the “One Country, Two Systems” principle. By June 2020, the meaning of that principle was highly contested, with Chinese authorities taking decisive steps to implement their own understanding of the principle and its normative foundations , and the international community taking countermeasures. All of this occurred well before the 2047 end of the 1985 Sino-British Joint Declaration (中英联合声明) that had been the blueprint for the return of Hong Kong to China. Between these events, global actors battled for control of the narrative and of the meaning of the governing principles that were meant to frame the scope and character of Hong Kong’s autonomy within China. The book critically examines the conflict of words between Hong Kong protesters, the Chinese central and local authorities, and important elements of the international community. This decisive discursive contest paralleled the fighting for control of the streets and that pitted protesters and the international community that supported them against the central authorities of China and Hong Kong local authorities. In the end the Chinese central authorities largely prevailed in the discursive realm as well as on the streets. Their victory was aided, in part by the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. But their triumph also produced the seeds of a new and potentially stronger international constitutional discourse that may reduce the magnitude and scope of that success. These essays were written as the events unfolded. Together the essays analytically chronicle the discursive battles that were fought, won and lost, between June 2019 and June 2020. Without an underlying political or polemical agenda, the essays retain the freshness of the moment, reflecting the uncertainties of the time as events unfolded. What was won on the streets of Hong Kong from June to December 2019, the public and physical manifestation of a principled internationalist and liberal democratic narrative of self-determination, and of civil and political rights, was lost by June 2020 within a cage of authoritative legality legitimated through the resurgence of the normative authority of the state and the application of a strong and coherent expression of the principled narrative of its Marxist-Leninist constitutional order. Ironically enough, both political ideologies emerged stronger and more coherent from the conflict, each now better prepared for the next.

The book may be purchased through AMAZON (kindle and paperback), 

I am delighted, then, to make available the next in the series of video recordings of conversations about the book with my former research assistant Matthew McQuilla (Penn State International Affairs MIA 2021). Today we discuss Chapter 13 (Thursday 22 August 2019) Reflections on Zheng Yongnian: "The Capital of Protests" Who Controls Hong Kong?" [郑永年:“抗议之都” 谁主香港?].

The chapter is particularly interesting for its development, in academic circles of the concept, first articulated by Xi Jinping, that the central authorities were "committed to the policy for the Hong Kong people to govern Hong Kong and the Macao people to govern Macao, with patriots playing the principal role. We will develop and strengthen the ranks of patriots who love both our country and their regions, and foster greater patriotism and a stronger sense of national identity among the people in Hong Kong and Macao." (18 October 2018). In a sense, the development of this concept of a patriotic front of governance is tied to the more ancient notions of 鼎 (Dǐng) (an ancient three legged bronze cauldron; the throne or leadership "core"; or more broadly the state apparatus). Hong Kong is not the cauldron itself, or figuratively the throne (as itself a symbol of the authority given to the leadership "core" by the mandate of heaven), but rather an element of its content. It is, however, an element of the cauldron that itself has upset the harmony that the cauldron represents--it has upset the order of things by its own fundamental disorder. “To put it bluntly, there is only one fundamental problem in Hong Kong, that is: Who is Hong Kong?” That question suggests two key elements for the analysis that follows. The first is the cauldron itself. If China represents the cauldron right side up, then Hong Kong illustrates the consequences when the cauldron is turned upside down. Underlying this is a sense not just of imbalance in the natural order of things, of fundamental harmony, but of inversion. The cauldron turned upside down contains nothing, it spills its contents. The second references the contents of the cauldron--the core of leadership that shapes the cauldron itself. Here the cauldron upside carries a different connotation--that which ought to be at the periphery appears to become the core and the core is emptied of content. A cauldron that is upside down, a cauldron with an empty core of leadership, cannot be sustained.

 

 The video of the conversation about Chapter 13 may be accessed HERE.

All conversations are posted to the Coalition for Peace & Ethics YouTube page and may be found on its Playlist: Talking About the Book: "Hong Kong Between 'One Country' and 'Two Systems'." All conversation videos are hosted by Little Sir Press. I hope you find the conversation of some use. 
 

 

A pre-publication version of some of the book chapters may be accessed (free) on the Book's webpage (here). All videos may also be accessed through the Little Sir Press Book Website HERE.

Tuesday, July 20, 2021

2021 Virtual Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy: Theme and Program

 

 

The theme of this year’s conference is Cuba’s economic reforms, the impact of COVID and the VIII Congress of the Cuban Communist Party. Cuba is in a tremendous state of flux, one that is likely to affect all aspects of the society. No one can be sure how this will turn out, but ASCE’s members old and new have for more than 30 years brought understanding and analysis to the Cuban puzzle. That experience and familiarity with Cuba is needed more than ever as we note that our work is being widely read and watched by more people in government and on the Island. This year we will also focus on the Cuban diaspora. FIU’s Cuban Research Institute will take the lead in developing that part of the program. 

