The Imprimatur of Accolade From the Political Apparatus, President Trump Distributes "ICYMI: Celebrating President Trump’s Incredible First 100 Days"

 

Pix credit here

 

 President Trump has had a busy first hundred days. He and his staff (and accolades really belong to his staff who actually made all of this possible under the guidance and leadership with Mr. Trump as its core) have certainly produced a substantial amount of initiatives, actions, and to a lesser extent narratives, which are all meant to fulfill the promises and promise of the Trump First Administration, now seasoned with the insights of Mr. Trump's four years between terms. 

President Trump has not entirely ignored the narrative necessities of the actions he is undertaking. The difficulty, of course, is that narrative tends to be a product of deductive cognitive practice--one starts from a "vision" and then bends action to fit the "story". At its best, vision and story both interlink and serve as the engine for augmenting the "authority" of both. But that was the forte of President Trump's many rivals. 

President Trump's leadership, on the other hand, is the template of the phenomenologically directed merchant type, the fundamental operating system of which is inductively coded.  In English, though perhaps less meaningfully: President Trump's narrative is the sum of his actions.  It is that sum of activity that is and that describes the vision; and it is that vision of continuous action that is the action around which more action may be undertaken (MEMO: First 100 Days Economy).  And so on.  

Narrative is spiced by accolades--the sort of imprimatur that gives accretions of actions a license, and thus a sort of permission to continue, even if it adds little to substance. Accolade is especially critical to the action-oriented merchant "type" when it comes from those with power to affect the merchant.  It is in this sense that the publication, in the White House website, of  "ICYMI: Celebrating President Trump’s Incredible First 100 Days." As the Merriam-Webster Online dictionary has it, ICYMI is perhaps the perfect framing of  what follows--"It's what people say – or type, rather – when they want to point you in the direction of something interesting or enlightening that's available for your perusal online – in case you missed it." Accolades are meant to be shared.  In this case they are packaged. That packaging is also an action--the phenomenological merchant likes his endorsements well curated, and the merchant likes those endorsements focused on his product ("President Donald J. Trump has accomplished more in 100 days than most presidents do over an entire term — and he’s still just getting started." ICYMI, supra); narrative, in this case is for salespeople.  And how can blame him; especially where it serves in and as a necessary framing of an action narrative. Still, the accolades create a narrative of their own that, in the aggregate, suggests the relationship between those grandees of American life and the sum of the actions that have brought us  to the 100th day of this Presidency.

The text of "ICYMI: Celebrating President Trump’s Incredible First 100 Days" follows below.

 

Just Published--Journal of Contemporary China Vol. 34(153), with Focus on China-Japan Relations: Narratives, Nationalism, and the Taiwan Issue

 

 Happy to pass along an announcement by Suisheng Zhao (赵穗生), Professor (Denver) and Editor, Journal of Contemporary China (JCC) about the publication of the JCC's Vol. 34 Issue 153. The theme for this issue is "China-Japan Relations: Narratives, Nationalism, and the Taiwan Issue."

Authors titles and links follow below.

 

“The Future of a Smart Society with Chinese Marxist-Leninist Characteristics: Reflections on “Opinions on Completing/Improving the Social Credit System” issued by the General Offices of the State Council and the CPCCC”--Study Group Presentation PPT and Summary Essay (ECLResearch Hub)

 

 

 I was delighted to have been invited by Marianne von Bloomberg to present brief reflections on 中共中央办公厅国务院办公厅关于健全社会信用体系的意见 [Opinions of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council on Improving the Social Credit System~, the first significant high level general statement on Chinese social credit and social credit systems since 2014 (crude English translation of the Opinions here) to members of the Social Credit Study Group, European China Law Research Hub University of Cologne, Germany (virtual) 29 April 2025. 

My presentation was entitled “The Future of a Smart Society with Chinese Marxist-Leninist Characteristics: Reflections on “Opinions on Completing/Improving the Social Credit System” issued by the General Offices of the State Council and the CPCCC.” There are six opinions which together elaborate a comprehensive vision for social credit regimes.

The presentation focused on three primary areas. The first was to consider the context from which this new pronouncement, from a high Party organ, emerged.  The second was to consider carefully the Opinions document as an integrated whole, in itself and as a function of the context from which it emerged. The last area of focus was to suggest broader themes that emerge from the document, among them the tensions between structural conflict ( 外儒内法 [Confucianism on the Outside/Legalism on the Inside]) and its normative center, which remains grounded in notions of trust (信). In that context one can consider some of the contradictions, challenges, frameworks, and structures that might emerge from this new pronouncement.  The Opinions is short but quite dense.  And it must be read in light of the core documents of the 3rd Plenum's socialist modernization  project, its focus on high quality productivity, and its objectives in elaborating a  Socialist market economy (broadly understood).

The core of the Opinions, considered as a whole, is deeply attached to developing elaborations of Chinese Marxist-Leninism in its new era.  First, social credit must adhere to and express the ideological political-economic framework within which it is an instrument and an expression. [General Requirements [总体要求]] Within that framework, social credit will be undertaken comprehensively in all of the key areas of Chinese collective and individual organization.[Build a social credit system covering all types of entities [构建覆盖各类主体的社会信用体系] That system is, in turn, grounded in data, whose production, protection, and deployment must be coordinated through the state under the guidance of the Party and within the specifications of law created for that purpose.[Consolidate the data foundation of the social credit system [夯实社会信用体系数据基础]] All of this effort elaborates the still fundamental starting point for the elaboration of a social credit based system(s), the notion of trust, now understood in its political, economic, social, and cultural dimensions, though elaborated principally through the lens of socialist modernization (but again understanding that within socialist modernization is the principle that everything is a productive force).[Improve the trustworthiness incentive and dishonesty punishment mechanism [健全守信激励和失信惩戒机制] ] These measures directed toward those ends will fail in the absence of strong quality control measures.[Improve the supervision and governance mechanism based on credit [健全以信用为基础的监管和治理机制] ] And social credit serves no useful purpose if it is not intimately integrated into the improvement and deployment of productive forces in every sphere of social relations, but, given the imperatives of the contemporary general contradiction, which must be focused on economics and social behaviors.[Improve the marketization and socialization level of the social credit system [提高社会信用体系市场化社会化水平]] Thus understood and directed, social credit becomes useful when appropriately utilized and implemented.[Strengthen organization and implementation [加强组织实施] ] Put in this way, one might perhaps note the way in which the social credit regimes discussed will serve as template for every aspect of organized life whether within the state, private, or social sectors, and with equal application to domestic and international engagement. The challenge, of course, will be to transpose these theoretical engagements into something operational. And it is to those ends that much of the detail in the Opinion is devoted.

The PowerPoint of the presentation and the summary essay follow below and they may be accessed from the following links: ACCESS PPT HERE: Backer-Opinions_CPCC-SC_SCS4-2025; ACCESS SUMMARY PAPER HERE: Reflections on 中共中央办公厅国务院办公厅关于健全社会信用体系的意见.

