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re·solve Audio Help /rɪˈzɒlv/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation~~[ri-zolv~~] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation verb, -solved, -solv·ing, noun –verb (used with object) to come to a definite or earnest decision about; determine (to do something): I have resolved that I shall live to the full.

4 The legal question to be resolved by the court is whether the word "should" in the May 18 order connotes futurity or may be deemed a ruling in praesenti.14 The answer to this query is not to be divined from rules of grammar;15 it must be governed by the age-old practice culture of legal professionals and its immemorial language usage. To determine if the omission (from the critical May 18 entry) of the turgid phrase, "and the same hereby is", 1 -- makes it an in futuro ruling - i.e., an expression of what the judge will or would do at a later stage - or 2 -- constitutes an in in praesenti resolution of a disputed law issue, the trial judge's intent must be garnered from the four corners of the entire record.16

Footnote 13:

The interpretation of this section, which appears to be a question of first impression, turns upon the meaning of the word “should” in the phrase “[a]ny partial abatement or reduction of child support should not exceed 50% of the child-support obligation during the extended visitation period.” In Little v. State, 261 Ark. 859, 554 S.W.2d 312 (1977), the supreme court ruled that the trial court, giving an instruction on circumstantial evidence, had not misled the jury by using the word “should” instead of “must” in stating that circumstances should point to and be consistent with guilt but should be inconsistent with any other reasonable hypothesis. The Little court opined that use of the word “must” would have been preferable to the use of “should,” but the court noted that the *396 words are often synonymous. 261 Ark. at 884, 554 S.W.2d at 324, citing Rodale, The Synonym Finder 780 (Special Deluxe Ed.).

Similarly, we hold that the word “should” is equivalent to the word “must” as used in the phrase “any partial abatement or reduction of child support should not exceed 50% of the child-support obligation during the extended visitation period.” We hold that the 50% limitation in Administrative Order No. 10 is mandatory: abatement or reduction of child support during an extended visitation period cannot exceed 50% of the child-support obligation during the extended visitation period.

The specific grounds of objection are that the court should have used the word “shall” instead of “should,” that the word “should” is merely advisory, and that the jury was left at its discretion in the matter of reduction of the damages. It has been said that the word “should” is the past tense of the word “shall,” and we think, in the connection in which it was used, the jury understood that it meant more than simply advisory.

In the case of Smith v. State, 142 Ind. 288, 41 N. E. 595, the Supreme Court of Indiana held that it was more imperative than the word “may.”

As regards the mandatory character of the rule, the word “should” is not only an auxiliary verb, it is also the preterite of the verb, “shall,” and has for one of its meanings, as defined in the Century Dictionary: “Obliged or compelled (to); would have (to); must; ought (to); used with an infinitive (without to) to express obligation, necessity or duty in connection with some act yet to be carried out.” We think it clear that it is in that sense that the word “should” is used in this rule, not merely advisory. When the judge in charging a jury tells them that, unless they find from all the evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant is guilty of the offense charged, they should acquit, the word “should” is not used in an advisory sense, but has the force or meaning of “must,” or “ought to,” and carries with it the sense of *313 obligation and duty equivalent to compulsion. A natural sense of sympathy for a few unfortunate claimants who have been injured while doing something in direct violation of law must not be so indulged as to fritter away, or nullify, provisions which have been enacted to safeguard and protect the welfare of thousands who are engaged in the hazardous occupation of mining.

Because agencies have no inherent authority to establish laws in the form of regulations, they need a specific delegation from Congress, which exercises legislative power under the Constitution. While Congress may delegate its authority to administrative agencies, Supreme Court precedent has required that Congress provide “intelligible principles” in the statutory delegation because it reflects a shift in constitutional authority from the legislative branch to the executive branch. In other words, the “non-delegation doctrine” requires a congressional delegation to be limited and not open-ended to preserve the separation of powers. Thus, Congress is prohibited from granting broad, general rulemaking authority, and agencies should issue rules consistent with a particular, limited congressional grant of authority. The Court in West Virginia grounds the major questions doctrine in the separation of powers, holding that the congressional delegation for agency rulemaking authority should be very clear, specific, and not left to the agencies to interpret in matters with extraordinary economic and political significance. Therefore, the decision’s second burden shift is to Congress, by requiring more legislative rigor when Congress wishes to give an agency the power to decide “major questions.”

re·solve Audio Help /rɪˈzɒlv/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation~~[ri-zolv~~] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation verb, -solved, -solv·ing, noun –verb (used with object) to come to a definite or earnest decision about; determine (to do something): I have resolved that I shall live to the full.

As regards the mandatory character of the rule, the word “should” is not only an auxiliary verb, it is also the preterite of the verb, “shall,” and has for one of its meanings, as defined in the Century Dictionary: “Obliged or compelled (to); would have (to); must; ought (to); used with an infinitive (without to) to express obligation, necessity or duty in connection with some act yet to be carried out.” We think it clear that it is in that sense that the word “should” is used in this rule, not merely advisory. When the judge in charging a jury tells them that, unless they find from all the evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant is guilty of the offense charged, they should acquit, the word “should” is not used in an advisory sense, but has the force or meaning of “must,” or “ought to,” and carries with it the sense of *313 obligation and duty equivalent to compulsion. A natural sense of sympathy for a few unfortunate claimants who have been injured while doing something in direct violation of law must not be so indulged as to fritter away, or nullify, provisions which have been enacted to safeguard and protect the welfare of thousands who are engaged in the hazardous occupation of mining.

