America First but For Whose Benefit?: Reflections on the 28-point peace plan for Ukraine backed by the United States, according to a copy seen by Reuters

 

Allegory of the first partition of Poland, showing Catherine the Great of Russia (left), Joseph II of Austria (middle) and Frederick the Great of Prussia (right) quarrelling over their territorial seizures. Pix credit here

 I have been writing a bout about both the transformative turn in American Presidential sensibilities from the "bureaucrat" type to that of the "merchant" type, connecting that to its ancient caste/culture manifestations in ancient cultures (here). I have suggested the ways in which America First represents the expression of a merchant lens  on matters of state that, from that lens, appears in the guide of markets/transactional challenges.  I have also written a bit about the 2nd phase of the Russo-Ukrainian War, a war effectively lost in its 1st phase commenced on the 100th anniversary of the start of the (self) destruction of Europe in 1914 ( Russia-Ukraine2022).  I have been suggesting from the start that neither Europe nor the US had the will anymore to sustain its old ambitions and drive toward the sort of imperial hegemonies (now expressed through global production rather than through territorial control) that were based on ordering relations within its spheres of convergence. The American merchant presidency discounted the value of territory as irrelevant either to deal making or to its own territorial security--at least as far as Europe was concerned; and they had little taste the observance of the old 17th-19th century expectations around the management of the borderlands separating a semi-Asiatic and brittle quasi-European Russia and the Anglo-American-Euro hegemony once manifested in territorial borders. The Europeans, in a constant state of self-actualization requiring waves of self destruction and re creation, each variation of which proving more challenging than the last increasingly came to represent the borderlands of a hegemony the hub of which had moved decidedly to the Western shores of the Atlantic. 

From this, what follows is something like an overwhelming sense of sadness, one made more acute by the enormity of the loss that will only much later come to be appreciated by those who have yet to be born. For it appears, and appearances mean more than actuality in the world of the first third of the 21st century--that America First has evolved from a set of State protective markets organizing principles grounded in fair opportunity and the protection of American interests in transactional spaces, to one in which the Republic will sell itself to advance the public and political agendas of those with enough funds to hire it out.  That moves the Chinese principle of win-win, which is also a central element of America First from economic to political transactional space (and from markets in goods and services to markets for levering State power for a fee).  

 

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Within these old parameters, one the theme emerged. That was the theme of dissipation which, like syphilis, lurked for decades unfelt within a body politic outwardly directly toward a (post-1945 normative which was belied by the decrepitude to that body politic oozing out of that body as a result of the accumulation of the  sins of dissipation, the pustules of which exploded in an unavoidable way after August 1914) in ways that were outwardly and spectacularly luxurious and inwardly violently pathological (one need only consider the frolic in Europe and the U.S. that marked the 1960s-early 1980s politically). Not that other parts of the world fared much better; indeed, the resonance form this core of hegemonic power  were felt in culturally and contextually appropriate ways all over the world (including within the South Asian and Chinese imperia, and Global South cultural/hegemonic spheres), producing the destabilization of the "insides" of social and political orderings that the settlement of 1945 appeared to have made irrelevant, but which merely pushed underground the continuation of the process of decay that was made irrevocable with that e gunshot in Sarajevo in 1914.  

In this context the breakup of that last Euro-Asian Empire, that of the Soviets, and its satellites, merely continued the process of decay the process of the putrification of which was evidenced by a return to the good old fashioned values for humanity has long claimed a universal hegemony, one whicvh, unlike most of the positive values at the forefront of formal efforts at normative global convergence actually had a unifying effect globally--mass killings in Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Cambodia (among other places but those stood out in legacy media), etc. And through it all what had seemed a certainty--the "settlement of Europe" in its new configuration under a US-Soviet, and then US umbrella--provided a  foundation for stability in which Europe could be free to engage in political self-actualization of its higher virtues. And so it did, outwardly, for a while.

 The start of the Russo-Ukrainian war of 1914-2026 brought this cognitive reverie to a halt (though it took until the 2nd phase of the war in 2022 to bring this home to European elites so deeply invested in their dreaming that they did not see the continuation of what they had started in 1914 now move toward another, and perhaps decisive, stage. Ukraine was a test as much for Europe as it was for the United States, but with quite different stakes. 

For Europe, the question of Ukraine revolved around the nature and continuity of Europe as an object, a culture, a territory, an idea, and a space for political solidarity of values. Europe having come to the brink of self destruction during the most violent of its millennium long "Warring States" period, was given the opportunity to (re)build itself not just as an idea but as a concrete manifestation of its own normative values. But even that proved too much, it seems. First those values have been contested from the 1940s with no end in sight. Second European communities have been unable to resist the temptation to reassert ancient conflicts and make resolution complicated. Third, after the 1980s Europe appeared to abandon the idea of itself as a unit of stable solidarity for one on which Europe would dissolve into (and lead, of course) the transition from a State to a globally ordered system, a community of all states  engage in the Elysian fields of UN based international institutions, within which borders would disappear, values would converge, and a string system of fatal co-decency would make the idea of the state system eventually dissolve in the way that European hegemony dissolved from 1914, but with less violent episodes. But it is always easy to forget that those Elysian fields are traditionally reserved for the dead. Russia was certainly not Europe--perhaps Europe adjacent, though with great capacity to contribute to European style arts and letters. But Ukraine occupied a space that had been on the borderlands of Europe after the transformation of the Roman Empire into its own virtual representation now carried forward by ways of settler migrants that remade the territories in which they displaced the older orders to produce something more in their own image. Was it part of Europe? Could Europe be defended? Was Europe now dependent on a hegemon more interested in itself than in European needs?  Could they prevail on that hegemon? But to what ends--they liked the idea of defending Ukrainian borders--to a point, but less the idea of integrating Ukraine into Europe. They liked the idea of valiant defense but hated the inconvenience of warfare. So conflicted hedging was the only viable alternative to find a nexus point of some sort between European virtues and European realities. That only further spotlighted the advanced state of European dissipation, made clearer still  by the returning waves of settler migrants now turned into instruments of destabilization, and a stubborn incapacity to assert a will to determine their own fate and the form that their survival (and perhaps thriving) in a "new" Europe might produce. None of this will affect the European heartland much--at first.  But it confirms a trajectory which does appear to lead up, however one orients that vector. Thus even as the European leadership declares (after having indulged in the practice through the end of the last century) that "borders cannot be changed by force" (here), the historical trajectories and their own actions suggest a different outcome.

