习近平用青春的智慧和汗水打拼出一个更加美好的中国 [Xi Jinping, Use the wisdom and sweat of youth to work hard to create a better China] Through the Lens of 毛泽东青年运动的方向 (4 May 1939) [Mao Zedong, On the Orientaiton of the Youth Movement)]

Pix Credit HERE

Pix Credit HERE

Senior levels of the central authorities have been focusing a substantial amount of energy--and sharing that expenditure publicly--on the education and expectations of youth, and on the responsibilities of socialist leading forces respecting their education and acculturation. Recently, for example the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference under the leadership of Wang Yang undertook a review of the education of Hong Kong and Macao youth as an integral part of the great Patriotic campaign that was given a new and accelerated direction after the protests of 2019-202 (“进一步提升爱国爱港爱澳力量能力建设” [Further enhance the capacity building of patriotism and love of country for Hong Kong and Macau]) .

The issue of the education of youth, however--and especially in the context of its alignment with ongoing great national patriotic campaigns aligned with the naturalization of the premises that patriotism and the Four Cardinal Principles (四项基本原则--upholding the: (1) Socialist path; (2) peoples' democratic dictatorship; (3) leadership of the Communist Party of China; and (4) Marxism and Mao Zedong Thought) as developed through its contemporary expression as New Era Theory--is also of great significance throughout China (see my Essays on Contemporary China: Heartland, Periphery, and Silk Roads (2021). The theme of much of these efforts may revolve around the insight: Knowledge Must be Correctly Cultivated! Considering 《中小学生课外读物进校园管理办法》in the context of the ongoing great patriotic campaigns. Education, and the proper socialization of youth, is not merely a matter for educational institutions--it is also an inherently political task, the responsibility of which ought to fall on the Party's mass organizations established and operated to those ends. The Communist Youth League has always been at the forefront of those institutional collective efforts. 

It is with this in mind that one can better appreciate the recent reporting of, and the direction to study and implement, Xi Jinping's speech at the celebration of the centenary of the founding of the Communist Youth League of China, Use the wisdom and the sweat of youth to work hard to create a better China (14 May 2022) [用青春的智慧和汗水打拼出一个更加美好的中国] published in the People's Daily by a PD commentator (for the official view for English language readers from the Hong Kong Press see here ("Chinese President Xi Jinping has told members of the Communist Youth League to dare to struggle and 'actively' unify around the Communist Party. '[You] must take the lead in daring to – and being good at – struggle, confront difficulties in the face and overcome hardships,' he said during an event in Beijing marking the youth league’s centenary on Tuesday. 'Members of the league should treat political training seriously and actively seek political progress and unify around the party,” he said. “[You] must strive to be members of the Communist Party.'")). As usual, the summary presents a condensed version of the key principles that are to be advanced.  One that was interesting was 自我革命 (self-revolution, self-criticism,  or the mechanics of personal transformation in Chinese Leninism). It was a topic that has been recently emphasized again, for example by Xi Jinping at the Second Plenary Session of the Sixth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China as reported by Zhang Shihai (张士海 Dean of the School of Marxism, Shandong University) in "Why self-revolution is the second answer to overcoming the historical cyclical pattern" [自我革命何以成为跳出历史周期率的第二个答案] for Communist Party News (21 Jan. 2022).

The courage to self-revolution is a distinctive mark of the proletarian party that distinguishes it from other parties, and it is also an inevitable requirement for the proletarian party to realize its historical mission. Marx and Engels pointed out that what distinguishes the proletarian revolution from any other revolution is that it "often criticizes itself". It is reflected in the proletarian party, manifested as self-purification, self-improvement, self-innovation, and self-improvement in the process of stirring up the turbulent and promoting the Qing Dynasty, reforming the old and making new ones, and then maintaining its vitality forever. [勇于自我革命是无产阶级政党区别于其他政党的鲜明标识，也是无产阶级政党实现其历史使命的必然要求。马克思恩格斯指出，无产阶级革命与其他任何革命不同的地方，就在于它“经常自己批判自己”。体现在无产阶级政党身上，表现为在激浊扬清、革故鼎新中自我净化、自我完善、自我革新、自我提高，进而永葆生机活力。] (Why self-revolution is the second answer to overcoming the historical cyclical pattern)

  Of course, the concept is as old of institutionalized Leninism, and deeply embedded in the discourse, if not the practice of European state Leninism since the days of Stalin.  It acquired something of a new dimension when given Chinese characteristics by Mao Zedong, and then later contemporary manifestations in various forms under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and now Xi Jinping. It has begun to take a form as much as discourse as praxis, and as much as patriotism as it once did as a mechanism for the disciplining of democratic centralism. That is what makes this form of socialist political-collective self actualization so interesting as it is repurposed for the New Era within the framework of Leninist verticalities. 

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But Use the wisdom and the sweat of youth to work hard to create a better China suggests a more comprehensive framework of youth mass organizations as an education center that is essential to and detached from the formal educational structures. Political education is embedded in but also situated outside, the structures and institutions of formal education.  It is an essentially social and political task for which educational institutions are not entirely capable of managing. But it also reaches back for the language and sensibilities of the Communist Party of China in its revolutionary period--except that the central contradiction has shifted from class struggle to more equitable distribution of socialist production and its expansion to social and cultural production. 