Trump wants to be taken at his word. But public opinion polls consistently indicate that between two-thirds and three-quarters of Americans . The global picture is no better. Most citizens of , such as Australia, France, Germany, Japan, Jordan, Mexico, South Korea, and the United Kingdom, say that they have no confidence in the U.S. president. In other words, Trump suffers from a credibility gap. This is, perhaps, unsurprising. , Trump said something untrue every day for the first 40 days of his presidency. His actions speak even louder. Trump has sown doubt about some of the United States’ oldest and most important commitments, such as its support for NATO—an alliance Trump described as “obsolete” in January, before declaring it “no longer obsolete” in April. He has flip-flopped on policy positions, publicly undermined the efforts of members of his own administration, and backpedaled on diplomatic agreements, including the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear deal. The United States does not derive its from the words of the executive alone, but Trump’s behavior carries consequences. As the president undermines the nation’s credibility at home and abroad, allies will hesitate to trust American promises, and U.S. threats will lose some of their force. The risks of deadly miscalculation will increase. And to demonstrate its resolve, the United States may need to take more costly and extreme actions. Other sources of credibility, such as American military prowess and a general faith in U.S. institutions, may mitigate some of the damage wreaked by Trump. But there is no substitute for a president whose words still matter.

When a government anticipates that a decision or a proposed course of action may harm another state discussion with the affected party can provide a way of heading off a dispute by creating an opportunity for adjustment and accommodation. Quite, minor modifications to its plans, of no importance to the state taking the decision, may be all that is required to avoid trouble, yet may only be apparent if the other side is given a chance to point them out. The particular value of consultation is that it supplies useful information at the most appropriate time - before anything has been done. For it is far easier to make the necessary modifications at the decision-making stage, rather than later, when exactly the same action may seem like capitulation to foreign pressure, or be sized on by critics as a sacrifice of domestic interests. A good example of the value of consultation is provided by the practice of the United States and Canada in anti-trust proceedings.

A world dominated by totalitarian states would be more incompetent, more war-prone, less cooperative, and more inhibitive of progress than one dominated by democratic states. Our current world is not particularly competent, peaceful, cooperative, or progressive—a totalitarian-dominated world would be worse. It would increase the risk of another collapse and extinction and could shape the future toward less desirable trajectories (Beckstead, 2013). Totalitarian states are incompetent. They are bad at forecasting and dealing with disasters (Caplan, 2008).16 This can be seen most clearly in the great famines of Communist China and the USSR, in which millions died (Applebaum, 2017; Becker, 1996; Dikötter, 2010; Snyder, 2010). In comparison, functioning multiparty democracies rarely, if ever, experience famines (Sen, 2010). “Established autocracies” (or “personal”/“sultanist”) are particularly bad, as there are few checks or restraints on arbitrary rule and the whims and ideology of the single individual, even from other elites (Svolik, 2012). From the inside, the “inner circle” around Mao, Stalin, and Hitler seems incredibly chaotic, with elites strongly incentivized to conceal information and encouraged by the autocrat to squabble and feud—so they are divided (Conquest, 1992; Kershaw, 2008; Zhang & Halliday, 2006). If totalitarian states are worse at addressing social, environmental, and technological problems, then a world dominated by them would likely be worse at responding to risks of collapse and extinction. A world dominated by totalitarian states is more likely to have major wars. States with near-universal adult suffrage rarely (if ever) go to war with one another (Barnhart et al., 2020), so a world dominated by democracies has fewer wars. Miscalculation might be a particular problem for totalitarian states due to personalization and disincentives for accurate information, leading to well-known strategic disasters such as Hitler and Stalin’s blunders in World War II (Bialer, 1970; Noakes & Pridham, 2001), or at a smaller level, Saddam Hussein’s rejection of diplomacy (Atkinson, 1993). War makes collapse and extinction more likely, by raising the chance of weapons of mass destruction being used. Linked to this, totalitarian states are less cooperative than democratic states. While cooperation is possible (Ginsburg, 2020), their internal norms are characterized by paranoia and treachery, and their lack of transparency limits their ability to credibly commit to agreements. This is bad for all risks that require cooperation such as pandemics or climate change (Tomasik, 2015). Finally, continued social and scientific progress is likely to reduce risks of collapse and extinction. Social progress could reduce global inequality and other risk factors. Scientific progress could help address natural risks and climate change (Sandberg, 2018), differentially increase defensive rather than offensive power (Garfinkel & Dafoe, 2019), and solve safety challenges in AI or biotechnology (Russell, 2019). However, as we will now discuss totalitarian states would likely inhibit social progress. A central question from a longtermist perspective is: Which values should shape the future? I would argue that we should prefer it to be shaped by liberal democratic values. This is not to say that the current democracy-dominated world is perfect—far from it. The fate of billions of factory-farmed animals or hundreds of millions of people in extreme poverty makes that abundantly clear. However, democracies have two advantages. First, democracies have space for cosmopolitan values such as human rights, plurality, freedom, and equality. These are better than those that characterize life under totalitarianism: Fear, terror, subjection, and secrecy. Second, they have within themselves the mechanism to allow progress. In the last 100 (or even 50) years, the lives of women, LGBT people, religious minorities, and non-white people have dramatically improved. Our “moral circle” has expanded, and could continue to expand (Singer, 1981). The arc of the moral universe is long, but given the right conditions, it might just bend toward justice (King, 1968). A global society dominated by these values, and with the possibility of improving more, has a better longterm potential. A totalitarian-dominated world, on the other hand, would reduce the space for resistance and progress—distorting the human trajectory. We should be particularly concerned about “bottlenecks” at which values are particularly important—where there is a risk of “locking-in” some particular set of (possibly far from optimal) values. While they are currently faroff, future technologies such as artificial general intelligence, space settlement, life extension (of autocrats), or much better surveillance could enable lock-in (Caplan, 2008).17 Conditional on them avoiding new catastrophes, world orders dominated by totalitarians could be quite long-lasting (Caplan, 2008). Democracies can undermine authoritarian and totalitarian regimes through the following ways: Control, including conquest; contagion through proximity; and consent, promoting receptivity toward democratization (Whitehead, 2001). Democracies can actively undermine these regimes through war, sanctions, hosting rebellious exiles, or sponsoring internal movements. Passively, through contagion, they offer a demonstration that a better, more prosperous life is possible. For example, in the final years of the USSR, ordinary Soviet citizens were able to see that the West had a higher standard of living—more innovation, more choice, and more consumer goods. The elites were able to read books from the outside, and travel—Gorbachev’s contacts and friendships with European politicians may have made him more favorable to social democracy (Brown, 1996). Democracies can undermine the will and capacity of the coercive apparatus (Bellin, 2004). However, in a world not dominated by democracies, all these pressures would be far less. A world in which, say, totalitarian regimes emerged as dominant after World War II (for example if the USA was defeated) could be self-reinforcing and long-lasting, like the self-reinforcing relationship of Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia (Orwell, 1949). Orwell’s fictional world is characterized by constant low-grade warfare to justify emergency powers and secure elites, and with shifting alliances of convenience as states bandwagon and balance, thereby preventing any resolution. A totalitarian-dominated world order could be rather robust, perhaps for decades or even centuries. A long-lasting totalitarian-dominated world would extend the period of time humanity would spend with a heightened risk of collapse or extinction, as well as increased potential for distortion of the human trajectory and the possibility that a “lock-in” event may occur. This example illustrates the possibility of a “negative recovery,” resulting in a trajectory with less or no scientific and social progress and a less favorable geopolitical situation, which would threaten the destruction of humanity’s longterm potential.

