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The Chronicle November 5, 2020 A5 FORUM The parallel universe of peace ROBERT C. KOEHLER Guest Columnist Here’s a piece of para doxical news that puts even the U.S. presidential election in perspective: Nuclear weapons are now (or soon will be) ... good Lord... illegal. Armageddon is against the law! Well, sort of. And the Trump Administration doesn’t agree. Indeed, no nuke-armed nation has, as far as I can tell, anything but contempt for this in fringement on its right to blow up the world (only if necessary, of course). War and peace, it seems, exist in parallel universes. In the pro-war uni verse, as explained with succinct clarity by Nuclear Ground Zero in a three- minute video, it takes five minutes for a U.S. presi dent to launch a war. An aide carries a briefcase full of nuclear codes — this is the “nuclear football” — literally everywhere the president goes; and if the president decides that now is the time, he issues his encrypted order to the Pentagon war room, then responds to the “challenge code” the war room officer presents to him. The cor rect response is “on a little card” the president carries. “It takes five minutes to launch a war ... It’s as easy as ordering a pizza.” And there’s no way to stop a missile once it’s been launched. “The whole pro cess, from the president opening his briefcase to missiles being launched, can take as little as five minutes. Millions of peo ple will be dead faster than Domino’s can get there with your pizza.” Human progress! This is the world we have cre ated in our pursuit of dominance over Planet Earth and one another, lo these past ten thousand or so years. We have made it to the edge of the void, the brink of global suicide and non-existence, pushed along by a sense of glory and power and fear of the enemy who, it turns out, is none other than ourselves. Humanity has pursued the opposite of this as well, but peace — connected ness, “love thy enemy as thyself’ — is profoundly more complex to grasp and understand, and those who believe in war have successfully contained it so far. This is the context in which I consider the Trea ty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which was approved by the U.N. General Assembly in July 2017 by a vote of 122-1. The debate on this treaty — which proclaims that no nation can “develop, test, produce, acquire, possess, stockpile, use or threaten to use nuclear weapons” and holds nations respon sible to remediate the en vironmental and human damage they’ve caused by nuclear testing over the last 75 years — was boycotted by the United States, Russia, China, the U.K., France, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea ... hmmm, what do these countries have in common? Oh yeah, they all possess nuclear weap ons. Also boycotting the debate and vote were their allies, including all the NATO countries. After its passage, the treaty then had to be rati fied by 50 countries before it could become interna tional law. That happened in the past week, when Honduras became the fif tieth nation to do so. That means, according to the In ternational Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons: “In 90 days, the treaty will enter into force, cementing a categorical ban on nucle ar weapons, 75 years after their first use.” OK, but what does that actually mean? First of all, the prohibition against development and use of nukes applies only to the treaty’s signatories, which only include countries that are nuke-free anyway — which means this isn’t a law in any pragmatic way but, rather, a commitment. And while I do not dispar age such a commitment, I have to ask how it brings us the least bit closer to actual global nuclear dis armament. Well, according to The Guardian, “campaigners hope the treaty will have the same impact as previ ous international treaties on landmines and cluster munitions, bringing a stig ma to their stockpiling and use, and thereby a change in behavior even in coun tries that did not sign up.” They also suggest that mil itary-industrial companies will begin feeling pressure to stop producing nuclear weapons because financial institutions will stop in vesting in them. This adds up to an enormous imbalance be tween war and peace. We can start a nuclear war in five minutes, faster than we can order a pizza. But it took the world 72 years after Hiroshima and Na gasaki to officially declare nukes illegal (for some), and another three years to ratify that declaration, fol lowed by a hope that this is the beginning of stigma tizing nukes sufficiently so that someday the nuclear powers will surrender their weapons voluntarily, or at least stop developing new ones. Meanwhile, the Trump Administration has de clared this treaty “danger ous” and has urged signa tories to withdraw their support. I note also that the U.S. president is famous for his fear and hatred of non-white potential immi grants, be they Muslim or Mexican or African, and — speaking of stigmatiza tion — has said that a lot of them are from “shithole countries.” And he has no problem with putting them, or at least their chil dren, in cages. Think of it! The guy who could start a nuclear war has, in his own mind, already dehumanized a huge percentage of the world’s population. Doing so makes it so much easier to kill them when neces sary. Creating peace requires an enormous growing up, politically and every other way. Those who are com mitted to peace and global equality are forced to work for it in a world that is se riously prejudiced in favor of war. The path to war is easy and smooth, and nuclear war is easiest of all. The level of spiritual growing up necessary to embrace nuclear disarma ment is perhaps best ex emplified by South Africa, which played a crucial role in the passage of the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. South Africa is also the only country on the planet that gave up its nuclear weapons after being in full control of them. When did this happen? Around the same time that it transi tioned from an apartheid government to one of ra cial equality. Is there a lesson to be learned here? ■ Robert C. Koehler (koehlercw@gmail.com), syndicated by Peace Voice, is a Chicago award-win ning journalist and editor. He is the author of “Cour age Grows Strong at the Wound. ” In defense of Confucius Institutes Mel Gurtov Guest Columnist Readers may be sur prised to learn that while disputes between the U.S. and China over trade, human rights and the pandemic are mak ing headlines, educational exchange programs are Washington’s chief target these days. These programs are easy marks for an admin istration that wants to demonstrate toughness with Beijing. It is arousing suspicion about several categories of Chinese visi tors—scholars, students, journalists and scientists, among them—on the ba sis that they might commit espionage, stifle academic freedom, spread propagan da, steal intellectual prop erty, and undermine Amer ican values. Members of Congress and Congres sional committees, U.S, intelligence agencies, the State Department, think tanks, journalists, profes sors on the left and right, and U.S. educational orga nizations have all weighed in to warn of the dangers of association with indi vidual Chinese and China- financed organizations. A focal point of the attacks is Confucius Insti tutes (CIs), a global net work of Chinese-funded offices, mostly based at U.S. universities, that seek to promote Chinese lan guage and cultural learn ing—or, as some insist, China’s “soft power.” The institutes’ funding agency is Hanban, the Office of Chinese Language Coun cil under the Chinese edu cation ministry. It provides teachers and textbooks free of charge to university students and K-12 schools, where they are known as Confucius Classrooms. In the U.S., there were once more than 100 CIs; now there are fewer than 60, and if Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has his way—he has accused the CIs, without evidence, of seeking to recruit “spies and collaborators,” and in August had them designat ed as “foreign missions”— there soon will be none. Where once Confucius Institutes were welcomed as part of a thriving U.S.- China people-to-people exchange program, now they are viewed in the con text of a bipartisan con sensus to treat China as a “strategic competitor.” Pompeo has been the stalking horse, touring the world with a Cold War message on China that extends well beyond CIs. Working through various U.S. agencies, as well as his department, Pompeo seeks to limit visas for Chinese (and other inter national) students, schol ars, even doctors, and be gin sending home those already here on the basis of “national security.” Imagine: Last year there were nearly 370,000 Chinese students in the U.S. Those who would normally be eligible for work under the govern ment’s Optional Practical Training program will no longer have that option. Visa requirements are be ing tightened with the ob vious aim of preventing Chinese language teach ers, as well as students and visiting scholars, from entering or return ing to the U.S. A proposed law passed in the Senate would require interroga tion of every Chinese in the U.S. to assess whether or not they pose a security risk. Another bill (S.939), introduced in the Senate by Republican John Ken nedy and Democrat Doug Jones, would deny federal funds to universities that fail to meet new ground rules on Confucius Insti tutes they host, such as that CIs must agree to be gov erned by both Chinese and U.S. law; that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) must approve all CI events and speakers; and that CI teachers cannot teach CCP versions of “Chinese his tory, culture and current events.” None of the rules is fact-based, but if they be come law, they will be one way to force CIs to close. There are still other ways, such as preventing CI teachers from obtaining a U.S. visa, and using the National Defense Autho rization Act for FY2019 to force universities to choose between continu ing to receive defense de partment money and host ing a CI—a choice with a predictable outcome. CIs are closing not be cause of poor performance or political intrigue, but because of political pres sure, sometimes from Washington and some times from academia. The pressure reflects ideologi cal passion, however, not an investigation of actual circumstances. In the con text of my work, I have participated in nearly 100 interviews of CI and uni versity officers and staff, and American teachers in communities with Confu cius Classrooms. No one mentioned Chinese politi cal interference. Academic freedom was not violated, financial dependence on China was not created, and China was not pre sented one-sidedly by its teachers. To the contrary, CIs performed exactly as promised. Besides pro moting Chinese language and cultural learning in communities small and large across the country, each CI has taken on some additional or more special ized role, such as partner ing with other community organizations on cultural themes, teaching noncredit on-line classes in addition to K-12 classes, or pro viding study abroad op portunities. The American interviewees uniformly expressed gratitude for their CI’s contributions to the community’s cultural awareness and students’ international competency. Virtually all the ac cusations against CIs are based on isolated Chinese statements extolling Chi na’s soft power, the opaque relationship between Han- ban and China’s education ministry, or a rare charge of bias against Taiwan or Tibet. Behind the charges is the presumption that money and teachers com ing from China give the Chinese Communist Party access to young American minds—in short, guilt by association, as in Senator Chuck Grassley’s advice to 74 universities and col leges which at that time (March 2020) were home to CIs, to seek an FBI brief ing on “the threats posed by the Chinese Govern ment” generally, and CIs specifically. “Based upon information gathered from unclassified briefings,” said Grassley, “we know that Confucius Institutes are an arm of the Chinese Government. ... The ac tivities of Confucius Insti tutes are inherently politi cal in nature and intended to influence U.S. policy and public opinion.” Such warnings not only ignore the benefits of edu cational exchanges with China, they also confuse CIs with other Chinese ac tivities that may be nefari ous if proven. FBI and Jus tice Department officials have testified about threats posed to research labs and universities by research ers with “undisclosed ties to Chinese institutions and conflicted loyalties.” Other U.S. officials are demanding highly detailed reporting from universities about foreign donations, with China especially in mind, in the belief they are sources of political in fluence. So far, however, the only “threats” concern undisclosed arrangements that some U.S. biomedi cal professors with Na tional Institutes of Health grants made with Chinese entities. Several of those professors have been pun ished. But as the presi dent of MIT has said, the wide net cast by the U.S. government in search of disloyal people has made anyone of Chinese ethnic ity “feel unfairly scruti nized, stigmatized and on edge.” What the administra tion is doing, in our name, is cutting off our nose to spite our face—denying communities, schools, and laboratories the opportu nities for cultural enrich ment, people-to-people interaction, and mutual understanding precisely at a moment when these are desperately needed. In past years, China was accepted as an economic partner despite its communist sys tem. Now we are back to McCarthyism. No wonder Beijing accuses the Tramp Administration of inciting a new Cold War—and is responding with its own exaggeration of the U.S. threat. It’s a dangerous and unnecessary escalation that will be difficult for a new U.S. leadership to get beyond, assuming it is so inclined. Strange to have to make an argument about the value of learning a for eign language and know ing more about another country’s culture. Just a few decades ago, that de bate seemed to end with calls for “international izing” curricula in recog nition of how our insular educational system was making students uncom petitive in the global marketplace. Now a huge backward leap is taking place with, of all countries, China. And it is being ac companied by an equally narrow-minded attempt by Betsy Vos’s education department to limit all for eign students’ time to pur sue degrees and work in technical fields not being filled by Americans. The Chinese educa tional authorities see the handwriting on the wall and in July reorganized their approach in the U.S., creating two new organi zations to take the place of Hanban and CIs. But that step will not resolve the political issue: Whether or not a U.S. entity may accept Chinese money for language and cultural learning without coming under official scrutiny. Mel Gurtov, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is profes sor emeritus of political science at Portland State University and blogs at In the Human Interest.
Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.)
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