That gaze back to the roots of revolutionary organization, by an institutionalized vanguard now well within its 3rd Era as a Governing rather than as a Revolutionary Party, brings one back to the late 1930s and the critical work of Mao Zedong. In this case one time travels back to Mao Zedong, The Orientation of the Youth Movement (speech was delivered by Comrade Mao Tse-tung at a mass meeting of youth in Yenan to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the May 4th Movement (4 May 1939) [青年运动的方向]. One noteworthy passage connects Mao in 1939, to Xi in 2022, connected by the notion of self.criticism as a revolutionary-educational tactic at the heart of the work of youth mass organizations:

Pix Credit South China Morning Post

How should we judge whether a youth is a revolutionary? How can we tell? There can only be one criterion, namely, whether or not he is willing to integrate himself with the broad masses of workers and peasants and does so in practice. If he is willing to do so and actually does so, he is a revolutionary; otherwise he is a non-revolutionary or a counter-revolutionary. If today he integrates himself with the masses of workers and peasants, then today he is a revolutionary; if tomorrow he ceases to do so or turns round to oppress the common people, then he becomes a non-revolutionary or a counter-revolutionary. Some young people talk glibly about their belief in the Three People's Principles or in Marxism, but this does not prove anything. . . . So when we assess a person and judge whether he is a true or false adherent of the Three People's Principles, whether he is a true or false Marxist, we need only find out how he stands in relation to the broad masses of workers and peasants, and then we shall know him for what he is. This is the only criterion, there is no other. (The Orientation of the Youth Movement )

For Mao, the critical orientation was unity with workers and peasants as a function of the central contradiction of the historical era in which he served the state and party. In the New Era that orientation shifts to align with the current central or principal contradiction and expressed in the great patriotic campaigns which are in turn built around principles of stability and prosperity.  It has roots going back, in its current form, to the 爱国主义教育 (Patriotic Education Campaign) of the Era of Reform and Opening Up, and now re-instituted in line with the objectives of the New Era (eg here). 

 

Pix Credit: Xi Encourages Youth to Forge Ahead in a New Journey Toward National Rejuvenaiton

While the conceptual and discursive structures of these projects are well developed, it is as unclear now as it was during the revolutionary period, whether the well conceptualized program will produce the desired results.  Certainly a significant element of youth will be receptive.  The critical question though, is whether a critical mass of youth can be moved at least in the 'right' direction. That, however, can only be guided by theory.  As Xi Jinping as noted--and as expressed by the core of the contemporary principle contradiction-- in the absence of a failure to realize the "Chinese Dream" or some aspects of it (with reference to the principal contradiction of the New Era: the "contradiction between the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life and unbalanced and insufficient development"), the ideological campaigns will be far more challenging.  It is at that juncture, of course, that education, political, and economic policy converge, with policies of social and cultural management.  And in that comprehensive ecology, it is likely that self learning ratings based systems of punishments and rewards for all key social actors (especially those responsible for ensuring that the mass of Chinese people  attain a better life) will likely be necessary.  It is there--not in the self-revolution of youth, but in the accountability and assessment of the senior leadership-- that the future of the CPC and its system lies. That, at any rate, is what its Basic Line and its leadership have suggested now for many years. While foreign disruption is always a factor, it is becoming clear in Marxist-Leninist as well as in liberal democratic systems, that the internal resilience of a system, and the coherence of its ideologies and basic working styles producing effective enough alignments between what is offered and what is delivered, on which future viability is determined. It is the fear that such alignments are not effective that serve as the foundations of revolutionary transformation--in Marxist Leninist and in liberal democratic regimes.

The People's Daily Reporting,  "Use the wisdom and sweat of youth to work hard to create a better China ——On studying and implementing the important speech of General Secretary Xi Jinping at the celebration of the centenary of the founding of the Communist Youth League of China" (14 May 2022 [用青春的智慧和汗水打拼出一个更加美好的中国——论学习贯彻习近平总书记在庆祝中国共产主义青年团成立一百周年大会上重要讲话] follows below in the original Chinese and a crude English translation.  Also included is the English language text of Mao Zedong, The Orientation of the Youth Movement (speech was delivered by Comrade Mao Tse-tung at a mass meeting of youth in Yenan to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the May 4th Movement (4 May 1939)).

 

“进一步提升爱国爱港爱澳力量能力建设” [Further enhance the capacity building of patriotism and love of country for Hong Kong and Macau]

 

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Wang Yang [汪洋], a member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, and Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference chaired a bi-weekly meeting of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference at which it was reported (13 May 2022) that the topic of discussion was “进一步提升爱国爱港爱澳力量能力建设” [Further enhance the capacity building of patriotism and love of country for Hong Kong and Macau].

There is little by way of surprise in terms of policy and implementation by the central authorities of the New Era version of the One Country Two Systems principle. Its peculiar interest was its timing, coming close to the time of the elections held under the new system for Hong Kong, one that has been widely criticized in  the liberal democratic camp (eg here) but which accords well with the continued efforts to more intimately align Hong Kong governance with core principles of Socialist Democracy and Socialist democratic working styles.  Yet that effort, one that helped fuel the protests in 2019 and the legislative interventions of the United States thereafter, is precisely the ongoing "problem" of Hong Kong.  And that was precisely the point of the meeting of the CPPCC National Committee, but pointed in the opposite direction ("The election followed major changes to Hong Kong's electoral laws last year to ensure that only "patriots" loyal to Beijing can hold office. The legislature was also reorganized to all but eliminate opposition voices." Here).  

