Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC): Chairs Introduce Landmark Uyghur Genocide Accountability and Sanctions Act

 

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 I have been following the work of the  Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) for some time.  Essays HERE: CECC. CECC serves as an important venue for the dissemination of official positions of the United States on its relationship with China.  Its prior leaders includes current Secretary of State Rubio.  It is also an official space in which debates or positions that might be taken by the State, or what may serve as encouragement for private action, might be developed.   

CECC has a fairly comprehensive range of issues on which it focuses.  CECC issue areas include Access to Justice; Business and Human Rights; Civil Society; Criminal Justice; Developments in Hong Kong and Macau; Ethnic Minority Rights; Freedom of Expression; Freedom of Religion; Freedom of Residence and Movement; Human Rights Violations in the U.S. and Globally; Human Trafficking; Institutions of Democratic Governance; North Korean Refugees in China; Population Control; Public Health; Status of Women; The Environment and Climate Change; Tibet; Worker Rights; and Xinjiang.

Xinjiang has been for some time an area that is of significant importance to the work of CECC with a focus on forced labor. Nonetheless, the environment, especially with respect to notions and use of genocide, has changed considerably since that term became a more common currency of State use of legal mechanisms with respect to the consequences of conflict. 

The Press Release explained the action this way:

Senator Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ), the Chair and Co-Chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), today introduced the Uyghur Genocide Accountability and Sanctions Act of 2025, a comprehensive, bipartisan bill to address the People’s Republic of China's (PRC) atrocities targeting the Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples. They were joined by fellow Commissioners Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Representative Tom Suozzi (D-NY) in introducing this legislation. Representative John Moolenaar (R-MI), the Chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, also joined in cosponsoring the legislation.

The legislation expands existing sanctions authorities, imposes mandatory visa bans, restricts U.S. government contracts linked to forced labor, and provides assistance to survivors of torture, forced sterilization, rape, and arbitrary detention. It also directs U.S. agencies to preserve cultural heritage threatened by PRC policies, counters disinformation denying the genocide, and bars the sale and purchase of Chinese seafood products in Defense Department facilities due to their ties to Uyghur and North Korean forced labor. (Chairs Introduce Landmark Uyghur Genocide Accountability and Sanctions Act)

The action represents a continuation of efforts that have been percolating on Congress since at least May 2023 when then Senator and now Secretary Marco Rubio introduced S.1770 during the 118th Congress - Uyghur Genocide Accountability and Sanctions Act of 2023; and thereafter when Rep. Smith, Christopher H. [R-NJ-4] and current co-Chair of CECC introduced in April 2024, a House version of the bill as the “Uyghur Genocide Accountability and Sanctions Act of 2024.” It continues the development, undertaken by both Democratic and Republican Administrations, of a sanctions based approach to human rights related issues of trade and engagement. 

The ‘‘Uyghur Genocide Accountability and Sanctions Act of 2025’’ [UGASA Senate Bill (83.8 KB); UGASA House Bill (114.06 KB)] is meant to amend and supplement the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020 (Public Law 116–145; 2210; U.S.C. 6901 note) and is organized this way reflecting both the sanctions based approach and its objectives:

Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.
Sec. 2. Expansion of sanctions under Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020.
Sec. 3. Denial of United States entry for individuals complicit in forced abortions or forced sterilizations.
Sec. 4. Physical and psychological support for Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other ethnic groups.
Sec. 5. Preservation of cultural, religious, and linguistic heritage of ethnic and religious groups oppressed by the People’s Republic of China.
Sec. 6. Determination of whether actions of certain Chinese entities meet criteria for imposition of sanctions.
Sec. 7. Countering propaganda from the People’s Republic of China about genocide and crimes against humanity.
Sec. 8. Documenting atrocities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
Sec. 9. Prohibition on certain United States Government agency contracts.
Sec. 10. Strategy to address allegations of forced organ harvesting in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
Sec. 11. Information on detained family members of United States citizens in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
Sec. 12. Report on the national security implications of procurement of seafood originating or processed in the People’s Republic of China.
Sec. 13. Prohibition on procurement and commissary sales of seafood originating or processed in the People’s Republic of China

 The triggering standard is quite broad: a "complicit in, or has directly or indirectly engaged in, serious
human rights abuses" (e.g., §6(a)(1)(A)). That bring in not just traditional complicity analysis but also a broad facilitation standard that one has begun to see used more often in the United States (eg here), and that mirrors developments in Europe, for example in the work of the Norwegian Ethics Council's determinations for the Norwegian Pension Fund Global and other institutions (see, e.g., here, and here).

It may be recalled that the purpose of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020 was to 

direct United States resources to address human rights violations and abuses, including gross violations of human rights, by the Government of the People’s Republic of China through the mass surveillance and internment of over 1,000,000 Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and members of other Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. (§2).

Importantly, the Act imposed consequential responsibilities on enterprise in their global supply chains: §4(7) of the Act provides that:

United States companies and individuals selling goods or services or otherwise operating in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region should take steps, including in any public or financial filings, to ensure that— (A) their commercial activities are not contributing to human rights violations in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region or elsewhere in China; and (B) their supply chains are not compromised by forced labor.

It ought to be noted that building on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act which has barred such imports into the US since 2022, Congress has enacted measures prohibiting federal procurement of goods produced with forced labor from the Uyghur region. The UFLPA (Public Law No. 117-78), directs the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force to develop a strategy for supporting enforcement of the prohibition on the importation of goods into the United States manufactured wholly or in part with forced labor in the People's Republic of China, especially from the XUAR. (HERE).

These actions are certainly important in themselves. They are also critically important in further defining the structures of global trade between China and the United States.  And the measures will certainly play a role in ongoing trade negotiations and in the calculus of enterprises about the location and operation of their supply chains.  In the short rune, however, this is as likely to shift trade through Europe and especially Latin America as it is to change the volume of trade or its mix.  One might watch for Chinese nvestment in Latin America, as well as U.S investment in Indonesia, Malaysia and India. Bit they are also important in what appears to be an ongoing conversation to rethink the way in which collectives will define and use the concept of genocide, and its consequences. (See, e.g., discussion here).

The Text of the Press Release, Chairs Introduce Landmark Uyghur Genocide Accountability and Sanctions Act, and the text of the ‘‘Uyghur Genocide Accountability and Sanctions Act of 2025’ follow below. One now awaits Chinese countermeasures.