Early in 2016, the members of the Tibetan delegation to the NPC aroused interest when they displayed a pin with a portrait of Xi on their lapels, something that had not been seen since the fall of Lin Biao in 1971 (Bloomberg News 2018). In 2016, Tibet’s party secretary was Chen Quanguo, who has since been moved to Xinjiang to enforce hardline policies and seems to enjoy Xi’s trust. It is clear that the revival of the personality cult is a part of Xi’s strategy to consoli- 222 social research date his position and the overall leadership of a party that has become his obedient tool. But what do these quotations say about Xi’s conception of patriotism? Xi tells all the various components of Chinese society, especially scientists and those who study abroad, that they must always think of the motherland first. He reminds the people that “among the core socialist values, the deepest, the most basic, the most eternal one is patriotism.” But one must not be confused: patriotism does not mean wanton love of the country: “Only by emphasizing the love of the country, of the Party, of socialism, can patriotism be vibrant and real.” Xi also introduces some Confucian references, as he states that “one must unite the love for the family and for the country, and integrate one’s individual dream, and family’s dream in the dream of the country, of the nation.” And finally, “patriotism is mankind’s deepest, most enduring feeling” (Renmin Ribao 2018). Faced with the growing disaffection of society toward official ideology, the new helmsman, like his predecessors but more forcefully, turns to “the last refuge of the scoundrels.” Making China great again and giving the motherland its rightful place on the international scene have become the new mobilizing ideology to rally China behind its current helmsman. But such a concentration of power in the hands of one person is also very dangerous: as he is the only decision maker, he must take responsibility for any mistake or failure. This lone exercise of power also demonstrates that Xi has not been able to unify the various factions under him, and the history of the Chinese Communist Party indicates that various leaders are waiting for him to make a mistake. Already, at all levels, decisions have come to a halt, as cadres are reluctant to take responsibility for fear of being accused of corruption. The concert of praises for the new helmsman does not necessarily indicate that Xi has gained the unconditional support of the apparatus. Rather, given the atmosphere of terror imposed by the anticorruption campaign, party leaders do not express their real thoughts. Repression of alternative discourse and increased pressure 223 on intellectuals and the media can, in the short run, silence criticism, but they do not solve the contradictions that are maturing in society. Xi’s Policy toward Civil Society At the same time as he was disciplining the party apparatus, Xi carried out a campaign against the civil society that had been slowly emerging under Hu-Wen. This is best illustrated by the way the CCP solved the case of the New Citizens Movement. As discussed above, one of the NCM’s requests was that leading cadres’ assets be made public, to fight corruption. This objective met Xi’s exactly, and the NCM could have been enlisted in his anticorruption campaign. However, almost immediately after the new leadership came to power, many NCM activists were arrested and sentenced—among them its founder, Xu Zhiyong, who was sentenced to four years in jail (Yu 2014)—and the NCM was disbanded. This shows that Xi was not ready to let civil society monitor Party cadres, and ensured that the anticorruption struggle remained under Party leadership and served to reinforce its legitimacy. But Xi’s attempts at eradicating the autonomous groups did not stop there. On July 9, 2015, more than 300 Rights Defense lawyers and legal workers were rounded up by the public security (Jacobs and Buckley 2015). Most of them were released with a warning not to pursue their activities, 13 were released on bail, and 24 were officially arrested (CHRCG 2017). After a few months, during which they were tortured and their families threatened, many appeared on television to confess that they had been “manipulated by foreign hostile forces”; some went through the same treatment but were also sentenced to jail terms. All of them “refused” the help of lawyers chosen by their families and were “defended” by lawyers appointed by the state. Since this wave of repression, lawyers have been less eager to take human rights cases. But they were not the only targets of repression. Developing Hu’s strategy, the Party has adopted a two-pronged approach towards what it calls NGOs. On one hand, it has encouraged the development of those that provide various kinds of services, and, [141.211.4.224] Project MUSE (2024-07-18 18:58 GMT) University of Michigan @ Ann Arbor 224 social research on the other hand, it has attempted to eradicate grassroots advocacy organizations. Even the term “civil society” (gongmin shehui) has become taboo. As we have seen above, at the end of 2015, workers’ organizers were submitted to the same treatment as Rights Defense lawyers: there is now a pattern of arrest, detention, televised self-criticism where the activist acknowledges that he has been used by “hostile foreign forces” to subvert China’s socialist regime, and promises not to continue. Since 2013, there have been 45 such televised confessions, which brings to mind the Stalinist trials of the 1930s (Myers 2018). The Party intends to depict grassroots NGOs, activists, human rights defenders, and lawyers as “foreign agents” who sabotage the Chinese Dream. This explains why the National People’s Congress passed a law on international NGOs (INGOs) (China Development Brief 2016) that imposes strict conditions on their registration: they must register with the Ministry of Public Security, be sponsored by a public supervisory unit (PSU)—a Chinese state organization—and submit to an annual audit of their budget and activities by the Ministry. Only INGOs registered in the PRC are allowed to give funding to Chinese NGOs. This makes it very difficult for grassroots NGOs to continue to exist, as most of them get their funding from foreign entities. But the situation is completely different for “service-providing NGOs.” Business associations and chambers of commerce are encouraged to “separate from administrative agencies.” As under Hu-Wen’s tenure, the government can help fund such NGOs by purchasing their services. In this way, the authorities are relieved of the burden of directly providing social services. In 2016, the Central Committee allowed organizations working “on poverty alleviation, welfare for disadvantaged groups, medical care and education … [to] directly register with the civil affairs department” (Teets and Almen 2018). In 2015, the Central Committee declared that NGOs must shelter a party cell that would play a leading role. Xi Jinping’s China: On the Road to Neo-totalitarianism 225 The goal of the new leadership is clear: it will not tolerate the development of advocacy NGOs that could question the Party’s policies and its leadership position. By adopting the abovementioned laws, it endeavors to do away with the grey zones that had allowed advocacy NGOs to develop. Nongovernmental organizations are tolerated, even encouraged if they act as auxiliaries to the government and if they are directly controlled by the Party. The laws are passed to enforce the absolute leadership of the Party on the social field, what Kang Xiaoguang calls “administrative absorption of society” (Kang 2018). A CHINESE FASCISM? Before Xi took control, a decade of weak central leadership had resulted in a divided Party unable to erase the grey areas that allowed the emergence of grassroots NGOs that tried to monitor the authorities and protect citizens’ rights. Chinese society had started to become more autonomous from Party control. The totalitarian matrix was dissolving and society was starting to structure itself. Xi Jinping has reversed this situation. He has disciplined the Party with an anticorruption campaign enforced by a CCDI that reminds one of the Soviet Cheka, one that has reinstated the hegemony of the Party over the government, passed laws to eradicate the grey zones that had allowed the autonomization of society, and implemented a personality cult that has been reinforced by his scrapping of the two-term limit on the presidency. This attempt at reinstating Party hegemony over society and the repression of dissident voices do not mean China is returning to the totalitarian regime of the 1950s and ’60s; in fact, the Party doesn’t exert a monopoly on the economy. Besides, despite the reinforcement of control over the old and new media, Chinese citizens can access unofficial sources of information. They can travel abroad, and the state does not interfere with the private life of citizens, at least in Han-populated areas. The situation is different in minority areas—Xinjiang is now the object of a campaign against “religious extremism,” which results in the detention of hun- 226 social research dreds of thousands of citizens accused of refusing to eat pork or of praying five times a day. In China proper, universities have created ”Departments of Xi Jinping Thought,” ideological work has been reinforced, and professors have been fired for criticizing this new trend. The creation of the social credit system, which assigns a mark to each citizen, taking into account their financial credibility but also their compliance, has signaled a reinforcement of social control (Rollet 2018). The political, social, and religious fields are controlled by the Party. No alternative ideology to “Xi Jinping’s Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era” can be publicized, and the press has almost completely lost its autonomy. This system also brings to mind Mussolini’s fascism: party dictatorship, cult of the chief, a semiautonomous market economy, exaltation of nationalism and of the heritage of the Empire are common traits between the two regimes. And, after all, Mussolini was the one who invented the term “totalitarianism.