For the Americans, the question revolved around a two hundred year process of de-colonization its its most intimate cultural-normative senses--from Europe and the European problematic. It has also been the convenient (far away) physical space in which the Americans could confront who they were and who they wanted to be going forward. Whatever that is, it is clear that it will not either have a European feel or even one that  even vaguely resembles the sensibilities of two centuries of careful crafting from the elites on whose shoulders contemporary zealotry hurls itsef forward, a movement that never stops to ask the question--should we? America First, by whatever name American Presidents since Barack Obama--the fist President to recognize and perhaps capitalize on what would emerge as an enormous break with the past, a past which ended its continuous run with the Presidency of George Bush II)--have chosen to mollify the American masses by suggesting that no break was occurring  (only the fulfillment of whatever it is that they extracted from the past).  Until Donald Trump. Perhaps it took a merchant, unschooled, inelegant, and deeply disconnected with the thick webs of individual and institutional forces that managed to maintain continuity since 1871(perhaps in part the American version of the Chinese literati) to give voice  in a petulant and sometimes mean, but also naively innocent (in a religious sense) of the realities that he could not understand why everyone around him could not see (they saw of course, but were horrified sometimes by the raw reality exposed--they preferred their transformation more orderly and nicely wrapped in discursive whipped cream).  The natural tendency was hedging--also between American values (though the tolerance for violence appears to be contextual--much lower than in Africa but perhaps higher than in MENA, or at least some MENA violence sites) and the American interest in making money one transaction at a time. 

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 It is no surprise, then, that the "merchant hegemon" led by President Trump and his team, might be said to  care less about abstractions and the intensely felt problematics of the political official. Merchants believe that in the marketplace for power one survives for as long as one can, give one's will, and in that context sovereignty and the larger question of Europe and political ordering become not merely remote but incomprehensible. The lumpen elements of American society, perhaps represented best in a dressed up and better educated sort of way by elements within the Presidential entourage, might agree, as do those who will be long dead by the time the bill comes due for the true cost of their transactional approach. Not that merchant mentality or transactional approaches to global ordering is bad--it is just that one ought to be quite clear headed about the actual costs and benefits of transaction not just in the short term but for the survivors of all of this deal making.   

Both European and American merchant princes, then, are interested in preserving and expanding the scope and operational capacity of deal making. For them, at this point, Russia matters, the EU might have, had it consolidated enough to speak with a single voice,  and Ukraine exists merely as a space in and through which transactions may be undertaken. To facilitate deals one must sacrifice the less important. That sacrifice includes everything--values, conduct, and old principles. The Americans had a merchant president of that sort once before--in Franklin Delano Roosevelt one also incarnated an American sensibility ready to deal away the barbarities of the Stalinist Soviets (at least as measured by what then were ostensibly U.S. values, except perhaps in the salons of the rich and among political zealots well ahead of their time) and equally willing to trade territory, sovereignty, displace peoples, and cut deals to create the space necessary to build his transactional (global markets driven aggregation of public and private power) that survived in one form or another for a relatively long while (as those things are measured in human terms). 

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But what, exactly are they selling. That is the fundamental question raised by the 28 Point Plan. The plan appears more suited to advancing the Russian position than for ending the conflict on terms equally disagreeable to all parties. Read neutrally one might find it hard to escape the thought that what has been sold is American power to realize Russian ambitions. That thinking may be difficult to overcome after parsing what appears to be the Russian document put forward as an American initiative, designed to "end" the conflict in Ukraine--ending Ukraine with it as well, and perhaps Europe as well. I wrote that a day before the news exploded--whether as a tactic of contestation, or a reflection, not unjustified, and a worry, that the 28 Point Plan was more an American expression of Soviet Patriotism the seneschal of which is encased in a Russian-State with Byzantine pretensions, rather than an expression of the essence of American patriotic globalism that at least discursively was supposed to serve as the core of AmericaFirst (whether practiced through the lens of a Trump, Biden, Obama, or successor regime). One can gather a glimpse of the issue from some of the reporting that exploded onto social media space in the hours before Ukraine was to participate in a ritual of negotiation that veiled the ceremonies of capitulation and sacrifice on the alter of other interests (eg here). 

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has insisted that a proposed 28-point plan to end the Ukraine war, which has been widely viewed as favourable to Russia, was "authored by the US". It comes after a group of senators said they had been told by Rubio that the draft - which one said he described as a Russian "wish list" - did not reflect Washington's position. Rubio later distanced himself from those claims and said the plan came from the US, and was "based on input" from both Russia and Ukraine. His intervention came as he flew to Geneva in Switzerland for talks with Ukrainian and European security officials on the plan, which US President Donald Trump has called for Kyiv to agree to swiftly. (US insists it authored Ukraine peace plan after claims of Russian 'wish list')

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Assuming that Secretary Rubio is truthful, and there is every reason to take him at his word, then, indeed, one might be excused for thinking that this represents a fundamental shift in America First. That shift appears to recenter the energies and function of the State from one devoted to enriching its people through markets and market access on terms of mutual benefit to one in which the State itself, or at least its services, are also on the market, to be purchased (if one can afford them) by other States. 

That, certainly might be one way of approaching the 28 Point American Plan. Its 28 provisions expand Russian transactional space, but with it also returns territories to a reactionary second order imperial apparatus that has yet to cross the time barrier between the 19th ad the 21st centuries.  It will in due course, but it is unlikely to happen pacifically. Ukraine becomes the Poland of the 21st Century, and like Poland, continues to undergo partitions and absorption to suit the tastes and needs of empires that matter at the time the partitions occur. For the Ukrainians there is little to do but accept the reality of rejection by Europe, the unwillingness of other states to extend political solidarity with it. . . and migration. Perhaps as part of the deal President Trump will create a Ukrainian adjustment program bringing talent back to America. . . . . Or we are back to the world of "Mr. Jones" where a Democratic elite in 1933 was well disposed to overlook Stalinist "policy" for their own transactional ends. 