 

People Eating People Are the Luckiest People. . . . Lab Grown Meat and the Auto-Consumption of the Self Beyond the Conceptual

 

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There is no more delightful way to start one's day than to be slapped with the fundamental reality that, not too far in the future, we may all be feeding ourselves by eating our own cells. Delicious. . . .and not implausible.  The Wall Street Journal--almost always oblivious to the implication of its own reporting, published a most revealing article about the auto-consumption of the self. Of course they were speaking about the revolution in lab grown meat for the upscale foie gras market: Ben Raab and Wilson Rothman, "Lab-Grown Meat Goes Upscale with Faux Foie Gras," Wall Street Journal (print edition) P. R-2 (The future of Everything). 

Can lab grown foie gras find a niche in the luxury food market? Makers of lab grown, aka cell-cultured, meat have pitched the product as a fix for our food chain's environmental and humanitarian issues. But it comes with its own baggage--it is expensive to produce, it can't nail the protein's texture and it starts "life" as sludge. (Ibid.)

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True enough. But it does have an advantage over prior approaches to auto-consumption, as envisioned, for example in dystopian movies like the cult classic Soylent Green (1973; which was then set in 2022). In that movie the solution to the Earth's food shortage was to harvest  people for the production of what looked like delicious pistachio colored crackers that might, it was premised, offer an infinite supply of food to people by processing people in/as food. People eating people. . . .  In that case of Soylent Green, the movie, the effort at auto-consumption was a collective effort. One wound up eating in those delectable crackers a composite of all sorts of dead people mushed together through the manufacturing process into an aggregated goo that could then be made into more acceptable crackers; crackers that might go well with a nice  pot of tea. 

Technology has made that crude process now potentially obsolete. The article, "Lab-Grown Meat Goes Upscale with Faux Foie Gras,"charts the way by examining the approach of Vow, an Australian based start up (where better than in the birthing place of the Mad Max movies, though the irony appears lost on the article's authors) and in the most innocuous of circumstances. 

Vow's product is made from cultured quail cells that, when combined with aromatics and other ingredients, can evoke the flavor of the real thing. . . At the Hotel Lincoln in the Melbourne, Australia, area, Vow's foie gras is served with parley root, a quince cracker, caper rémoulade and black-garlic puree for the equivalent of $19. For comparison, real foie gras  terrine at the Blue Ribbon Brasserie in New York City goes for $36. Still, before Forged Gras becomes available on grocery shelves, Vow must scale its manufacturing and navigate a complicated regulatory and political landscape. . .("Lab-Grown Meat Goes Upscale with Faux Foie Gras," )

Scaling issues in Soylent Green were overcome  through a public-private partnership in which large vats of pewople were encouraged to part with their bodies (the old fashioned way). The solution to the issue of scaling, however, for cell-cultured meat-type foodstuffs may be just around the corner.  

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Vow begins production by taking a biopsy from a Japanese quail to extract a connective tissue cell, which the team found best replicated the rich, fatty texture of liver. Once the cells have multiplied in a confined container, workers put them inside a 200 liter tank similar to a brewery vat, along with a nutrient broth. As the cells grow, they are transferred to larger tanks, eventually reaching a vessel that holds 20,000 liters. When it is time to "harvest," workers skin the cells--"like the whey in cheese-making" [Ellen] Dinsmoor [Vow Chief Operating Officer] said--and move them into Vow's food production zone, where they are cooked with culinary ingredients. . . The company tests the cultivated cells for safety before using them. Cultured meat is especially vulnerable to contamination during production because the cells lack an immune system. Dinsmore said tainted batches are easy to spot. Contaminated cells die quickly and are discarded. ("Lab-Grown Meat Goes Upscale with Faux Foie Gras," )

 All of the ingredients are here for ultra sustainable living.  Just as one can work hard to scale up production, one might also use the same technologies to scale down production to suit, for example, a family. Harvesting cells is relatively easy, and a family unit, or a group of families might easily manage a vat system, the way families and villagers from long ago managed, say, beer production. 

The point is that feasibility opens now doorways to self sufficiency.  And in this case to the possibility of auto-sufficiency where people can become their own food source.  One need not process dead bodies, one need only harvest and cultivate cells--in the most reduced circumstances one's own cells. One might at this point wonder about the conversion of the myth of Ouroboros into reality.  And that also raises interesting question. And yet that is not quite right.  Ouroboros ate itself--it is of a kind with the thinking in Soylent Green.  But what technology makes possible is the harvesting of cells rather than of body parts. One consumes oneself, to be sure, but one cell (or so) at a time. Of course, the cleverness of humanity will pose questions that must be answered, at least until necessary sweeps them all away: (1) is one really eating oneself (or one's neighbors) if one consumes cell cultured meat?; (2) how do the various religious traditions adjust their interpretive systems in the face of this sort of cellular harvest?; (3) Is this something that people ought to be allowed to do on ether own or ought the State to have a hand in the supervision or implementation of even cottage industry self-harvesting?; (4) does it make a difference if one cell cultures other animals or plants but not humans and certainly not oneself or is this a difference without a distinction at the cellular level?; ( 5) does tech permit the policing against "bad cell" curation (cancerous cells, etc.)?; (6) how would one regulate markets in human cell curated meat and meat products (or even pre-food ready cells)?; (7) how would one deal with waste?. The questions can go on and on. 

What is clear, though, is that these questions cannot be avoided. One only ought to remember that squeamishness is at the end a function of need, and that our species has a long history, in their collective behaviors, be to able to convince themselves of the value of virtually anything. Technology makes no distinction between one sort of cell or another. Technology has no ideology--but then neither does necessity.  It is no easy answer, as the esteemed legislatures of Florida and Alabama among others, in their wisdom decided that the proper response was to suppress this technology or at least its use for the production of edibles.  But human history has suggested over and over that the reflect impulse to suppress never ends well, or at least as hoped. Vow may have it right--the best way of embedding this technology in social collectives is to have it driven from the top down.  People seem to like to mimic their social "betters"--a whole cottage industry of influencers suggest that this can be democratized as well--though the hierarchies of leader and followers remain a central unchangeable component. Today's foie gras at impossibly expensive (though in today's terms $19  is not at the billionaire level) can be tomorrows hamburger at a family cook out.  Family reunions can indeed become more intimately special from outside in.  As long as one can be instructed in the appropriate attitude, and as long as there is some status to the activity, it will likely potentially be possible to draw in the masses. And once the masses crave this, it will be hard to resist.