This is a political line that can be traced back to 1984 and the fundamental approach of the Chinese authorities toward Hing Kong:

Some requirements or qualifications should be established with regard to the administration of Hong Kong affairs by the people of Hong Kong. It must be required that patriots form the main body of administrators, that is, of the future government of the Hong Kong special region. Of course it should include other Chinese, too, as well as foreigners invited to serve as advisers. What is a patriot? A patriot is one who respects the Chinese nation, sincerely supports the motherland’s resumption of sovereignty over Hong Kong and wishes not to impair Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability. Those who meet these requirements are patriots, whether they believe in capitalism or feudalism or even slavery. We don’t demand that they be in favour of China’s socialist system; we only ask them to love the motherland and Hong Kong. (Deng Xiaoping, "One Country Two Systems" (Summation of separate talks with members of a Hong Kong industrial and commercial delegation and with Sze-yuen Chung and other prominent Hong Kong figures) 22-23 June 1984).

The reporting of the event, in the original Chinese and in a crude English translation follows.  The most interesting parts include the continued heavy emphasis on the re-education of the young. The effects not just on the curriculum., but on pedagogy and on the behavior of faculty will likely become a subject of greater scrutiny.  It is an area ripe for social credit mechanisms.  The other focuses on the creation of incentive programs to reward people who are deemed to be working toward the protection and expansion of the Hong Kong and Macao patriotic front.  Here we have very traditional wine in new bottles--but one in which the older generations will be dealt with and the younger generations cultivated and properly trained so that their orientation will be quite different from that of their parents and more aligned with the expectations of the Mainland. And to that, it is worth considering another old vantage in a new bottle: Mao Zedong, The Orientation of the Youth Movement (speech was delivered by Comrade Mao Tse-tung at a mass meeting of youth in Yenan to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the May 4th Movement (4 May 1939)).

Finlandization for Ukraine? An Old Idea in a NATO Bottle

 

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Those in the know have for years spoken of ways to maintain an uneasy peace at the borderlands of the peripheries of Europe through the construction of a set of neutral zones (in the form of states) the task of which would be to cede their foreign policy sovereignty in the name of the sort of peace that is guaranteed by the separation of empires.   There are all kinds of lessons that are meant to be drawn from the oceans empire of the Americans (or the UK or Japan) when contrasted to the irritation of empires sharing a common border (Russia and the German Reich; the Soviet Union and China.

And then there is Finland.  Since the prior invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2014 (one met with significantly less drama in the international community than the invasion of 2022), those people mindful of the prerogatives of ideologically reactionary and territoriality based empire have suggested for Ukraine, the model of Finland.

The concept and idea of Finlandization, the focus of much heated debate during the Cold War, has once again appeared in the discourse of international politics in the context of the Ukraine crisis. Eminent political figures, such as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski, offered ‘the Finnish model’ as a solution to the Ukraine crisis, both for Ukraine domestically and in the sense of solving disruptions in East-West relations more generally. (Tapio Juntunen, "Helsinki Syndrome: The Parachronistic Renaissance of Finlandization in International Politics" New Perspectives 25:55 (2017) arguing "that the analogy is based on an overgeneralised historical lesson that relies on a mythological re-appropriation of the original process of Finlandization during the Cold War (ibid., 57); based on a fuzzy deployment to serve as (1) an ideal type; (2) a pejorative rhetorical tool; (3)  a revisionist conceptualization of historical politics; and (4) as an emancipatory model (ibid., at 58).

This is something quite easy to advocate from the seat of another Empire over which one might have had some influence at some point, and with respect to the influence projecting organs of society one might still have premiere entree. And so it was (Brzezinski, Zbigniew (2014), ‘Russia Needs a “Finland Option” for Ukraine’, Financial Times, 23/02/2014; Ignatius, David (2014), ‘A Finland Model for Ukraine?’, Washington Post, 20/05/2014; and Kissinger, Henry (2014), ‘To Settle the Ukraine Crisis, Start at the End’, Washington Post, 05/03/2014.

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The idea is appealing not just from the perspective of 20th century leading experts who once helped shape the posture of a transitioning empire (the US), but also it is quite appealing to the leadership of emerging post global empires (China) as well as throwbacks (Russia) in the form of what the Chinese leadership describe not as Finlandization of appropriate territories, but as the novel application of the protean concept of indivisible security (Indivisible Security and Hierarchies of Sovereign Autonomy; Full text: President Xi's keynote speech, "Joining Hands to Meet Challenges and Cooperation to Create the Future," delivered at the opening ceremony of BFA annual conference 2022 (Official Translation)). And of course the numerous apologists whose role in the first third of the 21st century is to run around the world beating themselves in expiation of their own sins and that of the place that spawned them. Here the threat is generated from the Americans and the solution is a sort Mexico--the Finland of North America ("And basically, Lavrov’s proposals could plausibly be interpreted as saying: Let’s turn Ukraine into Mexico. Well, that was an option that could have been pursued. Instead, the U.S. preferred to do what I just described as inconceivable for Mexico." Chomsky text here April 2022); but no Cuba. . . . .

All of this, of course, acquires a far more interesting perspective after the start of the 2022 Russian invasion.  It seems that contrary to the rules of etiquette for smallish countries on the borderlands of empire, some model well behaved states may start reacting when the empire on their doorstep appears to break the tacit agreement that produced  neutrality.  That is, that much of the discussion of the "Finland" or "Mexico" object is a function not just of the requirements placed on the weaker state, but also the responsibility for good behavior imposed on the imperial giant. In this case, the giant misbehaved in a grossly public way (for less public lapses eg here).  It misbehaved in ways that (not withstanding the inter-familial misbehavior of the Soviets in 1956 and 1968 that night be distinguished because those occurred within an empire rather than on its periphery) raised the logical doubt that the Russians would not keep to their part of the bargain (reminding on of the famous insight of the Athenian representatives to the Melians about the amorality of imperial ambition and strategy (Thucydides Melian Dialogue)). 