Pix credit here (The Godfather; "Tell Mike it was only business")

For the United States this is just another deal--though perhaps it is a Russian deal for which the American merchant is being paid, in one way or another. That is, if, indeed, this is a deal desired by Russia, the terms of which reflect virtually all of their objectives, then perhaps America First has  been transformed not in a means of rationalizing U.S. centered global markets  deal making, but rather the possibility that deals include the purchase of U.S. power by other states for their own aims.  Either way it is odd for the President to then accuse the Ukrainians of ingratitude in the middle of a transactional negotiation (Trump Says Ukraine Has 'Zero Gratitude' for Peace Plan ("Writing on Truth Social on Sunday, Trump avoided blaming Russia for the war. Instead, he said his predecessor, Joe Biden, was responsible and had given “everything” to Kyiv for “free free free”. Trump added: “UKRAINE ‘LEADERSHIP’ HAS EXPRESSED ZERO GRATITUDE FOR OUR EFFORTS, AND EUROPE CONTINUES TO BUY OIL FROM RUSSIA.”")). Both the characterization of a deal as including as a quid pro quo some manifestation of gratitude, and ingratitude are both irrelevant in a transactional context (what the Americans want) that is, as it was once famously quipped, "it was only business;" (here) but then so is the strategy of (in)gratitude. From a transactional perspective all is fair play in order to induce the other side to give in, give up or cough up. None of this is bad per se, only business. Still, it makes sense for those in it to recognize it for what it is.

But for Europe another marker of the pathway it embraced in that glorious summer of August 1914. We have al realized in this document that state of a "man without qualities" (Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften)--one whose who has no character except as a reflection of responses to the stimuli around him.  But what a deal--here the U.S. selling its services as a State, with collateral benefits for merchant trading, but effectively positioning itself not as a deal maker but as the paid agent of other State's deal making.  This is a service that appears to be increasingly offered in the marketplace of inter-governmental trading. Perhaps even the Chinese can purchase American power to advance their ends. That, certainly would be the limiting consequence of an (to state unstated) element of America First which to the uninitiated (like me)  

Some detail may reveal much. The American guarantees are worthless:

10. The U.S. guarantee:

a. The U.S. to receive compensation for the guarantee;
b. If Ukraine invades Russia, it forfeits the guarantee;
c. If Russia invades Ukraine, in addition to a robust coordinated military response, all global sanctions will be restored and recognition for the new territory and all other benefits from this agreement will be withdrawn;
d. If Ukraine fires a missile at Moscow or St. Petersburg then, the security guarantee will be considered null and void.

The transactions potential, however is priceless for the U.S.:

12. Robust Global Redevelopment Package for Ukraine including but not limited to:

a. Creation of Ukraine Development Fund to invest in high-growth industries including technology, data centers, and AI efforts.
b. The United States will partner with Ukraine to jointly restore, grow, modernize, and operate Ukraine's gas infrastructure, which includes its pipelines and storage facilities.
c. A joint effort to redevelop areas impacted by the war to restore, redevelop and modernize cities and residential areas.
d. Infrastructure development.
e. Mineral and natural resource extraction.
f. A special financing package will be developed by The World Bank to provide financing to accelerate these efforts.

The Europeanization of Ukraine is given short shrift (¶ 119. And Russia is again open for business with all of its actions forgiven and "forgotten" (¶¶ 13, 26). This is only a transaction that a merchant can make. We will see if there is transactional gold at the end of this rainbow.  For Europe, on the other hand, there is a reminder that the path they set out on in August 1914 has yet to run its course, and they continue to drive it in the direction it is going.   

The 28 points of the draft US deal (Draft of US-backed peace proposal for Ukraine), follows below with thanks to Reuters for publishing it and with my own brief (very very cheeky) reaction/responses with a fidelity to America First (as a thought project) in RED. 

  

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"Ninu igbá naa ni" [All that he created exists in the calabash] Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) Hearing: "China’s War on Religion: The Threat to Religious Freedom and Why it Matters to the United States"

 

Pix credit here (Ming; Shuili Ritual Painting)

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

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

Among the more important issues of interest to CECC has been a cluster of related issues and actions which are categorized as falling within the category "Freedom of Religion."One of the key points of divergence between liberal democratic, theocratic, and Marxist Leninist approaches to social organizaiton touches on the matter of religion.  

Theocratic systems, of course, center a specific religion and its grounding premises for social, economic, moral, and ritual ordering. It sees and understands the world from the perspective of religious beliefs, performances and the expectations that are drawn from it. Religion, and the specific one foregrounded, define and frame the reality within which it is possible to rationalize the world and order individual and collective human  life appropriately. The core beliefs of that religion must be vigorously protected from internal corruption and external threat. Apostasy merges with treason; difference is gauged by reference to the system of behavior and belief expectations built into the religious system; and sometimes that produces the theology (expressed through law and practice, as well as the resulting social custom), of toleration, but sometimes not. Theocracy is both ancient and modern.  It can be built on any number of structures and overseen by any sort of caste of earthly intermediaries. Before the establishment of monarchy Israeli Judaism favored judges and dispute settlement (Samuel 8:14-22); European Christianity merged its messianic transformative Judaism, with its predecessor's its Sanhedrin (now reconstituted as a magisterium) reconcieved within and through the structures and sensibilities of empire (Edict of Thessalonika) etc.). All are built on exogenous and divine authority the will of which is memorialized in some way, the power of which is reinforced through ritual practice, and the naturalization of which is embedded through structures of leadership and guidance the authority of which is directly connected to the divine source of truth/law/ritual etc.--that is, faith (consider Calvin, Institutes, Chp. 2, ¶ 6). This expresses itself by several means and in a variety of forms (See, e.g.,  Tao Te Ching, chp. 8; ). That connection and authority then permeates all human cognition and the consequential rationalization of the world around them and the evolution and operation of their own collectives, all of which is intimately connected to worship, in the old sense of making one worthy through performative reverence. 

Liberal democratic systems, after centuries of warfare and violence--often brutal--that in the end failed to extirpate heresy, corruption, apostasy and rival religious lebenswelt (also bent on privileged domination as the generative premises around which reality and social relations must be ordered), produced both exhaustion and compromise. That exhaustion and compromise created a complicated affair--one the one hand it encouraged the sort of minority cleansing, indeed refined it, in ways that the resulting ordered world now believes is naughty and wrong, but from which they profited in terms of stability through segregation, relocaton,  and sometimes extermination (e.g., the wars of the Protestant Reformation, the constant passive aggressive instrumentalization of Jews, and like theocratic states (to this day), the "infidelization" of the other). But from out of that blood offering to the various gods served by them, including, later, the gods of reason and scientism, emerged a stability grounded in the de-naturing of the religious aspects of communal life  (de-sacralization) and the template for what--after a series of more bloodshed, violence and inter-religious social segregation--produced two more or less workable premises . The first was grounded on the formal de-prioritization of religion in for formal performances of political and economic life. Certainly the forms of state religion were maintained, but, with sometimes more and sometimes less performative theatrics and ritual, an ecology of religious communities was recognized, tolerated, and then, more or less equalized in their relation to the state. In the process, the ethics, morals, and values of religion (sometimes from the dominant religion, sometimes in the form of a cocktail of related beliefs, sensibilities and expectation) were transposed from out of the sacred and into the political (though of course also reflecting the religious views to whicvh connection could be made). And the second was grounded in market ideologies, or at least its mechanics. Religions, like other objects, could be understood as commodities (in this case of tastes, beliefs, values, and performances) in competition with other similar commodities (including non-religion) in markets for adherents. That implied two significant changes from theocratic systems. One touched on the increasing protection of entry and exit from religious communities; that is people could consume, embrace, or reject any form of religious community proffered for their review and "purchase." Apostasy might remain a religious concept but the State and its power would not be used to police it, nor would the State tolerate private measures to enforce or coerce continued belonging to one religious community or another. The other more tightly regulated State preference for one or another of religious systems "in the market" for belief.  

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 Marxist-Leninist systems appear, in various degrees that change over time and appear differently from one local context to another, to combine portions of both theocratic and liberal democratic approaches. Sometimes religion is suppressed entirely; sometimes it is tolerated but adherence results in certain political. economic, and/or social burdens. And sometimes the Marxist-Leninist vanguard is more or less indifferent, at least to the extent that whatever it is that is going on in and as a religious community does not interfere with the or challenge the leadership, aims, policies, and expectations of the political vanguard organized as and operating within the leading Communist Party. Yet this creates a problem. If the fundamental ordering principle of a Marxist Leninist State is the conception of the nation as a collective organized as and around a vanguard (Communist Party), and if its leadership and guidance must necessarily extent to all aspects of economic, social, cultural, and political life, then the issue of the recognition, but less the tolerance of religious communities autonomous of that leadership and subject to its guidance becomes, to some greater or lesser degree, problematic. One solution, drawing ironically on a similar (though temporary) resolution in medieval Europe, was to ensure that religious communities might be tolerated, but they must be subject to regulation by the State. That regulation might be substantially intrusive including the power to review and approve the selection of ministers of the faith (e.g., China-Vatican Agreement), and of the preaching, sermonizing, and theological development of those religious communities where these might be deemed to threaten the political order, that is the core premises and expectations of collective organizaiton, under a Marxist-Leninist political-economic model. At the limit, a Marxist-Leninist system that finds itself threatened can suppress religious communities that cannot otherwise be "digested" within the larger framework within which collective life is to be organized.  Where religious communities resist or seek to exist beyond the reach of the political-economic model, the response of the state will be as harsh, and perhaps as ruthless, as that expected from similar threats to theocratic systems. These then acquire "Chinese characteristics" that go back to the founding premises of the Empire now made relevant within a Marxist-Leninist structural and normative context. 

 

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It is in this context that one can see how the fundamental approaches of liberal democratic (American version) and Marxist-Leninist) Chinese system on matters of religion might not be both incompatible, but also serve as a point of division into which intervention and political responses are almost inevitable. The issue becomes more complicated still, where actions present fundamental incompatibilities with both theocratic and liberal-democratic systems, and where the suppression (from an outsider perspective) or system protection/solidarity mechanisms (from an insider perspective)  becomes violent and coercive. (displacements, confinement, re-education, etc.). It is with that in mind that one might more usefully approach the now long standing  and quite substantial gap between the core values of theocratic, liberal democratic and Marxist-Leninist states not just appear, but also appear to make responses inevitable. That is, to some extent, because the "effects" of one system in matters of religion can be deeply felt in others (e.g., Falun Gong), and is intensified where religious difference is tied to ethnic division and perhaps to some extent, identity) (e.g., Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang). 

That the the arena in which CECC has been vigorously projecting its views and values in the marketplace for public opinion and social/`political action for some time.  While the practices of theocratic states appears to be less worrisome to the Americans and American values for some reason (except perhaps when one speaks to Jewish values in multi-religious in Israel), the practices of Marxist-Leninist States in that respect tend to trigger the American political (and religious) classes to a far greater and more immediate effect. Thus the organization and formatting of the CECC hearing, , held 20 November 2025.

 The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has intensified its drive for absolute control over religion, insisting that believers subordinate conscience and conviction to the Party and to General Secretary Xi Jinping. This is not incidental to the PRC’s domestic agenda or international influence; it is a core feature of Party rule, reflected in sweeping regulations on religion and detentions, surveillance, and harassment targeting believers and groups operating outside official bounds. The hearing will spotlight escalating repression targeting all of China’s diverse religious communities and examine why the CCP’s assault on freedom of religion matters for the United States. (CECC Press Release/Concept Note) 

At the same time, each approach suggests both the objectification of religion, as such, and the commodification of belief, with respect to which the state may either intervene or leave to faith markets . All of this, of course, is a function of the cognitive cages within which it is possible to understand, value, resist, or advance, particular ways of knowing, seeing, being, and interacting. In Ifa,  a story is related in Òfúnmeiji of the time that Ifa was cast for Odù (an aspect of Olódùmarè ( a name which, it has been said, reflects "O ní odù mà rè" "the owner of the source of creation that does not become empty," (Encyclopaedia of African Religions, ), compare 道 (dào)) when he was going to create all the different characters in the world:

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 He was advised to sacrifice four pillars and one big calabash [(葫芦/葫蘆)] having a lid and a chain. He heeded the advice and sacrificed. He was assured that no one would question his authority. Therefore he should pitch the four pillars on the ground together, place the calabash on them, and use the chain to tie the pillars to his hands. He obeyed and performed the sacrifice as instructed. The day that Odù created all the characters  in the world has since been called Odùduà (Odù that created all things that exist, Oòdua, Olódúmarè). He created all that existed in the calabash. We (human beings) are all living inside the calabash [Ninu igbá naa ni, ni Oun da gbogbo; Uwa si, ninu igbá naa ni gbongbo (eda-alaayé) wa wa yio]. (Òfúnméjì, Afolabi Epega and Philip Neimark, The Sacred Ifa Oracle (Athelia Henrietta Press, 1994).

 The calabash represents the cognitive cages within which we create ourselves and in that creation    can order ourselves to our own creation. It is at once object, a way of providing a framework for signifying that object, and the basis for which interpretation of the world within our calabash may be understood and applied. It is both faith, and the object of faith; it is belief, and the certainty that belief, guided by those who are adept in the ways of the ordering of the calabash, provides both good and its measure. Those are the calabashes ( Igbá-Odù (Odù-logboje), the calabash in which existence is contained) within which the great actors and systems that are the object of the CECC hearings appear to find themselves (and the rest of us with them)--in those vessels filled with belief in the infinity of that which is contained within it. And there the great tragedies, and sometimes beauty--of the calabash, certainly, but within, that becomes a more complicated and infinitely tragic matter. 

The tragedy, of course, is understood only from within the calabash. Within that calabash, Chris Smith, CECC Co-Chair , could quite correctly speak this way: 

We say that religious freedom is a universal right, because it is guaranteed by a sovereign God who created human beings in His own Image and Likeness and imbued them with inalienable dignity and worth, whether they were born in Washington or Wuhan. It is thus not a “Western” construct but a universal one. Yet the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, leader of the world’s largest atheistic state, would force his own people to think otherwise.  (Opening Statement Chris Smith).

Co-Chair Dan Sullivan described the impossible--a view of the calabash that cannot exist in the space space as his. 

Today’s message is straightforward: the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is waging a systematic campaign to bend every faith in China to Party rule. CCP authorities aim for the complete subordination of religious belief to state ideology—re-engineering doctrine, leadership, education, architecture, and even online worship. The CCP is not content to police behavior; it wants to control the conscience and intrude on the most powerful and personal relationship there is—the one with God. * * * To the CCP, faith is not just a challenge, it is an existential threat to its grip on power—and why it must be controlled or destroyed. * * * That is why this hearing matters—not just for one community, one country, or one faith, but for the defense of human dignity and conscience everywhere. The CCP wants believers in China to feel isolated and forgotten. Our responsibility is to show them—and to show Beijing—that they are neither. (Opening Statement Dan Sullivan)

Both of these opening statements of the co-chairs are correct and both statements also reflect, inverted, the very sentiments that drive Chinese policy grounded in their own sense of the form and scope of universal rights, and the location, nature and character of the universal sovereign divinity in whose eternal text they have invested in and drawn their faith.  Both China and the U.S. are equally committed to their faith--in their own systems and in the core premises from out of which the relationship of faith to political communities is understood as natural and inevitable. Both are committed to the ordering of religion within the premises of quite different state ideologies with respect to which it is intended that all members of their respective polities believe. To both polities it is faith that is an existential threat to their orders--but not faith in religion, rather faith in a political ideology inconsistent and threatening to their own--and that is why each believes that the other must be controlled or destroyed. To paraphrase Co-Chair Smith, that is why the hearing matters--to project universal values throughout the calabash that the U.S. and China share at the moment. 

The Opening Statements and Witness Testimony, along with the Hearing "Concept Note", and the Opening Statements of the CECC Co-Chairs follow below. All may be accessed HERE. along with links to the video recording of the Hearing.

Larry Catá Backer, "Smart Court, Smarter Party: A Necessary but Incomplete Interpenetration" [智慧法院，智慧党：必要但不完全的相互渗透] (European China Law Research Hub)

 

Pix credit ECLRHub

 

 

Over the last several years, 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 published a set of summaries of marvelous and cutting edge work on Chinese law, policy and theory. For their next postings they have started a series "Smart Courts and Smart Governance in China" which reflects  the work shared at a conference workshop held at the University of Cologne this past summer. The have been kind enough to start with my contribution to that effort, Smart Court, Smarter Party: A Necessary but Incomplete Interpenetration [智慧法院，智慧党：必要但不完全的相互渗透。]

 Von Blomberg does an excellent job summarizing the gist f the argument.  Perhaps the central point of which is this one: 

Struggle to realize the overall assignments of the new era

为实现新时期总任务而奋斗 (1978)

Chinese governance is structured around interpenetration—the mutual embeddedness of Party and State institutions. Historically, this interpenetration has been managed through personal-bureaucratic forms: overlapping roles, dual appointments, and ideological campaigns. In the digital age, however, interpenetration is reconfigured through data flows, predictive modeling, and feedback loops.

The smart court, then, is not just a site of dispute resolution but a generator of political data—inputs and outputs that reflect the health of Party ideology and administrative discipline. To oversee such a system, the Party must itself become a digitally competent, analytically capable, and ideologically precise actor.

This is no small task. It means building a digitally-enhanced Party apparatus that can assess court behavior, monitor ideological conformity, and even model the likely impact of judicial decisions—all without becoming a mere appendage of the technologies it deploys.

The smart court exemplifies both the achievements and the contradictions of China’s New Era. On the one hand, it reflects the success of socialist modernization: the integration of productivity-enhancing technologies into governance. On the other hand, it surfaces a contradiction between human-led ideological guidance and machine-augmented decision-making. Two key contradictions define the current moment. First, the contradiction between the leadership of the Party and its capacity to lead in a tech-driven environment. Second, the contradiction between technology as instrument and technology as autonomous force. Both must be addressed if the CPC is to retain its position as the core of the political-economic order.

Pix credit here ("Turn Philosophy into a Sharp Weapon of the Masses)

中国的治理结构围绕着相互渗透——党和国家机构的相互嵌入——而构建。历史上，这种相互渗透是通过人事官僚形式来管理的：角色重叠、双重任命和意识形态宣传。然而，在数字时代，相互渗透正通过数据流、预测模型和反馈循环进行重构。

因此，智慧法院不仅是解决争端的场所，也是政治数据的生成器——其输入和输出反映了党的意识形态和行政纪律的健康状况。为了监督这样一个系统，党自身必须成为一个具备数字化能力、分析能力和意识形态精准性的行动者。

这绝非易事。这意味着要构建一个数字化增强的党政机构，能够评估法院行为、监控意识形态一致性，甚至模拟司法判决的潜在影响——所有这些都不能使其沦为所部署技术的附属品。

智慧法院既体现了中国新时代的成就，也揭示了其矛盾之处。一方面，它反映了社会主义现代化的成功：将提高生产力的技术融入治理之中。另一方面，它也暴露了人为主导的意识形态指导与机器辅助决策之间的矛盾。当前形势下存在两大关键矛盾。首先，是党的领导能力与其在技术驱动环境下的领导能力之间的矛盾。其次，是技术作为工具与技术作为自主力量之间的矛盾。如果中国共产党想要继续保持其在政治经济秩序中的核心地位，就必须解决这两个矛盾。

I am cross posting the essay below. The original ECLRH post may be accessed HERE. ACCESS PAPER HERE: Backer_SmartRegulation_ECLSA2025_v2

 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.

 

The Triumph of the Transactional: UN Security Council Endorses U.S. Drafted UN Security Council Resolution on the Situation in the "Middle East"

 

Pix Credit Foreign Policy 

It appears that the United States has at least temporarily out maneuvered the Russian and and Chinese in developing a framework for the temporary establishment of a cessation of hostilities in Gaza under the framework of a state of some sort for Palestinians, one which presumably would be and remain Jew free. 

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The UN Security Council adopted a resolution on Monday that endorses a peace plan for Gaza put forward by United States President Donald Trump and a temporary international force in the enclave following two years of war. Resolution 2803 (2025) received 13 votes in favour, and none against, with permanent members China and Russia abstaining. The text welcomes the Comprehensive Plan announced by President Trump on 29 September. The first phase of the 20-point plan led to the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel days later. The resolution also welcomes the establishment of a Board of Peace (BoP) “as a transitional administration” in Gaza that will coordinate reconstruction efforts. It authorizes the BoP to establish a temporary International Stabilization Force (ISF) in Gaza “to deploy under unified command acceptable to the BoP”. Countries will contribute personnel to the force “in close consultation and cooperation” with Egypt and Israel.  (UN Security Council authorizes temporary international force for Gaza ).

"The text, which was revised several times as a result of high-stakes negotiations, "endorses" the US president's plan, which allowed for a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas to take hold on October 10 in the war-wracked Palestinian territory." (Le Monde) For my commentary on the United States Plan see  (1) America First as a Template for the Global: Text of the U.S. Cease-Fire Plan for Gaza; (2) America First--Text of President Trump's Address to the Israeli Knesset in Jerusalem - October 13, 2025; (3) "The Trump Declaration for Enduring Peace and Prosperity" Dialogical Reflections on the Tractability of the Intractable. The endorsement represents a triumph of the transactional elements of the United States in its new era of historical development, one that embraces the cognitive qualities of the "merchant" and dismisses the older narratives of the "official" in framing  a ceasefire where the cognitive divide between the parties remains vibrant and unbridgeable ("They Shoot Horses Don't They?". . . . The "Jewish Problem" in "Palestine" as Performed by the State Inmates of that Asylum of Politics).

 And, indeed, one sees in the differences between the American position (successful this time around) and that of the Chinese and Russians the disjuncture between merchant and functionary approachs (generally here: The "Merchant" (商), the "Bureaucrat" (士) and the "Tariff War"--The Cognitive Cages of the New Apex Post-Global and the Condition of the U.S. and China in their Folie à Deux). This was nicely captured in reporting by Stefano Vaccara (Security Council Approves US Resolution for International Force in Gaza:  Trump's plan passes: Resolution 2803 for the stabilization force (ISF) receives 13 votes in favor; Russia and China abstain without vetoes):

Pix Credit Opera Poster

 Russia abstained, warning that the plan risks undermining the prospect of “two peoples, two states” and gives the international force powers of “peace enforcement” that would turn it into a party to the conflict, despite the fact that, as Moscow pointed out, none of the potential contributing countries has said it is willing to take on such a mandate. The Russian delegation also denounced the danger that the resolution could become a cover for political-military “experiments” conducted by the United States and Israel in the Occupied Territories, citing previous initiatives by Washington that, in its view, ended with results opposite to those declared.

China justified its abstention by denouncing the text as “vague” on the structure and powers of the Peace Council and the International Stabilization Force, arguing that the resolution offers “too little visibility to the Palestinians” and does not sufficiently reaffirm either Palestinian sovereignty or the two-state principle. Beijing also criticized the negotiation process as “hasty and lacking in consultation” and contested the limited role envisaged for the United Nations.

Pix Credit here (Cyrus)

And one sees in the triumph of the "merchant" transactional framework the essence of the America First approach--one that builds transactional relationships and approaches issues from the centering perspective of the United States then connected to the welfare of those with whom the Americans deal.  "This will not be a traditional UN mission: it is an autonomous multinational force, composed of military contingents provided by countries that will have to accept a common chain of command. According to media reports, cited among others by the New York Times, countries such as Egypt, Indonesia, Qatar, Turkey, and Azerbaijan have already expressed preliminary willingness, but only in the face of clear authorization from the Council, which has now been given." (Security Council Approves US Resolution for International Force in Gaza). And the leadership of this effort falls squarely to the Americans , operationalized through its relationships with its partners in MENA. That these partners are a boisterous bunch is irrelevant--it is the coalescing around the transaction, and the hopes of its mutual benefit that produces the AmericaFirst variation of the Chinese Belt & Road win-win approach that has, to this point, driven the process forward--one transaction at a time.  BUt perhaps more importantly, the ceasefire that styles itself a peace is npt merely transactional but perhaps market managing as well, in the sense that it will manage the markets for violence that remain unresolved, the containment of which will give rise to further transactional enterprises as well as, at some point, to an attrition based resolution of the conflict. And as history reminds us in other circumstances, that "victory" will serve as the opening credits of the conflicts that await the next stage of the historical development of the region.  And for a region the conflicts of which extend back to the time of the pilgrimage from the Sumerian City of Ur (which the current Arabic speaking inhabitants know as Tell el-Muqayyar) suggests a general framework of iteration. 

The Remarks at the UN Security Council Stakeout Following the Adoption of a U.S. Drafted UN Security Council Resolution on the Situation in the Middle East both follows below.

A Transformative Moment for the Politics of Sovereign Investing and Markets-Based Transnational Rule of Law Building:The Norway Pension Fund Global System Temporarily Goes Dark

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It seems that the enthusiasm of Europeans around "doing something"  in the Israel-Hamas War that would signal their own predilections but cost them little has now produced something of a revolution in the operation of the Norway Pension Fund Global and its now deeply embedded system of investing in accordance with its Ethics Guidelines and to use its shareholder status to seek changes to corporate governance an actions as active shareholders. I have noted the approach taken by the Norwegian Pension Fund Global over a series of posts, most recently  (1) The Israel Cases Continue to Evolve the Jurisprudence of the Norway Pension Fund Global: Norges Banks Excludes Caterpillar and a Number of Israeli Banks from the Investment Universe of the Pension Fund Global; (2) Russians, "Settlers", and Corruption: The Norway Pension Fund Global Announces Three Decisions. The Noewegian position might have been thought to have aligned Norwegian thinking with that of certain elements in China on the global "Jewish Question" politely euphemized  as the "National problem" of a Jewish majority Israeli State among hostile neighbors (Bricolage: 习近平主席在十四届全国人大一次会议闭幕会上的重要讲话让海外华侨华人信心倍增 [President Xi Jinping’s important speech at the closing session of the 14th National People’s Congress has doubled the confidence of overseas Chinese] and 犹太利益集团势力庞大 美国无底线盲撑以色列 [The Jewish interest groups are powerful and the United States blindly supports Israel without any bottom line]).

That revolution was reported this way by IPE.com:

This summer, a furore erupted around the SWF because of its investment in companies linked to Israel’s war in Gaza as well as its occupation of the West Bank, which led to a hasty series of divestments, including the exclusion of the major US company Caterpillar — with the latter drawing disapproval from the US State Department.

On Tuesday, the Norwegian parliament voted in favour of a number of government proposals on the management of the GPFG, based on action that Stoltenberg had argued in a 23 October speech was necessary to preserve the fund’s nature as a financial investor, while living up to Norway’s international obligations. Parliament told the government to ensure the GPFG continued as a broadly diversified, global fund, with the aim of achieving the highest possible return at an acceptable risk, also requesting the government to review the fund’s ethical framework.

They also voted for the GPFG’s Council on Ethics to suspend recommendations on observation and exclusion, and for Norges Bank – which manages the fund via Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) – to hold off making decisions based on the old guidelines until a new ethical framework has been decided.

It seems that, as Global Capital Reported, that Norway's principles have a price which when high enough, may be too high to support.

The problem, perhaps, was not so much principle as it was a balancing of principle where that balancing was expressed through norms but realized through political decisionmaking around which Norway foud itself opposed by the United States--or more precisely by that sector of global markets in which U.S. companies operated and U.S. interests are implicated. In any case there is nothing particularly sacred or even robust about the Norwegian position--Norway has been irritated with,

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to use the old language, "Jewish stubbornness" on the matter of Israel for some tome. Yet whatever one thinks about the issue of Israel and more importantly on the question of who bears responsibility for the deaths in Gaza, and its character (the popular view is that is the responsibility of the Jews, but another view is that it is Hamas itself that, having built their military apparatus atop civilian structures and having used the population to further its military aims including the holding of hostages as they engaged in  an all out war, bear primary responsibility for both Gazan casualties and for the manipulation of aid to further suffering; a third view suggests collusion in the latter efforts by the apparatus of the United Nations and their allies (including the murder of Gazans by Hamas and its allies for "collaboration"--but all of this will be sorted out in the public sphere eventually, one way or another), the markets have spoken, and they have spoken louder than  it is possible for those who manage segments of the investment universe to contain, manage or change to suit their own political/normative tastes and judgments. 

Aslak Skancke, Chief Advisor to the Council on Ethics of the Government Pension Find of the Kingdom of Norway sent this notice to people on the NPFG listserve:

On November 4, the Norwegian Parliament asked the government to review the Fund’s ethical framework. In response, the Ministry of Finance has introduced temporary ethical guidelines and amended the management mandate. These changes will remain in effect until a new ethical framework is established.  During this interim period, the Council on Ethics will continue to monitor the fund’s investments to identify companies that contribute to or are responsible for production or behavior that violates the guidelines.  The Council will not make recommendations on observation or exclusion but will inform Norges Bank about companies it identifies for potential ownership engagement. Norges Bank will not make decisions on observation or exclusion but will follow up with companies through its regular ownership practices in accordance with the management mandate.  As a result, you should expect that notifications regarding exclusions or observations will be limited to revocations of existing exclusions.

The Government issued the following Press Release: The Government Follows Up on the Parliament’s Decision Regarding the Ethical Framework for the Pension Fund (Press release | No: 50 | Date: 7/11/2025)

On November 4, the Norwegian Parliament (Stortinget) requested that the government review the ethical framework for the Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG).Today, the King in Council appointed a public committee that will evaluate the ethical framework and other aspects relating to the responsible management of the GPFG.

"This review is necessary to safeguard the pension fund and key considerations. We must find a balance between the principles the fund is meant to uphold. The committee has important work ahead," said Minister of Finance Jens Stoltenberg.

The current ethical guidelines were last amended by the Ministry of Finance in 2021, following broad support by the Parliament. A unanimous Parliament affirmed that the fund has two equally important ethical objectives. One is to generate returns and safeguard values for current and future generations, and the second, to ensure the fund is not invested in companies that cause or contribute to serious violations of ethical norms. The committee’s mandate underlines how Norway is currently facing its most serious security policy situation since World War II. Companies’ value chains are increasingly complex, often involving a wide network of subcontractors from multiple countries. Moreover, the distinction between military and civilian technology has become more blurred.

"It is increasingly difficult to draw a clear line and to determine what constitutes a contribution to serious violations of fundamental ethical norms. We all benefit from having a framework that reflects the reality we currently live in," said Stoltenberg. The committee will assess and propose changes to the ethical framework and relevant aspects regarding the responsible management of the pension fund.

Committee Members:

• Svein Gjedrem, economist (Chair); Annie Bersagel, director; Alexander Wright Cappelen, professor; Marius Emberland, professor; Gunhild Hoogensen Gjørv, professor; Hanne Eggen Røislien, researcher; Arthur Sletteberg, CEO; Ulf Sverdrup, professor; Karen Helene Ulltveit-Moe, professor

 Change is certainly coming; and it is likely to spill over from the Israel issue to other far more significant normative conversations. We shall see. In the meantime,the Pension Fund Global goes dark as Norway reconsiders the best way that instrument can be used ti project Norwegian power in transnational private spaces. That after all is what this is all about (Sovereign Investing and Markets-Based Transnational Rule of Law Building: The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund in Global Markets).

 

Announcing Publication of Issue 156 Vol 34 The Journal of Contemporary China

 

I  am delighted to pass along a message from Professor Suisheng Zhao (赵穗生), and Editor of the Journal of Contemporary China (JCC) announcing the publication of Volume 34, Issue 156 (November 2025). The Issue may be viewed and the full text of the articles accessed online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cjcc20/current.

The Table of Contents of the November 2025 issue of The Journal of Contemporary China follows below, with links. There are quite interesting articles on (1) Political Loyalty vs. Meritocracy in Contemporary Chinese Bureaucracy; (2) China’s Evolving Position on the Russo-Ukrainian War and Partnership with Russia (Part II, Part I in the September issue), and (3) China and Africa: Soft Power, Grand Strategy, and International Alignment (Part I).

 

 

Announcement of Event organized by OHCHR’s Business and Human Rights Section on The Urgency of Helpdesks on Business and Human Rights (24 November 2025)

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 I have written in the past about the effort of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to create a sort of guidance apparatus for enterprises attempting to navigate the flexible borders and pathways of the UNGP, and especially those around human rights due diligence systems (see, (1) Establishing Effective Helpdesks on Business and Human Rights: Initial Consideration of the Challenges and Opportunities Suggested in OHCHR Human Rights Helpdesk Proposal; (2) Establishing Effective Helpdesks on Business and Human Rights 26 June 2024, 14-15h Palais des Nations, Room XXII (in-person only) and Call for Inputs; (3) Coalition for Peace & Ethics: Input Statement for OHCHR UNGP Helpdesk Initiative.

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The project is an important contribution to the soft efforts to develop methods of capacity building around human rights due diligence specifically and the UNGP more generally.  At the same time while this guidance will be informed, it ought not necessarily be taken as authoritative, even if it is persuasive. The reason is simple: the UNGP was framed in a way to develop substantial flexibility and variation in its approaches. Within its construction and normative premises a host of choices may be made in conformity with the spirit and letter of the principles.  The U.N. and its apparatus, like the special procedures hovering around the interpretive enterprise (most critically the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights), like other interested actors, has developed a quite public set of political objectives around what may "best" be extracted from the UNGP and how it might "best" be instrumentalized toward those politically chosen ends. These are informed by the normative premises that shape the work of officials, especially those connected to the UN's Geneva apparatus (and those who want to be seen as useful to that apparatus). Those premises and the way they are translated into choices for fulfillment may not be universally shared, nor need they be! Still, all fair; all good faith efforts to advance normative agendas--and all perhaps persuasive--but not binding. Still capacity building that is informed by the limits and agendas of the capacity providers is always to be welcomed in advancing the UNGP project. And indeed, there is no reason that other organizations may not also institute their own Help Desk projects. Perhaps that is a project that the UN OHCHR might also champion. And, indeed, automating the help Desk function--including providing translation based services might well provide a basis for future development that focuses on capacity building rather than instruction on politically preferred choices or approaches. 

With that as background I am delighted to pass along an invitation sent by the marvelous Ben Shea, Human Rights Officer, Business and Human Rights Section, Thematic Engagement, Special Procedures and Right to Development Division, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights around an event designed to further effort to make the UNGP Help Desk a reality. 

It is my pleasure to invite you to an event organized by OHCHR’s Business and Human Rights Section on The Urgency of Helpdesks on Business and Human Rights, taking place on Monday, 24 Nov. 2025 @ 13:30 - 14:30 in Palais des Nations, Room VIII (Building A, 3rd floor).

This event will officially launch the OHCHR Business and Human Rights Helpdesk, a free, confidential resource available to all stakeholders to seek official OHCHR positions on the meaning and application of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). Please join us to learn more about the initiative and our plans, and to share your views on how the helpdesk can best serve States, business, civil society, rights holders and others.

Feel free to share this invitation with your colleagues and networks, and please kindly RSVP in advance to confirm your attendance.

Please consider participating if you can.