This year's program has been intensified by the protest movement that erupted in Cuba in early July, when "[t]housands of Cubans took to the streets on Sunday to protest a lack of food and medicine as the country undergoes a grave economic crisis aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic and US sanctions. Demonstrators complained about a lack of freedom and the worsening economic situation during the rare protests, according to people who spoke to CNN and videos from multiple cities, including capital Havana.
Many chanted for "freedom" and called for President Miguel Díaz-Canel to step down." (Cubans take to streets in rare protests over lack of freedoms and worsening economy).

The program follows. The program consists of six sessions spread over three days (12-14 August 2021) plus two Special Opne Microphone sessions to discuss the current situation in Cuba (on 12-13 August).

Registration information follows.  Registration is available for members of ASCE and those who pay the registration fee. More information forthcoming.  

Sunday, July 18, 2021

Leveraging the XXIV Winter Games in China Using Transnational Private Law Mechanisms: Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) to Hold Hearings on Corporate Sponsorship of the 2022 Beijing Olympics, Complicity and Leverage


Pix Credit Wall Street Journal

 



The Congressional-Executive Commission on China was created by the U.S. Congress in 2000 "with the legislative mandate to monitor human rights and the development of the rule of law in China, and to submit an annual report to the President and the Congress. The Commission consists of nine Senators, nine Members of the House of Representatives, and five senior Administration officials appointed by the President." (CECC About). The CECC FAQs provide useful information about the CECC. See CECC Frequently Asked Questions. They have developed positions on a number of issues.

CECC tends to serve as an excellent barometer of the thinking of political and academic elites in the United States about issues touching on China and the official American line developed in connection with those issues. As such it is an important source of information about the way official and academic sectors think about China. As one can imagine many of the positions of the CECC are critical of current Chinese policies and institutions (for some analysis see CECC).

Recently CECC has begun to coordinate, in concert with administrative departs (see Human Rights Due Diligence Comes to the United States: Xinjiang Supply Chain Business Advisory), its focus on soft law efforts (that is on efforts to influence the decision making and risk calculations under transnational private law) aimed at the conduct of US companies (especially those managing global production chains) under private law managed regimes of international norms grounded in human rights and sustainability, including standards not recognized in the home country itself. The object is to change the calculus of business and legal risk--and of the possibility of complicity related allegations--for production chains that include Chinese companies and more specifically companies with ties to or operations in Xinjiang.

To that end, CECC must enhance pressure (and thus change the risk parameters for business) from consumers and the financial community. It must seek to develop a narrative that embarrasses companies and invites critical "investigative news" projects from the press. It must seek, in effect, to threaten business relationships, markets, sales, and the costs of capital to US companies. But this is no straightforward calculus.
Sports and politics in China have proven a combustible mix in the past. Just ask the National Basketball Association, still struggling to regain full access to the market after the Houston Rockets’ general manager tweeted support for pro-independence activists in Hong Kong in 2019. . . President Biden has indicated he would not support a boycott that would stop American athletes from attending. Relocation isn’t in the cards, either. “We have exhausted that route, so we are going to focus on corporate sponsors,” said Ms. Arkin. The market forces dependent on the 2022 Games and its host country at large may prove resilient. Money talks. Or in this case, keeps silent. (2022 Beijing Olympic Games Loom as Test for Corporate Sponsors: Silence on human-rights issues risks alienating U.S. consumers; speaking up could earn the host nation’s ire (quoting in part Zumretay Arkin, the program and advocacy manager at the World Uyghur Congress)).

One gets a sense of the way that CECC is seeking to frame the narrative from the video it is circulating on its YouTube Channel: China, Genocide and the Olympics at which the participants suggested a variety of ways in which the Beijing Olympics could be leveraged.

More specifically, CECC has announced that it "has invited the U.S.-based companies who sponsor the Olympics through The Olympic Partner (TOP ) Programme of the IOC to . . . [July 27, 2021 10:00am] hearing to address how they can leverage their influence to insist on concrete human rights improvements in the People’s Republic of China and how they will manage the material and reputational risks of being associated with an Olympic Games held in the midst of a genocide." (CECC, Press Release: Corporate Sponsorship of the 2022 Beijing Olympics).

But this makes tremendous sense from the longer term perspective of distinguishing between imperial models (discussed HERE: Brief Refections on Emerging Global Trade Empires). The essence of the liberal democratic model is to operate through markets. Markets here leverage and project the individual rights that stand at the center of its economic-political model. The liberal democratic model, then, combines the collective meaning making of the therapeutic society, with the markets driven project of naturalizing normative principles in everyday activities. In both cases the result is individually driven but collectively disciplined. At its frontiers, of course it perverts itself--the so called shunning cultures of the left and the taboo barriers of the right (e.g., the dangerous farce that is this, and this). But within its broad center, it provides a broad space within which this interaction may produce deep projections of normative power expressed in action.; and a powerful one.


The full text of the Press Release follows with links.