It should come as no surprise, then, except to those still inhabiting the 20th century and its tropes, or those who view any crisis as another means of undermining the liberal democratic core,  that Finland might react. In the process Finland has provided an ironic evolution of the notion that once pejoratively bore its name.

Finland’s leaders said Thursday they’re in favor of rapidly applying for NATO membership, paving the way for a historic expansion of the alliance that could deal a serious blow to Russia as its military struggles with its war in Ukraine. The annoucement by President Sauli Niinisto and Prime Minister Sanna Marin means that Finland is all but certain to join the Western military alliance, though a few steps remain before the application process can begin. Neighboring Sweden is expected to decide on seeking NATO membership in coming days. (Finland’s leaders call for NATO membership ‘without delay’)

This updated Finlandization suggests as well the path that Russia has now made possible because it was just too impatient and too brutal, and too reactionary, to utilize post global techniques of dependency to manage Ukraine.  But perhaps for Russia, after all, the old ways are best.  And it may be a sign of the times that they are calculating that the old ways, if they are successfully will again become the new ways.  It is unclear--I suspect there is less thinking than calculation--a recipe for error; buy not our kitchen. And indeed, it is the heirs of empires long gone that seem to have taken the news hardest--whether within NATO (for domestic reasons: "President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday it was not possible for NATO-member Turkey to support plans by Sweden and Finland to join the pact given that the Nordic countries were "home to many terrorist organisations;" here) or from the expected target ("Russia would have to "rebalance the situation" with its own measures were Sweden and Finland to join NATO;" here).

The Russian Foreign Ministry Statement follows below in the original and in a crude translation into English. The statement is quite interesting for its perspective: Finland was doing well enough as a nbeutral zone--and indeed had even been permitted to chart, more or less, their own political course, as long as they remained, more or less, an empty vessel. "But why should Finland turn its territory into a frontier of military confrontation with the Russian Federation, while losing independence in making its own decisions, history will judge." (Russian Foreign Ministry Statement ("Но зачем Финляндии превращать свою территорию в рубеж военного противостояния с Российской Федерацией, лишаясь при этом самостоятельности в принятии собственных решений, рассудит история."). Why indeed? Yet the Russians need only have looked to their south and west for the answer--that, indeed, the entire periphery around Russia had effectively already been turning into a "frontier of military confrontation." And that is the problem: Beyond internal campaigns--Georgia, Moldova, Syria, and meddling in post-Soviet Central Asia before the much more aggressive and comprehensive action in Ukraine appeared to make it clear that whatever the Finns may have thought of the arrangement, the Russians increasingly viewed neutral zones as spaces created for their use and through which they could project their own power.  Both Russia and China have played the "encirclement" card effectively in the Western press and among sympathetic members of the elites embedded within the camps of their political competitors, China with the Trans Pacific Partnership (see, e.g., here) and Russia  with respect to meddling with the states once part of the Soviet Empire, itself in part a product of negotiation with the worst elements of Fascism (with which Russia found it convenient to partner when it suited them). 

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For Ukraine, of course, the Finnish model remains appealing, perhaps more so now. Post-global Finlandization reminds one that neutrality in the shadow of empire  imposes duties and responsibilities of all sides.  It also suggests that in an age of tech based warfare and of autonomous private actors--the difference between big and small may have shrunk.  Yet the fundamental lesson for Ukraine is clear--'Be like Finland'.  On the peripheries of  post-global spaces in which Russia has a territorial interest there appears to be little choice now, especially as against the renewal of ancient Russian raiding practices along its frontiers and in those spaces.

The real issue for Russia, though,will remain unresolved. That issue points to the post-global challenge for all second tier states, and especially difficult for those states that were once at the heart of pre-modern and modern territorial empires now fallen--Tsarist, Ottoman, Iranian Imperial etc. And it is this: how does one reconcile a second order status dependent on the apex power (for Russia increasingly China) and at the same time be able to project power onto dependent states of their own.  That, of course, is the essence of post.-global empire, now being structured (despite the inability of the chattering and related classes to see it; see here, here, and here).

Shucheng Wang on Authoritarian Legality and Legal Instrumentalism in China (European Chinese Law Research Hub)

 

The folks over at the European Chinese Law Research Hub (with thanks to Marianne von Blomberg, Editor ECLR Hub, Research Associate, Chair for Chinese Legal Culture, University of Cologne) have posted  a marvelous discussion, by Shucheng Wang (Associate Professor Scool of Law City University of Hing Kong & affiliated researcher of the Law and Religion in the Asia Pacific Region program at The University of Queensland, Australia) of his upcoming book on authoritarian legality in his blogpost about a piece that dissects the instantiations of legal instrumentalism. Shucheng Wang’s paper Authoritarian Legality and Legal Instrumentalism in China was published in the The Chinese Journal of Comparative Law, a free draft is available here).

The study is quite important, and the typologies presented are important and insightful. One of the most interesting aspects would appear marginal--but to anyone sensitive to the semiotic power of language can be central to any consideration of substantive discussion--and that is the rise of a certain terminology to describe developing legality in China.  While the Chinese name this "Socialist Legality" or "Socialist Democracy" or "Socialist instrumentalism" and the like, others, especially those who may not share a fidelity to the fundamental ordering premises of the Chinese political-economic order and its expression as Marxist-Leninist constitutionalism, call these manifestations something else.  For them, what the Chinese seek to manifest is "illiberal" or "authoritarian" and the like.  The intimation, usually unconscious but sometimes telling is to de-center the object of study and to frame non-conforming systems by reference--not to itself--but to liberal democratic institutions and normative baseline principles as the "gold" standard against which all other efforts must be judged.  The same, of course, increasingly applies in the other direction as well. That is a pity, in either case, if only because it moves  from a study of the ting in itself to the thing as against an ideal.  And where that ideal is inherently driven by an orthodox ideology, then comparison can easily slip into politics.  Not that it is is bad or unnecessary.  Quite the contrary.  It is the essence of the dialogue emerging between the two great imperial houses of the 21st century. Nonetheless, the semiosis of the vocabulary and its analytics provides a window on a much larger and more fundamental engagement between two systems whose differences are causing, in Gunther Teubner's famous characterization--inter-systemic irritations, that might well affect both but in quite different ways.

