Tuesday, March 31, 2026

From the NPC Observer: NPC 2026: Documents and Votes

 

Pix credit here

 

The NPC Observer has compiled a quite useful list of all released official documents from the 14th National People's Congress. These include: Work Reports15th Five-Year PlanAnnual Development PlansCentral and Local BudgetsLegislation; and  Other work product.

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

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

 

April 14 - From Closet to Consequence: Sustainable Fashion, Global Inequality, and Human Rights

I am delighted to pass along this announcement of this Panel Discussion sponsored by the Goldstein Family Human Rights Institute Business and Human Rights Initiative:
 
 
From Closet to Consequence:
Sustainable Fashion, Global Inequality, and Human Rights

 
Tuesday, April 14 | 12:00 PM - 1:15 PM 
Join Virtually on Zoom (or)
In Person in The Dodd Center, Conference Room 162

 
The global fashion system links everyday consumer choices to complex questions of environmental harm, labor rights, and social inequality across borders. This hybrid panel brings together scholars and practitioners to examine fashion not only as an environmental issue, but as a human rights challenge embedded in global production, trade, and waste flows. 

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

Join Us!

About the Speakers

Dellasie Aning is a rising Ghanaian-American polymath artist, philanthropist, and CEO who bridges the creative worlds of New York City and Accra, Ghana. Known for her Afro-fusion music, she is also a dedicated humanitarian and entrepreneur focused on health advocacy and sustainable fashion. She is the founder and CEO of an e-commerce sustainable clothing business for women (Panalove Online). As a humanitarian, her work centers on skin cancer and skin disease in Africa due to skin bleaching (Panalove Foundation). She is also an alumna of Emory University, holding a degree in political science and marketing.

Imran Islam, is an Associate Professor in Textile Development and Marketing Department at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). He specializes in sustainability, textile waste management, textile fibers and yarns, knit development and analysis, textile testing and analysis, and application of textile technology to design. Dr. Islam has served on the New York City Task Force on Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Use and Disposal of Textiles (Local Law 112). He is a recipient of the State University of New York (SUNY) Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching and an active member of the International Textile and Apparel Association (ITAA) and the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (AATCC).

Meital Peleg Mizrachi, Ph.D., is an adjunct faculty member at UConn and postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Economics at Yale University, where she conducts research in the realm of sustainable fashion with a particular focus on regulation and textile waste. Her ongoing research initiatives encompass the assessment of policies within the New York Fashion Act—a pioneering global regulation in the fashion industry—and the exploration of textile waste issues in Ghana, often resulting from clothing donations.

 

Swayam Sampurna Panigrahi, Ph.D., is a Fulbrighter currently hosted at the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute, University of Connecticut, where she is pursuing a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Fellowship since May 2025. Her research lies at the intersection of sustainable supply chains and business and human rights, with a specific focus on labor practices and human rights due diligence in the textile and apparel sectors of India and the United States. Back home, Dr. Panigrahi is an Assistant Professor in the Operations Management department of IFMR Graduate School of Business, Krea University, India.

About the Discussants
Rachel Chambers – Assistant Professor of Business Law, UConn School of Business; Director of the Business and Human Rights Initiative.

Shareen Hertel – Professor of Political Science and Human Rights, UConn; Director of the Research Program on Economic & Social Rights.

Our Sponsors
This event is hosted by the Business & Human Rights Initiative (BHRI) and co-sponsored by the Research Program on Economic & Social Rights (ESRG) at the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute.

Part of the 2025-26 ‘Why Human Rights Matter’ series.