What may be odd or outrageous today may become commonplace in the future.  We are hardly in a position to determine the trajectories of acceptance.  What is becoming clear, though, is that technology now makes this possible--and unavoidable. It will be interesting, over a long period (absent crisis) to watch the arc of development here. 

CSIS EVENT: Unpacking the White House AI Action Plan with OSTP Director Michael Kratsios

 

From the Center for Strategic and International Studies, an important event, Unpacking the White House AI Action Plan with OSTP Director Michael Kratsios.

This event offers a glimpse of the cognitive cages within which high officials of the Trump Administration mean to manage, for the rest of us, AI policy, development, and internationalization. For my own earlier reflections on the administration's proposed approach see:  Liberal Democratic Leninism in the Era of Artificial Intelligence and Tech Driven Social Progress: Remarks by Director Kratsios at the Endless Frontiers Retreat and "The Golden Age of American Innovation"; my reflections on the US AI Action plan here: "Winning the Race: America's AI Action Plan" (July 2025)--A Reverie on Building and Racing on A.I.'s Structural "Fury Road"

The CSIS Announcement here:

In-person registration for this event has closed, but we hope you will watch the livestream using the YouTube link above.

 

On July 23, 2025, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) published the long-awaited AI Action Plan. This roadmap policy, mandated by President Trump’s January executive order titled “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence”, outlines policy priorities to enhance the U.S.’s position as a global AI leader.

On July 30, 2025, the CSIS Wadhwani AI Center is pleased to host Michael Kratsios, Director of the White House OSTP, for a public, in-person fireside chat. Mr. Kratsios will join Wadhwani AI Center Senior Adviser Gregory C. Allen to break down the AI Action Plan and discuss the Trump administration’s vision for U.S. AI leadership and innovation amid strategic competition with China. 

As the thirteenth Director of the White House OSTP, Mr. Kratsios oversees the development and execution of the nation’s science and technology policy agenda. He leads the Trump administration’s efforts to ensure American leadership in scientific discovery and technological innovation, including in critical and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and biotechnology. In the first Trump administration, he served as the fourth Chief Technology Officer of the United States at the White House and as Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering at the Pentagon. 

This event is made possible by general support to CSIS.

 The Event Agenda follows. VIDEO URL HERE.

CfP: College of Vocational Studies, University of Delhi--"Re-examining the Social Sciences through the Lens of Artificial Intelligence & Information; Technology Innovative Intersections: Charting the Future of Social Inquiry in the Digital Age"

 

I am delighted to pass along this Call for Papers for an upcoming conference: Re-examining the Social Sciences through the Lens of Artificial Intelligence & Information Technology; Innovative Intersections: Charting the Future of Social .Inquiry in the Digital Age. It is organized by the College of Vocational Studies, University of Delhi, India.

The rapid ascent of artificial intelligence (AI) and information technology (IT) has fundamentally transformed the way we interact, communicate, learn, and conduct research. As digital landscapes expand and computational tools become increasingly sophisticated, the traditional boundaries of the social sciences are being redrawn. The National Symposium on Re-examining the Social Sciences Through the Lens of Artificial Intelligence & Information Technology is conceived as a pioneering platform for scholars, technologists, policymakers, and students to engage in critical dialogue about the evolving role of digital innovation in social inquiry. This event aspires to spark new ideas, cultivate interdisciplinary collaborations, and challenge conventional paradigms by exploring how AI and IT can both illuminate and complicate social realities. It is an invitation to reimagine methodologies, redefine ethical frameworks, and rearticulate the social contract in an era of algorithmic influence.

The Conference will take place 8th & 9th October, 2025. Details and the CfP follow below.

IG Workshops at 2025 ESIL Annual Conference in Berlin | Programmes

 

 

The annual meeting of the European Society of International Law (ESIL) will convene its 20th ESIL Annual Conference in Berlin. The theme for 2025 is "Reconstructing International Law."

For the last decade, international law has gone through a period of turbulence. In response, it is time to move beyond crisis narratives and adopt a forward-looking approach. For such an undertaking, the year 2025 offers an appropriate context. It will mark the 80th birthday of the United Nations, the institutional centre of the international legal order. At the same time, 2025 is just five years away from 2030 when the future direction of the current blueprint for global social order, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), will need to be decided.

ESIL Interest Groups are holding pre-conference workshops on Wednesday 10 and Thursday 11 September 2025. All IG workshops will take place at the Law Faculty building of the Freie Universität (Boltzmannstr. 3, 14195 Berlin).

Please find the available programmes below:

 

Are the Politics of a Two State Solution Now Little More an Agit-Prop?; is Agit-Prop Little Anymore? Secretary Marco Rubio: "United States Rejects A Two-State Solution Conference"

 

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Agit-prop, or more formally perhaps agitation-propaganda, was one of the great gifts of the revolutionary disruptions of the late 19th and early 20thcenturies. It combines two elements of revolutionary action necessary for a determined but capable group of dedicated individuals (usually in their minds representing the most advanced social forces of the particular stage of history in which they were fortunate enough to live in--for Bolsheviks Lenin's professional revolutionaries; for Western intellectuals more informally). The first is agitation. Agitation suggests action. It is action with a purpose, one that necessarily brings something--an idea, an injustice, an absurdity, a call for action, or a provocation that successfully tempts an enemy into overreaction--to the otherwise passive masses inducing sympathy or action.  The second is propaganda. Propaganda suggests education. It is education with a purpose--first to discredit or question the foundational props of the social ordering that is the object of attack, and then to suggest in the most ideal terms possible, the glorious alternative which they serve as champions, interpreters, guides and (in the case of Leninist revolutionaries and other evangels) leaders. Revolutionary praxis is, in a sense, that magical combination of action inducing change--externally in the circumstances and distribution of power; internally in the way that it naturalizes a competing cognitive cage within the masses which changes the calculus of what appears natural, right, just and inevitable. 

Agit-prop itself has become naturalized within the instrumental palettes of political action across the range of contemporary ways of understanding (rationalizing) the world and from that deriving an aligned ideological framework for its curation and the better management of masses. By the end of the last century and like comedy, agit-prop has come to insinuate itself across a broad range of expressive vehicles, causes, and operationalization regimes. In the process it has escaped the confines of its origins in Bolshevik practice, as well as its narrow intellectual game playing that  reached it first wave refined heights in pre-World War 2 Europe in its classical forms of (now mainstream) political theater, art, and other manifestations tied to cultural production.   

