foreignpolicy--2020-07-10--Russia, With an Eye on the Syrian Prize, Blocks Humanitarian Aid

Russia , With an Eye on the Syrian Prize , Blocks Humanitarian Aid Russia moved Friday to shutter a humanitarian aid pipeline that provides lifesaving food , medicine , and other essentials to more than a million Syrians , brushing aside humanitarian appeals from the Trump administration and European governments to bolster its own geopolitical position in the region .
The move comes six months after Moscow eliminated two U.N.-approved humanitarian aid crossings in Jordan and Iraq , which served as the main channel for the delivery of medical supplies into communities in northeastern Syria .
The closure of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about the ability of international and private aid agencies to confront the spread of the coronavirus .
Together , the actions aim to consolidate Syrian government control over a broader swath of Syrian territory , key to Russia ’ s long-term aims of maintaining a pliant client state that can expand its power projection in the Eastern Mediterranean .
Additionally , the moves threaten to increase the flight of Syrian civilians across the border into Turkey—and potentially into Europe .
They also underscore how little appeals to Russia ’ s sense of conscience @ @ @ @ @ @ @ China have decided that millions of Syrian lives are an insignificant cost of their partnership with the murderous Assad regime , ” Kelly Craft , the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations , said on July 8 , after Russia , backed by China , vetoed a resolution extending the mandate of two other crossing points .
“ This breathtaking callousness and dishonesty is now an established pattern , and all U.N. member states need to take note.
” It follows a well-established pattern of Russian interference in the Syrian conflict—with Moscow ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of doing anything constructive .
“ They want to be the spoiler-in-chief at all times , but they don ’ t necessarily want to manage any of the problems or pay for it , ” said Bessma Momani , a Syria expert at the University of Waterloo in Canada .
The fate of the Syrian relief effort has been the subject of intense big-power negotiations in the U.N. Security Council over the past weeks that have exposed the West ’ s weak diplomatic leverage .
This month , Belgium and Germany mounted an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Yaroubia on the grounds that its closure in January was hamstringing the international response to COVID-19 .
But Moscow made clear that it would veto the measure .
The Europeans dropped the provision , but it was still not enough to satisfy Russia , which vetoed a watered-down draft resolution that would have extended the life of two remaining crossing points on the Turkish border , Bab al-Hawa and Bab al-Salaam , which provide assistance to nearly 3 million Syrians in northwestern Syria .
Relief experts say the Russian move to eliminate the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will prohibit the United Nations from channeling funds into the area or playing its traditional coordinating role , limiting international efforts to scale up aid programs , even if it won ’ t necessarily halt efforts by private relief agencies to deliver aid into northwestern Syria .
“ Shutting the two northwest crossings could be a virtual death sentence for many of the millions of Syrians who rely on aid to survive .
But it ’ s not too late for Moscow to change course , ” Louis Charbonneau , the U.N. director @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a statement .
Meanwhile , the humanitarian situation in Syria is worsening as the war drags into its ninth year .
Syria ’ s rebel-held northwest region , including the Idlib pocket where millions of people are crammed in with severely limited access to health care , saw its first confirmed case of COVID-19 on Thursday .
Food shortages across the country , including in both rebel- and government-controlled areas , are heightening the risks of famine .
Battling both hunger and the pandemic may prove to be impossible for overstretched aid agencies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to allow the mandate for the aid crossings to expire at midnight Friday and fear they are playing a stronger diplomatic hand .
The cross-border humanitarian operation represents one of the sole meaningful components of Western policy toward Syria .
“ I think the Russians , on Syria , have less to lose than the rest of us , ” one Security Council diplomat said .
“ If the resolution doesn ’ t get passed , they have achieved their objectives.
” Meanwhile , appeals like Craft ’ s to Russia ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Russia has spent almost a decade fending off moral pleas and denunciations over its Syria policy at the U.N. , and it is pretty confident it can ride out another of these storms , ” said Richard Gowan , the U.N. director at the International Crisis Group .
“ Ultimately Moscow can take the reputational hit of messing with the humanitarian access regime in its stride , while it would be an awful embarrassment for Berlin and Brussels if it all falls apart , ” he added .
“ The Belgians and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the end of the day , they will have to take whatever Russia offers them or be accused of failing the Syrians.
” Moscow ’ s gambits underscore how committed it is to propping up Bashar al-Assad ’ s regime to maintain a Russian footprint in the Middle East with access to the Mediterranean Sea on NATO ’ s southeastern flank .
For Moscow , geopolitics trumps any argument on humanitarian grounds , Momani said .
“ Russia [ has ] always been very committed to the Assad regime , and that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They have a long-term plan in keeping a presence in Syria , both militarily and as a proxy , ” she said .
The U.N. Security Council established four crossing points in Jordan , Turkey , and Iraq back in 2014 to enable the delivery of lifesaving assistance to millions of Syrian civilians living in rebel-controlled territory , including hundreds of thousands under siege by the Syrian government .
Russia has long backed Syria ’ s contention that the cross-border delivery of assistance violates the Syrian government ’ s sovereignty and provides a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ overthrow Assad .
Some experts see Russian President Vladimir Putin as deploying a Trumpian strategy : creating a crisis that only he can solve .
Others say Russia has outmaneuvered the West by siphoning all major decisions on Syria into the U.N. Security Council , where it can wield its veto votes in favor of Assad .
“ Russia has used U.N. mechanisms to prevent and paralyze any real action on Syria and any real political resolution for Syria .
And that has always worked in favor of the Syrian regime , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the Atlantic Council , a Washington-based think tank .
On Friday , Russia vetoed a second attempt by Belgium and Germany to adopt a resolution that would extend the mandate of the two Turkish crossing points for a truncated period of six months .
China joined Russia in the veto , on the grounds of respecting Syria ’ s sovereignty , meanwhile criticizing U.S. economic sanctions on Syria that Beijing argues undermine Syria ’ s ability to respond to the humanitarian crisis .
Shortly after Friday ’ s double veto , Russia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which would have ended the mandate for Bab al-Salaam and called for regular reporting by the U.N. secretary-general on the impact that U.S. sanctions are having on the humanitarian situation in Syria .
It also called for extending for a year the mandate for a single crossing hub at Bab al-Hawa , which provides aid for millions of Syrians in Idlib .
“ We categorically reject claims that Russia wants to stop humanitarian deliveries to the Syrian population in need .
Our draft is the best proof that these allegations are groundless @ @ @ @ @ @ @ diplomat at Russia ’ s U.N. mission , tweeted Thursday night , after circulating Moscow ’ s latest offer .
“ If they block our compromise proposal they will be responsible for the consequences.
” The Russian draft resolution was defeated on Friday evening , securing only four votes in favor from China , Russia , South Africa and Vietnam , five short of the nine votes needed to adopt a resolution in the 15-nation council .
The U.S. , Belgium , Britain , Estonia , France , Germany and the Dominican Republic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remaining members abstained .
Belgium and Germany , meanwhile , signaled they would press the Russians to compromise in the hope of securing the cross-border aid program ’ s future before it expires at midnight .
One council diplomat said the two Europeans would present a final resolution calling for extending the mandate for the Bab al-Hawa crossing for one year .
Another New York-based source said the European draft would also grant the U.N. a three-month transition period to close its operations at the Bab al-Salam crossing point .
But that provision @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In addition , the European draft would strip out any indirect reference to the impact U.S. sanctions may have on the humanitarian situation in Syria .
A vote is expected at noon Saturday .

Russia on Saturday succeeded in shuttering a humanitarian aid pipeline that provides lifesaving food, medicine, and other essentials to more than a million Syrians, brushing aside humanitarian appeals from the Trump administration and European governments to bolster its own geopolitical position in the region.
Russia on Saturday succeeded in shuttering a humanitarian aid pipeline that provides lifesaving food, medicine, and other essentials to more than a million Syrians, brushing aside humanitarian appeals from the Trump administration and European governments to bolster its own geopolitical position in the region.
The move comes six months after Moscow eliminated two U.N.-approved humanitarian aid crossings in Jordan and Iraq, which served as the main channel for the delivery of medical supplies into communities in northeastern Syria. The closure of the Iraq crossing at Yaroubia has heightened concerns about the ability of international and private aid agencies to confront the spread of the coronavirus.
Together, the actions aim to consolidate Syrian government control over a broader swath of Syrian territory, key to Russia’s long-term aims of maintaining a pliant client state that can expand its power projection in the Eastern Mediterranean. Additionally, the moves threaten to increase the flight of Syrian civilians across the border into Turkey—and potentially into Europe. They also underscore how little appeals to Russia’s sense of conscience carry any weight.
“Russia and China have decided that millions of Syrian lives are an insignificant cost of their partnership with the murderous Assad regime,” Kelly Craft, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said on July 8, after Russia, backed by China, vetoed a resolution extending the mandate of two other crossing points. “This breathtaking callousness and dishonesty is now an established pattern, and all U.N. member states need to take note.”
The U.N. Security Council on Saturday voted 13 to 0, with abstentions from China, the Dominican Republic and Russia, to extend the U.N. mandate for one year to deliver humanitarian assistance to nearly three million Syrians in the northwest region of Idlib. Russia effectively blocked an effort by the resolution’s cosponsors, Belgium and Germany, to authorize aid deliveries through two other crossing points at Yaroubia, along the Iraqi border, and Bab al-Salam, which serves as a critical aid pipeline from Turkey to about 1.4 million civilians, including 500,000 children, in and around Aleppo in northwest Syria.
Following Saturday’s vote, Craft told the council in a virtual meeting that the approval of the Bab al-Hawa crossing “will make a difference” for the millions of Syrians in Idlib, but that it fell “far short of what the Syrian people need.”
“The Syrians themselves, if they had a voice, would tell you that the loss of those crossings is unacceptable, and risks the health and welfare of millions of their fellow Syrians,” she added.
A senior Russian diplomat, Dmitry Polyanskiy, accused Craft and her Western partners of “hypocrisy,” citing a tweet by the American ambassador accusing Russia of opposing humanitarian assistance to Syrians. He noted that Russia supports such deliveries but that aid can be delivered directly by the Syrian government. The United Nations, however, has repeatedly claimed that the Syrian government — which has previously withheld aid in opposition controlled territory — has failed to fill the gap left by the closed-border crossing at Yaroubia.
“Now is not the time to scale-back aid,” Janti Soeripto, the president and CEO of Save the Children, said in a statement after the vote. “There is no excuse for limiting the ability for humanitarian organisations to deliver aid when we are seeing a sharp increase in needs due to conflict, the first cases of COVID 19 announced, and economic collapse across the country. Millions of Syria’s children depend on this lifeline and will suffer the consequences of this decision.”
The Russian action follows a well-established pattern of interference in the Syrian conflict—with Moscow’s own aims in mind—that stops short of doing anything constructive.
“They want to be the spoiler-in-chief at all times, but they don’t necessarily want to manage any of the problems or pay for it,” said Bessma Momani, a Syria expert at the University of Waterloo in Canada.
The fate of the Syrian relief effort has been the subject of intense big-power negotiations in the U.N. Security Council over the past weeks that have exposed the West’s weak diplomatic leverage. This month, Belgium and Germany mounted an effort to restore the border crossing in Yaroubia on the grounds that its closure in January was hamstringing the international response to COVID-19.
But Moscow made clear that it would veto the measure. The Europeans dropped the provision, but it was still not enough to satisfy Russia, which vetoed a watered-down draft resolution that would have extended the life of two remaining crossing points on the Turkish border, Bab al-Hawa and Bab al-Salaam, which provide assistance to nearly 3 million Syrians in northwestern Syria.
Relief experts say the Russian move to eliminate the U.N. mandate for the Syrian border crossings will prohibit the United Nations from channeling funds into the area or playing its traditional coordinating role, limiting international efforts to scale up aid programs, even if it won’t necessarily halt efforts by private relief agencies to deliver aid into northwestern Syria.
“In January, Russia and China forced the Security Council to cut off cross-border aid to the northeast, severely worsening a dire humanitarian crisis there,” Louis Charbonneau, the U.N. director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement following the vote. “Today, council members buckled and gave Moscow what it wanted — a further drastic reduction of cross-border aid to desperate Syrians who rely on it for survival.”
Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation in Syria is worsening as the war drags into its ninth year. Syria’s rebel-held northwest region, including the Idlib pocket where millions of people are crammed in with severely limited access to health care, saw its first confirmed case of COVID-19 on Thursday. Food shortages across the country, including in both rebel- and government-controlled areas, are heightening the risks of famine. Battling both hunger and the pandemic may prove to be impossible for overstretched aid agencies.
Diplomats acknowledged they are playing a stronger diplomatic hand. The cross-border humanitarian operation represents one of the sole meaningful components of Western policy toward Syria. “I think the Russians, on Syria, have less to lose than the rest of us,” one Security Council diplomat said. “If the resolution doesn’t get passed, they have achieved their objectives.”
Meanwhile, appeals like Craft’s to Russia’s better angels fall on deaf ears. “Russia has spent almost a decade fending off moral pleas and denunciations over its Syria policy at the U.N., and it is pretty confident it can ride out another of these storms,” said Richard Gowan, the U.N. director at the International Crisis Group.
“Ultimately Moscow can take the reputational hit of messing with the humanitarian access regime in its stride, while it would be an awful embarrassment for Berlin and Brussels if it all falls apart,” he added. “The Belgians and Germans have a weak hand because, at the end of the day, they will have to take whatever Russia offers them or be accused of failing the Syrians.”
Moscow’s gambits underscore how committed it is to propping up Bashar al-Assad’s regime to maintain a Russian footprint in the Middle East with access to the Mediterranean Sea on NATO’s southeastern flank. For Moscow, geopolitics trumps any argument on humanitarian grounds, Momani said.
“Russia [has] always been very committed to the Assad regime, and that’s not going to change. They have a long-term plan in keeping a presence in Syria, both militarily and as a proxy,” she said.
The U.N. Security Council established four crossing points in Jordan, Turkey, and Iraq back in 2014 to enable the delivery of lifesaving assistance to millions of Syrian civilians living in rebel-controlled territory, including hundreds of thousands under siege by the Syrian government. Russia has long backed Syria’s contention that the cross-border delivery of assistance violates the Syrian government’s sovereignty and provides a life line to armed groups seeking to overthrow Assad.
Some experts see Russian President Vladimir Putin as deploying a Trumpian strategy: creating a crisis that only he can solve. Others say Russia has outmaneuvered the West by siphoning all major decisions on Syria into the U.N. Security Council, where it can wield its veto votes in favor of Assad.
“Russia has used U.N. mechanisms to prevent and paralyze any real action on Syria and any real political resolution for Syria. And that has always worked in favor of the Syrian regime,” said Jomana Qaddour, a Syria expert with the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank.
On Friday, Russia vetoed a second attempt by Belgium and Germany to adopt a resolution that would extend the mandate of the two Turkish crossing points for a truncated period of six months. China joined Russia in the veto, on the grounds of respecting Syria’s sovereignty, meanwhile criticizing U.S. economic sanctions on Syria that Beijing argues undermine Syria’s ability to respond to the humanitarian crisis.
Shortly after Friday’s double veto, Russia tabled its own “compromise” resolution, which would have ended the mandate for Bab al-Salaam and called for regular reporting by the U.N. secretary-general on the impact that U.S. sanctions are having on the humanitarian situation in Syria. It also called for extending for a year the mandate for a single crossing hub at Bab al-Hawa, which provides aid for millions of Syrians in Idlib.
“We categorically reject claims that Russia wants to stop humanitarian deliveries to the Syrian population in need. Our draft is the best proof that these allegations are groundless,” Polyanskiy tweeted Thursday night, after circulating Moscow’s final offer. “If they block our compromise proposal they will be responsible for the consequences.”
The Russian draft resolution was defeated on Friday evening, securing only four votes in favor from China, Russia, South Africa and Vietnam, five short of the nine votes needed to adopt a resolution in the 15-nation council. The U.S., Belgium, Britain, Estonia, France, Germany and the Dominican Republic voted no, while the council four remaining members abstained. Belgium and Germany, meanwhile, pressed the Russians to compromise in the hope of securing the cross-border aid program’s future before it expires at midnight.
On Saturday, the two Europeans put their final resolution to a vote. It extended the mandate for the Bab al-Hawa crossing for one year. The Europeans, however, failed to persuade Russia to permit the council to grant the U.N. a three-month transition period to close its operations at the Bab al-Salam crossing point. In addition, the Europeans refused to accept amendments by China and Russia calling on the U.N. Secretary General to conduct regular reports to the Security Council on the impact U.S. and European sanctions may have on the humanitarian situation in Syria. In the end, it was enough to avoid a third Chines and Russian veto.
Update, July 11, 2020: This story has been updated to reflect Saturday Security Council vote authorizing the continued delivery of humanitarian assistance into Syria from Turkey through the Bab al-Hawa crossing point.


foreignpolicy--2020-07-10--Journalism Has a Class Problem, Too

Journalism Has a Class Problem, Too

There ’ s a certain class—and “ class ” is very much the operative word—of people in Britain who are almost untouchable .
It ’ s a class defined by the private schools they went to , the parties they ’ re invited too , and the second houses in the countryside .
And it ’ s a group that is too often in charge of the country , with Prime Minister Boris Johnson having attended the elite Eton College , former Prime Minister David Cameron being another Eton graduate , and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak having attended @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , this class is also in charge of the media .
In Britain , as in the United States , journalism is increasingly dominated by the upper classes .
A recent bit of British silliness typified this—one that ’ s still making headlines even in the middle of the coronavirus .
On June 12 , Flora Gill , the daughter of the Conservative Party politician and former home secretary Amber Rudd , tweeted that she was riding her boyfriend “ cowgirl style ” when the song “ Old Town Road ” came on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a “ porno musical.
” There ’ s nothing wrong with the fact that Gill was having sex , or her preferred position , or the choice of music ( “ Old Town Road ” is a legit banger ) , or even the way she and Rudd played the subsequent exchange as a quirky little PR stunt , perhaps for their new mother-and-daughter slot with Times Radio .
But there was a lot of privilege packed into those words .
Gill is a journalist , with bylines in GQ , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the Evening Standard , the Sunday Times Magazine , the Radio Times , and Tatler .
She seems to be a perfectly nice person .
But for journalists without her level of connections , a viral sex tweet would be an embarrassment that might cost them commissions or even jobs .
It ’ s the kind of things that BIPOC reporters , and working-class ones , warn each other against , conscious of how contingent and fragile their positions are .
Gill ’ s tweet exemplifies the idea that class gives you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ability to be embarrassing and fail and undergo personal crises , and then return to your profession in the public eye .
Gill can take risks where working-class journalists and journalists of color can not .
It ’ s no coincidence that of her fellow panelists on Times Radio , the vast bulk are privately educated and from confidently rich families .
During my time in newsrooms , I ’ ve been staggered by the number of people working there who have parents in the industry , or who have been recommended @ @ @ @ @ @ @ built by their parents .
It was difficult to watch other people my age land jobs because they ’ d been able to live in London , in accommodation paid for by their wealthy parents , while they worked for free .
In the United States , the same goes for the New York media internship .
Without that kind of parental support , unpaid internships are often off-limits , and for many people they are the only way into a diminished industry .
Local newspapers used to offer a way up for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 16 , without a university education—at your town paper and work your way up .
With their decline , it is mostly the center , dominated by the elite , that remains .
British journalism now centers almost exclusively around London and elite media outlets that employ people through a mixture of nepotism , personal connections , and the expectation of completing months and months of unpaid work .
Yes , open programs to recruit recent graduates exist , but competition is fierce , and the route of starting at local papers and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ national ones is just an outdated dream in many areas that have seen newspapers close down or offices move to the capital .
The lack of class diversity in journalism harms the industry .
It ’ s obvious in the way that stories focus on Oxford and Cambridge universities ( and in the United States , Harvard and Yale ) , to the exclusion of all other schools .
Journalists have so often attended these elite institutions that they already have a leg up when it comes to contacts , and they endlessly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was apparent this week , with the reopening on nonessential shops in England , when the journalist side of Twitter was awash with middle-class writers mocking and condemning those lining up to shop at Primark , a low-cost clothing chain .
It ’ s apparent even in foreign coverage , where the financial security necessary to maintain the low-paid , insecure world of freelancing abroad as a young journalist usually comes from family at home .
That produces a class of foreign correspondents even more drawn from the wealthy and privileged than their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ blindness to issues that working-class journalists may perceive more sharply .
At home or abroad , being a working-class journalist is to be disadvantaged and often overlooked .
It means calculating how many people ’ s floors you can sleep on while completing unpaid work ( if you ’ re lucky enough to get that in the first place ) , while more privileged peers sleepwalk into staff jobs , and then later stumble across columns and book deals .
It ’ s a tenuous position , because for all your hard work @ @ @ @ @ @ @ back into obscurity and joblessness , simply because you don ’ t have the financial backup or connections to bounce into another position .
That ’ s not the case if you ’ re from the white upper class .
Take Johnson , for example .
The now-prime minister was fired from his job at the Times of London in 1988 for making up quotes but was then quickly hired by the Daily Telegraph , perhaps because he ’ d met the editor Max Hastings during his Oxford University Union presidency .
Privilege @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It ’ s unlikely that Times Radio will drop Flora Gill and Amber Rudd from its lineup after Gill ’ s ill-advised tweet .
It certainly didn ’ t see anything amiss when the broadcaster announced Rudd ’ s appointment amid the Black Lives Matter movement ’ s resurgence after the death of George Floyd , despite Rudd ’ s involvement in and resignation over the Windrush scandal , in which hundreds of largely Black Britons who had immigrated from the Caribbean decades earlier were targeted for deportation .
It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the crisis in diversity .
They can begin to do so by refusing to automatically offer jobs and work experience placements to people simply because of who their parents are .
Newspapers should actively recruit working-class journalists from outside of London—young people who are not part of the Oxbridge set or recipients of private education .
Unpaid internships and lengthy periods of work experience must be done away with , as they exclude those without a pot of money financing their efforts .
Talent and ideas should always take precedent over connections .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ chamber where the same stories , concepts , and viewpoints are repeated over and over again .
Journalism will struggle to resonate or connect with people from different backgrounds as long as their voices are not represented in newsrooms .
The profession itself will become stale , overstuffed with children of privilege , and unable to comprehend lived experience outside of the London media bubble .
For a healthy media—one of the hallmarks of a functioning democracy—to exist , we must fight for diversity at all costs .

There’s a certain class—and “class” is very much the operative word—of people in Britain who are almost untouchable. It’s a class defined by the private schools they went to, the parties they’re invited too, and the second houses in the countryside. And it’s a group that is too often in charge of the country, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson having attended the elite Eton College, former Prime Minister David Cameron being another Eton graduate, and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak having attended the similarly exclusive Winchester College. Unfortunately, this class is also in charge of the media. In Britain, as in the United States, journalism is increasingly dominated by the upper classes.
There’s a certain class—and “class” is very much the operative word—of people in Britain who are almost untouchable. It’s a class defined by the private schools they went to, the parties they’re invited too, and the second houses in the countryside. And it’s a group that is too often in charge of the country, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson having attended the elite Eton College, former Prime Minister David Cameron being another Eton graduate, and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak having attended the similarly exclusive Winchester College. Unfortunately, this class is also in charge of the media. In Britain, as in the United States, journalism is increasingly dominated by the upper classes.
A recent bit of British silliness typified this—one that’s still making headlines even in the middle of the coronavirus. On June 12, Flora Gill, the daughter of the Conservative Party politician and former home secretary Amber Rudd, tweeted that she was riding her boyfriend “cowgirl style” when the song “Old Town Road” came on, making her feel like she was in a “porno musical.”
There’s nothing wrong with the fact that Gill was having sex, or her preferred position, or the choice of music (“Old Town Road” is a legit banger), or even the way she and Rudd played the subsequent exchange as a quirky little PR stunt, perhaps for their new mother-and-daughter slot with Times Radio. But there was a lot of privilege packed into those words.
Gill is a journalist, with bylines in GQ, the Sunday Times Style magazine, the Spectator, the Evening Standard, the Sunday Times Magazine, the Radio Times, and Tatler. She seems to be a perfectly nice person. But for journalists without her level of connections, a viral sex tweet would be an embarrassment that might cost them commissions or even jobs. It’s the kind of things that BIPOC reporters, and working-class ones, warn each other against, conscious of how contingent and fragile their positions are.
Gill’s tweet exemplifies the idea that class gives you a fallback option. It gives you the ability to be embarrassing and fail and undergo personal crises, and then return to your profession in the public eye. Gill can take risks where working-class journalists and journalists of color cannot. It’s no coincidence that of her fellow panelists on Times Radio, the vast bulk are privately educated and from confidently rich families.
During my time in newsrooms, I’ve been staggered by the number of people working there who have parents in the industry, or who have been recommended or handed a way in by connections built by their parents. It was difficult to watch other people my age land jobs because they’d been able to live in London, in accommodation paid for by their wealthy parents, while they worked for free. In the United States, the same goes for the New York media internship.
Without that kind of parental support, unpaid internships are often off-limits, and for many people they are the only way into a diminished industry. Local newspapers used to offer a way up for working-class people; start—sometimes as young as 16, without a university education—at your town paper and work your way up. With their decline, it is mostly the center, dominated by the elite, that remains.
British journalism now centers almost exclusively around London and elite media outlets that employ people through a mixture of nepotism, personal connections, and the expectation of completing months and months of unpaid work. Yes, open programs to recruit recent graduates exist, but competition is fierce, and the route of starting at local papers and working one’s way up to national ones is just an outdated dream in many areas that have seen newspapers close down or offices move to the capital.
The lack of class diversity in journalism harms the industry. It’s obvious in the way that stories focus on Oxford and Cambridge universities (and in the United States, Harvard and Yale), to the exclusion of all other schools. Journalists have so often attended these elite institutions that they already have a leg up when it comes to contacts, and they endlessly obsess with writing about them.
It was apparent this week, with the reopening on nonessential shops in England, when the journalist side of Twitter was awash with middle-class writers mocking and condemning those lining up to shop at Primark, a low-cost clothing chain. It’s apparent even in foreign coverage, where the financial security necessary to maintain the low-paid, insecure world of freelancing abroad as a young journalist usually comes from family at home. That produces a class of foreign correspondents even more drawn from the wealthy and privileged than their domestic counterparts, and with it a blindness to issues that working-class journalists may perceive more sharply.
At home or abroad, being a working-class journalist is to be disadvantaged and often overlooked. It means calculating how many people’s floors you can sleep on while completing unpaid work (if you’re lucky enough to get that in the first place), while more privileged peers sleepwalk into staff jobs, and then later stumble across columns and book deals. It’s a tenuous position, because for all your hard work, one wrong step can throw you back into obscurity and joblessness, simply because you don’t have the financial backup or connections to bounce into another position.
That’s not the case if you’re from the white upper class. Take Johnson, for example. The now-prime minister was fired from his job at the Times of London in 1988 for making up quotes but was then quickly hired by the Daily Telegraph, perhaps because he’d met the editor Max Hastings during his Oxford University Union presidency.
Privilege and connections always seem to win out. It’s unlikely that Times Radio will drop Flora Gill and Amber Rudd from its lineup after Gill’s ill-advised tweet. It certainly didn’t see anything amiss when the broadcaster announced Rudd’s appointment amid the Black Lives Matter movement’s resurgence after the death of George Floyd, despite Rudd’s involvement in and resignation over the Windrush scandal, in which hundreds of largely Black Britons who had immigrated from the Caribbean decades earlier were targeted for deportation.
It’s up to elite media outlets to tackle the crisis in diversity. They can begin to do so by refusing to automatically offer jobs and work experience placements to people simply because of who their parents are. Newspapers should actively recruit working-class journalists from outside of London—young people who are not part of the Oxbridge set or recipients of private education. Unpaid internships and lengthy periods of work experience must be done away with, as they exclude those without a pot of money financing their efforts. Talent and ideas should always take precedent over connections.
Without diversity, journalism is an echo chamber where the same stories, concepts, and viewpoints are repeated over and over again. Journalism will struggle to resonate or connect with people from different backgrounds as long as their voices are not represented in newsrooms. The profession itself will become stale, overstuffed with children of privilege, and unable to comprehend lived experience outside of the London media bubble.
For a healthy media—one of the hallmarks of a functioning democracy—to exist, we must fight for diversity at all costs.


foreignpolicy--2020-07-10--After Signing Anti-Terrorism Law, Duterte Names His Targets

Rodrigo Duterte prefers to speak to his country late at night , when most Filipinos are asleep , leaving weary night-shift reporters left to parse through the Philippine president ’ s scattershot musings on the worsening coronavirus outbreak , the flailing economy , and a new anti-terrorism law which the United Nations and rights groups are worried could morph into an expansive attempt to crush government critics .
Duterte ’ s latest pre-taped address , which aired around 1 a.m. on Wednesday , was his first chance to speak publicly about the law after it was fast-tracked through Congress despite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an anti-terrorism council appointed by the president to authorize warrantless arrests , detention without charge for up to 24 days , and 90 days of surveillance and wiretaps .
Since taking office in 2016 , Duterte has arrested political opponents , overseen thousands of extrajudicial killings in a brutal drug war , and heaped praise on former dictator Ferdinand Marcos , adding to the perception that the new law is the latest in an ongoing backslide into authoritarian rule .
“ For the law-abiding citizen of this country , I am addressing you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ afraid if you are not a terrorist , ” he said .
But the law ’ s vague definition of terrorism , experts say , leaves Duterte ’ s council even greater room to identify , detain , and eliminate the administration ’ s political enemies .
And while the Philippines does face genuine security threats , especially among insurgents aligned with the Islamic State in the southern island of Mindanao , there is little evidence the new law does much to address them .
“ There are no specific provisions about improving @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of government , ” said Maria Ela L. Atienza , a political science professor at the University of the Philippines , Diliman .
“ What the law does is to strengthen the powers of the executive-dominated anti-terrorism council , removing many of the oversight powers of the judiciary and the legislature.
” “ The law , ” she said , “ has a chilling effect on various forms of dissent and legitimate criticisms of government.
” The law is broad enough to permit the detention of people who make social media posts critical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on several occasions during the pandemic .
ABS-CBN , the country ’ s largest television network , was on Friday denied the renewal of its permit to operate , weeks after Rappler editor Maria Ressa was convicted of libel , in an unprecedented crackdown on media outlets critical of the government .
“ The trials faced by Rappler and ABS-CBN show the government brazenly attacking media entities , ” said Jonathan Corpus Ong , associate professor of communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst .
“ The broader impact I anticipate is that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and withdrawal of political dissenters , the content of public debate would be controlled by the state and more easily influenced by disinformation narratives.
” Local and international rights groups have raised concerns the law will serve as a gut punch to an already reeling Philippine democracy .
Michelle Bachelet , the U.N. high commissioner for human rights , said prior to the bill being signed that it “ heightens our concerns on the blurring of important distinctions between criticism , criminality and terrorism , ” and international calls have grown for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Philippines .
Duterte has gained global notoriety for his “ war on drugs , ” which the country ’ s rights commission estimates has taken some 27,000 lives .
In recent years , authorities have used drug war tactics to escalate a series of deadly operations targeting land , environmental , and Indigenous activists opposing government infrastructure and development projects .
Police and military maintain these are part of a counterinsurgency campaign against the New People ’ s Army ( NPA ) , a communist rebel group that Duterte reiterated on Wednesday he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But the operations often target civilians or legal activists who have been “ red-tagged , ” meaning branded as communists or NPA sympathizers , often without evidence .
The new law could give Duterte and his council more room to weaponize the gray area between NPA rebels and legal , progressive activist groups who raise the administration ’ s ire .
Last year , dozens of farmers and land rights activists on the central island of Negros were arrested or killed in state security operations .
Indigenous leaders throughout the archipelago are frequently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ projects , including a series of hydropower dams set to be built on Indigenous lands that have raised environmental concerns and are funded by shadowy Chinese loans .
Datu Jomorito Guaynon , a prominent Indigenous leader in northern Mindanao , has been imprisoned without facing trial for more than a year after opposing private development on his tribe ’ s ancestral lands .
Throughout the Philippines , state operations against dissenters have continued during coronavirus quarantines .
“ Government officials , including the president , have red-tagged a number of organizations already , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the anti-terrorism council can define who are the terrorists.
” Prominent dissidents say they are already feeling the heat .
Cristina Palabay , secretary-general of the human rights alliance Karapatan , said she was confronted on Tuesday by two police officers , one disguised as a delivery courier , serving an invalid arrest warrant .
“ This incident feels different , more threatening , because of the enactment of the anti-terror law , ” said Palabay , a frequent target of harassment in the past .
The law was passed as a more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2007 Human Security Act , which only penalized direct terrorist acts and conspiracy to commit terrorism .
Alongside its expansive definition of terrorism and the broad remit given to Duterte ’ s anti-terrorism council , the law allows for people who propose or sympathize with terrorism to be detained or charged .
A petition by a legal group challenging the law ’ s constitutionality noted that the musician Bono , who paid homage to jailed opposition Sen. Leila de Lima at a concert in the Philippines last year , could be charged with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the law is most likely to be added to a toolbox used to target legal activists—and the Duterte administration , in the middle of a geopolitical tug of war , has plenty of latitude to use it .
Beijing has invested heavily in the Philippines , despite broad public criticism and the potentially illegal nature of some of its big-ticket projects .
Duterte ’ s own links to China have raised eyebrows : He is remarkably conciliatory toward Beijing despite his fierce nationalism , South China Sea island disputes , and the harassment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has moved away from Washington , the United States retains strong relations with the Philippine military and continues to support its counterinsurgency campaign .
In April , the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump notified U.S. Congress of two potential arms sales to the Philippines , and Duterte last month reversed an earlier decision to pull out of a military agreement with the United States .
Palabay anticipates that , while she will continue to find herself in the administration ’ s crosshairs , the law ’ s most severe effects will be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ think human rights defenders , activists , opposition , and dissenters will be targeted , including those here in Manila , maybe even us in Karapatan , ” she said .
“ But if there are attempts to silence these voices , it would still be the public who stands to lose much .
”

Rodrigo Duterte prefers to speak to his country late at night, when most Filipinos are asleep, leaving weary night-shift reporters left to parse through the Philippine president’s scattershot musings on the worsening coronavirus outbreak, the flailing economy, and a new anti-terrorism law which the United Nations and rights groups are worried could morph into an expansive attempt to crush government critics.
Rodrigo Duterte prefers to speak to his country late at night, when most Filipinos are asleep, leaving weary night-shift reporters left to parse through the Philippine president’s scattershot musings on the worsening coronavirus outbreak, the flailing economy, and a new anti-terrorism law which the United Nations and rights groups are worried could morph into an expansive attempt to crush government critics.
Duterte’s latest pre-taped address, which aired around 1 a.m. on Wednesday, was his first chance to speak publicly about the law after it was fast-tracked through Congress despite concerns over the constitutionality of provisions allowing an anti-terrorism council appointed by the president to authorize warrantless arrests, detention without charge for up to 24 days, and 90 days of surveillance and wiretaps. Since taking office in 2016, Duterte has arrested political opponents, overseen thousands of extrajudicial killings in a brutal drug war, and heaped praise on former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, adding to the perception that the new law is the latest in an ongoing backslide into authoritarian rule.
“For the law-abiding citizen of this country, I am addressing you with all sincerity, do not be afraid if you are not a terrorist,” he said.
But the law’s vague definition of terrorism, experts say, leaves Duterte’s council even greater room to identify, detain, and eliminate the administration’s political enemies. And while the Philippines does face genuine security threats, especially among insurgents aligned with the Islamic State in the southern island of Mindanao, there is little evidence the new law does much to address them.
“There are no specific provisions about improving the intelligence and evidence-gathering capacities of agents of government,” said Maria Ela L. Atienza, a political science professor at the University of the Philippines, Diliman. “What the law does is to strengthen the powers of the executive-dominated anti-terrorism council, removing many of the oversight powers of the judiciary and the legislature.”
“The law,” she said, “has a chilling effect on various forms of dissent and legitimate criticisms of government.” The law is broad enough to permit the detention of people who make social media posts critical of the government, which has happened on several occasions during the pandemic. ABS-CBN, the country’s largest television network, was on Friday denied the renewal of its permit to operate, weeks after Rappler editor Maria Ressa was convicted of libel, in an unprecedented crackdown on media outlets critical of the government.
“The trials faced by Rappler and ABS-CBN show the government brazenly attacking media entities,” said Jonathan Corpus Ong, associate professor of communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “The broader impact I anticipate is that, in the muffling of mainstream media and withdrawal of political dissenters, the content of public debate would be controlled by the state and more easily influenced by disinformation narratives.”
Local and international rights groups have raised concerns the law will serve as a gut punch to an already reeling Philippine democracy. Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said prior to the bill being signed that it “heightens our concerns on the blurring of important distinctions between criticism, criminality and terrorism,” and international calls have grown for the U.N. to investigate extrajudicial killings in the Philippines.
Duterte has gained global notoriety for his “war on drugs,” which the country’s rights commission estimates has taken some 27,000 lives. In recent years, authorities have used drug war tactics to escalate a series of deadly operations targeting land, environmental, and Indigenous activists opposing government infrastructure and development projects.
Police and military maintain these are part of a counterinsurgency campaign against the New People’s Army (NPA), a communist rebel group that Duterte reiterated on Wednesday he considers to be a terrorist organization. But the operations often target civilians or legal activists who have been “red-tagged,” meaning branded as communists or NPA sympathizers, often without evidence. The new law could give Duterte and his council more room to weaponize the gray area between NPA rebels and legal, progressive activist groups who raise the administration’s ire.
Last year, dozens of farmers and land rights activists on the central island of Negros were arrested or killed in state security operations. Indigenous leaders throughout the archipelago are frequently red-tagged after campaigning against controversial China-funded infrastructure projects, including a series of hydropower dams set to be built on Indigenous lands that have raised environmental concerns and are funded by shadowy Chinese loans. Datu Jomorito Guaynon, a prominent Indigenous leader in northern Mindanao, has been imprisoned without facing trial for more than a year after opposing private development on his tribe’s ancestral lands. Throughout the Philippines, state operations against dissenters have continued during coronavirus quarantines.
“Government officials, including the president, have red-tagged a number of organizations already,” Atienza said. “Now, the anti-terrorism council can define who are the terrorists.”
Prominent dissidents say they are already feeling the heat. Cristina Palabay, secretary-general of the human rights alliance Karapatan, said she was confronted on Tuesday by two police officers, one disguised as a delivery courier, serving an invalid arrest warrant.
“This incident feels different, more threatening, because of the enactment of the anti-terror law,” said Palabay, a frequent target of harassment in the past.
The law was passed as a more wide-ranging replacement of the country’s 2007 Human Security Act, which only penalized direct terrorist acts and conspiracy to commit terrorism. Alongside its expansive definition of terrorism and the broad remit given to Duterte’s anti-terrorism council, the law allows for people who propose or sympathize with terrorism to be detained or charged. A petition by a legal group challenging the law’s constitutionality noted that the musician Bono, who paid homage to jailed opposition Sen. Leila de Lima at a concert in the Philippines last year, could be charged with terrorism.
In the short term, the law is most likely to be added to a toolbox used to target legal activists—and the Duterte administration, in the middle of a geopolitical tug of war, has plenty of latitude to use it. Beijing has invested heavily in the Philippines, despite broad public criticism and the potentially illegal nature of some of its big-ticket projects. Duterte’s own links to China have raised eyebrows: He is remarkably conciliatory toward Beijing despite his fierce nationalism, South China Sea island disputes, and the harassment of Filipino fishermen. And although Duterte has moved away from Washington, the United States retains strong relations with the Philippine military and continues to support its counterinsurgency campaign. In April, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump notified U.S. Congress of two potential arms sales to the Philippines, and Duterte last month reversed an earlier decision to pull out of a military agreement with the United States.
Palabay anticipates that, while she will continue to find herself in the administration’s crosshairs, the law’s most severe effects will be felt by Philippine society.
“I think human rights defenders, activists, opposition, and dissenters will be targeted, including those here in Manila, maybe even us in Karapatan,” she said. “But if there are attempts to silence these voices, it would still be the public who stands to lose much.”


foreignpolicy--2020-07-10--ICE Restrictions on International Students a ‘Self-Inflicted Wound’

After finishing his hectic first year at Harvard Medical School , Azan Virji decided to go camping at Jefferson Lake in Colorado with friends .
Driving back from the trip on Monday , when they regained cellular service , Virji ’ s phone lit up with messages .
U.S. immigration officials had just announced that international students might be forced to leave the country in the fall if their classes are only online .
“ I started panicking , my heart rate went up .
I started reading more about it and my heart dropped .
I never saw this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ international student from Tanzania .
He drove the rest of the way in near-silence .
“ ‘ America First ’ is inherently un-American .
And that was me finding out , ” he told Foreign Policy .
Virji is one of just over a million international students studying in the United States whose futures have been upended this week following the announcement by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement .
Many view the directive as an attempt to force universities to reopen their campuses in the fall , despite America ’ s world-leading spikes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump has also vowed to cut off federal funding for primary and secondary schools that don ’ t reopen as the pandemic rages .
“ The Trump administration is forcing U.S. colleges and universities to choose between losing all of their foreign national students or resuming in-person programming and risking the health of all of their students , faculty , staff , and other workers , ” said Diane Hernandez , an immigration attorney with the law firm Hall Estill , in a statement .
On Friday , Trump tweeted that too many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” adding that he had asked the Treasury Department to reexamine the schools ’ tax-exempt status , signaling a broader attack on U.S. higher education .
Universities frantically sought to alter their plans for the fall , while students were left scrambling to figure out how the announcement will affect them .
ICE suggested that students consider transferring to universities that plan to hold in-person classes in the fall to protect their immigration status .
There is some flexibility for students at schools intending to adopt a hybrid model of in-person and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the minimum number of online classes possible .
On Wednesday , the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University , which announced earlier this week that all fall classes would be held online to prevent the spread of the coronavirus on campus , filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government .
Since then , a handful of public and private universities have joined the amicus brief to fight the new guidelines .
On Friday , Dan Berger , a lawyer specializing in academic immigration , told New York Public Radio that the judge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ until July 13 and hopes to make a decision by next Wednesday .
“ I don ’ t even know what medical education would look like in Tanzania , ” Virji said .
“ I don ’ t have high-speed internet to do Zoom calls for four hours a day.
” The United States is the world ’ s top destination for international students , and higher education has long been a potent source of soft power ( not to mention worth tens of billions of dollars annually in export earnings ) .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ foreign students enrolled in U.S. universities , bringing the number of international students in the country close to 1.1 million , according to the Institute of International Education ’ s Open Doors Report .
“ If you can affect the minds of three-quarters of a million people a year , many of whom then return to their own nations , they ’ re going to have a different image of the United States than if they were just looking at distant media , ” said Joseph Nye , a former dean of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He called Monday ’ s announcement a “ self-inflicted wound.
” With routine visa procedures suspended in most U.S. embassies worldwide due to the coronavirus pandemic , new students , as well as recent graduates , have found themselves in limbo .
Another Institute of International Education report projects that around 70 percent of U.S. colleges expect at least some of their foreign students not to be able to come back in the fall .
Given the persistent uncertainty in the United States , future international applicants may instead look to universities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ further financial blow to American colleges , which are already feeling pinched by the coronavirus .
Higher education serves as a force multiplier for U.S. economic and soft power .
Many international students return to their home countries and rise to high-ranking positions in government and industry , said Nye .
In 2019 , 62 heads of state or government leaders from around the world were educated in the United States , according to a report by the U.K.-based Higher Education Policy Institute .
“ Not only are we educating public leaders for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these foreign students is helping to educate Americans , their fellow students , about the rest of the world , ” Nye added .
The United States has long sought to capitalize on the soft power potential of its educational institutions , funding exchange programs for high school students all the way through to graduate school .
Just after World War II , Arkansas Sen. William Fulbright launched what would become the world ’ s biggest educational exchange program , meant to attract and retain some of the globe ’ s top minds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a sophomore at a leading public high school in Brazil , Gustavo Coutinho took advantage of one of these opportunities in order to pursue his education abroad .
The student ’ s academic record , combined with his impact within his local community in Rio de Janeiro , landed him a spot in the prestigious State Department-sponsored Opportunity Funds program , which prepares low-income Brazilian students to apply for some of America ’ s best universities .
Coutinho is now a rising senior at Harvard—after turning down full scholarships at seven other top @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the University of Chicago .
He worries the new policies will truncate “ the fulfillment of a lifelong dream ” by sending him back to Brazil at a time of strict travel bans .
“ If the policies are not reversed , I would have to return to Brazil and attend virtual classes , ” Coutinho told Foreign Policy .
“ Given that the U.S. has halted travel from Brazil due to the COVID-19 crisis , I will most likely not be able to come back to Harvard .
This would be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the last opportunity to spend time with my classmates before graduation.
” Even at the height of the Cold War , educational exchange was seen as a key way to evangelize U.S. values .
“ Let us , by all means , have the maximum cultural exchange , ” wrote George Kennan , the architect of the U.S. policy of Soviet containment , in 1956 .
One of the first Soviets to study in the United States after an agreement was signed between the two countries was Alexander Yakovlev , who later said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in New York left a profound impact on him .
Decades later , as a close advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev , Yakovlev came to be known as the architect of the perestroika and glasnost reforms that precipitated the collapse of the Soviet Union and ended the Cold War .
“ It took a long time for that educational exchange to pay off .
But it got a huge payoff when it did , ” Nye said .
Like Yakovlev , Virji wants to take back what he has learned to his home country @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to bridge the health care gap between the U.S. and Tanzania , ” he said .
“ I remain hopeful that this is just a temporary glitch or phase that we ’ re going through in American history.
” Trump ran for president railing against illegal immigration .
But since then , the administration has increasingly targeted immigration of all kinds .
During the pandemic , the administration has taken to targeting visas and other forms of legal immigration .
In June , a presidential decree extended a freeze on green cards for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ categories of work and student visas .
On Wednesday , Trump ’ s hand-picked new head of the U.S. government ’ s media arm , the Voice of America , announced that the agency will not extend the visas of its more than 100 foreign employees when they expire .
Despite three years of steadily increasing restrictions on immigration of all kinds , international students were still caught off guard by Monday ’ s announcement .
“ I think some people felt that there was a right way to be an immigrant with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re realizing that there ’ s not enough ‘ model minority ’ that we can be to escape this , ” said Pratiti Deb , a graduate student from India at the University of Chicago .
“ I see a lot of people complaining about ICE now , but really ICE has been terrorizing working-class immigrants for a long time under Trump .
”

After finishing his hectic first year at Harvard Medical School, Azan Virji decided to go camping at Jefferson Lake in Colorado with friends. Driving back from the trip on Monday, when they regained cellular service, Virji’s phone lit up with messages. U.S. immigration officials had just announced that international students might be forced to leave the country in the fall if their classes are only online.
After finishing his hectic first year at Harvard Medical School, Azan Virji decided to go camping at Jefferson Lake in Colorado with friends. Driving back from the trip on Monday, when they regained cellular service, Virji’s phone lit up with messages. U.S. immigration officials had just announced that international students might be forced to leave the country in the fall if their classes are only online.
“I started panicking, my heart rate went up. I started reading more about it and my heart dropped. I never saw this coming,” said Virji, an international student from Tanzania. He drove the rest of the way in near-silence. “‘America First’ is inherently un-American. And that was me finding out,” he told Foreign Policy.
Virji is one of just over a million international students studying in the United States whose futures have been upended this week following the announcement by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Many view the directive as an attempt to force universities to reopen their campuses in the fall, despite America’s world-leading spikes in coronavirus cases; U.S. President Donald Trump has also vowed to cut off federal funding for primary and secondary schools that don’t reopen as the pandemic rages.
“The Trump administration is forcing U.S. colleges and universities to choose between losing all of their foreign national students or resuming in-person programming and risking the health of all of their students, faculty, staff, and other workers,” said Diane Hernandez, an immigration attorney with the law firm Hall Estill, in a statement.
On Friday, Trump tweeted that too many universities are “about Radical Left Indoctrination,” adding that he had asked the Treasury Department to reexamine the schools’ tax-exempt status, signaling a broader attack on U.S. higher education.
Universities frantically sought to alter their plans for the fall, while students were left scrambling to figure out how the announcement will affect them. ICE suggested that students consider transferring to universities that plan to hold in-person classes in the fall to protect their immigration status. There is some flexibility for students at schools intending to adopt a hybrid model of in-person and online classes, but students must take the minimum number of online classes possible.
On Wednesday, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, which announced earlier this week that all fall classes would be held online to prevent the spread of the coronavirus on campus, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government. Since then, a handful of public and private universities have joined the amicus brief to fight the new guidelines. On Friday, Dan Berger, a lawyer specializing in academic immigration, told New York Public Radio that the judge in the case will take amicus briefs until July 13 and hopes to make a decision by next Wednesday.
(Update: After more than 200 universities backed the lawsuit, the Trump administration decided to reverse the July 6 directive. It is still unclear whether the government will propose new rules regarding international students. “They may try this again. We will be ready,” Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey wrote on Twitter.)
“I don’t even know what medical education would look like in Tanzania,” Virji said. “I don’t have high-speed internet to do Zoom calls for four hours a day.”
The United States is the world’s top destination for international students, and higher education has long been a potent source of soft power (not to mention worth tens of billions of dollars annually in export earnings). Last year alone, nearly 270,000 new foreign students enrolled in U.S. universities, bringing the number of international students in the country close to 1.1 million, according to the Institute of International Education’s Open Doors Report.
“If you can affect the minds of three-quarters of a million people a year, many of whom then return to their own nations, they’re going to have a different image of the United States than if they were just looking at distant media,” said Joseph Nye, a former dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He called Monday’s announcement a “self-inflicted wound.”
With routine visa procedures suspended in most U.S. embassies worldwide due to the coronavirus pandemic, new students, as well as recent graduates, have found themselves in limbo. Another Institute of International Education report projects that around 70 percent of U.S. colleges expect at least some of their foreign students not to be able to come back in the fall. Given the persistent uncertainty in the United States, future international applicants may instead look to universities in Europe or Australia, delivering a further financial blow to American colleges, which are already feeling pinched by the coronavirus.
Higher education serves as a force multiplier for U.S. economic and soft power. Many international students return to their home countries and rise to high-ranking positions in government and industry, said Nye. In 2019, 62 heads of state or government leaders from around the world were educated in the United States, according to a report by the U.K.-based Higher Education Policy Institute. “Not only are we educating public leaders for other countries, but each one of these foreign students is helping to educate Americans, their fellow students, about the rest of the world,” Nye added.
The United States has long sought to capitalize on the soft power potential of its educational institutions, funding exchange programs for high school students all the way through to graduate school. Just after World War II, Arkansas Sen. William Fulbright launched what would become the world’s biggest educational exchange program, meant to attract and retain some of the globe’s top minds. More educational exchanges followed.
While a sophomore at a leading public high school in Brazil, Gustavo Coutinho took advantage of one of these opportunities in order to pursue his education abroad. The student’s academic record, combined with his impact within his local community in Rio de Janeiro, landed him a spot in the prestigious State Department-sponsored Opportunity Funds program, which prepares low-income Brazilian students to apply for some of America’s best universities. Coutinho is now a rising senior at Harvard—after turning down full scholarships at seven other top schools, including Yale, Stanford, and the University of Chicago.
He worries the new policies will truncate “the fulfillment of a lifelong dream” by sending him back to Brazil at a time of strict travel bans.
“If the policies are not reversed, I would have to return to Brazil and attend virtual classes,” Coutinho told Foreign Policy. “Given that the U.S. has halted travel from Brazil due to the COVID-19 crisis, I will most likely not be able to come back to Harvard. This would be incredibly sad as senior spring would be the last opportunity to spend time with my classmates before graduation.”
Even at the height of the Cold War, educational exchange was seen as a key way to evangelize U.S. values. “Let us, by all means, have the maximum cultural exchange,” wrote George Kennan, the architect of the U.S. policy of Soviet containment, in 1956. One of the first Soviets to study in the United States after an agreement was signed between the two countries was Alexander Yakovlev, who later said his year of study at Columbia University in New York left a profound impact on him. Decades later, as a close advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev, Yakovlev came to be known as the architect of the perestroika and glasnost reforms that precipitated the collapse of the Soviet Union and ended the Cold War.
“It took a long time for that educational exchange to pay off. But it got a huge payoff when it did,” Nye said.
Like Yakovlev, Virji wants to take back what he has learned to his home country. “My long-term goal was always to bridge the health care gap between the U.S. and Tanzania,” he said. “I remain hopeful that this is just a temporary glitch or phase that we’re going through in American history.”
Trump ran for president railing against illegal immigration. But since then, the administration has increasingly targeted immigration of all kinds. During the pandemic, the administration has taken to targeting visas and other forms of legal immigration. In June, a presidential decree extended a freeze on green cards for new immigrants, as well as certain categories of work and student visas.
On Wednesday, Trump’s hand-picked new head of the U.S. government’s media arm, the Voice of America, announced that the agency will not extend the visas of its more than 100 foreign employees when they expire.
Despite three years of steadily increasing restrictions on immigration of all kinds, international students were still caught off guard by Monday’s announcement.
“I think some people felt that there was a right way to be an immigrant with this racist regime. But we’re realizing that there’s not enough ‘model minority’ that we can be to escape this,” said Pratiti Deb, a graduate student from India at the University of Chicago. “I see a lot of people complaining about ICE now, but really ICE has been terrorizing working-class immigrants for a long time under Trump.”
This article was updated Jul. 15 to reflect the administration’s reversal.


foreignpolicy--2020-07-10--Trapped on the Wrong Side of the India-China Border

Kumar , who is originally from Jamshedpur , met Qi , originally from Liaocheng city , in 2014 at a global MBA program that united Xavier Labour Relations Institute , an Indian business school in Jamshedpur ; Tongji University in Shanghai ; and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland .
In 2018 , the entrepreneurs started B2 Consulting to help Chinese companies set up shop in India .
“ This was an opportunity to work as a mediator , to provide these services with comfort .
Bonnie managed things at the Chinese end , and I managed Indian suppliers and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ By January 2020 , the couple was working with around 50 companies , employed a staff of five , and had hired hundreds of employees for their clients .
Since then , things have changed—first because of the coronavirus pandemic and then because of heightened tensions between China and India .
From their outpost in Bengaluru , the couple has frozen hiring because of the pandemic , laying off two employees in China and one in India and making do with temporary workers .
Smaller companies they work with are also downsizing .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ only essential business meetings with those clients who remain in India .
“ Getting approvals in these kinds of conditions is difficult , ” he said , of the regulations introduced by New Delhi in April requiring the Indian government to approve all new and additional investments from neighboring countries .
At the moment , around 50 proposals are under review .
“ In 95 percent of the cases , we ’ re not getting approvals .
When regulations came in April , we saw a lot of customers not going ahead with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ projects , ” he explained .
The couple traveled to India in February for work , at the height of the pandemic in China .
“ A child called me ‘ coronavirus ’ when I was going around this building , ” Qi recalled last week , describing an anti-China backlash that has been echoed around the world .
“ It ’ s worse when adults do this .
And in China , social media and newspapers reporting about India can make Chinese people a little worried .
I ’ m not very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I think is most important is what policy can bring benefits to the most people.
” For the last five months , the couple have been living at Kumar ’ s brother ’ s apartment , and it may be a while before they can return home to Shanghai .
While trade has long bound the two countries , Indo-Chinese relations turned difficult after the drawing of the disputed Line of Actual Control some 60 years ago—and recently became even more strained .
In mid-June , a skirmish between the two nations in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Indian soldiers dead , the bloodiest conflict in several decades .
Countless meetings and opinion pieces later , China began to de-escalate on July 6 by withdrawing troops from the Galwan Valley and Pangong Tso , but the future remains unpredictable .
Uncertainty is bad news for those , like Qi and Kumar , who depend on cross-border trade .
Despite these frictions , trade between the two countries is set to pass the $ 100 billion mark this year , according to India ’ s ambassador to Beijing , of which China @ @ @ @ @ @ @ India ’ s .
But these numbers offer little solace to the several thousand Indian expatriates who live in China and are stranded in their country of origin ; the thousand or so Chinese expatriates who remain in India and seek a continued presence there ; and those who seek to reunite with family on both sides .
Those left of the nearly 56,000 Indians who normally live in China report that life has not changed greatly , except that all foreigners are now treated with suspicion—ironically , because of fears that they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other countries .
But there are also stories of Indian workers who have been laid off and are stranded in China , their visas invalidated and bills mounting ; some returned in June through India ’ s Vande Bharat mission , which aims to repatriate thousands of Indians in phases .
It is unclear whether disease or politics will prove the biggest threat to these expatriates ’ hopes .
China appears to have controlled a second wave of COVID-19 , but as of now , India has the third-most cases in the world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to boycott all Chinese products have rattled more than a few people , as have India ’ s efforts to ban Chinese technology like the popular messaging , social media , and mobile payment app WeChat and the potential suspension of Bollywood releases to China .
India ’ s international flight ban , declared on March 25 as part of its nationwide lockdown and in place until at least July 31 , complicates matters ; China closed its borders shortly after , on March 28 , but is currently considering reopening them .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the border have reported receiving the invitation letters required for them to return to China , but these are of no use until the Chinese Embassy opens .
One Indian sales manager who normally works in Beijing but is currently stuck in Mumbai has decided to leave his life in China behind .
He doubts anything will improve before 2021 or beyond and is uncomfortable with the “ snooping ” around that expats are subjected to in what he calls a “ surveillance state.
” Considering business options in the Middle East @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be just as lucrative as China , he feels his China dream is over .
Others are not daunted .
“ I want to go back .
I ’ m loving it as my second home , ” said a Tamil homemaker who lives in Tianjin and is currently stranded in Chennai with her daughter .
“ I have only had good experiences ; Chinese people have been so helpful .
My husband says everything is normal there—it ’ s just that there are no flights for Indians.
” There are plenty of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Before the pandemic , there were around 3,000 Chinese nationals studying or working in India .
Many have reported concern about staying on due to stigmas linking China and the coronavirus ; about half returned to China before India ’ s nationwide lockdown was implemented on March 25 , and more were repatriated in June .
“ Even during the lockdown , Chinese could not feel very safe in India , ” said one Chinese scholar , who described hearing news reports about individuals who were attacked by locals .
The most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be the ones in which one partner is Chinese and one is Indian .
“ It ’ s a devastating experience .
I keep hoping every day to return , that there might be some policy introduced in our favor , ” 37-year-old Surender Sharma told me .
Married to a Chinese national , he works for the Indian fertilizer company Coromandel International in Shanghai .
After more than four months apart from his family , he left his hometown in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh on June 10 and has been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to apply for his visa .
His flight back has now been postponed to Aug. 7 .
Sharma ’ s wife , Zhang Yanyan , also 37 , and their twin 4-year-old daughters , Khushi ( Xinghao ) and Tanu ( Xinghe ) , are with Zhang ’ s family in Shandong ( a seven-hour drive from Shanghai ) while he is away .
Once the twins turn 18 , as overseas citizens of India they can choose their nationality—although if they decided to become Indian and quit their Chinese nationality , they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sharma explains .
Indo-Chinese families like Sharma ’ s walk a complicated tightrope between the two countries , and the challenges of unifying a family under one nationality and language—even , now , one roof—are daunting .
It is possible for Chinese nationals to become Indians , but Indians can not become Chinese , and no one within the Indo-Chinese community knows of anyone who has switched .
Kumar and Qi , who have been together since 2017 , when Kumar moved to China , have also faced major obstacles .
At first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ comfortable with the union .
“ I ’ m from a small city , Jamshedpur—even intercaste marriages are a very big thing there , ” he told me .
“ My father once got so angry that he wrote a letter about how bad I ’ ve been , not caring about my family , and sent it to me on WhatsApp , ” he recalled .
Qi ’ s family were also unenthusiastic about the prospect of their daughter marrying a foreigner—any foreigner—and worried about stories they had heard about Indian men @ @ @ @ @ @ @ finally met , they hopscotched between Hindi , English , and Chinese , and Qi ’ s father-in-law insisted on his own translator , to hilarious effect .
Soon , Kumar ’ s family accepted Qi , and Qi ’ s family warmed to Kumar ; Chinese families are most concerned with a partner ’ s economic prospects , Qi explained .
On Jan. 14 , she returned to her family home in Trivandrum , the capital of the south Indian state of Kerala , for the winter holidays .
At the time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ virus then taking off in China .
The university has since asked her and around seven other foreign faculty members not to return until it is safe to do so ; meanwhile , she has been teaching online .
( Her classes begin early , around 5 a.m. in India . )
The silver lining has been spending time with her family , but transferring her salary from her Chinese account to her Indian one has been a challenge , and she may face difficulties if she can ’ t return to China @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will have to renew her visa to China in India .
For now , she is more concerned about the virus than about geopolitics .
“ India-China relations have always seen ups and downs , ” she told me .
“ Relations between common people are always smooth and friendly.
” Her counterparts in India agree ; one Chinese scholar teaching at an Indian research institution was also fearful primarily because of the pandemic .
“ My nationhood is not important in my class .
That is the situation of those who [ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , culturally , between the two countries , ” he told me .
To stay safe when numbers began to spike in India , he headed back to China before the current diplomatic crisis .
Well-versed in politics , he understands India ’ s response to the skirmish on the border .
“ As a democratic regime , the government does not enjoy the same autonomy as China in foreign policy .
The ruling party has to react strongly to avoid further criticism , ” he pointed out .
Rather , he said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for both.
” Like other experts , he advocates immediate de-escalation and renewed negotiation when the time is right .
An aficionado of Mohandas Gandhi , Rabindranath Tagore , and other great Indian thinkers , he wants to return to India to continue to research development .
For now , though , that is out of his control—and will be as long as the pandemic rages and geopolitical tempers flare .

“In Indian [chat] groups, I see a lot of anti-Chinese emotion bubbling. It gets difficult to oppose emotions with logic,” 30-year-old Gaurav Kumar, an Indian businessman who lives with his 34-year-old Chinese wife, Bonnie (Baozhu) Qi, in Shanghai, told me in early July. Both are now stranded in the south Indian city of Bengaluru. “I’m told, ‘Your China is doing this.’”
Kumar, who is originally from Jamshedpur, met Qi, originally from Liaocheng city, in 2014 at a global MBA program that united Xavier Labour Relations Institute, an Indian business school in Jamshedpur; Tongji University in Shanghai; and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. In 2018, the entrepreneurs started B2 Consulting to help Chinese companies set up shop in India. “This was an opportunity to work as a mediator, to provide these services with comfort. Bonnie managed things at the Chinese end, and I managed Indian suppliers and vendors,” Kumar told me. By January 2020, the couple was working with around 50 companies, employed a staff of five, and had hired hundreds of employees for their clients.
Since then, things have changed—first because of the coronavirus pandemic and then because of heightened tensions between China and India. From their outpost in Bengaluru, the couple has frozen hiring because of the pandemic, laying off two employees in China and one in India and making do with temporary workers. Smaller companies they work with are also downsizing.
For now, Qi and Kumar conduct only essential business meetings with those clients who remain in India. “Getting approvals in these kinds of conditions is difficult,” he said, of the regulations introduced by New Delhi in April requiring the Indian government to approve all new and additional investments from neighboring countries. At the moment, around 50 proposals are under review. “In 95 percent of the cases, we’re not getting approvals. When regulations came in April, we saw a lot of customers not going ahead with projects, trying to finish up earlier projects,” he explained.
The couple traveled to India in February for work, at the height of the pandemic in China. “A child called me ‘coronavirus’ when I was going around this building,” Qi recalled last week, describing an anti-China backlash that has been echoed around the world. “It’s worse when adults do this. And in China, social media and newspapers reporting about India can make Chinese people a little worried. I’m not very interested to talk about politics. What I think is most important is what policy can bring benefits to the most people.”
For the last five months, the couple have been living at Kumar’s brother’s apartment, and it may be a while before they can return home to Shanghai. While trade has long bound the two countries, Indo-Chinese relations turned difficult after the drawing of the disputed Line of Actual Control some 60 years ago—and recently became even more strained. In mid-June, a skirmish between the two nations in the Galwan Valley left at least 20 Indian soldiers dead, the bloodiest conflict in several decades. Countless meetings and opinion pieces later, China began to de-escalate on July 6 by withdrawing troops from the Galwan Valley and Pangong Tso, but the future remains unpredictable.
Uncertainty is bad news for those, like Qi and Kumar, who depend on cross-border trade. Despite these frictions, trade between the two countries is set to pass the $100 billion mark this year, according to India’s ambassador to Beijing, of which China’s portion is roughly four times India’s. But these numbers offer little solace to the several thousand Indian expatriates who live in China and are stranded in their country of origin; the thousand or so Chinese expatriates who remain in India and seek a continued presence there; and those who seek to reunite with family on both sides.
Those left of the nearly 56,000 Indians who normally live in China report that life has not changed greatly, except that all foreigners are now treated with suspicion—ironically, because of fears that they might have brought the virus back from other countries. But there are also stories of Indian workers who have been laid off and are stranded in China, their visas invalidated and bills mounting; some returned in June through India’s Vande Bharat mission, which aims to repatriate thousands of Indians in phases.
It is unclear whether disease or politics will prove the biggest threat to these expatriates’ hopes. China appears to have controlled a second wave of COVID-19, but as of now, India has the third-most cases in the world. Meanwhile, recent calls in India to boycott all Chinese products have rattled more than a few people, as have India’s efforts to ban Chinese technology like the popular messaging, social media, and mobile payment app WeChat and the potential suspension of Bollywood releases to China. India’s international flight ban, declared on March 25 as part of its nationwide lockdown and in place until at least July 31, complicates matters; China closed its borders shortly after, on March 28, but is currently considering reopening them.
Indian businesspeople stranded on the Indian side of the border have reported receiving the invitation letters required for them to return to China, but these are of no use until the Chinese Embassy opens.
“It’s emotionally as well as financially a big setback for us,” Kusum Brahmaniya, a homemaker, told me last Wednesday. Her husband works for the battery-maker Svolt in Baoding and lives in Beijing. Her husband is still in Baoding, but she is stranded with their children at her in-laws’ home in New Delhi. There are plenty of others in her shoes, and they are divided on what to do.
One Indian sales manager who normally works in Beijing but is currently stuck in Mumbai has decided to leave his life in China behind. He doubts anything will improve before 2021 or beyond and is uncomfortable with the “snooping” around that expats are subjected to in what he calls a “surveillance state.” Considering business options in the Middle East and other parts of Asia that may be just as lucrative as China, he feels his China dream is over.
Others are not daunted. “I want to go back. I’m loving it as my second home,” said a Tamil homemaker who lives in Tianjin and is currently stranded in Chennai with her daughter. “I have only had good experiences; Chinese people have been so helpful. My husband says everything is normal there—it’s just that there are no flights for Indians.”
There are plenty of Chinese nationals stuck in India as well. Before the pandemic, there were around 3,000 Chinese nationals studying or working in India. Many have reported concern about staying on due to stigmas linking China and the coronavirus; about half returned to China before India’s nationwide lockdown was implemented on March 25, and more were repatriated in June. “Even during the lockdown, Chinese could not feel very safe in India,” said one Chinese scholar, who described hearing news reports about individuals who were attacked by locals.
The most difficult cases, of course, may be the ones in which one partner is Chinese and one is Indian. “It’s a devastating experience. I keep hoping every day to return, that there might be some policy introduced in our favor,” 37-year-old Surender Sharma told me. Married to a Chinese national, he works for the Indian fertilizer company Coromandel International in Shanghai. After more than four months apart from his family, he left his hometown in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh on June 10 and has been in New Delhi since then, waiting to apply for his visa. His flight back has now been postponed to Aug. 7. Sharma’s wife, Zhang Yanyan, also 37, and their twin 4-year-old daughters, Khushi (Xinghao) and Tanu (Xinghe), are with Zhang’s family in Shandong (a seven-hour drive from Shanghai) while he is away.
Once the twins turn 18, as overseas citizens of India they can choose their nationality—although if they decided to become Indian and quit their Chinese nationality, they can’t get it back, Sharma explains. Indo-Chinese families like Sharma’s walk a complicated tightrope between the two countries, and the challenges of unifying a family under one nationality and language—even, now, one roof—are daunting. It is possible for Chinese nationals to become Indians, but Indians cannot become Chinese, and no one within the Indo-Chinese community knows of anyone who has switched.
Kumar and Qi, who have been together since 2017, when Kumar moved to China, have also faced major obstacles. At first, Kumar’s parents were not comfortable with the union. “I’m from a small city, Jamshedpur—even intercaste marriages are a very big thing there,” he told me. “My father once got so angry that he wrote a letter about how bad I’ve been, not caring about my family, and sent it to me on WhatsApp,” he recalled. Qi’s family were also unenthusiastic about the prospect of their daughter marrying a foreigner—any foreigner—and worried about stories they had heard about Indian men taking several wives. When the families finally met, they hopscotched between Hindi, English, and Chinese, and Qi’s father-in-law insisted on his own translator, to hilarious effect. Soon, Kumar’s family accepted Qi, and Qi’s family warmed to Kumar; Chinese families are most concerned with a partner’s economic prospects, Qi explained.
“I want to go back whenever it is possible, as I miss my space there. My books, my notes, my research, everything is on my table there, just the way I left it, thinking I would be back in a month,” Anna Thomas, a 34-year-old assistant professor at the Anhui Normal University’s School of History and Sociology in Wuhu city, Anhui province, told me last month. Having specialized in modern and contemporary Chinese history, she has worked on grassroots democracy in China, traveling to many villages in the province as part of her research. Fluent in Mandarin, she now teaches a course on the society and culture of modern India within the institution’s South Asian history department. Thomas first visited as a doctoral student with an India-China bilateral scholarship program and has since made this scenic city on the banks of the Yangtze River her home.
On Jan. 14, she returned to her family home in Trivandrum, the capital of the south Indian state of Kerala, for the winter holidays. At the time, she did not know about the virus then taking off in China. The university has since asked her and around seven other foreign faculty members not to return until it is safe to do so; meanwhile, she has been teaching online. (Her classes begin early, around 5 a.m. in India.) The silver lining has been spending time with her family, but transferring her salary from her Chinese account to her Indian one has been a challenge, and she may face difficulties if she can’t return to China by August, at which time she will have to renew her visa to China in India.
For now, she is more concerned about the virus than about geopolitics. “India-China relations have always seen ups and downs,” she told me. “Relations between common people are always smooth and friendly.”
Her counterparts in India agree; one Chinese scholar teaching at an Indian research institution was also fearful primarily because of the pandemic. “My nationhood is not important in my class. That is the situation of those who [enable] communication, economically, socially, culturally, between the two countries,” he told me.
To stay safe when numbers began to spike in India, he headed back to China before the current diplomatic crisis. Well-versed in politics, he understands India’s response to the skirmish on the border. “As a democratic regime, the government does not enjoy the same autonomy as China in foreign policy. The ruling party has to react strongly to avoid further criticism,” he pointed out.
Rather, he said, “The issue should be development for both.” Like other experts, he advocates immediate de-escalation and renewed negotiation when the time is right. An aficionado of Mohandas Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, and other great Indian thinkers, he wants to return to India to continue to research development. For now, though, that is out of his control—and will be as long as the pandemic rages and geopolitical tempers flare.