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

 

Pix credit here

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

Image generated with ChatGPT

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

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

Register for the program here

 

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

 

Pix credit here

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Together with the National Security Strategy of the United States for 2025 (November 2025) (discussed here: America First as the Essence of National Security and the American Post-Colonial 'Howl': Reflections on the 2025 National Security Strategy of the United States (2025)) and the U.S. Department of State Agency Strategic Plan Fiscal Years 2026-2030 (January 2026) discussed here: Reflections on the Normative-Institutional Architecture of America First: U.S. State Department "Agency Strategic Plan: Fiscal Years 2026-2030, the 2026 National Defense Strategy rounds out the elaboration of the America First basic political line of the Republic when it comes to the role and focus of the Republic's external relations with its (re) focus on the general contradiction of the Republic in its "new era of historical development" from the now foundational orienting lens of the protection and elaboration of a transactional ordering framework--the fundamental need of ensuring peace (the territorial space of a transactional universe projected outward and directed inward) for the appropriate forward movement along the path to the realization of the Republic's rebirth in its new golden age. (Fleshing Out the America First Framework as Peace Through Strength Projections: Brief Reflections on the 2026 National Defense Strategy (US Department of War January 2026))
Where does that leave us? The White Paper emphasizes the critical element of national security at the core of national development. It suggests that socialist modernization, even in its HKSAR variations, cannot be achieved except as a function of national security. And it suggests that national security is not possible without socialist modernization. What one now encounters is the emergence of the national security State of which China provides one, but by no lams the only, variation on this theme for the constitution of political economic systems form the 3rd decade of the 21st century. 

 
Pix credit here ("Warmly Love our Great Country"/"Honor the Teacher")

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

Monday, March 30, 2026

Worth Reconsidering in Times of Transition, "The Cuban Diaspora in the Twenty-First Century" (2011)

 

Pix Credit here

 In 2011, the Cuban Research Institute of Florida International University released the Report:  "The Cuban Diaspora in the Twenty-First Century." In the Press Release  announcing its distribution the genesis and purpose of the Report was nicely described:

In 2011, the Cuban Research Institute received a grant from the Open Society Foundations in Canada for a project on "Strengthening the Role of the Cuban Diaspora." One of the project's basic aims was to promote the modification of Cuban migration laws and policies that would acknowledge migrant rights, including respect for Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, guaranteeing the freedom of movement and residence. One of the main results of this initiative was the creation of a high-level academic commission to draft a "white paper" assessing Cuban migration policies and recommending their alignment with universal standards in the field. The members of this commission were Dr. Juan Antonio Blanco, then at FIU; Dr. Uva de Aragón, formerly at FIU; Dr. Jorge Domínguez, Harvard University; Dr. Jorge Duany, then at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras; Mr. Orlando Márquez, then representing the Archdiocese of Havana; and Dr. Carmelo Mesa-Lago, professor emeritus from the University of Pittsburgh. The report was published in English and Spanish in July 2011.

The next step, starting in October 2011, was the dissemination of the report of the commission—together with the results of the 2011 FIU Cuba Poll—in Washington, D.C. (at the Inter-American Dialogue); Miami (at the sanctuary of La Ermita de la Caridad); Mexico City (at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas); Madrid (at Casa de América); Havana (at the Casa Sacerdotal Juan María Vianney); and Santo Domingo (at the Instituto Nacional de Formación Agraria y Social).

The Catholic Church in Havana printed the report and distributed it to key individuals and institutions as well as to the libraries of various archdioceses throughout the island. Additionally, the website of Palabra Nueva—the journal of the Archdiocese of Havana—published the proceedings of the event in Cuba with links to the digital version of the report.

The report was later published as a book, La diáspora cubana en el siglo XXI (Miami: Eriginal Books), in 2012. Click here for the English version of the report; Pulse aquí para la versión en español del informe; A video of the presentation of the report in Madrid can be accessed here.

 At a time of transition for Cuba, the role of the Cuban Diaspora will be important. At the same time it is equally important to recall that the Cuban Diaspora is not its entrenched leadership in Miami or elsewhere; nor is it entirely represented by its propaganda organs, those these have been quite useful as a counterweight to the propaganda organs of the political establishment in Havana. Certainly the "important" people--the people with money and influence--will play a disproportionate role both in the Leninist sense of serving as a vanguard the leadership and guidance of which will be important in the official sector.  At the same time the Diaspora reflects a fundamental division that has long existed within Cuba--both before and after the 1959 Revolution--on the one hand a thin layer of powerful, formally established and institutionally organized  structures of power. society, culture and the like. And just beneath that the "unofficial" sector--the rest of the Cuban people--a community that is anarchically ordered, and well ordered just he same. This stratum exists alongside  the official sector, and is largely invisible to it--unless of course the official sector needs it.  As change comes to Cuba, most eyes will be on the official sector, well reflected in "The Cuban Diaspora in the Twenty-First Century." But it will also be worth watching, and watching closely the way the Cuban diaspora's unofficial sector contributes to the evolution f Cuba, its politics, economics, and society, in the period that is coming. 

Sunday, March 29, 2026

《数智赋能正能量生产传播态势报告》[Report on the Trends in the Digital and Intelligent Empowerment of the Production and Dissemination of Positive Energy]

 

Pix credit generated by  ChapGPT

 

All States and other actors are fussing with the construction of their own cognitive cages within which it is possible to elaborate some form or other of "control" of tech based innovation, especially as it appears to permit automated decision making (that affects humans anyway) or that is self-contained and self-reflexive to some extent (broadly artificial intelligence (AI), though there is hardly anything artificial about it and its intelligence ought not to be measured against that of humans).  

Still, tech based innovation is hard to resist, whatever cognitive cage human collectives build and the premises and reality rationalizing framework these purport to elaborate. In the face of this contradiction, hum ans will tend to dfo what humans always do--they compartmentalize and then feign surprise when the contradictions that they thereby create come back top bite them in inconvenient places and at inconvenient times. But there is no help for it. Collectives MUST have their cake and eat it too! The point is to engage in both development without regard to consequences as one develops increasingly elaborate textual frameworks for identifying, addressing, suppressing, or controlling those consequences. If one is lucky (collectively) the two trajectories do not meet until long after its architects have departed from the scene, leaving it to others to clean up the mess. 

Pix credit here

 But even better when the two trajectories appear to align. That bring one to 《数智赋能正能量生产传播态势报告》[Report on the Trends in the Digital and Intelligent Empowerment of the Production and Dissemination of Positive Energy].

The "Report on the Trends in Digitally and Intelligently Empowered Production and Dissemination of Positive Energy" systematically reviews and analyzes the practical results and developmental trends of how digital and intelligent technologies empower the production and dissemination of "positive energy" content, identifying and summarizing eight key trends. [《数智赋能正能量生产传播态势报告》系统梳理分析了数智技术赋能正能量内容生产传播的实践成效与发展趋势,并总结出八个态势特点。] 

One is speaking here of psychic energy; or perhaps better put, of the high quality production of cultural and social objects that enhance the State's ability to engage with the masses in a positive way, grounded in the fundamental obligation to guide the masses, through dialectic, toward their own comprehensive development, and in this way engage more efficiently in the process of "all around" socialist modernization. In other words, here one is engaging in the high quality production of m,ass line objects and processes. 

The article provides a summary but not the text of the Report itself (a common practice in official Chinese miscommunications). But for our purposes here the summary is revealing enough. It points to eight key measures that suggest the current state of the objectification of positive energy:

 (1) 一是“从粗放到精细:高质量语料库建设提速”。[First: "From Extensive to Refined: Accelerating the Construction of High-Quality Energy Production Corpus" ]. The object here is to build a "high quality trusted corpus of data"  Its manifestation suggests its object:  "Corpus construction is gradually shifting toward the refined curation of data quality, driving a re-evaluation of content value, a restructuring of dissemination logic, and a reshaping of value-oriented guidance. " [语料库建设逐步向数据质量精细炼化,推动内容价值重估、传播逻辑重构和价值引领重塑。]. But its goal is the more important object of data, one directed to online producers of content ((corpus):--to "consciously prioritize the promotion of mainstream values, striving to serve as a vital, continuous source and a "high-confidence reference source" for these high-quality data (corpus)  [网络内容生产者要自觉把弘扬主流价值置于突出位置,努力成为高质量语料库的源头活水和“高置信参考源”。]

 (2) 二是“从人机协作到人机共生:‘超级创作者’崛起引领生产变革”。[Second: "From Human-Machine Collaboration to Human-Machine Symbiosis: The Rise of 'Super Creators' Driving Production Transformation." ] The realities of diffusion of capacity requires a re-orientaiotn of the human machiner interface aligned with the realities of (1) technology andf the (2) imperative of vangiard Party guidancer and leadership. "As the barriers to entry and operational costs for applying these technologies plummet, the paradigm that "a single individual constitutes an entire team" is emerging, giving rise to a new generation of "super creators" [技术应用门槛和技术使用成本急速降低,“一个人就是一支团队”,将催生“超级创作者”崛起。]. One imagines here a virtual neutral network of individuals and small collectives driven from the core of human political leadership in the production of a data corpus that reflects and builds on the preferred narrative line that then involves all in the construction and elaboration of the approved political cognitive cage now virtually enhanced and elaborated. 

Pix credit here
 (3) 三是“从静态到互动:文化‘两创’迈向新阶段”。数智技术让收藏在博物馆里的文物、陈列在广阔大地上的遗产、书写在古籍里的文字活起来,使其从静态符号变为具备互动能力的“文化伙伴”,推动构建文化创作、文化传播、文化体验的新生态。[Third: "From Static to Interactive: Cultural 'Creative Transformation and Innovative Development' Enters a New Stage." This one provides an extraordinary semiotic moment; the idea of virtually activation cultural objects. "Digital and intelligent technologies breathe life into artifacts housed in museums, heritage sites scattered across the vast landscape, and texts inscribed in ancient manuscripts—transforming them from static symbols into interactive "cultural companions," and thereby fostering the development of a new ecosystem for cultural creation, dissemination, and engagement." [数智技术让收藏在博物馆里的文物、陈列在广阔大地上的遗产、书写在古籍里的文字活起来,使其从静态符号变为具备互动能力的“文化伙伴”,推动构建文化创作、文化传播、文化体验的新生态。].  That activation ("breathing life into an object) suggests the fetish natire of cultural objects--when inactive they are nothing; bringing them to "life" requires an engagement between object and its (re)constructed history which is then projected forward virtually in culturally relevant contemporary ways. The object is  not reverence but invocation; not understanding of historical objects in history but as its potency in contemporary forms. This also helps better understand the notion of "data corpus" not as objects, but as objects appropriately activated and so activated projected into mass dialectics.

 (4) 四是“从快消到精品:微短剧探索主流价值叙事”。数智技术推动微短剧、漫剧向技术密集型转型,实现成本重构和产能爆发。[Fourth: "From Fast-Moving Content to Premium Works: Micro-Dramas Explore Mainstream Value Narratives." ]. The focus is on what works now, and to move it both forward in development and to utilize it as a vessel for the insertion of proper narrative lines and social teaching--one where exploitation produces a win-win for all parties. In this case the focus is on what is not HOT: micro-dramas and comic-based dramas. "数智技术推动微短剧、漫剧向技术密集型转型,实现成本重构和产能爆发。题材多元化、内容精品化、作品IP化正成为行业发展共识"  [Digital and intelligent technologies are driving the transformation of short-form dramas and comic-based series toward a technology-intensive model, enabling a restructuring of costs and an explosive surge in production capacity. Diversification of themes, refinement of content quality, and the development of works into intellectual property (IP) are rapidly becoming the consensus for industry development.].

 (5) 五是“从算法到价值:向上向善嵌入平台分发体系”。[Fifth: "From Algorithms to Values: Embedding 'Upward and Benevolent' Principles into Platform Distribution Systems." ]. Aqll of this requires assessment systems that have built in systems of punishment and rewards. Essentially the next generation in social credit systems now focused on the production and management of cultural artifacts with a significant political/moral element. 

"Online platforms are proactively embedding metrics such as mainstream values, content quality, and social impact into their recommendation algorithm models, steering these mechanisms toward greater transparency and benevolence. Consequently, the logic of content distribution is shifting toward value-driven guidance, the precision of online dissemination is being further enhanced, and algorithmic incentives are now driving the creation of high-value content" [网络平台正主动将主流价值、内容质量、社会效益等指标嵌入推荐算法模型,推动算法机制走向透明向善——内容分发逻辑转向价值引领,网络传播精度进一步提升,算法激励驱动价值创作。].

Pix credit here
(6)  六是“从有限场景到泛在延伸:全场景传播新场域不断涌现”。[]Sixth: "From Limited Scenarios to Ubiquitous Extension: New Arenas for All-Scenario Communication Are Constantly Emerging." And the purpose, of course, is not what it seems but what it does. This is storytelling at its most traditional--the combination of entertainment with educaiton, and the4 oversight of education by the leadership of a collective whose fundamental political line commits it to the education of the masses as a critical element of socialist mode4rnization moving the masses forward along the socialist path at the same rate of speed ind and in the same direction and economic modernization. 

可交互、可感知的传播新场域,并被广泛应用于时政报道、文博展览、红色教育等领域,把抽象理论和宏大叙事转化为可感知、可参与、可共情的生动情境,有效提升主流价值传播的感染力和穿透力。[It establishes a new communicative landscape characterized by interactivity and sensory engagement, finding widespread application in fields such as current affairs reporting, cultural and museum exhibitions, and "Red" education. By transforming abstract theories and grand narratives into vivid scenarios that are perceptible, participatory, and emotionally resonant, it effectively enhances both the persuasive appeal and the penetrative power of mainstream value dissemination.]

 (7)  七是“从话语转换到生态共建:文化出海拓宽新路径”。[Seventh: "From Discourse Transformation to Ecosystem Co-building: Broadening New Pathways for the Global Outreach of Culture." ]. This is not, however, Cultural Revolution handicrafts. It is instead a means of instrumentalizing tech, including programs in generative intelligence to higher forms of now cultural production of objects that are themselves heavily signified within collective orthodoxies. and to public ends under the guidance of the vanguard CPC.  These technologies morph "'production tool' into a fundamental 'infrastructure'; it promises to deliver more powerful toolkits, more precise cognitive insights, and deeper layers of cultural translation, thereby becoming the core driving force behind the future global dissemination of culture" [人工智能正从“生产工具”向“基础设施”进化,将提供更强大的工具套件、更精准的认知洞察、更深层的文化转译,成为未来文化出海的核心驱动力].  This integration and cultural production, like porcelains in the 18th century, are also meant for export. 
推动中华文化以更适配海外语境、更贴合Z世代受众的形式“走出去”,实现从“内容搬运”到“生态共建”的跃迁。数智技术大幅提升跨文化传播的精准性和适配度,数字文化产品出海形态进一步创新拓展。[We are driving the global outreach of Chinese culture by adopting forms that are better tailored to overseas contexts and more resonant with Gen Z audiences, thereby achieving a transformative leap from mere "content transfer" to "collaborative ecosystem building." Digital and intelligent technologies have significantly enhanced the precision and adaptability of cross-cultural communication, while the modalities through which digital cultural products expand into global markets continue to undergo innovative development.]

 (8) 八是“从量化到精准:传播效果评估迎来新契机”。[Eighth: "From Quantification to Precision: New Opportunities for Evaluating Communication Effectiveness." ]. And best of all, tech based and well managed/projected cultural (re)production makes it much easier, it is hoped, to manage and ditret both production and consumption. The  Re`prt appèars to make much of platforms. Yet what one experiences are platform ecologies, that is of interpenetrating connections between platforms of consumers and producers  whose structural coupling is the critical element to the archeology of cultural objects, their activation ad projection in modern form to the masses in China and elsewhere who will in its consumption be (re)educated in ways that align with the policies and fundamental political line of te vanguard party in the current era of historical development. 