 

13. Conversations About the Book "Hong Kong Between 'One Country' and 'Two Systems': Chapter 12 (Monday 19 August 2019) Resist-Reconcile (忤合 Wuhe):"Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Supporting Shenzhen's Pioneering Demonstration Zone with Chinese Characteristics" [中共中央国务院关于支持深圳建设中国特色社会主义先行示范区的意见 (二〇一九年八月九日)]

 

Pix Credit HERE

“言有尽而意无穷” [Words and meanings are endless]. 

In the run up to the book launch scheduled for 13 July 2021 (registration required but free HERE), the folks at Little Sir Press have organized a series of short conversations about my new book, "Hong Kong Between 'One Country' and 'Two Systems'." 

About the Book: Hong Kong Between “One Country” and “Two Systems” examines the battle of ideas that started with the June 2019 anti-extradition law protests and ended with the enactment of the National Security and National Anthem Laws a year later. At the center of these battles was the “One Country, Two Systems” principle. By June 2020, the meaning of that principle was highly contested, with Chinese authorities taking decisive steps to implement their own understanding of the principle and its normative foundations , and the international community taking countermeasures. All of this occurred well before the 2047 end of the 1985 Sino-British Joint Declaration (中英联合声明) that had been the blueprint for the return of Hong Kong to China. Between these events, global actors battled for control of the narrative and of the meaning of the governing principles that were meant to frame the scope and character of Hong Kong’s autonomy within China. The book critically examines the conflict of words between Hong Kong protesters, the Chinese central and local authorities, and important elements of the international community. This decisive discursive contest paralleled the fighting for control of the streets and that pitted protesters and the international community that supported them against the central authorities of China and Hong Kong local authorities. In the end the Chinese central authorities largely prevailed in the discursive realm as well as on the streets. Their victory was aided, in part by the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. But their triumph also produced the seeds of a new and potentially stronger international constitutional discourse that may reduce the magnitude and scope of that success. These essays were written as the events unfolded. Together the essays analytically chronicle the discursive battles that were fought, won and lost, between June 2019 and June 2020. Without an underlying political or polemical agenda, the essays retain the freshness of the moment, reflecting the uncertainties of the time as events unfolded. What was won on the streets of Hong Kong from June to December 2019, the public and physical manifestation of a principled internationalist and liberal democratic narrative of self-determination, and of civil and political rights, was lost by June 2020 within a cage of authoritative legality legitimated through the resurgence of the normative authority of the state and the application of a strong and coherent expression of the principled narrative of its Marxist-Leninist constitutional order. Ironically enough, both political ideologies emerged stronger and more coherent from the conflict, each now better prepared for the next.

The book may be purchased through AMAZON (kindle and paperback), 

I am delighted, then, to make available the next in the series of video recordings of conversations about the book with my former research assistant Matthew McQuilla (Penn State International Affairs MIA 2021). Today we discuss Chapter 12 (Monday 19 August 2019) Resist-Reconcile (忤合 Wuhe):"Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Supporting Shenzhen's Pioneering Demonstration Zone with Chinese Characteristics" [中共中央国务院关于支持深圳建设中国特色社会主义先行示范区的意见 (二〇一九年八月九日)]

What this chapter suggests is the importance of the rhetorical strategies of Resist-Reconcile (忤合 Wuhe) in the long arc of central authority strategies for the re-incorporation of Hong Kong into the heart of the nation. Resist-Reconcile (忤合 Wuhe) strategies are most apparent generally in Deng Xiaoping’s Reform and Opening Up strategies, and much more specifically illustrated in the ceding of autonomy for Hong Kong even as the central authorities began planning for the enveloping of that autonomy within a much greater integrated regional metropolis--one with Shenzhen at the center. One reconciled Hong Kong’s autonomy even as one resists its pull out of the Chinese orbit, and one waits. Hardly noticed because of its pace, the protests in Hong Kong now appear to have made the movement more transparent and perhaps accelerated To that end on 18 August 2019, via Xinhua News Agency, the authorities circulated "Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Supporting Shenzhen's Pioneering Demonstration Zone with Chinese Characteristics."  The strategic intent could not be clearer. The protests in Hong Kong now assume an altogether different framing perspective, as does the importance of the prosperity and stability principle at the heart of the response of central and local authorities. If Hong Kong is slowly to sink into the larger metropolis which is the Pearl River Basin, and if it is to be, perhaps, a second order entity within that metropolis (following Shenzhen), then the protests both interfere with that slow process and present an opportunity to more expeditiously reconcile the autonomy of Hong Kong with the realities of its place within the metropolitan center of the southern region of China.

 The video of the conversation about Chapter 12 may be accessed HERE.

All conversations are posted to the Coalition for Peace & Ethics YouTube page and may be found on its Playlist: Talking About the Book: "Hong Kong Between 'One Country' and 'Two Systems'." All conversation videos are hosted by Little Sir Press. I hope you find the conversation of some use. 
 

 

A pre-publication version of some of the book chapters may be accessed (free) on the Book's webpage (here). All videos may also be accessed through the Little Sir Press Book Website HERE.