I am cross posting the essay below. The original ECLRH post may be accessed HERE. And as a plug for the marvelous work at the European Chinese Law Research Hub: if you have observations, analyses or pieces of research that are not publishable as a paper but should get out there, or want to spread event information, calls for papers or job openings, or have a paper forthcoming- do not hesitate to contact Marianne von Bloomberg.

 

童之伟对上海新冠防疫两措施的法律意见 [Tong Zhiwei, Legal Opinion on Two Measures of Shanghai's New COVID Epidemic Prevention and Control]

 

Pix Credit here ("Shanghai's vice mayor admitted to shortcomings in the city's handling of its COVID-19 outbreak as a record 23,600 new cases were reported on Saturday (Apr 9)")

Tong Zhiwei, one of the most distinguished Marxist Leninist Scholars of constitutional law in China, has spent the greater part of his academic career in the service of his nation. As a loyal member of the Chinese political community, and a strong adherent of its political-economic model, his has been the task of ensuring that officials remember that their primary responsibility is to the nation under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and that this responsibility requires a strict adherence to both the CPC Basic Line and to the cage of regulation tat the CPC itself has developed for the guidance of its cadres at every level of the Party and state apparatus. Party officials, especially when they serve in the state apparatus, understand that they represent the political authority of the nation with the Party at the center and that they ought to face discipline, or correct errors through criticism and self-criticism (accountability) working styles, to prevent, mitigate and remedy failure to comprehensively adhere to their obligations. 

The Communist Party of China shall lead the people in developing socialist democracy. It shall preserve the organic unity of Party leadership, the running of the country by the people, and law-based governance, follow the Chinese socialist path of political development, expand socialist democracy, develop a socialist rule of law system with Chinese characteristics, and build a socialist rule of law country, thereby consolidating the people’s democratic dictatorship and developing a socialist political civilization. (Constitution of the Chinese Communist arty; General Program)

The core of leadership necessarily depends on the fidelity of its cadres in inferior positions throughout the nation in carrying out--in the spirit of democratic centralism, the political guidance of the core in accordance with the regulations and law that themselves reflect the current implementation of the Party's Basic Line in the administration of the nation. Part cadres have the duty to root out left and right error ("The Party must ensure that reform and opening up are carried out in unity with the Four Cardinal Principles, put its basic line into effect in all fields of endeavor, and combat all mistaken tendencies of the “Left” and Right, maintaining vigilance against Rightist tendencies, but primarily defending against “Leftist” tendencies" Ibid). While the power of the Party is supreme, under the guidance of its leadership core, Party cadres must, as Xi Jinping famously reminded the people, "Power should be restricted by the cage of regulations." (Here). In his Report to the 19th Party Congress Xi Jinping emphasized a central element of his New Era theory was: "the overall goal of comprehensively advancing law-based governance is to establish a system of socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics and build a country of socialist rule of law" (at p. 16). It is a duty of cadres to ensure that lower level cadres functioning in administrative roles adhere strictly, then, to the law tat serves as the expression of the Party's guidance and leadership to further Party unity and to contribute to the stability and prosperity of the nation. The issue, of course, is appropriate method.  The Mass Line suggests that the masses may direct their opinions to the Party for its consideration and guidance; cadres have an obligation under principles of democratic centralism and the rules of Party organization to follow internal guidelines where questions of cadre abuse of discretion or error might be asserted; and the central authorities have a duty to ensure that they are well informed and to reward its cadres who help in that task.

It is with this firmly in mind that one can better appreciate the  recent reflections of Tong Zhiwei on the legality of certain actions undertaken by local authorities in their (what must assumed to be good faith) efforts to carry out the guidance of national authorities in their efforts to incitement strict containment policies for COVID infections. The essay, 童之伟对上海新冠防疫两措施的法律意见 [Tong Zhiwei, Legal Opinion on Two Measures of Shanghai's New COVID Epidemic Prevention and Control] originally appeared on his social media site in China.  In it, Professor Tong makes the point, grounded in socialist legality, that the policy is well within the authority of the state as undertaken by its officials.  However, the exercise of that authority must be undertaken in accordance with law. In several important respects, that appears not to have been the case with the methods chosen by local officials to implement national policy and Party Guidance. This appears to be a simple principle--but as is well known outside of China (in the United States and Europe for example), that in the heat of meeting the challenges of, officials sometimes fail to strictly adhere to law.  Unfortunately,  截⾄北京时间2022年5⽉8⽇晚，童之伟的微博处于禁⾔状态 [As of the evening of May 8, 2022, Beijing time, Tong Zhiwei's Weibo is in a state of embargo]. This appears to be in line with local censoring policy (see here). Yet it is also worth noting that Professor Tong's essay is in line with Xi Jinping and the Standing Committee's continued commitment to the current national policy of meeting the COVID challenge:

At a meeting chaired by Xi on Thursday, the ruling Communist Party's supreme Politburo Standing Committee vowed to "unswervingly adhere to the general policy of 'dynamic zero-Covid,' and resolutely fight against any words and acts that distort, doubt or deny our country's epidemic prevention policies." This is the first time Xi, who according to state media made an "important speech" at the meeting, has made public remarks about China's battle against Covid since public furor erupted over the harsh lockdown in Shanghai. "Our prevention and control strategy is determined by the party's nature and mission, our policies can stand the test of history, our measures are scientific and effective," the seven-member committee said, according to government news agency Xinhua. "We have won the battle to defend Wuhan, and we will certainly be able to win the battle to defend Shanghai," it said. (Xi Jinping sends warning to anyone who questions China's zero-Covid policy)

It is clear that, within the Chinese political-economic model, the CPC, exercising its sovereign authority of leadership and guidance, may choose to respond to the COVID pandemic with a zero-tolerance policy.  It is also clear that this leadership and guidance  is expressed by the core of CPC leadership in the course of a process that is, in turn, guided by the principles of democratic centralism and the mass line.  Once established, as the Standing Committee reminded the nation, the policy must be implemented by CPC cadres without question and respected by the nation until it is modified, or the objective is obtained. That policy does not exist in a vacuum but is indivisibly embedded in the cage of regulation that itself is the product of CPC leadership decisions and guidance for the administrative apparatus of state.  These regulations serve as guidance for the nation and cadres are responsible for ensuring that they conform both their Party work and their service to the nation in conformity with the direction of the leadership core. Professor Tong criticizes  the failures of the local officials to implement the Standing Committee's policy correctly, rather than serving as a criticism of the core policy itself. He suggests only that cadres must do their duty and work diligently to both implement the COVID related policies of the leadership core and to achieve those objectives in ways that vindicate the longer term project of Socialist Law as an important element of New Era Theory. Indeed, the essay appears to further the guidance of the Standing Committee to Party cadres: "The Standing Committee also demanded cadres have a "profound, complete and comprehensive understanding" of the policies set by the party's central leadership. "We should resolutely overcome the problems of inadequate awareness, inadequate preparation and insufficient work, and resolutely overcome contempt, indifference and self-righteousness in our thinking," it said." (Ibid.). The points are simple: state authority may be exercised in defense of the people; but the exercise of such authority must be undertaken as provided by law. Emergencies may produce special circumstances but even then the law provides the basis for its declaration and the rules for conduct of officials to meet the challenges of emergencies. And especially in a context such as pandemic, with clear direction from the central authorities, the failure of local officials to conform to law produces the potential for factionalism and disunity that might threaten  the stability and prosperity of the nation and the authority of core of leadership in its efforts to direct pandemic responses along with relevant national institutions.  The questions left open require renewed consideration of the application of democratic centralism and mass line principles to conditions of pandemic that can connect Professor Tong's concerns with the rules based examination of the conduct of local officials that enhance and deepen the operation of CPC leadership and guidance in the New Era. 

Professor Tong's essay 童之伟对上海新冠防疫两措施的法律意见 [Tong Zhiwei, Legal Opinion on Two Measures of Shanghai's New COVID Epidemic Prevention and Control] follows below in the original Chinese as well as in a crude English translation.

 

Cuba's Cryto and the Great Barrier Wall Between Internal and External Monetary Policy

 

 

Pix Credit Cryptonoticias

 

Cuba's central bank recently announced regulations for the limited use of cryto currency.  

Según la Gaceta Oficial No. 43 Ordinaria, que recoge una resolución del Banco Central de Cuba, esta entidad dispone que aquellas personas naturales o jurídicas que deseen operar servicios con bitcoin y activos virtuales, deberán optar por una licencia ante el organismo. (Banco Central de Cuba regula servicios de Bitcoin y activos virtuales) [According to the provisions in the Official Gazette  No 43 (ordinary) the Central Bank of Cuba published a resolution relating to persons and institutions that may be licensed to operate bitcoin and other crypto facilities]

The news has spawned at least a little interest if only because the move appears to follow that of states like El Salvador, which recently made crypto an accepted method of payment.  But there is a very large difference.  The Cubans are following an old policy ritual in both the openness to crypto and its regulation.  That, in turn, is based on the idea that Cuba would create a membrane around its national territory that cannot be easily permeated by foreign systems, methods, investments, and the like.  Beyond that membrane, the Cuban state as an intermediary--either directly or through its designated organs--may access global trade, investment, and currency options not otherwise permitted to reach directly the internal operations of the Cuban economy.   As was noted in recent reporting by Reuters:

Several of Cuba's Latin American neighbors have taken an interest in cryptocurrency, including El Salvador, the first country in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal tender. Vidal said he doubted Cuba would become another El Salvador, making bitcoin its money of choice or coming up with its own cryptocurrency, but rather the government was thinking of facilitating the entry of remittances and international foreign trade operations. (Marc Frank, Cuba approves cryptocurrency services, requires central bank license).

The Resolution of the Central Bank (Gazceta Official) follows (in the original Spanish) along with the report from Reuters .