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By the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, it has become clear that virtually anyone can engage in agit-prop.  Street people with local causes, better organized local, regional, national, or international organizations can organize actions of agitation and propaganda, sometimes on a vast scale.  Sometimes these are stunts that are geared toward leveraging willing press and other public organs to amplify their effects through reporting (and analysis aligned with the theme of the agitation). Nonetheless, the techniques of agit-prop appear to be  most useful as instruments of state policy. These can also be leveraged by the coordinated use of street level agitation projected into target communities within or outside their national borders. The so-called Gaza flotillas provide an excellent example of the contemporary forms of layered agit-prop with significant leveraging effects (for reporting eg here). This is neither to suggest its "value" as a normative object; it is merely to suggest that as technique for the ordering and disciplining of a reality  necessary to justify any sort of action, agit-prop is an increasingly useful and used tool of managing mass opinion--something necessary in order to comply with the niceties of democratic governance and its rule of/by law mechanisms.  Nonetheless it bears remembering that agit.prop is used precisely because under current conditions it appears to be a highly effective means of managing a situation successfully.

 It is in that context that one might most usefully approach both the United Nation's "Two State Solution Conference" and the response of the United States to that event. The Conference, billed as a "high-level conference on the peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine and the implementation of the two-State solution" (UN News here).  

The three-day conference, mandated by the General Assembly through resolutions ES-10/24 and 79/81 and co-organized by France and Saudi Arabia, brings together Member States, observers and regional stakeholders. It features plenary discussions and thematic roundtables on issues ranging from security arrangements and humanitarian response to reconstruction and economic viability. (UN News here).  

That framework, though, provided the agitation space within which a specific propaganda view could be solidified.  Its lebenswelt (the naturalization of which within the structires of global mass understanding) was nicely performed by Secretary General Guterres:

Mr. Guterres delivered a stark message about the urgency of action and the cost of delay. “For decades, Middle East diplomacy has been far more process than peace,” he said. “Words, speeches, declarations may not have much meaning to those on the ground. They have seen it before. They have heard it before. Meanwhile, destruction and annexation bulldoze ahead.”He reiterated that the only just and sustainable path forward is the establishment of two independent, democratic States – Israel and Palestine – living side by side in peace and security, with Jerusalem as the capital, based on pre-1967 lines and in line with international law and UN resolutions. Mr. Guterres challenged those resisting that vision. “What is the alternative? A one-State reality where Palestinians are denied equal rights, and forced to live under perpetual occupation and inequality? A one-State reality where Palestinians are expelled from their land?” he asked. “That is not peace. That is not justice. And that is not acceptable.” (UN News here).  

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A marvelous piece of agit-prop in its current sense. It was all the more marvelous for the way in which it produced an alignment of layered longitudinally effective lower level agit-prop elements with the formalities and theater of organized political authority at the national and international levels. It produced an effect of both naturalness and consensus--building on itself from both the top down (the UN event) and the bottom up (street level agit prop). One is reminded in this case of the opening scene of the 3 Penny Opera with the Shill inviting us into the world that would be revealed in the course of the play and to which one would develop a "natural" sympathy.  Its value is measured, of course, by its effectiveness; and its effectiveness is a function of the ability of agitation to draw attention and of propaganda to deeply penetrate. 

 

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Given contemporary realities of political communication at this stage of historical development, the only possible response would have also been an agitation theatrics of equal intensity. But that was not forthcoming. Instead, the United States delivered a statement of the obvious: that the U.N. was producing a fine piece of agitation-propaganda with respect to which the United States would have no part.  The concession of the form and value of the UN gathering--something like the modern form of a play be Berthold Brecht in 1920s Berlin but now with more punch, may satisfy theorists who are interested in such things--as things, events, or forms of action.  But from the perspective of U-S policy it does very little. The only counter to agit-prop is more agit-prop. To misunderstand or dismiss the power of agit-.prop, relentlessly deployed within a highly curated environment for agitation and propaganda is to misunderstand the phenomenology of politics and its reality bending objectives in the current age. That is something the United States does at its own peril. Or it can just concede and join the masses. The only way to manage communication, interpretation, and the ordering premises of mass reality to to shape it, do it, organize it, and have the stamina to make it so. For that agit-prop is a necessary element. It is one worth investing in. Just ask those who participated in the event.

The United States was quite correct in calling out the agit-prop of the event in which it refused to participate. Nonetheless it might have been better at offering its own form of agitation and done a better job managing its propaganda for effective penetration into the consciousness of the masses and as an element its peers might be able to embrace.  For that the absence of street level agit prop remains a major gap.

The Response of the State Department follows below in full.

Postscript: On 31 July 2025 the4 Department of State announced  (via a media note) Sanctioning Officials of the Palestinian Authority and Members of the Palestine Liberation Organization 

The State Department has reported to Congress that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Palestinian Authority (PA) are not in compliance with their commitments under the PLO Commitments Compliance Act of 1989 (PLOCCA) and the Middle East Peace Commitments Act of 2002 (MEPCA), including by initiating and supporting actions at international organizations that undermine and contradict prior commitments in support of Security Council Resolution 242 and 338, taking actions to internationalize its conflict with Israel such as through the International Criminal Court (ICC) and International Court of Justice (ICJ), continuing to support terrorism including incitement and glorification of violence (especially in textbooks), and providing payments and benefits in support of terrorism to Palestinian terrorists and their families. The United States is imposing sanctions that deny visas to PLO members and PA officials in accordance with section 604(a)(1) of the MEPCA.  It is in our national security interests to impose consequences and hold the PLO and PA accountable for not complying with their commitments and undermining the prospects for peace.

Reflections on the Fundamental Role of Trust AND/AS Worthiness in Social Ordering, the Example of China: 最高人民法院发布严格区分失信、失能被执行人强化信用修复典型案例 [The Supreme People's Court has issued a guiding case of strictly distinguishing untrustworthy and impaired (unable) persons subject to enforcement and strengthening credit repair]

 

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In Europe--and from there to European colonial territories especially in the Americas--the debate about trust and worthiness has been, in its contemporary forms, at the heart of debates about the nature and purpose of society and its collective organizations from the time of the great debates before the Spanish Imperial court in the 16th century and from there throughout (at least initially Western) Europe. A central element of that debate focused on people at the margins of social organization and the question turned on the way in which one developed conceptual boxes (with consequences) into which one could place them. (“Los fingidos y vagabundos: On the Origins of Personal Responsibility and the Welfare State In Early Modern Spain and Its Implications for Welfare Reform in the United States,” 3 Loyola Poverty Law Journal 3:1-55 (1997). DOWNLOAD ARTICLE HERE:  3LoyolaPovertyLRev1(1997)Fingidos); for other writings HERE).

