China Castigates the E.U. on Taiwan

“Act prudently.” This was the warning addressed to the E.U. by China’s president Xi after the European Parliament voted 432 to 60 on October 24, 2024 on a resolution urging China to immediately cease its “continued military operations,” “economic coercion,” and “hostile disinformation” directed at Taiwan.[1] Whereas in the West, warning by shouting and slamming a fisted hand on a tabletop may be viewed as signaling vehement protest, the relative soft-spoken, be prudent connotes a very serious threat. The early twentieth-century U.S. president, Theodore Roosevelt, would likely miss the force of Xi’s intent to retaliate against the E.U. should it interfere with China on Taiwan. If my reading of Xi is correct, (and this may seem a leap), then the world coming to grips with constructing a global order commensurate to address global risks, such as climate change, starvation, and war in a nuclear age will face entrenched resistance in departing from the noxious principle of absolutist national sovereignty that has stymied collective, multilateral action. How dare you even hint that you will encroach on China’s sovereignty! This is essentially what President Xi was saying. Even in the post World War II global order of sovereign nation states, China’s claim that its sovereignty includes Taiwan is dubious, which in turn can be taken as evidence that resting the global order on the sovereignty of nation-states is problematic. In short, that principle allows for over-reaching without accountability.

The full essay is at "China Castigates the E.U. on Taiwan."

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1. Jorge Liboreiro, “’Act Prudently’: China Slams E.U. Parliament over Taiwan Resolution, Warns of Red Lines,” Euronews.com, October 25, 2024.

Facing a Hot and Hostile Planet

On October 24, 2024, Tjada McKenna, CEO of Mercy Corps, and formerly in the Obama administration working on global hunger, spoke at Harvard on wars, hunger, and climate change then going on around the world. The pandemic had been a setback. In a world of pandemics, climate change, war, and hunger, there is no us and them. Lest this utopia be taken too realistically, 200,000 more people worldwide were hungry after the pandemic than before it. Since 1946, the highest number of state conflicts was in 2023. It was then that Russia invaded Ukraine and Israel decimated much of Gaza. In 2024, the UN’s high court found both aggressors to be violating international law, but they continued undeterred and with impunity. In the context of an epic crisis of displacement of civilians, with 339 million people globally having to rely on humanitarian assistance in 2024, the impacts of climate change exacerbated hunger and conflict in several states, especially in Africa. I contend that a serious obstacle was systemic, specifically in an antiquated global order relying on an absolutist interpretation of the sovereignty of the nation-state. Even the E.U. was not immune.

The full essay is at "A Hot and Hostile Planet."

Strengthening the E.U.’s Border Competency: Implications for Federalism

In politics, it’s not a bad idea to consider the impact on the system of government in formulating, voting on, and enacting laws and regulations. It is not enough to make sure that relationships with political donors are not impaired. Nor, in a federal system, is it enough to look at the implications regarding either the state or the federal level. I contend that the implications for the federal system itself should be formally and informally considered. In the context of the E.U.’s difficulty with securing its borders even after facing unprecedented migrants entering by boat or even walking in the early 2020s, it is understandable that representatives elected by E.U. citizens and sitting in the European Parliament would try to shore up a federal response, given that in the last quarter of 2024, some state officials took action at state borders in violation of E.U. law. Undercutting federal rule-of-law is a good way to trigger a collapse of a federal system, especially one that had only existed for decades rather than centuries.

The full essay is at "Strengthening the E.U.'s Border."

The Resurrected Body of Jesus: A Viable Launching Pad for Mysticism

Gertrud of Helfta (1256-1301) was a Christian nun whose sensitivity to mystical experience can be characterized as a bridal mysticism within a Christ mysticism. Think of Christ; turn yourself over to Christ. She brings in the related theme of light, which is salient in the Gospel of John, with Christ saying, I am the light of the word. Yet her mystical sensitivity was such that she could transcend even Christ’s resurrected body, which can be said to have been her favorite mask of eternity through which love, which, as Paul and Augustine had claimed, is God. This does not mean that the mask is finally tossed aside as somehow erroneous; rather, it is to say more generally that people who have an enhanced sensitivity to the mystical in a religious, or transcendent, sense, are oriented to going beyond God in our likeness to experience God as wholly other—as radically transcendent—and thus leave oneself behind.

The full essay is at "The Resurrected Body of Jesus: Mysticism."

Russian Vote-Buying: Compromising International Law and Moldova in the E.U.

As if Russia’s invasion of Ukraine were not a sufficient reason for Moldovans to vote in a referendum in 2024 to align the country’s constitution with accession into the E.U. as a state, which would entail the government of Moldova giving up some sovereignty, Russia felt the need nonetheless to buy off votes to hinder Moldova from statehood. That the pro-statehood vote won, albeit ever so slightly ahead, given the purchased votes, can be interpreted as an indication that a significant majority of the half of the eligible voters probably wanted Moldova to accede. That the vote tally did not reflect this, whether through vote-buying or disinformation, damaged both Moldova’s accession legitimacy and that of the E.U. itself. Moreover, international law’s lack of enforcement can be inferred from the sheer scale of Russia’s monetary and political invasion of Moldova. The importance of enforcement is precisely because bullies tend to overstep repeatedly rather than just once. They can smell a lack of enforcement from many miles or kilometers away.

The full essay is at "Russian Vote-Buying in Moldova."

Eternal You: AI after Death

The documentary, Eternal You (2024), is one film that zeros in on the use of AI to contact loved ones who have died. As the marketing departments of the tech companies providing these products say, AI can deliver on what religion has only promised: to talk with people beyond the grave. Lest secular potential buyers be left out, AI can provide us with “a new form of transcendence.” Nevermind that the word, transcendence, like divinity and evil, is an inherently religious word. Nevermind, moreover, that the product is actually only a computer simulation of a person, rather than the actual person direct from heaven or hell. The marketing is thus misleading. In the film, a woman asks her dead husband if he is in heaven. “I’m in hell with the other addicts,” he answers. She is hysterical. Even though people who write computer algorithms cannot be expected to anticipate every possible question that AI could be asked and every response that it could give, government regulation keeping the marketing honest and accurate can significantly reduce the risk that is from AI’s use of inference (inductive) and probability that are beyond our control to predict and even understand. 

The full essay is at "Eternal You."