 

President Trump Issues an Executive Order: "Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education"

 

Pix Credit ChatGPT ("produce an image in the style of a Renaissance painting of abusive action by administrators); I leave it to the reader to decide who fits which of the persons in the image--student, government official, accrediting organ, university

 

President Trump as been quite busy during the first months in office to rid himself of the several demons that pose a  substantial threat to his agenda, as well as those that have devoted tremendous energy toward the demonization of his (past) Administration and himself personally.  Perhaps, as well,  President Trump sees in these adversaries the networked interlinking of a shared agenda not merely antagonistic to his own (and that of his faction) but also one  quite willing to, as the years between 2020 and 2024 appeared to evidence to Mr. Trump at least, to destroy him personally and perhaps his family as well.  Not that any of this is unique; merely that, like the politics of the later Roman Republican (especially after the Gracchi brothers), it tended to apply the old rules and expectations in an increasingly exaggerated way that over a short period of time both transposed and corrupted them.  That, anyway, appears to perhaps be the view.

Among the factions that Mr. Trump might be forgiven for thinking have been arrayed against him, at an individual and institutional level, are the universities that dominate their industry and which and perhaps not without reason,, individually and collectively have been no friend to him (but see White House Initiative to Promote Excellence and Innovation at Historically Black Colleges and Universities). That, of course, is fair and is their right, one that they have exercised with great skill over the last century. In that light, in the light of politics, President Trump's actions can be seen as political revenge--that certainly is how the objects of President Trump's actions see it, and in this case especially the universities.

And they are feeling the pinch. On 23 April 2025 President Trump issued an Executive Order, Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education. What makes this action particularly interesting is the way that an older discourse--this time of misuse of funds and regulatory capture. 

Regulatory capture is a phenomenon where regulators become unduly influenced by the industries they are tasked with regulating. The genesis of this theory is in George Stigler’s seminal 1971 article, “The Theory of Economic Regulation,” in which he observed that “the machinery and power of the state” serve as persistent coercive forces, posing a “potential resource or threat to every industry.”[Stigler, George J. “The Theory of Economic Regulation.” The Bell Journal of Economics and Management Science 2, no. 1 (1971): 3–21, p. 3. https://doi.org/10.2307/3003160] Private sector entities have accordingly developed sophisticated means to co-opt regulatory power. Industry capture of regulatory bodies compromises regulators’ ability to safeguard the public good, in direct contravention of the democratic ideal of governance in the public interest. (Here)

While universities and their academics have been at the forefront of studying regulatory capture, especially by large economic enterprises, to the point that it has almost descended into cliché, it becomes far more interesting when the insights are attempted to be turned against the universities themselves. In this case, the relationship is between universities and accrediting agencies. 

The Executive Order, Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education, obliquely points in that direction in a context that has been foregrounded by this Administration--DEI.  What makes the Executive Order more interesting, however, is its focus, not on universities, but on the accrediting structures themselves--the gatekeepers to which the primary responsibility of accrediting has been delegated. And certainly Section 3 of the Executive Order appears well pointed in that direction, both Section 3(a) that points toward accreditation requirements, and Section 3(b) that seeks to reform system from the accreditor side. These, together are embedded in what the Trump Administration names its "Student-Oriented Accreditation.

But far more interesting (at least to some) might be justification of misuse of funds, or in the language of the merchant phenomenology of this administration, that universities so accredited, and on that basis as receptacles for federal outlays, have not been providing value for the money.

A group of higher education accreditors are the gatekeepers that decide which colleges and universities American students can spend the more than $100 billion in Federal student loans and Pell Grants dispersed each year. The accreditors’ job is to determine which institutions provide a quality education — and therefore merit accreditation. Unfortunately, accreditors have not only failed in this responsibility to students, families, and American taxpayers, but they have also abused their enormous authority.

Accreditors routinely approve institutions that are low-quality by the most important measures. The national six-year undergraduate graduation rate was an alarming 64 percent in 2020. Further, many accredited institutions offer undergraduate and graduate programs with a negative return on investment — almost 25 percent of bachelor’s degrees and more than 40 percent of master’s degrees — which may leave students financially worse off and in enormous debt by charging them exorbitant sums for a degree with very modest earnings potential. (Ibid., § 1).

Reform, then, is meant to "reform our dysfunctional accreditation system so that colleges and universities focus on delivering high-quality academic programs at a reasonable price." (Id). But it remains focused, at least initially on DEI. On the other hand thereis a bit of irony here: universities have been squeezing their own internal constituencies through a strategic refining of that same concept--value for dollars, as it moves away from tenure structures and develops an expensive administrative structure to better exploit its operational resources to its own ends. 

Most interesting of all is the underlying premise that fuels this project--the idea that one is not merely confronting regulatory capture, but abuse of power. That is the essence of Section 2 of the E.O. In this sense, the Trump Administration, and quite ironically, casts the university of the victim of the managerial failures of the accrediting gatekeepers. It is now necessary, according to them, to "hold accountable, including through denial, monitoring, suspension, or termination of accreditation recognition, accreditors who fail to meet the applicable recognition criteria or otherwise violate Federal law" (id. ¶2(a)), including by suspending or terminating accreditor status (id., §2(c )). Still, the E.O does direct federal agencies to take action against universities themselves for their own failures (id., §2(b)).

The text of the Executive Order, Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education, follows.

Un Ballo in Maschera; President Trump Issues Instructions: "Investigation into Unlawful “Straw Donor” and Foreign Contributions in American Elections"-- Text and Brief Reflections

 

Pix credit here

In systems of exogenous liberal (as well as Socialist) democracy, the performance and integrity of elections lies at the core of the legitimacy of the operation of the system and authenticates the delegation of power to individuals seized with the power of their various offices as specified in the organic documents of the political collective within which all of this performing takes place.  Buy exogenous, of course, one means a system of delegated popular authority to elected representatives who then undertake the exercise of political power, within systemic constraints and in accordance with the expectations of behavior, subject only to removal or defeat in the next election cycle. Popular consultations are neither mandatory nor embedded in the operating system of exogenous liberal democracy. The exception, of course, applies to that exception concoction around which a very large justificatory and protective jurisprudence has been crafted--the administrative organs of state, with respect to which there are no direct connection between popular election (the "mandate of heaven " for liberal democracy) and the officials vested with discretionary authority within their "bureaus."  For these organs, and only fairly recently, a system of passive consultative democracy has been crafted--but one that invites interested actors to deliver their views but does not require any other effort. 

The performance of elections, then, is the central performative element of liberal democracy in contemporary States that style themselves both liberal (in the classical sense) and democratic. And it is around issues of election integrity that much of the great destabilizing actions (undertaken in equal measure by the masses and their elites) of the last decade have arisen.  Integrity itself as a concept has broadened from the usual, crude, and still powerfully useful effort either to deny people a vote or to exclude individuals from office to the control over and management of the environment in which the masses may be managed into  the voting booth to produce respectable results. 

These environment managerial issues generally revolve around the also crude but effective efforts by foreigners to "interfere" with internal elections (as if such election choices can be undertaken in a fake environment in which the only people and territory existing for purposes of the voting decision is the state in which the elector is a citizen).  Here one can roughly divide this sort of interference into two kinds. And even this crude taxonomy is tip of the iceberg type stuff.