At its core in the early 16th century was the connection between worthiness and (social) utility, and also between worthiness and conformity to social expectations.  On the one side was the apparatus of the Church and the forms of what then was understood as Catholic social teaching, one which tended toward the core principle that everyone ought to be aided and that aid was a part of the evangelizing mission of the Church, broadly understood.  As such, all members of society would be expected to contribute tot he effort. On the other side was the State apparatus and the forms of understanding of the social/political purpose and roles of individuals within a society functionally differentiated, organized through hierarchies of status, and developing more aggressive structures in law, norms, and expectations, about the necessary contributions of everyone in, for, and as a contribution to their place in the social order.  And all of this for the greater glory of the State, which then aligned with the forward march and contribution to the greater glory of the Church. 

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Beneath all of this was the foundational notion that mendigos y vagabundos (beggars and vagabonds) were not only stealing from the productive capacity of the rest of society, but that they were, by their very nature, a subversive social force that has to be eradicated or at least controlled. The connection between the underworld of the poor (under established or more conventionally productive society) and the criminal underworld was always lurking somewhere in the collective mind of social forces with social ordering to protect. The "universalists" sought to aid all and evangelize the poor out of their evil ways to make them worthy; the "contributionalists" sought to aid all through more precise systems of rewards and punishments the ends of which were to make everyone worthy, and worthiness was marked by utility, and utility was marked by  trust. The nature of the mechanisms of control, reform, and the debates about the nature and manifestation of (personal and institutional) responsibility passed through many phases, from transport to colonial outposts, to workhouses and Western style laojiao (laogai; 劳动改造) institutions of reform or re-education through labor (formally abolished in China in 2013). 

The debates passed into what became Protestant Europe through the Low Countries and from there to England where it produced. among other things the Elizabethan Poor Law. And from there it was carried to the North American colonies established by or with the permission of the English Crown. It survives today as gloriously interested as it was in the early 16th century in the form of the endless debates in the United States about the nature, scope and expectations around "welfare"--pitting those who would see support broadened and those who would require some sort of utility. It passed as well to the Spanish colonial Empire where it formed part of the intricate politics between the Spanish metropolis, the colonial political and religious establishments. And of course, the notion is buried within the now global debates about "welfare state" and the nature of the obligation/duty/responsibility of some social/political collective do manage/eradicate/re-educate/reform/support elements deemed in need of any or all all of these. 

The larger point of this rather long digression is the fundamental conceptual core around which it has remained a lively and unresolved issue of public/private/cultural/religious debate and action to out own time. Though it is evidenced quite clearly in the debates about "welfare" it is there only a perhaps minor manifestation of the deeper issue of trust-worthiness in the rationalization of social collectives.  It is not enough to be worthy or to engender trust; what has become a necessary ordering block of social relations is the alignment of trust and or as worthiness, and the essential element of trust-worthiness in operating systems of rewards and punishments that, at one extreme--can affect that way an individual or collective organ is made meaningful in society, and thus meaningful, can be rewarded or punished for correct or incorrect behaviors. More precisely, the issue of trust AND/AS worthiness continues to seep into virtually all aspects of the organization of society, and thus, into the ways in which governing institutions (of whatever character of scope of authority). In this sense it is as much a central element in the ordering of conceptual cages of duty in society in religious communities as it is in the post-Enlightenment ideological orders that range from markets driven liberal democracy to Marxist-Leninist vanguard led-guided collectives.  

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Society, especially in the 21st Century, and increasingly aided by technology, has tended toward the more measured approaches to coercion of expectation of conformity to social norms--including tose norms that impose duties and responsibilities the details of which are encoded in a person (or institution's) status, role, and place within social hierarchies (including pathways to navigate in, through, and up social orders, and with its to change the palette of one's expectations and circumstances).  Whether one is a universalist or a contributionaliust--whether one believes in the power of evangelization, or that of utility through (re)education focused on labor (or something else)--the result in this century is the same: the injection of all social actors into increasingly complex and even more increasingly tech managed systems of punishments and rewards (e.g., “The algorithmic law of business and human rights: constructing private transnational law of ratings, social credit and accountability measures,” International Journal of Law in Context (2022), 1–19), the purpose of which is to develop a system in which trust can be secured through the stimulus of punishments and rewards, and that this system can, itself, then produce worthiness--a worthiness not necessarily inherent in an individual or in an institution, but rather a worthiness that, detached from its object, is produced by responses to external stimuli (“Next Generation Law: Data Driven Governance and Accountability Based Regulatory Systems in the West, and in Social Credit Regimes in China,” Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal 28:123-172 (2018)).  

Trust, of course, is an essential element of worthiness. Trust, in the conceptual cages of social relations, has come to be understood as an expectation of conformity to social norms (including the social norm of non-conformity). Those social norms are to some extent built into law (and thus the rule of law as a means of detaching legal rules of social expectation backed by the power of the institutions of state from the fickleness of its human overseers (as elected, appointed or other officials or otherwise servants of the state). Nonetheless, they are also built into and serve as the bars of the cognitive cage that keep people within the scope of expectation, and that, therefore, can also serve as a means of judging them. Thus judged, people can then be sorted out and rewarded, or punished--either to reform them (to make them something different from what they were) or re-educate them, or remove them from congress with other members of the social collective. Worthiness is the actual experience of trust in society.  If trust is the object/state of being that represents that cluster of expectations that represent the ideal of social relations, the worthiness is its phenomenology--the actualization of trust through what a person (legal or natural) does or does not do (“Social Credit “in” or “as” the Cage of Regulation of Socialist Legality,” The China Review 24(3):71-106 (2024)).  To manage these great instruments of externalized reards and punishments is to produce the great action-machine, the phenomenology, of trust, and with it, the power to align action with the normative aspirations of worthiness. 

 It is with that in mind that the role of the courts are sometimes interesting.  In particular, and specifically in China, the role of the courts as an element of larger systems of trust and worthiness building opens a window on the application of these broader concepts in a specific context and under a specific political-ideological system with national historical-cultural characteristics. As part of its system of Guiding Cases (中国指导性案例) (see here for a nice explanation; current developments here; database here) the Supreme People's Court issued an interesting set of "guiding Cases" on judgment defaulter lists managed through the courts as part of China's social credit system: 最高人民法院发布严格区分失信、失能被执行人强化信用修复典型案例 [The Supreme People's Court has issued a guiding case of strictly distinguishing untrustworthy and impaired persons subject to enforcement and strengthening credit repair].

pix credit here (Strive to make the people feel fairness and justice in every judicial case New media submission email: xmt@rmfyb.cn)

 

Jeremy Daum for China Law Translate  nicely examined this set of Guiding Cases in the social credit context.

Entry into the court’s defaulter list, however, is primarily limited to those who have an effective legal judgment against them but refuse to satisfy it despite having the ability to do so. Based loosely on the courts’ power to preserve assets to satisfy judgments, penalties under the defaulter list include limits on high spending. The restrictions on air travel, fancy trains, private schooling, etc., which are frequently associated with social credit in Western media, are almost entirely restricted to the court judgment defaulter list. With nearly 2.5 million entries made to the list in 2024 (down 23.4% from 2023), the judgment defaulter list is already a critical enforcement tool for the courts. It is so distinct from other social credit blacklists, however, that it is probably best to understand the defaulter list solely as a court enforcement mechanism rather than thinking of it as ‘social credit’ at all.

 It is in that context that the more fundamental debate about the nature of trust and worthiness, and the pathways toward the attainment of a trust-worthy person or collective becomes interesting. Here the court distinguishes two sorts of behaviors with different consequences: for those who are unable (presumably by reason of circumstances, whether or their own making or not  will likely be refined in the future) there is an effort to help; for those who refuse, there is punishment.  The former is worthy; the latter is not. Jeremy Daum's summarey and analysis lays this out quite nicely:

 The court should only blacklist judgment defaulters who have the capacity to fulfill judgments against them, but still refuse to do so. There has been minimal attention, however, to the processes for establishing whether a party has the ability to satisfy a judgment.

The Supreme People’s Court’s recent example cases on distinguishing ‘inability’  from ‘refusal’ to fulfil judgments seemed set to finally address this issue.  Rather than detailing procedures for considering parties’ actual financial situations, however, the cases emphasize a more holistic, discretionary, ad hoc approach, urging judges to consider both the defaulters’ assets and attitudes when planning enforcement. The primary focus seems to be on ensuring that penalties for default do not destroy otherwise viable businesses.

Taken together, the main messages of the cases can be summarized as:

1. Stop mechanical application of the judgment defaulter list in all cases, and make real inquiries into the specific reasons for default, and ensure that enforcement measures correspond to actual conditions.
2. Seek sustainable outcomes for all parties:
   1. Recognize that the goal is satisfying the judgment, not punishment, and employ measures that allow businesses to survive to acquire assets sufficient to fulfill their obligations.
   2. Acknowledge the broader impact of a company failing, including on its customers and the industry, and encourage resolutions that protect all parties.
3. Consider the defaulter’s subjective malice or good intentions, employing penalties for truly intentional harms.

Pix credit here (help counterrevolutionaries turn over a new leaf

A very small example, really. Nonetheless it is a potent reminder  that the fundamental debate about the recognition, as well as the consequences of approaches to trust and worthiness continue ti pervade social relations. It is in the way in which these notions are both rationalized, and thus rationalized, manifested in action, that tends to serve as n important structural support for the organization and operation of a social collective. The fundamental issue remains the same--if on starts from the ordering premise that everyone be salved--are all people worthy of salvation--then the structures of society will be fashioned around salvation. If one starts from the proposition that some cannot be saved, then social ordering becomes more like what it is in both liberal democracy and Marxist Leninist States post-Enlightenment--systems of democratic dictatorship in every conceivable form.  There is at least a heavily dashed line between the conception of Mao Zedong's people's democratic dictatorship ("The combination of these two aspects, democracy for the people and dictatorship over the reactionaries, of Deng Xiaoping's On Opposing Wrong Ideological Tendencies ("The reason the rectification movement back in the Yan’an days was directed against subjectivism, sectarianism and stereotyped Party writing was that it aimed to solve fundamental problems rather than side issues."); and on a cultivation of a patriotic front (here), and the approach that the SPC reflects in its confrontation with the object and modalities of its defaulter list (as punishment) and its role as social agent producing harmony and collective progress (as reward/duty). What connects them is the notion that worthiness is a function of an attainable ideal and that trust comes action that suggests an active effort to move towards that ideal. The impaired judgment creditor can be helped to overcome their challenges; the intentional defaulter must be punished. 

The full text of  最高人民法院发布严格区分失信、失能被执行人强化信用修复典型案例 [The Supreme People's Court has issued a guiding case of strictly distinguishing untrustworthy and impaired persons subject to enforcement and strengthening credit repair] follows below in the original Chinese and in a crude working translation that gets the point across. 

 

Pix credit here; Michelangelo Last Judgment

Popular News Reporting from the Washington Post: "Doge reportedly using AI tool to create ‘delete list’ of federal regulations" (The Guardian UK Version)

 

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Western elites (and consequentially the masses that take their cues from elite theatrics) appear to enjoy  the instrumentalization of a sort of demonology that can trigger the sort of hysteria necessary to underpin desired political/social action. 

 

Artificial Intelligence, like the printing press before it (like other technological pivots in human history), has proven to be both irresistibly useful and unimaginably terrifying--depending on the moment, the person, and more particularly the interests advanced or negatively impacted.  Thus it was that the Washington Post broke a story, repeated in other places (this post is based on the version published by the Guardian UK), in which a story that would have been innocuous (as much as a transformative use of A.I. might be innocuous) except that, for the news outlets reporting it, and for the people leaking the information, it was undertaken by political enemies of these organs:

The “department of government efficiency” (Doge) is using artificial intelligence to create a “delete list” of federal regulations, according to a report, proposing to use the tool to cut 50% of regulations by the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s second inauguration. The “Doge AI Deregulation Decision Tool” will analyze 200,000 government regulations, according to internal documents obtained by the Washington Post, and select those which it deems to be no longer required by law. Doge, which was run by Elon Musk until May, claims that 100,000 of those regulations can then be eliminated, following some staff feedback. * * * Musk appointed a slew of inexperienced staffers to Doge, including Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old who was previously known by the online handle “Big Balls”. Earlier this year, Reuters reported that Coristine was one of two Doge associates promoting the use of AI across the federal bureaucracy. (Doge reportedly using AI tool to create ‘delete list’ of federal regulations: Department of government efficiency’ is proposing to use tool to cut 50% of federal regulations by January)

But the story, which is far more interesting than the proposal explained in the PowerPoint (which may be accessed HERE from the Washington Post) and follows below) suggests the use of A.I. within a human centered effort to consider, review and reduce the footprint of regulations.  One can quibble with the objectives, one cam argue that the parameters are wrong, and the like--but the idea of reviewing a body of regulation for the purpose of trimming unnecessary regulation is neither new nor untried by political administrations of virtually every political leaning. What is new is the scope of the endeavor--now made possible by technology, and the use of artificial intelligence (whatever that means in this case) to aid in the operation. That IS worth talking about, as are the basic analytics coded into the search and categorization parameters, the assumptions about costs and savings, the amount of time necessary for appropriate human centering and the actual tasks and oversight of the process left to humans, and the like. All of this, in any case, will take time; but time may not be what Doge has. That and the rest of it is just--well--politics. 