When China curtailed political freedoms in Hong Kong this summer, two rival declarations circulated at the United Nations Human Rights Council. One, drafted by Cuba and commending Beijing’s move, won the backing of 53 nations. Another, issued by the U.K. and expressing concern, secured 27 supporters. China’s show of strength was just the latest diplomatic triumph in Beijing’s drive to sway the system of international organizations in its direction. As the Trump administration stepped back from many parts of the multilateral order established after World War II, China has emerged a chief beneficiary, intensifying a methodical, decadelong campaign. Beijing is pushing its civil servants, or those of clients and partners, to the helm of U.N. institutions that set global standards for air travel, telecommunications and agriculture. Gaining influence at the U.N. permits China to stifle international scrutiny of its behavior at home and abroad. In March, Beijing won a seat on a five-member panel that selects U.N. rapporteurs on human-rights abuses—officials who used to target Beijing for imprisoning more than a million Uighurs at so-called re-education camps in Xinjiang. Washington has recently attempted to counter this effort at the U.N., cajoling and wooing countries around the world. Those efforts, hamstrung by damaged relationships with partners and allies, have had a limited impact so far. China’s success raises a conundrum for the U.S. and its allies. After the Soviet Union fell, these nations expected the U.N. to become a mechanism to promote democracy and human rights. Now, in a dynamic increasingly reminiscent of the Cold War, Beijing’s clout at the U.N. instead helps the Chinese Communist Party legitimize its claim to be a superior alternative to Western democracies. “It’s China’s sense that this is ‘our’ moment, and we need to take control of these bodies,” said Ashok Malik, senior policy adviser at India’s foreign ministry. “If you control important levers of these institutions, you influence norms, you influence ways of thinking, you influence international policy, you inject your way of thinking.” Chinese President Xi Jinping, addressing the U.N. General Assembly this month, called for the organization to play a “central role in international affairs,” particularly amid the coronavirus pandemic. “The global governance system should adapt itself to evolving global political and economic dynamics,” he added, an allusion to China’s rising clout and its perceptions of a U.S. decline. The Trump administration views the U.N. system as divided into parts that Washington should fight to fix and those that are beyond repair, U.S. officials said. In July, the administration began withdrawing from the World Health Organization, saying the U.N. agency’s deference to China at the outset of the pandemic allowed the virus to spread. Many U.S. allies say that abandoning the field by leaving organizations like the WHO offers China a strategic gift. Their concerns have been heightened in recent months as Beijing chastised democratic countries for speaking out on Hong Kong and Xinjiang, and engaged in deadly border clashes with India. “The U.S. is withdrawing from multilateralism to our great regret, and the Chinese are moving in,” said Hans Blix, a former Swedish diplomat who chaired the U.N.’s weapon-inspection program in Iraq. Washington didn’t have a say in the selection of human-rights rapporteurs in March or in the dueling statements about Hong Kong: The Trump administration had quit the U.N. Human Rights Council in 2018, citing one-sided criticism of Israel. It also left the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization over similar concerns the following year. Empty seats reserved for the U.S. in Geneva shortly after the Trump administration announced in 2018 that it was withdrawing from the U.N. Human Rights Council. PHOTO: DENIS BALIBOUSE/REUTERS Those decisions overlapped with tensions on trade, military spending and other longstanding issues that have pushed a wedge between the U.S. and its traditional allies in Europe and Asia. To Beijing, such divisions and the U.S. pullback from the multilateral order presented an opportunity, said Lanxin Xiang, director of the Center of One Belt and One Road Studies in Shanghai: “If this is your voluntary withdrawal, not us driving you away, filling in the vacuum should not be considered a provocative action.” Out of the U.N.’s 15 specialized agencies and groups, Chinese representatives lead four, beating Western-backed candidates last year for the top slot of the Food and Agriculture Organization. Only a concerted campaign in March by the U.S. and partners defeated a Chinese effort to take over the leadership of a fifth body, the World Intellectual Property Organization, known as WIPO. No other nation has its citizens running more than one U.N. agency. China Expands a Global Influence Beijing has secured spots at the helm of U.N. institutions that set standards for air travel, telecommunications and agriculture. Africa China heads four of the 15 UN* and UN-affiliated agencies or groups that collectively function as the machinery of the UN system. CHINA Asia/Pacific Europe N. America S. America U.S. Food and Agriculture Organization CHINA Brazil Senegal Lebanon Netherl. India U.S. U.K. 1950 ’60 ’70 ’80 ’90 2000 ’10 ’20 International Civil Aviation Organization CHINA Algeria Brazil Switz. India Lebanon Netherl. Canada Sweden France France France 1950 ’60 ’70 ’80 ’90 2000 ’10 ’20 International Telecommunication Union CHINA Mali Japan Finland Australia Tunisia U.S. Arg. France 1950 ’60 ’70 ’80 ’90 2000 ’10 ’20 United Nations Industrial Development Organization Sierra Leone CHINA Argentina Mexico Philippines Algeria Egypt 1950 ’60 ’70 ’80 ’90 2000 ’10 ’20 *The World Meteorological Organization is headed by Germany and Finland Source: the agencies Earlier victories put Beijing in position to shape international norms and standards, notably with air travel under the Chinese-led International Civil Aviation Organization. The Chinese secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union, who took his post in 2015, has backed Huawei Technologies Co. in its fight with the U.S., and pushed for a new internet protocol that Western governments say would allow more surveillance and censorship. Some 30 U.N. agencies and institutions have signed memorandums in support of China’s Belt and Road infrastructure project, including the U.N. Industrial Development Organization, which has been under Chinese leadership since 2013. As a result, China can present its state-run Belt and Road projects, which mainly employ Chinese firms and often leave poor nations in debt, as benign U.N.-approved assistance. “China has been able to make the U.N. more Chinese,” said Moritz Rudolf, founder of Eurasia Bridges, a German consulting firm that studies Belt and Road. “It’s systematic.” SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS Is the U.S. losing its position as a world leader? Join the conversation below. China has had its own stumbles: After placing one of its top law-enforcement officials as president of Interpol, it detained him in 2018 and later convicted him on corruption charges—underscoring how Chinese officials serving in international organizations remain under Beijing’s control. China’s leaders say its aims at the U.N. are altruistic and that it has set a global example for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. The U.N. advance has cost relatively little. Even though China is the world’s second-largest economy, it often pays discounted rates as a so-called developing nation. In 2018, it contributed $1.3 billion to the U.N. system, a fraction of the $10 billion annual commitment from the U.S. Advertisement Instead, China has leveraged loans and other assistance to dozens of developing nations in Africa, the Pacific and elsewhere to create voting blocs and defeat Western-backed candidates and proposals at the U.N. “Unfortunately there’s a real threat that China is going to use multilateral institutions to advance their own initiatives and their own values as compared to the values of the United States,” said Sen. Todd Young (R., Ind.), who last year introduced a bill to investigate Beijing’s influence. Pedestrians in Beijing walking past a video link to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s address to the U.N. PHOTO: GREG BAKER/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES Split decision Last year, member-states of the Food and Agriculture Organization gathered in Rome to select a replacement for the agency’s outgoing director-general. China nominated Qu Dongyu, its vice minister of agriculture. Beijing looked for support from the developing world. In Uganda, Chinese diplomats met at President Yoweri Museveni’s ranch and pledged to build a $25 million beef abattoir and a textile plant if his government backed Mr. Qu. Cameroon put forward economist Médi Moungui, a candidate with the potential to rally support in West Africa. When China canceled $78 million in overdue debt owed by Cameroon, Mr. Moungui abruptly withdrew. Neither Cameroon officials nor Mr. Moungui responded to requests for comment. The U.S. and Europe, meanwhile, were at odds. Europe backed French agricultural engineer Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle. The U.S. threw its weight behind Davit Kirvalidze, a former agriculture minister of the republic of Georgia. China sent a delegation of 80 to 100 people to the Rome gathering, compared with a typical delegation of a dozen or so, U.S. officials said. The Chinese delegates brought high-powered telephoto lenses to the vote and videotaped what was supposed to be a secret ballot. In some cases, they asked representatives from other countries to take photos of their ballots as proof they had backed Mr. Qu, U.S. and European officials said. The Chinese missions in Rome and Geneva didn’t reply to comment requests. With the democracies divided, Mr. Qu clinched a lopsided victory. “I’m very grateful to my motherland,” he said after his win. Qu Dongyu, director-general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, speaking in Rome last fall. PHOTO: ALESSANDRO DI MEO/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK Gérard Araud, who previously served as France’s ambassador to Washington and U.N. envoy, said China is doing what the U.S. used to do decades ago—offer countries gifts or twist their arms. “China does it now. It does it brutally, but there is nothing abnormal about this,” Mr. Araud said. “The fault is not of those who win. The fault is of those who lose.” Wang Huiyao, a counselor to China’s State Council and head of the Center for China and Globalization think tank in Beijing, said lobbying for Mr. Qu succeeded because “China agriculturally has done very well, and the world has recognized that.” Mr. Qu’s win proved a wake-up call for the U.S. and its allies. In November last year, President Trump’s national security adviser Robert O’Brien traveled to New York to meet permanent U.N. representatives from Europe, Japan and other democracies, proposing a common front against China. The European response, summarized by a person familiar with the meeting: Sure, but where have you been until now? European officials said they shared U.S. apprehensions about China but saw the contest differently. To the U.S., China is a rival that seeks to dethrone America as the world’s pre-eminent power. To the Europeans, China is a danger because Beijing seeks to upend the rules-based international order, which, they say, Mr. Trump also threatens to do. United states At the start of the year, the U.S., European nations and partners such as India put aside rivalries and together opposed China’s bid to lead WIPO, the Geneva-based agency that protects copyrights, patents and trademarks across borders. China leapfrogged the U.S. last year as the top source of international patents filed with WIPO, largely because international investors like to file from China, where rates are cheaper and where locally issued patents offer more protection. The American message opposing Beijing in the WIPO race was pointed. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has more than 1,000 open investigations into actual and attempted technology theft by individuals and entities connected to China. “We couldn’t afford to have a serial IP violator running the world’s intellectual property organization,” said U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a written statement. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a news conference last month at the U.N. headquarters in New York. PHOTO: MIKE SEGAR/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES U.S. officials focused on setting rules for the election, hoping to avoid the kind of aggressive measures China used in Rome. The U.S. won support to limit the number of delegates in the voting room and ensure voting privacy. The race began with 10 contestants. Washington, convinced that only a developing country could win, persuaded Japan and some others to withdraw early in the campaign and to support a Singaporean candidate. Though the city-state is one of the world’s most prosperous nations, it is grouped with mostly developing countries under U.N. rules. Other withdrawals left Singapore’s Daren Tang and China’s Wang Binying as the two front-runners. Ahead of the March 4 vote, China complained that the U.S. was bullying smaller nations. Washington engaged in “immoral behavior,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said, trying to defeat Ms. Wang through threats and blackmail. On the day of the vote, the U.S. sent two delegations. One was a six-person voting-room team with connections to Geneva-based diplomats. Another was made up of high-level ambassadors and senior officials who campaigned outside. The goal was to keep the election short and not allow Beijing time to apply diplomatic pressure on countries overnight. The tactic worked. As the votes were cast, Singapore’s Mr. Tang overtook Ms. Wang in the first round and gained an absolute majority in the second round. Some delegates were taken aback by the tensions. “It was like two elephants fighting,” said one of the candidates who withdrew.

We agree that more powerful countries are likely to have more influence on the long-term future than less powerful ones, and that a country’s economic development is a strong indicator of its technological and geopolitical power. However, this does not mean that developed countries matter morally more than developing ones. Rather, it underscores the importance of global development—the process of low- and middle-income countries becoming high-income ones. Similarly, although workers in high-income countries generally have higher labor productivity, a large component of this is the place premium. That is, a worker’s productivity increases—sometimes by a factor of 15 or more—when they move from a poor country to a rich country, simply because they are being paid more for the same work. Once again, this speaks to the importance of global development and helping people escape poverty. This essay describes why it’s important for the long term future for everyone to be in a relatively high-income country, and what it might look like for global development to be a longtermist issue. Global development benefits the long-term future by increasing diversity in global institutions and reducing civilization’s vulnerability to global catastrophic risks like armed conflict and pandemics. What is global development? Effective altruists regularly talk about “global health and development” as a category of ways to do good. However, it’s clear now that development drives health much more than health drives development. Global development is the process by which low- and middle-income countries turn into high-income countries. The best modern example of this are the Asian countries of South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and China. These have been compared with other Asian countries that were thought to be “tiger cubs” in the ‘90s such as the Philippines and Thailand in the book How Asia Works, by Joe Studwell. In this book, Joe lays out a recipe for development. Here’s the summary from Bill Gates: Create conditions for small farmers to thrive. Use the proceeds from agricultural surpluses to build a manufacturing base that is tooled from the start to produce exports. Nurture both these sectors (small farming and export-oriented manufacturing) with financial institutions closely controlled by the government. Importantly, in South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and China, these steps were taken by relatively uncorrupted leaders who made it their life’s work to develop their home country. Other countries unable to develop had leadership who were swayed by the neoliberal free-market thinking pervasive at the World Bank and IMF at the time, or who were otherwise too corrupt or incompetent to stay true in delivering their development strategy. Global development is important for the long-term future In an EA Forum post, Beckstead defines three types of benefits that an intervention can have: proximate benefits, benefits from speeding up development, and trajectory changes. Global development would have immediate benefits for people alive today: economic development in low-income countries means that fewer people would experience poverty, illness, hunger, and violence. Speeding up development is speeding up the process by which countries become high-income, so it would ensure that people realize these benefits sooner. But most of the benefits of global development are through trajectory changes that affect the long-term future. We argue that global development creates significant long-term benefits through this route. Global development can also lead to trajectory changes in the global political environment that would not happen if the development timeline were slowed down, since such changes can be locked in over time. Global development increases diversity in global governance One of the main ways global development benefits the far future is through its impact on diversity and inclusion in world institutions. As countries get richer, their people get better educated and thus better placed to participate in institutions with great decision-making power over the world, such as multinational corporations, governments, and international organizations. Increasing the diversity of decision makers in global institutions improves the quality of world governance, which enables humanity to better navigate existential risks and other global challenges. Diversity in global institutions improves their efficacy in two ways. First, socially diverse groups outperform homogeneous groups at decision-making because they deliberate more carefully and pay more attention to facts. They also innovate more because diverse group members bring unique perspectives. Second, it improves value alignment between these institutions and humanity as a whole. It has been proposed that humanity should engage in a “long reflection” to decide what is ultimately of value before making potentially irreversible decisions regarding its future. For such decisions to reflect the values and needs of all of humanity, as many people as possible should be able to participate meaningfully in the global institutions making these decisions. Currently, about 689 million of the 8 billion people worldwide live in extreme poverty, and they cannot participate meaningfully in world governance as long as their basic needs are not met. 2.9 billion people lack Internet access, which is an important communication channel through which people make their voices heard on global issues and influence global institutions. Internet adoption is uneven across social groups: for example, women, people in rural areas, and people over age 25 are less likely to have Internet access. These disparities are especially pronounced in the 46 UN-designated Least Developed Countries (LDCs). Another barrier to diversity in global governance is the structure of institutions such as the United Nations, which is not designed to represent the general will of humanity. UN institutions represent the will of states—especially the five permanent members of the UN Security Council: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China. Although a diverse group of countries have voices in the UN, their citizens do not, especially in the case of authoritarian states. Global development reduces existential risks Another important way in which global development improves the long-term future is by reducing existential risks, particularly risks from pandemics and political instability. 80,000 Hours estimates that the risk of a biological existential catastrophe in the next 100 years is about 1 in 1000. Poverty makes communities more susceptible to spreading infectious diseases. For example, a study of Monrovia, Liberia, in 2014 found that people living in slums who caught the Ebola virus spread it to an average of 3.5 times more people than people living in rich neighborhoods. This is because these neighborhoods are overcrowded, contaminated, and lacking in sanitation and health care infrastructure. Also, malnutrition weakens the immune systems of poor people, thereby making them more vulnerable to disease. Raising national income improves population health and enables countries to invest more in public health infrastructure, which makes populations more resilient to potentially catastrophic pandemics. Global poverty also causes existential risk through its negative effects on international security. Many developing countries, particularly weak states, are caught in a vicious cycle of poverty, corruption, and political instability: “Inept, corrupt, or weak governance fosters poverty; widespread poverty makes effective, equitable governance more difficult to achieve; and when weak governments fail to improve their people’s lives, their legitimacy suffers.” Weak states often engender terrorism and crime because they are unable to maintain law and order in their territories. Global development in practice There are two general ways to increase the living standards of people around the world. The first is reducing barriers to immigration to high-income countries so that more people from low-income countries can move to them, take advantage of the place premium, and send money back to their countries of origin. The second is to pursue policies to increase the productivity of low-income countries so that their people are better off. Reducing barriers to migration Opening up borders in high-income countries does not decrease opportunities for those in high-income countries (although it may stress city infrastructure if not planned well). Matthew Yglesias writes about a six-month period in 1980 where 125,000 Cubans left the Cuban port of Mariel and arrived in Florida (a 7% increase in the labor workforce). These immigrants weren't particularly skilled, but no decreases in natives’ wages occurred. Yglesias explains that immigrants increase the quality and variety of goods and services available, instead of competing for native workers’ jobs. Furthermore, when the supply of hired help is increased, some college-educated women who might have otherwise been stay-at-home moms are more likely to work. Immigrants also send money back home: for example, according to the Central Bank of the Philippines, between 1975 and 1994 Filipino overseas contract workers sent remittances totaling $18.196 billion (for comparison, the Philippines is currently $46B in debt to the World Bank, IMF, etc.).10 Closing the digital divide is also one way to gain some of the benefits of open borders, by opening up opportunities for jobs in high-income countries that can be done remotely to people in lower income countries.11 Catch-up growth Economic growth improves quality of life better than public health interventions. However, it is difficult for a country to increase its income unless the country's leadership is both dedicated to this cause, and following the correct strategy towards development. As pointed out by a report from Rethink Priorities last year, land redistribution (the first step of developing a country according to How Asia Works) is unlikely to happen without some kind of major turmoil (such as a country gaining independence) as landowners have political power, even if landowners are vastly outnumbered. Here are some examples of organizations pursuing catch-up growth in low- and middle-income countries: The World Bank and IMF provide loans and advice to low and middle income countries for development. Depending on the income of the country, the loan may not have to be repaid. The Gates Foundation provides entrepreneurial support. Newer organizations working on the problem include Growth Teams and the Charter Cities Institute. Entrepreneurs such as Sierra Juice and Jaza Energy contribute by providing jobs and increasing production value of exports. Interestingly, investment in non-hydro renewable energy has actually tipped to be greater in low- and middle-income countries than in high-income countries, now that solar has become cheaper. The Center for Global Development advocates for rich-world policies that benefit low- and middle-income countries. Other organizations engage in activities such as microloans, which are shown to benefit the recipient as long as the microloan is not used to fund people joining multi-level marketing schemes. Organizations like Grameen America should stop allowing the loans to be used for this purpose. Overall there are many more initiatives meant to alleviate poverty than to encourage the economic development and democratic power necessary to end it. Given that government-led development is hard without a people in power dedicated to and capable of executing development strategy, the mechanism by which development happens is by successful businesses giving people stable jobs, especially jobs that upskill workers in their career. Conclusion While a naive application of longtermism might lead one to think that low-income countries are less important than high-income countries, this view is facile because it ignores the fact that countries can and do develop over time. Rather, longtermism speaks to the importance of developing low-income countries into high-income ones. Global development improves the long-term future of humanity by improving global governance and decreasing civilization’s vulnerability to catastrophic risks. This makes global development a pressing longtermist issue.

Many policymakers, especially those in developing countries, need to move toward an economic framework that focuses and elevates innovation policy and discards the traditional framing of intellectual property as a bargaining chip that countries should hold onto for trade negotiations with developed countries. This traditional (zero-sum) framing of intellectual property misses the point that IP is one part of a broader policy framework that is needed (along with institutional capacity, education, infrastructure, etc.) to support innovation and productivity growth. In fact, countries should make improving their intellectual property rules, enforcement, and administration separate from trade agreements part of their own economic policy reforms, simply because doing so would help their own economy and so should be part of countries’.

The target audiences for renewed engagement on an updated framing of intellectual property, trade, and innovation are many and varied—representing in many ways a mirror image of the typology of groups that oppose stronger IP outlined earlier. The United States and likeminded countries should develop a tailored strategy to identify stakeholders to engage as part of the effort to reframe the debate around IP, trade, and innovation, as the target audience in each country is not clearly bifurcated, both within and between developed and developing countries. Even within developing countries that have traditionally pushed for weak or no intellectual property protections, such as China, India, and South Africa, there are stakeholders—individual policymakers, academics, government agencies, trade associations, and research institutions—that recognize both the need to focus on innovation and that IP plays a key supporting role. For example, there can exist government agencies in developing countries that recognize that IP is a critical enabler of innovation, despite the country’s formal antagonistic position toward IP in international debates, such as between ministries of science and technology on one side and ministries of industry or health on the other. There can also be cleavages between the positions held by a country’s representatives at WTO, WIPO, and UNCTAD and officials from the respective agencies that actually work on economic policy, science and technology, and intellectual property back in the country’s capital. Supporters of a robust IP system need to work to strengthen these voices.

Sharp rises in global food prices in 2007/08 jolted global political leaders out of any complacency they might have had regarding the future of food and agriculture. Street demonstrations and food riots broke out in more than 40 countries across the world, provoking unrest and violence in several places.

The L’Aquila Food Security Initiative, launched by the G-8 and the G-20 in 2009, brought new funding and energy to the task of quelling the “perfect storm” of food insecurity set off by spiking global food and fuel prices, financial and commodity market turmoil, the competition of biofuel production, and adverse weather in key agricultural regions. The L’Aquila Food Security Initiative successfully reversed a decades-long decline in international support for agricultural development.

However, current research does not yet indicate a clear link between climate change, food insecurity and conflict, except perhaps where rapidly deteriorating water availability cuts across existing tensions and weak institutions. But a series of interlinked problems – changing global patterns of consumption of energy and scarce resources, increasing demands for food imports (which draw on land, water, and energy inputs) can create pressure on fragile situations.

Food security – and food prices – are a highly political issue, being a very immediate and visible source of popular welfare or popular uncertainty. But their link to conflict (and the wider links between climate change and conflict) is indirect rather than direct.

The food price spikes in the late 2000s caught the world’s attention, particularly when sharp increases in food and fuel prices in 2008 coincided with street demonstrations and riots in many countries. For 2008 and the two preceding years, researchers identified a significant number of countries (totaling 54) with protests during what was called the global food crisis (Benson et al. 2008). Violent protests occurred in 21 countries, and nonviolent protests occurred in 44 countries. Both types of protest took place in 11 countries. In a separate analysis, developing countries with low government effectiveness experienced more food price protests between 2007 and 2008 than countries with high government effectiveness (World Bank 201la). Although the incidence of violent protests was much higher in countries with less capable governance, many factors could be causing or contributing to these protests, such as government response tactics, rather than the initial food price spike.

Data on food riots and food prices have tracked together in recent years. Agricultural commodity prices started strengthening in international markets in 2006. In the latter half of 2007, as prices continued to rise, two or fewer food price riots per month were recorded (based on World Food Programme data, as reported in Brinkman and Hendrix 2011). As prices peaked and remained high during mid-2008, the number of riots increased dramatically, with a cumulative total of 84 by August 2008. Subsequently, both prices and the monthly number of protests declined.

Many utility model systems offer the opportunity to divide applications out of pending patent applications and thus in effect to accelerate the grant of an intellectual property right. The German 1986 Act on Utility Models introduced the opportunity to base an application for a utility model on a pending patent application.

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The question that remains is how best to address the concerns of traditional knowledge generating communities. Yet, the traditional knowledge right that some developing countries and traditional knowledge proponents support is based on an intellectual property model, and therefore, has the potential to produce problems not unlike those which have resulted under the current system. An international sui generis intellectual property right for traditional knowledge may hinder access to affordable knowledge goods, including for indigenous and local communities.

Drawing on the notion of intellectual property ‘from below,’17 this paper aims to contribute to the discussion by evaluating the utility of an intellectual property model for the protection of traditional knowledge. This assessment is done in light of some of the stated goals of traditional knowledge protection,18 and with a view to the potential impact of proprietary traditional knowledge on affordable knowledge goods.19 The creation of a new property right may serve as both an offensive and defensive measure. This article cautions that a legally binding instrument that creates an exclusive proprietary traditional knowledge right may not ultimately benefit indigenous and local communities.