Pix credit here

The first is ancient and unlikely to change much except in the form of delivery--the good old fashioned and quote transparent bullying discourse of foreign states that may project an opinion about the character of the people standing for election or the consequences from their perspective of electing one candidate over another. This can take the form of official bullying (for example from foreign state officials or official state organs, including news and social media organs). Or it can take the form of disaggregated bullying in the form of discourse of individuals with no official connection to the state. These can include public intellectuals (academics and think tank people tend to be quite useful, but also the middle and low brow public commentators who may speak more directly to identified sub-groups of voters in the target state. But then so can media figures, artists and others with no particular value other than that people tend to listen to those who are admired for some trait or other than is fashionable at the time.  All of this is perhaps annoying but fair game--if only because the targeted voters know exactly who it is that is urging them to vote in ways that would please them (though may undermine the Republic). These can be countered on their own terms--as foreign interference for which there are substantial methods of countermeasures. 

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The second is equally ancient but is sourced in and derives its power from its fundamental subterfuge: foreign projections of electoral preferences that are hidden in local mouthpieces. One puts aside for the moment the phenomenon of the useful idiot--these have also existed likely since the dawn of politics, and they may be unmasked (but one wonders what happens when a large percentage of the electorate choices the path of useful idiocy). These projections may take a large variety of forms.  Before this century these usually involved money (an ancient corrupter), or social relations with key local influencers (satisfying the cravings of humans has always served others well, and not just foreigners--whether in the form of sex, drugs, or more euphemistically "rock and roll"). Sometimes the projection was more institutional--just as a foreign state could domesticate its production in host states through the formation or operation/control of a domestic entity, so a foreign state might either form (surreptitiously of course), fund, or otherwise control (honey is useful)  either special purpose private speech organs established for that purpose, or use already established entities. These might be found anywhere--in the university, among think tanks, as innocuous social media influencers or users, and the like. 

Pix credit here

Technology has added a layer of complexity. These include the usual suspects--bots and fake accounts by fake individuals or entities, or more sophisticated uses of predictive analytics (whether or not aided by generative intelligence). But they also now appear to include online platforms used to raise money to be used to advance some position or other, or the election of some person or other. The idea here is also a species of subterfuge. Not just foreign states but perhaps as well important non-state actors (or wealthy individuals), for example large transnational criminal groups, non-criminal NGOs,  etc., may hide their contribution to useful instruments in election campaigns This requires a bit of work given the monitoring of contribution levels by the State. But technology has also made it easier to avoid these through the fracturing of contributions through the use of disguised virtual persons deployed to those ends.  All it takes is money and will. The possibilities of countering these internal projections of indirect foreign preferences for national elections  can produce substantial distortions not because of the information or campaigning that us undertaken but because it is undertaken without knowledge of its source (and their motives). One can envision, for example, Tren de Aragua now investing substantial sums for the election of cadidates whose policies might make the operation of their enterprises (including the movement fo their members) in and out the Republic much easier.

Generally the political branches tend to focus on the management of such interference in the physical realms (if only because it is easier to understand and there are substantially larger likelihoods of political profit to be made). Everything else tends to be relegated to state security organs tend to be relegated if only because these are substantially more challenging and the ratio of political capital to political rewards ratios are not tempting enough. And besides, it is usually better practice in liberal democracies (but also in Marxist Leninist systems) to shift high risk tasks down, out or sideways. Leaders, especially the core of leadership, tends to be substantially risk averse personally even if they appear to advance risk loving projects. 

None of this is particularly difficult to understand or hidden. And States have sought to manage (suppression appears to be an elusive goal, what with the creativity of determined enough humans) some or another aspects of these activities. And it is to one aspect of the management of foreign interaction with domestic elections that the Trump Administration has now turned its attention. In his memorandum of 24 April 2025, Investigation into Unlawful “Straw Donor” and Foreign Contributions in American Elections, President Trump has directed his counsel and the Attorney General, inconsulattion with the Secretary of the Treasury,  "to use all lawful authority, as necessary, to investigate allegations regarding the unlawful use of online fundraising platforms to make “straw” or “dummy” contributions or foreign contributions to political candidates and committees, and to take all appropriate actions to enforce the law."

The focus of this directive are "malign actors." How one distinguishes between acceptable foreign actors and malign ones masking their self-projections into the Republic's electoral politics remains unclear. One might assume that annoying but transparent blustering by foreign actors whether public or private, whether, for example Russia or Tren de Aragua, are not included.  Perhaps even direct or indirect participation to the extent that the political branches, in their wisdom, have deemed innocuous, are exempted.  That seems to be at least part of what is driving the directive (though one has to navigate through layers of statutory meaning making to get there):

Federal law (52 U.S.C. 30121 and 30122) strictly prohibits making political contributions in the name of another person, as well as contributions by foreign nationals. Notwithstanding these laws designed to protect American democracy, press reports and investigations by congressional committees have generated extremely troubling evidence that online fundraising platforms have been willing participants in schemes to launder excessive and prohibited contributions to political candidates and committees. (Investigation into Unlawful “Straw Donor” and Foreign Contributions in American Elections, )

One can hope for some clarity here. Perhaps it will come.  

Piux credit here

And the focus is on money or its equivalent (52 U.S. Code § 30121 - Contributions and donations by foreign national) as the "speech-act" of central interest.  But why stop there?  Perhaps this is an effort at template making. But only some sorts of money; Americans with power over these things may avoid the complicated issue of masking donations where the corrupting or foreign influence is absent. The Wall Street Journal reminded readers in 2021 that donor disclosure laws chill speech rights--but perhaps that may not matter when the rights are those of foreign sovereigns or other actors, unless perhaps if they or their entities are properly domesticated.  The issue in 2021revolved around compelled disclosure of donors, and in the case that considered the issue (compelling disclosure of certain large donors to certain NGOs), Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta, the ideologically conservative majority of the court determined that mandatory contributor disclosure chilled speech, But it was a case of odd reversals. Donor proteciton was an artifact of the civil rights era when the Court resisted efforts to weaken  civil rights organizations by seeking their member lists (NAACP v. Alabama (1958)). But in the Bonta case it was conservative organizations that sought the same protection and liberal justice that objected. "In a dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor [joined by Justices Kagan and Breyer] suggested that the ruling could have an effect beyond the nonprofit and charitable spheres, including on campaign contributions, writing that the ruling marks reporting and disclosure requirements with a bulls-eye." (Divided court invalidates California donor-disclosure rules).  And now it seems that President Trump appears to be channeling Justice Sotomayor in yet another turn around. It may well be that what joins all these efforts is another powerful principle of this jurisprudence--intent has constitutional significance.

Once this is "sorted", and after an appropriate time for the appreciation of the ironies,  it might then be generalized through the maze that s American election law. And, of course, as with most things "tech", the state is usually, as the expression goes, a day late and a dollar short. But there it is. Here it might be useful to direct the President's counsel and the Attorney General to the President's executive order (Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence) though not just as  a money making scheme (the crypto thing) but as a reinforcement of a basic postulate of State government that tends to be lost on its leaders (except as a talking point)--the need to coordinate among policy objectives that may be more related than a cursory place might suggest. And, indeed there is something like a glimmering here, though one potentially mired in backwards looking  politics (White House Releases New Policies on Federal Agency AI Use and Procurement; Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence, and Fact Sheet: Eliminating Barriers for Federal Artificial Intelligence Use and Procurement). And this is certainly not the time for a presidency of cursory glances and half perceptions. But that is the call of those with the power to make them, and they may not lose re-election on this issue alone.

The text of the directive Investigation into Unlawful “Straw Donor” and Foreign Contributions in American Elections, White House Releases New Policies on Federal Agency AI Use and Procurement; Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence, and Fact Sheet: Eliminating Barriers for Federal Artificial Intelligence Use and Procurement follow.  

The Fractured Post-Global--"Prevent Regulatory Overreach from Turning Essential Companies into Targets" (PROTECT USA) Act of 2025"

 

Pix credit here

For years now, the European Union has been struggling to bring to legislative fruition its own Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), which together with a number of other directives (eg, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), and the Taxonomy Regulation) was meant to produce a European version of a "smart mix of measures contemplated by the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights (UNGP Principle 3 Commentary). The object of all of this legislating was on its face quite straightforward--to develop an integrated system of  managing the way on which at least the largest European companies were to develop systems for preventing and mitigating adverse human rights impacts from comic activities with which they were connected and to address such adverse impacts where prevention and mitigation failed. The operationalization of this system was built around what the UNGP named "human rights due diligence" (HRDD).  Where the UNGP  developed its framework for HRDD as an expectation of enterprises operating in markets across borders (and thus grounded in a so-called social license to operate, roughly evoking the disciplinary mechanisms of markets, the UNGP also made clear that such HRDD strictures could be adapted to suit the times and made mandatory as part of a State's determination that  its own duty to protect human rights required the legalization of HRDD within its legal order.  In addition, the UNGP also noted that such an effort might be undertaken at the international level where the collective of States determined that such transposition of HRDD from market expectation to mandatory requirement might best be undertaken as a binding international legal obligation.

Less straightforward were a number of underlying development trajectories that made this project appealing (especially in Europe and among international elites). The first was a movement toward a more comprehensive public oversight of national and transnational activity. This converged with an emerging appetite toward compliance based systems of administrative oversight, which itself was meant to  transform the understanding of the relationship of private to public spheres. That understanding appeared to suggest a rethinking of the nature and purpose of economic activity from purely financial (the consensus element at least through the end of the first decade of the 21st century) to one that increasingly understood economic activity as an instrument for fulfilling public policy and objectives (within which financial objectives could also be realized). That shift moved especially European elites closer to MarxistLeninist approaches to both markets and economic activities as an instrument of politics (usually identified as public policy or public goals). All of thsi made sense in light of the increasing operation of States ads private actors in markets, and of the governmentalization of enterprises by delegating to them a host of  public objectives, the internalization fo which produced a managerial architecture within the largest forms that began to mirror of those the public administrative organs. Both, in turn, appeared to converge around a set of similar sensibilities.

All of this served as grist for the regulatory mill--at least in Europe.  The United States under both Democratic and Republic Party Presidents continued to privilege the markets driven HRDD framework. Socialist and Marxist-Leninist systems continued to privilege the alignment of core State objectives and ideologies of human rights (and sustainability) with national systems of incorporating both in corporate governance--usually centering in development as the core value. It was in Europe, with the active participation of States in Latin America and Africa, that the project of both national and transnational regulatory structures for mandatory HRDD took hold in ways that embedded the sensibilities and language of the UNGP and used it as a basis for expanding and refining its application. This produced the 2014 effort to concoct a binding international instrument for business and human rights (now including sustainability factors in one way or another), the roughly contemporaneous effort at national transposition (with local characteristics) in mostly European States of the UNGP HRDD framework as a mandatory legal requirement (with potentially significant extraterritorial effect), and lastly the efforts at regional convergence  through the legislative work (well underway since the second decade of the 21st century) for an EU transposition of UNGP HRDD as a mandatory measure with substantial extraterritorial effect.   

In a world generally committed to global convergence of norms and processes, extraterritorial effects  could be understood as instruments of that convergence.  It is in this sense that extraterritoriality, when driven by national application of international law or standards, for example, could be characterized as extra-national efforts rather than as national efforts to project national power or interests abroad.  What is being projected, at least theoretically, are international standards and norms in which all States have a similar interests.  All good. Except when it is not. And it is not when the spin that States give outwardly projected international standards and norms appear to all intents and purposes as a mask within which are national interests and sensibilities. The result can be national countermeasures from those States into which these legislative projects are projected. At least that may be the thinling of States that do not share the same perspectives of the State or international organs that seek to regulate in this way.

That, at its heart, appears to be the stance of at least one U.S. Senator, in the face of the "idea" of the CSDDD. In a Press Release, dated 12 March 2025, 

Pix credit here

United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Banking Committee, today introduced the Prevent Regulatory Overreach from Turning Essential Companies into Targets (PROTECT USA) Act of 2025, legislation to shield U.S. companies from the European Union’s (EU) harmful extraterritorial regulations.

* * *

The PROTECT USA Act extends Senator Hagerty’s record of opposing the CSDDD. In September 2024, Senator Hagerty and Representative Andy Barr (R-KY-06) sent a bicameral letter to the Biden-Harris Administration urging it to oppose the CSDDD. The following month, Senator Hagerty and Representative French Hill (R-AR-02) co-authored an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that sounded the alarm on the EU’s regulatory encroachment. Most recently, Senator Hagerty joined a bicameral letter urging the Secretary of the Treasury and Director of the National Economic Council to address the CSDDD.

This follows a 26 February 2025 letter from Congressional leaders to President Trump urging the President to

1. Support European calls to indefinitely pause CSDDD.
2. Assert that CSDDD’s extraterritorial application is untenable and detrimental to global
productivity. European firms listing in the U.S. could also face similar regulatory exposure,
which may discourage transatlantic economic cooperation.
3. While Europe is free to create a hostile business climate for companies in their own
jurisdiction, to protect American companies, CSDDD’s Article 29 (civil liability) should be
removed from the Directive and not replicated in future EU regulations.
4. Clarify that U.S. companies are not bound by net zero transition plans akin to those imposed on EU firms. The U.S. has shifted its stance on climate commitments, and CSDDD’s Article 22 on mandatory transition plans should be abandoned. (Letter HERE)

None of this may matter, except as performative politics given the changing state of the European regulatory efforts and the potentially significant contestation of the  European regulatory model, at least in the context of business and human rights. The effort to slow down or reduce the impact of the European measures (the Omnibus) has caused a substantial challenge to what had been seen before the end of 2024 as an inevitable trajectory of European normative policy and administrative cultures that were effectively unstoppable. That no longer seems to be the case (eg here).

 

Just Published: v. 27 n. 67 (2025) Revista de Ciências da Administração

 

Happy to pass along the announcement of the publication of Volume 27(67) of the Revista de Ciências da Administração, the cover of which is of the Muro da Memória, created by Rodrigo de Haro and his assistant Idésio Leal, which is located in front of the Rector's building at UFSC.  

The focus of the issue is on the entrepreneur, social entrepreneurship and enterprise dexterity in the face of changing challenges. 

The table of contents with inks to the articles (all in Portuguese and English) follow below.

President Trump: "Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy"--Intent, Effect, and Discrimination

 

 

Until today, the U.S. Justice Department has curated a fairly sophisticated judicial/administrative gloss on what it interpreted as the liability standards around what the U.S. Supreme Court elaborated a  generation or so ago as "disparate impact" as a basis for Title VII discrimination claims (Title VI, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d et seq.) claims. Title VII prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance).  The question, then, revolves around the focus of the discrimination analysis. The notion of proof of discrimination by evidence of disparate impact, that is by difference in effect from which the effect of discrimination might be found, was developed in the late 1960s and 1970s by the U.S. Supreme Court and then found its way into regulations (e.g., 40 C.F.R. § 7.35(b), (c) and 28 C.F.R. § 42.104(b)(2)).

The U.S. Justice Department described  its approach to disparate impact litigation this way:

Section VI discusses intentional discrimination or disparate treatment as one type of Title VI claim. Another type of Title VI violation is based on agency Title VI implementing regulations and is known as the disparate impact or discriminatory effects standard. While a discriminatory impact or effect may also be evidence of intentional discrimination or disparate treatment, this section discusses disparate impact as a cause of action independent of any intent.

The disparate impact regulations seek to ensure that programs accepting federal money are not administered in a way that perpetuates the repercussions of past discrimination. As the Supreme Court has explained, even benignly-motivated policies that appear neutral on their face may be traceable to the nation’s long history of invidious race discrimination in employment, education, housing, and many other areas. See Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 430–31 (1971); City of Rome v. United States, 446 U.S. 156, 176–77 (1980); Gaston Cty. v. United States, 395 U.S. 285, 297 (1969). The disparate impact regulations ensure “that public funds, to which all taxpayers of all races contribute, not be spent in any fashion which encourages, entrenches, subsidizes, or results in racial discrimination.” H.R. Misc. Doc. No. 124, 88th Cong., 1st Sess. 3, 12 (1963). The Supreme Court explained in Griggs, 401 U.S. at 429–30, that under Title VII, which was enacted at the same time as Title VI, “practices, procedures, or tests neutral on their face, and even neutral in terms of intent, cannot be maintained if they operate to ‘freeze’ the status quo of prior discriminatory employment practices.” Id. at 430; see also Texas Dep’t of Hour. & Cmty. Affairs v. Inclusive Communities, 135 S. Ct. 2507, 2521 (2015) (noting that “[r]ecognition of disparate impact claims is consistent with the [Fair Housing Act’s] central purpose” as it “was enacted to eradicate discriminatory practices within a sector of our Nation’s economy”) (citations omitted). The regulations task agencies to take a close look at neutral policies that disparately exclude minorities from benefits or services, or inflict a disproportionate share of harm on them.

 

A growing body of social psychological research has also reaffirmed the need for legal tools that address disparate impact. This research demonstrates that implicit bias against people of color remains a widespread problem.[1] Such bias can result in discrimination that federal agencies can prevent and address through enforcement of their disparate impact regulations. Because individual motives may be difficult to prove directly, Congress has frequently permitted proof of only discriminatory impact as a means of overcoming discriminatory practices. The Supreme Court has, therefore, recognized that disparate impact liability under various civil rights laws, “permits plaintiffs to counteract unconscious prejudices and disguised animus that escape easy classification as disparate treatment.” Id. at 2522.

 

In a disparate impact case, the investigation focuses on the consequences of the recipient’s practices, rather than the recipient’s intent. Lau v. Nichols, 414 U.S. 563, 568 (1974). As explained throughout this Section, “a plaintiff bringing a disparate-impact claim challenges practices that have a ‘disproportionately adverse effect on minorities’ and are otherwise unjustified by a legitimate rationale.” Inclusive Communities, 135 S. Ct. at 2513 (quoting Ricci v. DeStefano, 557 U.S. 557, 577 (2009). [2]

 

Twenty-six federal funding agencies have Title VI regulations that include provisions addressing the disparate impact or discriminatory effects standard. [3] (U.S. Dept of Justice  Title VI Legal Manual, Section VII: Proving Discrimination--Disparate Impact) 

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Disparate impact standards have been the subject of a lively debate (see, e.g., here, here, here, here, and here) in academic and media circles. The Trump Administration is not an advocate of disparate impact as a standard for proof of discrimination. President Trump sought to challenge the use of disparate impact during his first Presidency (see, e.g., here and here). That antipathy has carried over to President Trump's second term. Some members of the Trump Administration have expressed the view that intent ought to be a necessary element of a discrimination claim. Toward the end of President Biden's leadership some courts also began to chip away at the principle. On August 22, 2024, the US District Court for the District of Louisiana enjoined the Justice Department from  imposing or enforcing its disparate impact requirements under Title VI and more specifically from “enforcing the Title VI disparate-impact requirements contained in 40 C.F.R. § 7.35(b), (c) and 28 C.F.R. § 42.104(b)(2)" (Louisiana v. US EPA (Case 2:23-cv-00692-JDC-TPL  08/22/24; US DOJ Discussion HERE). 

Now President Trump has entered the field. He issued on 23 April 2025 an Executive Order, Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy the objective of which is to eliminate disparate impact for the lexicon of anti-discrimination in the United States. The object was not to abandon anti-discrimination goals bit to re-frame it in a way that his political opponents will likely find less than satisfactory. In place of "effects"--the functionalist approach to jurisprudence that was the hallmark of a generation or more of high level jurists and their supporters in academia and government--Mr. Trump would use a formalist approach, one grounded in textual neutrality and more importantly, on intent. He rejects the normative underpinnings of a test that finds intent a matter of indifference and instead focuses on "effects" or consequences of any act--thus not the individual but the consequence, a form, perhaps, of strict liability  in which the instrument of the harm is burdened with the remedial obligation. Article 1 of the Executive Order makes Mr. Trump's case for the change:

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A bedrock principle of the United States is that all citizens are treated equally under the law. This principle guarantees equality of opportunity, not equal outcomes. It promises that people are treated as individuals, not components of a particular race or group. It encourages meritocracy and a colorblind society, not race- or sex-based favoritism. Adherence to this principle is essential to creating opportunity, encouraging achievement, and sustaining the American Dream. But a pernicious movement endangers this foundational principle, seeking to transform America’s promise of equal opportunity into a divisive pursuit of results preordained by irrelevant immutable characteristics, regardless of individual strengths, effort, or achievement. A key tool of this movement is disparate-impact liability, which holds that a near insurmountable presumption of unlawful discrimination exists where there are any differences in outcomes in certain circumstances among different races, sexes, or similar groups, even if there is no facially discriminatory policy or practice or discriminatory intent involved, and even if everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed. Disparate-impact liability all but requires individuals and businesses to consider race and engage in racial balancing to avoid potentially crippling legal liability. It not only undermines our national values, but also runs contrary to equal protection under the law and, therefore, violates our Constitution.  (Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy).

 The tension between functional (effects) and formal (text, intent) approaches is very old in the U.S.. American judges tend to slip between them as the jurisprudence. There is no magic here--just choice--not jurisprudence but policy choice clothed in thee vagaries of the interpretive authority of courts. The question presented is not precisely textual but political: What is it that the political establishment intended for the nation as the baseline approach to protecting against discrimination.  On the one hand, the nation can choose to treat discrimination as essentially grounded in intent to discriminate.. The environment in which these choices are made (to discriminate or not to discriminate) may produce other fields of political action (or agitation) in favor of consequential policies.   But law need not start from the political determination that discrimination is personal (the way crimes are personal) and not collective, and that its adverse impacts must be remedies by reference to the acts that were propelled by intent to harm. Instead the law can start from the proposition that discrimination is actually not personal but collective--or systemic, and further that the object of anti-discrimination laws is not focused on the autonomous individual (who in any case might be re-educated if the political society wishes and compels), but that the measure of discrimination its its negative impact, for which the odd individual is merely an instrument (who ought to be punished as well perhaps) but who, in a sense does not need to have agency to cause what would in any case be caused. Thus, with disparate impact, the individual becomes an instrument (like a hammer), but the predicate for a finding of discrimination is the impact irrespective of any agency of the individual intended to or directed for the purpose of causing harm.  Either works, but each is sourced in quite distinctive ways of approaching both discrimination and in defining the object of protection against it.  That is but an eddy in the much larger conceptual battles between the effect of an act or the intent to do the act ought to constitute the predicate around which a remedial obligation can be built. And that difference is not jurisprudential at its root--it might better be understood as fundamentally political.

The text of the Executive Order follows.

"Urbi et Orbi", the Final Message of Francis Delivered at Easter 2025; Text and Brief Reflections

 

 

The man Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who took the name Francis on his election to the bishopric of Rome and as pontifex maximus, died in the early hours of 21 April 2025, that is, his spirit then left a body no longer capable of sustaining physical life. He leaves us his last "Urbi et Orbi", delivered for him hours before he passed. It is reproduced below, and may be accessed in a variety of languages from the Vatican website HERE. 

It is a fitting last text for the pontiff. At its most poignant, its text aligns the Christian notions of the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus (as history, theology, and reality framing signification) with that of humanity. But these, he reminds us, are out of kilter. Where Easter has come and with it the marker of what Christians believes is the resurrection of Jesus, humanity remains in its patior, its condition of enduring, bearing, suffering. That is a condition, it was thought, from out of which the resurrection offered a pathway to something better, to life, Francis suggests, over death. Yet it seems, and in keeping with the choices  made constantly on the human plane, the "great thirst for death, for killing, we witness each day in the many conflicts raging in different parts of our world" continues to overcome this possibility of life. This leaves Francis at the end where her started at the beginning of his ministry--with wonder at the choice, given the alternative, and with the possibility of offering no more than hope--"That hope is not an evasion, but a challenge; it does not delude, but empowers us." That is the hope that empowered the life and the ministry of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the man. And it is the hope that brought him, as it has his predecessors, to the refuge of hope.   Réquiem æternam dona ei, Dómine. Et lux perpétua lúceat ei. . . . Anima ejus, . . . per misericórdiam Dei requiéscant in pace.

Academic Business and Human Rights Workshop (RMIT City Campus Melbourne 26-27 August 2025) Information and CfP

I am delighted to pass along this CfP for the Academic Business and Human Rights Workshop to be held at RMIT City Campus Melbourne 26-27 August 2025. Information follows:

The inaugural UN Business and Human Rights Regional Forum: Australia and New Zealand (the Forum) will bring together a broad range of stakeholders to strengthen business practices and connect on how businesses manage value chains across our region.

Attendees from government, business, investment, the education sector and civil society will gather to discuss key trends and developments in the business and human rights landscape in our region and globally.

The UN Global Compact Network Australia is proud to be a co-organiser of the UN Business and Human Rights Regional Forum – Australia and New Zealand in collaboration with the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights, RMIT University’s Business and Human Rights Centre, Macquarie University B&HR Access to Justice Lab and UNSW Australian Human Rights Institute.

RMIT Business and Human Rights Centre (BHRIGHT) is playing host – but it is a team effort to pull this off! We are co-organising the Forum in collaboration with the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights, UN Global Compact Network Australia, Macquarie University’s B&HR Access to Justice Lab and the Australian Human Rights Institute, UNSW Sydney. The Forum’s website – where further details will be added in the coming weeks and months is: https://unbhrforumanz.org/ You can also sign up there to receive updates.

Reflections on Xia Baolong (夏宝龙) Speech delivered at the Opening Ceremony of the 2025 National Security Education Day in the Hong Kong SAR 15 April 2025-- Ensuring High-quality Development with High-level Security Continuously Composing a New Chapter in the Practice of "One Country, Two Systems" (以高水平安全护航高质量发展 不断谱写“一国两制”实践新篇章)

Pix credit here

If one could reduce the impassioned speech of Xia Baolong (夏宝龙), Director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, delivered at the Opening Ceremony of the 2025 National Security Education Day in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region on 15 April 2025 and entitled Ensuring High-quality Development with High-level Security Continuously Composing a New Chapter in the Practice of "One Country, Two Systems" (以高水平安全护航高质量发展 不断谱写“一国两制”实践新篇章), it would be this:

Pix King Nan of Zhou

Currently, the practice of "One country, Two systems" has entered a new stage. The good situation in Hong Kong today has come at a great cost and should be treasured. We must consolidate and develop this good situation. However, the struggle is not yet over. Although the social situation in Hong Kong appears calm on the surface, there are still undercurrents, and the security situation remains very grave and complex. Those who are opposed to China and attempt to destabilize Hong Kong have not yet been eliminated. Some have fled abroad to make trouble, while others have whitewashed themselves and disguised as ordinary people, hiding and waiting for opportunities to stir up trouble in Hong Kong. Many people still have confused ideas, some sympathize with those who are opposed to China and attempt to destabilize Hong Kong , some justify them, and some admire, fear, worship, or fantasize about the U.S. Some people believe that as long as the economy develops, there will be no security issues. However, this is a typical case of burying one's head in the sand and deceiving oneself. In fact, countless examples demonstrate that wealth does not always bring security, prosperity or sustainability. Without security, how could Hong Kong have gone through the journey from chaos to governance? Without security, how could Hong Kong have gone through the journey from governance to greater prosperity? Without security, how could Hong Kong have a bright future? We must face the problems related to the development and security in Hong Kong, be vigilant and stay united. Every individual, group, enterprise and organization needs to work together with Hong Kong compatriots and all Chinese people to defend Hong Kong and the country, ensure high-quality development with high-level security, and promote the steady and sustained practice of "One country, Two systems".

當前，「一國兩制」實踐進入了新階段。香港今天的良好局面來之殊為不易，是付出了巨大代價的，大家要倍加珍惜，把這個良好局面鞏固住、發展好。現在，鬥爭並沒有結束。香港社會面看似平靜，實則暗流湧動，安全形勢仍然十分嚴峻複雜。反中亂港分子並沒有被消滅，有些逃到國外興風作浪，有些撕下額頭上的標籤，偽裝成普通市民，隱匿在社會人群中伺機禍亂香港。不少人還有糊塗的想法，同情反中亂港分子者有之，為反中亂港分子開脫者有之，媚美、恐美、崇美、幻美者有之。有的人認為只要經濟發展了，就沒有安全問題了，這是典型的掩耳盜鈴、自欺欺人。事實上，富而不安、富而不強、富而不長的例子比比皆是。沒有安全哪來的香港由亂到治？沒有安全哪來的香港由治及興？沒有安全哪來的香港美好明天？大家要正視香港發展和安全面臨的問題，提高警惕、團結一致，每個人、每個社團、每個企業、每個組織，都要與香港同胞一道、與全國人民一起，保衛香港、保衛國家，打造高水平安全護航高質量發展，推進「一國兩制」實踐行穩致遠。

The importance of this portion of the remarks cannot be underestimated, but not for its rhetorical flourishes, though they do provide a moment of interest in the linguistic turns of articulating state policy and intention. But all of this was anticipated at the start of the 2019 turmoil, during which, and almost from the start, the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office took the line that only finds refinement in the speech by its Director today (Discussed Larry Catá Backer Hong Kong Between One Country and Two Systems (2021) Chapter 20: Open-Shut (bai he 稗閤) Strategies: 习近平;止暴制乱 恢复秩序是香港当前最紧迫的任务 [Xi Jinping; Stopping the storm and restoring order is Hong Kong’s most urgent task at present] pp. 255-262).  

What is now more evident is the conflation of anti-chaos strategies and the national security architecture, and with that the closer alignment between the national security architecture and the constitution of "One Country Two Systems." In other words, Official Xia has bluntly restated a proposition that has been more elegantly developed since 2020--that the privileges of "two systems" is entirely dependent on the proper functioning of the national security architecture; that this national security architecture can be understood as a legalized (and bureaucratized) manifestation of the "One Country" principle, and that the One Country principle determines the extent to which it is possible to realize "two systems" within Hong Kong.  Underlying all of this is the continuation of the great patriotic campaigns in Hong Kong in which the elements  of  the fundamentals of the people's democratic dictatorship serve as the framework for the remedial operation of the security apparatus--democracy for patriots, dictatorship for the rest (Mao Zedong, On the People's Democratic Dictatorship  (1949) ("The combination of these two aspects, democracy for the people and dictatorship over the reactionaries, is the people's democratic dictatorship.")). That is both fairly straightforward and easy to understand--"One Country" politically, "two systems" economically." The corollary, of course, is that foreigners have deliberately blinded themselves to this reality, one that has been made quite clear since 2019. That leaves wide open, though, the "as applied" questions--these also touch on the relationship between a national security architecture and the characteristics of "two systems" in the constitution and operation of all facets of life in Hong Kong as applied within its legal, economic, and governmental structures. Only foreigners appear to have failed to have gotten that message.  Perhaps both the bluntness and the speed of the official translation into English were meant to drive home that point.  Having said that, however, foreign powers can respond as they like--including by ramping up their programs of sanctions and propaganda in ways that may further their own interests now may easier by the deliver of the Chinese text.

And that leaves the economic sphere at the very center of the manifestation of "two systems" within the "One Country" principle--especially where, under Marxist-Leninist New Era theory, the separation between politics and economic activity is closely aligned with the CPC Basic Line as expressed in policy. That is, that economic activity is a complement to and the expression of the evolution of public policy in the field of economic activity, and that the variety of forms of economic activity permitted  are both an acknowledgement of the requirements of a united front approach in the formative stages of the Socialist path, and in the longer run a stage in the development of a socialist economy. Official Xia also explained that connection at the end of his speech: 

We believe that the business community and entrepreneurs can make Hong Kong their home, build their businesses, and contribute to both Hong Kong and the country with more practical actions. In the magnificent development history of Hong Kong, many world-renowned enterprises and entrepreneurs have emerged, taking concrete actions to build Hong Kong and serve the country, writing a vivid picture of patriotism and love for Hong Kong, and becoming business legends. In the current situation where the United States is exerting extreme pressure on us, there is a greater need for entrepreneurs to build and take root in Hong Kong with a strong resolve. It is hoped that Hong Kong's business community and entrepreneurs will continue to play a leading role in driving economic development, carry forward the fine tradition of patriotism and love for Hong Kong, correctly understand the relationship between their own enterprises and the development of both Hong Kong and the nation, and always uphold righteousness and never forget national interests.

我们相信，工商界和企业家定能以港为家、倚港兴业，用更有力的实际行动建设香港、贡献国家。在香港波澜壮阔的发展史上，涌现出一大批世界知名的企业和企业家，用实干兴港、实业报国，书写了爱国爱港的生动画卷，也成就了让人津津乐道的商业传奇。在当前美国对我们极限打压的形势下，更需要企业家以“烈火金刚”的坚强品质建设香港、扎根香港。希望香港工商界和企业家继续发挥推动经济发展主力军作用，赓续爱国爱港优良传统，正确认识自身事业与香港发展、与国家发展的关系，永远不舍大义、不忘国家利益。

 What ought to be remarkable is the alignment of the contemporary view of the state of Hong Kong SAR with that of the People's Republic in the first decade after its establishment in 1949, and especially the dynamic element in Mao Zedong's New Democracy theory.  First one recalls the fundamental framework established before the establishment of the People's Republic--Mao Zedong, On New Democracy (January 1940). 

In the new-democratic republic under the leadership of the proletariat, the state enterprises will be of a socialist character and will constitute the leading force in the whole national economy, but the republic will neither confiscate capitalist private property in general nor forbid the development of such capitalist production as does not "dominate the livelihood of the people", for China's economy is still very backward. * * * China's economy must develop along the path of the "regulation of capital" and the "equalization of landownership", and must never be "privately owned by the few"; we must never permit the few capitalists and landlords to "dominate the livelihood of the people"; we must never establish a capitalist society of the European-American type or allow the old semi-feudal society to survive. Whoever dares to go counter to this line of advance will certainly not succeed but will run into a brick wall. * * * Such is the economy of New Democracy.And the politics of New Democracy [peoples democratic dictatorship] are the concentrated expression of the economy of New Democracy. * * * Everybody knows that the Communist Party has an immediate and a future programme, a minimum and a maximum programme, with regard to the social system it advocates. For the present period, New Democracy, and for the future, socialism; these are two parts of an organic whole, guided by one and the same communist ideology.

One Country, Two Systems might then be understood both as a mirroring of the initial approach to the amalgamation of patriotic forces (in Hong Kong through the national security apparatus) sensitive to the need for variation in the movement toward a unified socialist, then then communist, economics. This notion of systemic variability as a starting point for the eventual unification of forces on the socialist path is refined in Mao Zedong's gloss on New Democracy in 1953:

The Right deviation manifests itself in three remarks:

"Firmly establish the new-democratic social order." That's a harmful formulation. In the transition period changes are taking place all the time and socialist factors are emerging every day. How can this "new-democratic social order" be "firmly established"? It would be very difficult indeed to "establish" it "firmly"! For instance, private industry and commerce are being transformed, and if an order is "established" in the second half of the year, it will no longer hold "firm" next year. And changes are taking place in mutual aid and co-operation in agriculture from year to year too. The period of transition is full of contradictions and struggles. Our present revolutionary struggle is even more profound than the revolutionary armed struggle of the past. It is a revolution that will bury the capitalist system and all other systems of exploitation once and for all. The idea, "Firmly establish the new-democratic social order", goes against the realities of our struggle and hinders the progress of the socialist cause * * * We have proposed a step-by-step transition to socialism. This is a better formulation. When we say "step-by-step", we mean that the steps are to be spread out over fifteen years and over the twelve months in each year. Going too fast means erring to the "Left", standing still means erring too much to the Right. We must oppose "Left" and Right deviations and make a step-by-step transition until the whole process is completed.(Mao Zedong, "Refute Right Deviationist Views that Depart From the General [Basic] Line" (June 15, 1953) [Part of a speech at a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. Here Comrade Mao Tsetung refuted the Right opportunist views, such as "firmly establish the new-democratic social order", put forward by Liu Shao-chi and others.]

The object, then, is the transition to socialism. The pragmatic realities, for now, is the utility of "two systems" in the service of revolutionary progress and the eventual realization of the Chinese Dream and with it the forward movement toward communism--for all of China. The emphasis then, and now under One Country Two Systems is the same--a necessary transition, one the timing of which is determined by both internal and external factors. And then all of this is bound up in a system differentiating reworking of the fundamental ordering premise of the State system--peoples democratic dictatorship. Official Xia might have been more elegant, but perhaps his audience expected the discursive approach he took.

*       *       *

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But the most provocative, and perhaps the least interesting part of the speech will receive greater attention, if only because it reduces both Chinese and American senior officials to the discourse of toddlers for the amusements of the press organs and their masses:

Pix credit here (Peasant Comrades Temper Your bodies Well)

  It is also a pipe dream for external forces to try to delay or even interrupt the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and bring us back to the tragic situation of being trampled upon. Washington's repeated attempts to suppress Hong Kong will only accelerate the demise of its proxies in Hong Kong which will ultimately backfire on itself. Let those American peasants wail before the 5,000-year-old civilization of the Chinese nation!

外部勢力妄圖遲滯甚至中斷中華民族偉大復興，讓我們回到過去任人宰割的悲慘境地，那是癡心妄想！美國一而再、再而三對香港進行遏制打壓，換來的只能是其在香港的代理人的加速滅亡，最終必將反噬其自身。讓美國那些「鄉巴佬們」在中華民族五千年文明面前去哀鳴吧！

Of course, discursively it is likely that such a response was necessary after the American Vice President Vance chose to characterize  the financial relations between the United States and China in colorful and provocative ways:  "Vance, appearing on Fox News just weeks ago, had a lot to say about the effects of globalization. But it was one phrase that drew the most attention: 'We borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things that Chinese peasants manufacture.'” (Economic Times). The BBC Chinese edition noted the connection (here).

Vance, appearing on Fox News just weeks ago, had a lot to say about the effects of globalization. But it was one phrase that drew the most attention:

“We borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things that Chinese peasants manufacture.”

Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/china-trolls-jd-vance-over-chinese-peasants-remark-retaliates-with-125-tariffs-on-u-s-goods-amid-growing-trade-tensions/articleshow/120383599.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

Pix Credit here (Hongwu Emperor)

Part of the problem, of course, at least on the American side, is that the American Vice President might no longer adhere to the old rules that separated the sort of speech that one reserved for peers (social, economic, political, status, etc.) at cocktail parties and similar events, and the formal speech meant to be projected  to a wider audience. Of course that sort of speech in peer contexts is critically important discourse within that group--it suggests membership in a status group and an affirmation of the belief in a shared way of understanding the approach of that status caste to its responsibilities, superiority and powers. Part of it reflects a strong shift in the discursive rules of the American political elite who distinguish themselves from the disobedient masses by similar terms--the "basket of deplorables (here); or more recently describing elements of the polity as garbage (here). Yet one must consider whether that meant for internal or external consumption, or was the Vice President persisting in quite another agenda? The other part of the problem, from the Chinese side, is that a communist revolution founded on the backs of peasants and the proletariat ought perhaps to have  a little more pride in both the working class and the peeasants. Indeed, Chinese history owes much to its peasants, for example, the Hongwu Emperor of Ming Zhu Yuanzhang. Official Xia might have been more careful about joining his American counterparts in  insulting peasants in this backhanded way. Indeed, from a Marxist-Leninist perspective, one might have treated the Vice President's purported insult as a great complement, and a sig of both the power and wealth of a peasantry that could only be possible under the leadership of a communist vanguard.  But perhaps Official Xia has a different view.

Whatever the psychology or strategy, the episode provided a moment of naughty delight, of course, for people who enjoy officially sponsored reality TV style discourse. And it provided a moment's relief from the realities that the current global political class has found unusually impossible to either grasp or resolve. Still, perhaps more important was this other bit of provocation tit for tat--a contemporary updating of the rhetoric of China's 19th century troubles and its overturning through the contemporary rhetoric of rejuvenation: 

It is extremely naive to think that you can gain peace, respect and development by fawning on the United States, kneeling before the United States and begging for mercy from the United States. Everyone should give up the illusion. The so-called "sanctions" and "reciprocal tariffs" of the United States cannot shake the determination and will of the central government and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government, nor can they scare the 1.4 billion Chinese people, including Hong Kong compatriots. They will only make us more determined to unite and more firmly safeguard national security and Hong Kong's prosperity and stability. Victory must belong to the great Chinese people!

如果以为向美国献媚、向美国跪低、向美国求饶，就能够换来和平、换来尊重、换来发展，那是极其幼稚的。大家要丢掉幻想。美国所谓“制裁”和“对等关税”，撼动不了中央政府和香港特别行政区政府的决心意志，吓不倒包括香港同胞在内的14亿中国人民，只会让我们更加坚定地团结在一起，更加坚定地维护国家安全和香港繁荣稳定。胜利一定属于伟大的中国人民！

 After all, who in China today wants to be perceived as playing or reprising the role of the Dowager empress Cixi (慈禧); rejuvenation has its mandatory discursive tropes, and no official would be foolish enough not to perform them on a national or international stage. But, the heroics of the discursive tropes and the now well worn embrace of the Late Qing as a sort of experiential urtext can also backfire--suggesting anxiety about the triumph of revolutionary Chinese Marxist-Leninism as much as it suggests a triumphalist swagger. In this context, perhaps, it is a necessary dollop of swagger at a time of critical global change essential for internal consumption and the reassurance of the masses; externally it might be read a different way.  But that is not Official Xia's problem; it ought to be for those who were responsible for approving the text of the remarks.  And yet the remarks, coming from Official Xia rather than someone else, might well have been the message and the messenger for a conversation among leadership cores to which we are not privy.