International Seminar: La Lucha en clave judicial frente al cambio climático (5 Mayo 2022) and PPT of My Presentation, "Rethinking Climate Change from the perspective of the 2018 proposal for a “Framework principles on human rights and the environment” (A/HRC/37/59)

 

I am delighted to have been able to participate in the International Seminar: La Lucha en clave judicial frente al cambio climático organized by Francisco Javier Zamora Cabot, Lorena Sales Pallarés and Maria Chiara Marullo. The Seminar was organized to present two quite remarkable works (English and Spanish):

María Chiara Marullo, Lorena Sales Pallarés, Francisco Javier Zamora Cabot (eds.), La lucha en clave judicial frente al cambio climático (Aranzadi/Civitas, 2021) 

Representa esta obra un punto de inflexión por cuanto hasta el momento no se ha realizado en España un libro dedicado exclusivamente a la lucha judicial frente al cambio climático a pesar del importante impacto que sobre los derechos humanos supone. Diferentes voces y matices pulsan aquí reflexiones sobre la época en la que vivimos de transformación radical de nuestros marcos de referencia, donde uno de los ámbitos de reflexión y de acción compartida obligada en la comunidad internacional se centra en la emergencia climática. ¿Cómo debemos actuar desde la dimensión de la gobernanza para transformar el actual modelo en otro sostenible, justo y equitativo? Con una mirada coral transversal y pluridisciplinar se aborda la problemática del cambio climático a través de un hilo conductor guiado por los casos prácticos y el análisis jurisprudencial más reciente tanto en Europa como en Latinoamerica.

and Francisco Javier Zamora Cabot, Lorena Sales Pallarés, Maria Chiara Marullo (eds) Beatriz Felipe Pérez (coordinadora), Aspectos destacados en la lucha frente al cambio climático (Aranzadi/Civitas 2021)  

Obra independiente pero complementaria de La lucha en clave judicial frente al cambio climático, en la que las diferentes aportaciones repasan la defensa judicial del medio ambiente y del cambio climático fijando el punto de partida en los actores: ONG’s, consumidores, pueblos indígenas…Todos ellos contribuyen con su trabajo y lucha a nivel micro a la consecución de un objetivo macro: la defensa del medio ambiente. La perspectiva de los actores involucrados en la defensa medioambiental es un tratamiento novedoso ya que no solo aporta de primera mano las acciones que están emprendiendo, sino que abre la perspectiva a nuevos retos a los que enfrentarse. La obra ofrece un amplio abanico de actores, ONG’s, pueblos indígenas, pequeños estados insulares, asociaciones de consumidores…que nos plantean situaciones reales a las que se enfrentan en la actualidad, así como los recursos legales con los que cuentan o justamente aquellos que requerirían para poder hacer frente en igualdad de condiciones frente a las grandes multinacionales que con frecuencia están detrás de los efectos más devastadores.

Both are profoundly useful sets of essays on the way in which climate change and climate related issues have surged to the forefront  of policy and judicial interventions globally. More on the Seminar and the books HERE.

My presentation, Rethinking Climate Change from the perspective of the 2018 proposal for a “Framework principles on human rights and the environment” (A/HRC/37/59), sought to bridge  the conceptual operationalization presentation of Gregorio Mesa Cuadros, with the more granular consideration of judicial engagement with the climate change project from the perspective of the courts of Philippe Couvreur. The principal objective of the presentation to was more deeply engage with the character and consequences of a human rights driven approach to meeting the challenge posed by climate change. More specifically, the presentation was meant to provoke a reconsideration of the consequences of a human centered and human rights based rationalization of the responsibilities of humans and their institutions in the face of their contributions to climate changes affecting not just the human condition but that of virtually everything else on earth. My suggestion was that the current conceptualization of the climate change project reduces the issue to a function of the way in which .human institutions develop a framework for legalization of the rights of humans the protection, damages and consequences of which are measured in terms of climate changes as and to the effect that it negatively impacts humans. Meeting the challenge of climate change is deeply embedded in the and limited by the institutional and normative constraints of the legalizing project of human rights and its manifestations within human organization.   At the center of these projects are humans (person and collective), their "rights" and the rationalization of botg within human institutional power relations. Climate is object or measure--its deterioration the measure of the rights and values of and in humans.  Humans continue, in this sense, the project of asserting dominion over the Earth in line with their individual and collective interests, rationalized to suit the times--but perhaps the planet less well.  

The PowerPoint of the presentation follows.  The PPT may also be accessed here.

 

The Highy Contestable State of the Obligations of Universities and its Faculty Employees: The View From the AAUP

 

The American Association of University Professors has come a long way from its origins.  And yet that is a necessary journey. It is one that illuminates a path way from beginnings and charts the cultural shifts and contestations that serves as a mirror for great shifts and contestations within the larger culture.  More specifically, its serves as a mirror for the reflections of one group of academic influencers and their construction of narratives of the role of the university--and its faculty--within or against the larger society into which they are obliged to contribute.  But what is the nature of that obligation? Certainly for some time it has increasingly shifted from "mere" knowledge production to the more politically engaged role of the public intellectual.  But that has brought politics into the academy and with it the power relations, contests, battles and confrontations that politics generates.  One cannot transform the essence of the university and its faculty to the role of public intellectual without expecting substantial push back from those other (powerful) societal forces who or which the academic intellectual pokes form time to time.

And thus this issue of the AAUP's Journal, Academe, which according to its press relase:

explores the complexities of higher education’s obligations to the outside world. In articles that emphasize the imperative to engage with—and develop policies responsive to—social concerns, contributors look beyond traditional ways of framing the relationship between campuses and communities.

It is worth reflecting on the transformation of the university into another form of non-governmental or quasi governmental organization a principal object of which appears to be political engagement as an institution and as a factor in the evaluation of the quality of faculty contribution.  Links to the articles in the Spring 2022 (Vol 108 No 2) follows (including the quite interesting actions memorialized in the "nota bene" section).

German Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs: Supply Chain Conference--Sustainable value chains - Success factors for an internationally accepted binding standard

 

Pix Credit HERE

 

Sustainability, like pollen, is very much in the air north of the Equator. It is sticky and meant to fertilize just the right receptacle to produce from this connection those fruits or encapsulations that can be consumed by others the seeds of which, then excreted, or unconsumed and rotting can fall  to earth, in either case giving rise to new life.  