The evaluation paradigm is shifting from a focus on mere "effects" to a focus on overall "efficacy," establishing a holistic, dynamic feedback loop. This shift propels the evaluation of positive communication outcomes beyond simple "post-mortem reviews" toward "forward-looking forecasting" and "real-time process adjustment." Furthermore, driven by advancements in large language models, multi-agent simulations, and autonomous interaction capabilities, the "Digital Communication Sandbox" is emerging as a pivotal framework for measuring and optimizing communication effectiveness. [评估范式由“效果”转向“效能”,形成全息动态评估闭环,推动正能量传播效果评估从“事后复盘”向“前瞻预测”和“过程调整”演进。随着大语言模型发展、多智能体仿真和自主交互能力提升,“数字传播沙盒”将成为衡量和优化效果评估的重要形态,]

This is a very different approach from the risk obsessed frameworks of liberal democratic states and their techno-bureaucracies. It is also different in emphasis--not on the production of objects but the production of people in which popular formation is techno-virtually enhanced, if not driven at least in its micro-applications. There is still a human involved--but not in the middle--at the top. And this reflects the hierarchical ordering of democratic centralism as a core element of human Leninist organization, one directed toward a certain vision of human fulfillment, joy, happiness and completion. 

 None of this is unique to China. Its expression is contextually relevant, certainly, but the values and impulses, the approach and rejection of risk aversion framing for one that is precisly directed toward the reactivation of objects--cultural, economic, social, etc.--into something that can be made both virtually objective and signified in contemporary terms, stripped of its unnecessary historical baggage and repurposed for contemporary ends, is coming with great speed, to the4 rest of the world as well. It s in this, more than in the verbiage produced by academics and intellectuals, that the core approach to AI and tech will emerge from out of the risk based administrative  baggage of the 20th century, now (re)purposed and activated for the contemporary history era. 

The text of  《数智赋能正能量生产传播态势报告》[Report on the Trends in the Digital and Intelligent Empowerment of the Production and Dissemination of Positive Energy] follows in both the original Chinese and in an English translation. 

 

Saturday, March 28, 2026

President Trump Issues Executive Order "Paying Our Great Transportation Security Administration Officers and Employees"

 

Pix Credit ABC Houston

“I am going to sign an Order instructing the Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, to immediately pay our TSA Agents in order to address this Emergency Situation, and to quickly stop the Democrat Chaos at the Airports,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. “It is not an easy thing to do, but I am going to do it! I want to thank our hardworking TSA Agents and also, ICE, for the incredible help they have given us at the Airports,” he said. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told The Hill Trump would sign the executive order “as soon as it’s ready. A senior administration official said the money provided by President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act will be used to pay TSA officials. (here)

All of this came about after months of stalemate in Congress over the funding of the Department of Homeland Security. And that was possible in the aftermath of the violence in Minnesota (especially) that culminated in tragic deaths that created an atmosphere of disapproval against which the Trump Administration could offer little that proved effective. The immediate predicate was action in the Senate that included Republican Senators that was rejected in the House. 

House Republicans voted Friday evening to pass a short-term funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security that has no viable path in the Senate and is likely to extend the shutdown stalemate on Capitol Hill. The vote of 213-203 came after Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., rejected the Senate-passed bill, which would fund all of DHS except Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. Funding for DHS lapsed in mid-February. He called the Senate measure “a joke,” placing full blame for it on Democrats, even though Republicans control the Senate and the bill passed by unanimous consent early Friday morning. (NBC News)

The gist of the Executive Order is this:

Accordingly, I hereby direct the Secretary of Homeland Security, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, to use funds that have a reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations to provide TSA employees with the compensation and benefits that would have accrued to them if not for the Democrat-led DHS shutdown, consistent with applicable law, including 31 U.S.C. 1301(a).

A few brief thoughts:

1. The spiral of political strategies that had, at its center, the violent events of ICE agents in Minnesota, has proven that in the U.S. old formulas no longer guarantee the sort of popular responses that can be harvested as political action. 

You may not have noticed, but we are currently under a partial government shutdown. In an effort to use whatever shards of power they hold to rein in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Democrats in Congress have refused to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) unless the Trump administration agrees to changes in how the immigration agency operates, including a ban on masks, body camera requirements, a use-of-force code, and others. (Brennan Center)

As much as the situation in Minneapolis was both tragic and explosive, it has proven impossible to turn it into a "George Floyd" moment or momentum for change. That either suggests the inability of Democrats and their allies to capitalize discursively (at least) on those events, or that the events did not lend themselves to that sort of mass mobilization (at least in sentiment). . . . or both. "Five years after the 2020 racial justice movement prompted a wave of cultural changes and then an enduring political backlash, many Democrats are signaling that they now recognize how skillful Republicans can be in using scenes of unrest — whether limited or widespread, accurate or not — to cast liberal lawmakers as tolerant of lawlessness." (New York Times)

2. The Democrats are not the only collective that embraces repetition without analysis. Republicans well knew that petty meanness is a "bad look" and is significantly unaligned with American values. It is likely that the meanness of of the election of President Trump's policies during the first term contributed to the election results in 2020.  I noted this in "As the Trump Administration Fades into the Shadows of History (and Myth) Lessons Left Unlearned" (November 2020). 

2. Cruelty never pays. The temptation to be cruel runs deep in American politics--of both the left and the right. The Trump Administration gave in to the temptation of cruelty. It is hard to conjecture the reasons (though in the construction of Mr. Trump as the Prince of Demons it will likely be ascribed to some sort of immoral lust, which is appropriate for demons in general, and suitable for the much larger appetites of princes among demons). The approach to the important issue of migration proved a lasting case in point, and especially the policy toward migrant children. There were others. But a reputation for cruelty will be remembered. But its temptations are also easily adopted by those hear their own demon-song as the singing of the choir of angels. The left enjoys ruining individuals on the basis of accusation related to deviations from their strategically advanced orthodoxies. And they have found willing accomplices in business (not an obvious ally) but there is a business case to be made for serving as the instrument of orthodoxy when, like the inquisition in medieval Europe, its effects tends to fall on individuals and the victims tend to be in the way of the ambitions of others. ("As the Trump Administration Fades into the Shadows of History (and Myth) Lessons Left Unlearned" )

This was a crisis of the Administration's own making, one that got in the way of the fulfillment of its own migration policy goals.  

3. Playing "chicken" is indeed a high stales political gambit. It was never clear who was going to be blamed for the inconvenience caused by the defunding strategies over the Department of Homeland Security. Part of the problem was the misalignment between TSA and some of them motivating foundations of the strategy (migration policy tactics). It is around the risk-reward calculus of chicken that one might be able to understand the last set of actions in the Senate and the House. As the picture that starts this post suggests, the misalignment between the source of the funding  issue (ICE) and its effects (TSA) has not worked to the advantage of Democrats. At the same time the Trump Administration has moved just enough to take the edge of  tactics and actions that crossed the line into cruelty. 

4. The Executive Order changes the calculus and chicken. There is a risk that if the Executive Order is challenged (in courts), both the protagonists and the courts may be "blamed" for the consequences (airport chaos).  This may be one of those actions where a expected challenge to the authority of the President to act via Executive Order may be more politically dangerous than inaction--certainly in the short run (eg the planned great retaking of Congress by the Democratic Party in the midterm elections in 2026). In the long run trajectories my suggest another direction, at least for those seeking either to curb Presidential authority or the protection of the role of Congress. Left unchallenged it suggests a further creep toward a distinct "style" of Presidential government, one that gives the appearance of ruling by decree but which ought to amount to no more than the memorialization of Presidential discretionary choices  now serving as its own public narrative. 

5. And that brings one back to the starting point of all of this--something that can be easily forgotten after so many months--migration policy, or more accurately, the need for a hard look at the way that migration policy is operationalized in communities--and the way in which public authorities ought to respond to citizen reaction (both within and outside the boundaries of the law). Here again each side scripts these performances on the basis of a calculus that is meant to use bodies for the purpose of agit prop (here, here, here): to write grand narratives and advance political/normative positions on the strategic use of bodies whose consumption in the theater of action and reaction is meant to invoke the great social archetypes through which effective and penetrating stories can be crafted and cognitive cages opened into which target audiences may be invited.  

Pix Credit White House Press Release on Migration

 And here the clashing narratives, and its theater remains raw and not yet closer to consensus, thugh muchmore transparent in its irreconcilable starting and end points.

6. Yet, even with all this potential, now perhaps squandered,  events may have overtaken the issue of ICE tactics, and more generally President Trump's migration  policy as it is manifested within the U.S.

The Text of the President's Order follows. 

 

 

Trump Administration Announces New Mobile App: "New White House App Delivers Unparalleled Access to the Trump Administration"

 

It is usually the small things that escape notice; and yet many times they open profoundly important windows on how collectives change and how that change is reflected in elite behaviors, AND how that elite behavior looks suspiciously like the re-imagining of ancient patterns now updated.

In a global context in which one might be tempted to think that everyone has become the leader of their own propaganda department, and that personal propaganda departments--generators of narrative in real time over any number of platforms--now generate data not merely for consumption by others but also for projection onto other propaganda platforms, especially those of collectives.   

Propaganda, today, is usually treated as a pejorative It is a species of the conveyance or production of narrative that contains, within it distortions or falsehoods, biases, or misleading bits that moves it from the usual effort to manage knowledge within acceptable bounds, to such management that violates the core premises of narrative contest. But even that us a weirdly unsatisfactory way of understanding propaganda. Its etymology provides a better window on meaning. Originally the term wasn't a general form of expression by a reference to a specific organ of foreign relations and evangelization of the 18th century European Catholic Church hierarchy--the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide (Congregaiton for the Propagation of the Faith, established in 1622 (Inscrutabili Divinae Providentiae)

The Church on earth, as the Decree Ad Gentes of the Second Vatican Council states, is missionary by nature, but in the self consciousness of Its being and Its mission there has been an increase, led by the Holy Spirit. An important moment in this "growth" was the foundation of the Congregation "de Propaganda Fide". The Church, starting from its summit, the Pope, realizes his inalienable call, to proclaim Christ, the only Saviour of the world and therefore having to drive, encourage, and organize all the forces available so that this saving proclamation reaches all nations. (Congregatio de Propaganda Fide)

Thus, at its root, the tern focuses on evangelization--on witnessing the truth of the "good news" of the ideas and premises around which one might better and more usefully interpret the word around them. "By 1790 the term had been generalized to include "any movement or organization to propagate some practice or ideology" . . .  The modern political sense ("dissemination of information intended to promote a political point of view") dates from World War I, originally not pejorative or implying bias or deliberate deception. Meaning "material or information propagated to advance a cause, etc." is from 1929" (etymology). And from this it is an easy leap to the pejorative--the truth of one cognitive cage, grounded in its faith would be lies and untruths, manipulations, fake news and manipulative strategies to another. 

And the yet older meaning draws greater power in the virtual worlds populated by platforms in which the autonomous evangels become parts of herd or communal evangelization in which the joy of the truth of one's own construct is an essential element of the communication within and between evangelizing communities. So here we are, despite the Enlightenment's efforts to "free" us of religion, it has merely fractured and reconstituted the faith of individuals and their communities. Faith--that is the object; faith, that is the significs; faith that provides the certainty of the cognitive cages within it is possible to develop a language, a narrative, that permits one to live one's faith and invite others within it. "He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation." (Mark 16:15); "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen (Matt 28:19-20). 

And this is what President Trump appears to want to do--to preach the work of his presidency in the way that organs and leaders everywhere, and influencers, individuals, and collectives--are each striving to do.  For the unbelievers, of course, this is propaganda. For others, an expression of faith expressed in the jubilation over the Word. And in the expression of faith, the truth of its expression, and more importantly, the truth of its oppositions, becomes a matter of the cognitive cages of faith from out of which they emerge. 

Wednesday, March 25, 2026

March 2026 Academe Newsletter--Faculty and AI

 

 



The March Academe newsletter includes a selection of articles about how faculty members are grappling with artificial intelligence—at the bargaining table, in shared governance, and through organizing. Additional articles on AI and other topics will appear in the spring issue, to be published in full in early May.

 The table of contents with links follows below.