 

 

«کریدور زنگزور» می‌تواند حضور امنیتی آمریکا در قفقاز را تقویت کند/ ایران واقعیتهای جدید منطقه را دقیق رصد کند
پروفسور «لری بیکر» معتقد است کنترل مؤثر عملیات کریدور زنگزور می‌تواند حضور امنیتی تقویت‌شده‌ای برای ایالات متحده در منطقه فراهم کند.استاد حقوق و روابط بین‌الملل در دانشگاه ایالتی پنسیلوانیا می‌گوید: حضور امنیتی آمریکا در قفقاز می‌تواند برای حفاظت از دارایی‌های ایالات متحده و متحدانش در منطقه استفاده شود.

 به گزارش سرویس بین الملل تابناک، ایالات متحده پیشنهاد کرده است که کنترل کریدور حمل‌ونقل برنامه‌ریزی‌شده بین ارمنستان و آذربایجان را بر عهده بگیرد، با این ادعا که این اقدام باعث پیشرفت مذاکرات دیپلماتیک طولانی‌مدت و متوقف‌شده بین این دو کشور قفقازی خواهد شد. تام باراک، سفیر آمریکا در ترکیه، این موضوع را در جریان یک نشست خبری با خبرنگاران مطرح کرد.

با وجود اینکه ارمنستان و آذربایجان در ماه مارس به اجماع در مورد پیش‌نویس توافق صلح رسیدند، باکو همچنان بر چند شرط اضافی پیش از امضای رسمی توافق تأکید دارد.

ایران همواره اعلام کرده که با هرگونه تغییر ژئوپلیتیکی در منطقه مخالف است.

برای بررسی بیشتر این موضوع و اهداف آمریکا، تابناک با پروفسور «لری کاتا بیکر» استاد حقوق و روابط بین‌الملل در دانشگاه ایالتی پنسیلوانیا در ایالات متحده آمریکا گفت‌و‌گو کرده که در ادامه آمده است. «بیکر» عضو مؤسسه حقوقی آمریکا و مؤسسه اروپایی حاکمیت شرکتی است.

 

«کریدور زنگزور» می‌تواند حضور امنیتی آمریکا در قفقاز را تقویت کند/ ایران واقعیتهای جدید منطقه را دقیق رصد کند

پروفسور «لری بیکر» معتقد است کنترل مؤثر عملیات کریدور زنگزور می‌تواند حضور امنیتی تقویت‌شده‌ای برای ایالات متحده در منطقه فراهم کند.

کد خبر: ۱۳۱۹۳۶۳

تاریخ انتشار: ۰۴ مرداد ۱۴۰۴ - ۱۴:۵۸ 26 July 2025

 

ENGLISH VERSION HERE 

 

 

"习近平会见欧洲理事会主席科斯塔、欧盟委员会主席冯德莱恩" [Xi Jinping meets with European Council President Costa and European Commission President von der Leyen] and "25th EU-China summit - EU press release" [第25届中欧领导人峰会 - 欧盟新闻稿] and the "Joint EU-China press statement on climate"

 

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Western news organs recently reported on the high level meeting between European Union and Chinese officials. The focus was on the spaces that separate them and challenges to further or deepening cooperation. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping met with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Beijing at a tense bilateral summit, making no headway on geopolitical disputes and only modest advances on trade and climate change. While EU leaders raised concerns over China's export surplus flooding European markets with cheap goods, and Beijing allegedly providing support for Russia's war in Ukraine, Chinese officials denied responsibility for these challenges and instead called for a deepening of the partnership. "As our cooperation has deepened, so have imbalances," von der Leyen told Xi during their meeting, describing EU-China trade imbalances as having reached "an inflection point" where China must "come forward with real solutions." But Xi told von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa that "there are no fundamental conflicts of interest or geopolitical contradictions” between the two sides and urged the bloc to "properly handle differences and frictions." (EU-China Summit Exposes Deepening Tensions)

At the same time, that reporting also shed light on the deepening gap in perception--or at least in the reporting  of events that suggest substantial and incompatible  perspectives on the events at which everyone participated and nobody took back the same sense of what occurred. That, anyway, is what emerges in the documents produced by the two powers that sought to summarize the gist of the meeting.  The quote above from DW nicely summarized that perception gap--or at least the flowering of a discourse grounded in perception gaps.

None of this is unexpected. Both sides desire control of the narrative of the meeting. That narrative,m in turn, serves both internal and external needs and objectives.  On the Chinese side, the effort is meant to align with the New Era vision of China's place in the world, especially in relation to declining powers, and the control of the discourse of relations which is also aligned with a vision that is reflected on the ground in the Belt & Road initiative with its win.win operating modalities and hierarchically arranged pathways to interaction.  On the European side, the  effort is meant to advance the now old discourse of human rights and sustainability based objectives undertaken on a level playing field and driven by private market participants sensitive to the application and superiority of international law and norms applied in context. And on the sidelines, but never far away is the mercurial American position--which has been engaged in a frenetic oscillation between Chinese style America First initiatives and European style rules based multilateral orders, both with American characteristics. Reality, then, proceeds from the imaginaries of the real--and the imaginaries of the real are a function of a collective embrace of the way of viewing the world and understanding its processes.  

In this sense, more than discursive dominance is at play. The instrumentalization of ways of looking at the world are meant to advance very real actions and reduce resistance to action as well as the power of counteractions that challenge the attainment of State objectives. One analysis provides a glimpse: "EU-China relations remain on a downward spiral and the summit will offer no reversal. This should come as no surprise. China’s predatory trade practices, export restrictions on rare earths, and security concerns—particularly China’s support to Russian aggression—dominate ties. . . .China’s priority is to forge “a new model of major-country relations,” with a “mature and stable China-Russia relationship” at its core, rather than centered on EU-China cooperation." ( Taking the Pulse: Does the EU-China Summit Show a Weakened European Hand with Beijing? ("Given their incompatible political and economic models and conflicting priorities, climate change might be the only area where they can reach some agreement.")).

 

Pix credit Fun House Skinny Cat, Karen Rosenblatt

 In this context it is worth reading the European and Chinese summaries of the meetings side by side. Both follow below. The first, "习近平会见欧洲理事会主席科斯塔、欧盟委员会主席冯德莱恩" [Xi Jinping meets with European Council President Costa and European Commission President von der Leyen] provides a quite nice summary of the Chinese fusion of rationalizing premises and consequential concrete action. The other, "25th EU-China summit - EU press release" [第25届中欧领导人峰会 - 欧盟新闻稿] provides a quite substantial encounter with the European approach to the alignment of norm and action plan as a basis for the development of policy with effects on the ground. 

The Chinese side emphasized the general overall framework within which solutions might be achieved behind closed doors.  Acceptance of the framework, of course, is a pre-condition to the achievement of solution. 

Xi Jinping put forward three proposals for the future development of China-EU relations. First, insist on mutual respect and consolidate the positioning of partnership. China is a peace-loving country that advocates harmony, inclusiveness, cooperation and win-win. If China is measured by the path taken by the West, the perception of China will be biased. . . Second, adhere to open cooperation and properly handle differences and frictions. History and reality have proved that mutual dependence is not a risk, and the integration of interests is not a threat. Improving competitiveness cannot be achieved by "building walls and barriers", and "decoupling and breaking chains" will only isolate oneself. . . Third, practice multilateralism and maintain international rules and order. Faced with the major choices of war and peace, competition and cooperation, closure and openness, multilateralism, solidarity and cooperation are the correct answers.

习近平就中欧关系未来发展提出三点主张。一是坚持相互尊重，巩固伙伴关系定位。中国是热爱和平的国家，主张和谐、包容、合作、共赢。如果用西方走过的路来衡量中国，对中国的认知就会失之偏颇。* * * 二是坚持开放合作，妥善处理分歧摩擦。历史和现实证明，相互依赖不是风险，利益交融不是威胁，提升竞争力不能靠“筑墙设垒”，“脱钩断链”只会孤立自己。“降依赖”不能减合作。* * * 三是践行多边主义，维护国际规则秩序。面对战争与和平、竞争与合作、封闭与开放的重大选择，多边主义、团结合作才是正确答案。("习近平会见欧洲理事会主席科斯塔、欧盟委员会主席冯德莱恩")

On the European side something of a different view. Its essence was buried somewhere in the middle of its Press Statement: "The EU remains ready to continue to engage in constructive dialogue to find negotiated solutions. As long as this is not the case, the EU will take proportionate, legally compliant action to protect its rightful interests." [欧盟始终愿意继续进行建设性对话，以寻求通过谈判解决问题的方案。只要情况并非如此，欧盟将采取适度且合法的行动，维护其正当利益。]. Beyond that, the European side assumed an existing multilateral rules based order, to which it is bound and will protect and project,  from out of which it could submit its grievances to China. Those grievances cnstituted the bulk of the summary in the EU summary of the meeting. 

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The EU underlined the importance it continues to attach to this relationship and reiterated its commitment to deepen engagement with China, and enhance cooperation to address joint global challenges such as climate change. The EU stressed that deepened engagement must lead to concrete progress on issues of joint interest and more productive work towards a balanced and mutually beneficial economic relationship, built on fairness and reciprocity. * * * The leaders discussed Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. The EU underlined that this war of aggression is not only an existential threat to Ukraine, but also to global security. The EU reiterated that, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China bears special responsibility to uphold the rules-based international order, the UN Charter and international law. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a clear case of their violation. * * * The EU expressed its expectation that China takes concrete action on EU firms’ access to China’s market in priority areas such as meat, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. The EU insisted on the need for China to put an end to unjustified and retaliatory trade defence cases and measures on EU exports of brandy, pork and dairy. The EU highlighted the negative impact of export controls on rare earths and permanent magnets introduced by China and urged China to lift these restrictions. * * * The EU stressed the need to foster reciprocity in the digital sphere, underlining that European companies faced limited access to China. * * * The EU reiterated its deep concerns about the human rights situation in Xinjiang and Tibet, the treatment of human rights defenders and persons belonging to minorities, as well as the continued erosion of fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong, where China should honour its prior commitments. * * * The EU reaffirmed its consistent One China policy and expressed concerns about increased tensions in the Taiwan Strait.

欧盟强调其持续重视这一关系，并重申致力于深化与中国的接触，加强合作，共同应对气候变化等全球挑战。欧盟强调，深化合作必须在共同关心的问题上取得具体进展，并朝着建立在公平互惠基础上的平衡互利的经济关系迈进，取得更富有成效的成果。 * * * 领导人讨论了俄罗斯对乌克兰的侵略战争。欧盟强调，这场侵略战争不仅对乌克兰构成生存威胁，也对全球安全构成威胁。欧盟重申，作为联合国安理会常任理事国，中国负有维护基于规则的国际秩序、《联合国宪章》和国际法的特殊责任。* * * 欧盟表示期待中国在肉类、化妆品和药品等重点领域就欧盟企业进入中国市场采取切实行动。欧盟坚持要求中国停止针对欧盟白兰地、猪肉和乳制品出口的不合理和报复性贸易保护措施。欧盟强调中国对稀土和永磁体实施的出口管制的负面影响，并敦促中国取消这些限制。* * * 欧盟强调有必要在数字领域促进互惠互利，并强调欧洲企业在中国市场准入受到限制。* * * 欧盟重申其对新疆和西藏的人权状况、人权捍卫者和少数群体人士的待遇以及香港基本自由持续受到侵蚀的深切关切，并敦促中国履行其先前在香港的承诺。 * * * 欧盟重申其一贯坚持的一个中国政策，并对台海紧张局势加剧表示关切。

  

On one point there was convergence substantial enough to warrant a writing: climate change. The "two sides agree to demonstrate leadership together to drive a global just transition in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication. ("Joint EU-China press statement on climate").

Both Statements/summaries follow below in English and Chinese along with the "Joint EU-China press statement on climate".