And so it is that the great pollinators in the German Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, has offered itself up as just that sort of receptacle from a mass of well curated pollinators. The Ministry tell us so:

As part of Germany’s G7 Presidency, the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs will host a digital conference on sustainable value chains on 6 May 2022. The aim is to give new impulses to the international debate on a binding standard in the field of business and human rights. The conference will feature discussions with high-level representatives of the G7 countries, international organisations, trade unions and employers, civil society, as well as renowned experts. What would be the added value of an international binding standard or instrument on business and human rights? What are crucial success criteria for broad acceptance? What can the G7 contribute?

In cooperation with the ILO initiative Alliance 8.7, the conference will also deal with two of the most severe human rights violations in business operation and value chains that require urgent action: child labour and forced labour. (Press Release; Conference Website)

The Conference is as valuable for its theme as it is for the curation choices made  in the hopes of successful fertilization leading to the production of fruit that, consumed by the great state actors attracting these pollinators, might then be "processed" into new regulatory Lebenswelt (Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (English 1970); Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie: Eine Einleitung in die phänomenologische Philosophie (German1936)).  This last point is important, though unlikely to be valued much among the pragmatic set that inhabit that great nexus point between academics advisors, and public intellectuals with the great machinery of the contemporary administrative apparatus whose business it is to consume knowledge especially crafted --like pollen specifically aligned with a specific species of plant--what these instruments of knowledge production produce. 

It is in this sense, especially, that conferences of this sort are critically important.  Not so much for what is presented (though of course what is offered up is quite interesting and usually valuable in itself), but rather for the way that both the curation of presenter and presentation suggest the needs, ambitions, and knowledge managerialism of the state (in its role as conference organizer)  to get from the offerings of providers (bringing with them the prestige (eg the "good" or "impressive" genetic markers) to the fulfillment of the ambitions of those who seek to translate this pollen into regulatory fruit.

This Conference offers much in the way of fruitfulness.  There is an orchard of possibility here--from the specific interventions, to the prosopography (interlinkages and connections) of those involved, to the semiotics of the project of narrative building and regulatory foundation shaping. 

Links to the Workshop documents follow, along with the Program.

"Non Piu di Fiori": On the Death of Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada, a Historical Figure of the Cuban Revolution

 

 

Non piu di fiori; Vaghe catene
Discenda Imene; Ad intrecciar.

Stretta fra barbare; Aspre ritorte; Veggo la morte
Ver me avanzar.

No more shall Hymen descend
to weave fair garlands of flowers.

Bound in harsh, cruel chains, I see death
advance towards me. 

(WA Mozart, La Clemenza di Tito K. 621 (6.9.1791 Prague; Act II.21 Aria Vitellia)

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada is dead. 

Much can be said.  This will do:

The former diplomat was one of the architects of the first migratory dialogue between Washington and Havana in 1978, the year in which negotiations also began with a group of representatives of the Cuban community in the United States.

Alarcón played a key role in negotiating an immigration agreement with the United States that put an end to a massive exodus of Cubans by sea in 1994. He was also central in arranging the return of young castaway Elián González from relatives in Miami to his father in Cuba in 2000. The cigar-puffing and rum-sipping Alarcón, invariably clad in a white guayabera, at one point became the third most powerful man in the country’s Communist Party elite after Fidel and Raul Castro. He was foreign minister between 1992 and 1993 and then served as president of the National Assembly for 20 years until he was removed from the post and the ruling political leadership. No reason was given for Alarcón’s fall from grace, however his closest aid, Miguel Alvarez, had been arrested the previous year for being a U.S. spy and it is standard procedure in such cases to consider all contacts compromised. Alarcón remained a loyal member of the Revolution despite his political downfall. (Ricardo Alarcón, key player in Cuba-U.S. relations, dies at 84)

His was a noteworthy life for other reasons as well:

When appointed by Fidel Castro as ambassador to the United Nations in 1966, at 29, he was among the youngest national representatives on the world body. Later, as foreign minister, he was a driving force in the U.N. General Assembly’s 1992 resolution condemning the 30-year-old U.S. economic embargo on Cuba. But as foreign minister and president of the Cuban National Assembly (parliament) for two decades, he also played a key role in de-freezing relations with the United States in the last years of the 20th century. (Ricardo Alarcón, powerful Cuban foreign minister, dies at 84)

But he was a person best judged by his own words.  To that end I repost the quite interesting interview he gave to Arturo López Levy posted 20 April 2022.

Conversando con el embajador Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada, uno de los diplomaticos mas experimentados de Cuba, sobre el papel de las conversaciones de migración en las relaciones EEUU-Cuba. Alarcon fue embajador en la ONU en dos períodos (1966-1978), cargo desde el que ascemdió a viceministro y luego entre 1990-91 cuando sirvió dos veces como presidente del Consejo de Seguridad. Entre 1992 -1993 fue minsitro de relaciones exteriores. En febrero de 1993, fue electo Presidente de la Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular en Cuba. donde sirvió hasta 2013. En todos esos cargos, Alarcon fue una figura clave en la política cubana hacia EE.UU bajo la dirección de Fidel Castro. Jefe de la Delegación cubana que negoció los acuerdos migratorios de 1984 y 1994-95 ha tenido la gentileza de conversar con el profesor Arturo López-Levy sobre la historia de estas conversaciones y otros temas.

The interview was posted to YouTube and may be accessed HERE (Diplomacia y Migración. Conversando con Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada).