Cold War Style Cognitive Warfare: "Deepening the Response to Authoritarian Information Operations in Latin America"/"Contrarrestar las operaciones de información de actores autoritarios en Latinoamérica"

 

It is possible to identify three areas of current interest in relation to the control of cognition to advance the interests and aspiration of ideologically driven human collectives. The first is cognitive control of enemy populations connected to "hot wars" (eg here). The second touches on the curation of cognition at its edges by focusing on interpretation and behavior rather than on the foundations of cognitive pathways (eg here, and here). The third focuses cognitive control of target populations of competitor or target states (and other collectives) connected to "cold war." This last is the subject of a set of interesting essays just published as "Deepening  the Response to Authoritarian Information Operations in Latin America" and in Spanish "Contrarrestar las operaciones de información de actores autoritarios en Latinoamérica."

These control objectives exist on several levels and have been understood in a variety of ways. For example at a fairly benign level they have been referred to as narrative wars, seeking power to manage a "master narrative" within or between human collectives of every sort. In its more ancient (now tech enhanced) and generalized form it pointed to efforts at shaping the imaginaries or lifeworlds of target populations so that, having gained control of the way a target population sees and understands the world around them--makes sense of the world through a process of interpretation grounded in foundational premises about things, processes and "truths." In the context of orderly management within collectives it is sometimes understood, in a more micro-behavior environment, as the control and discovery of mis- mal- and dis-information (especially strong in the context of pandemic since 2019). What these areas of interest struggle with is ways to theorize a critical distinction, one between (1) collective cognitive development as it evolves along with its way of understanding the world--a natural though sometimes violently controlled process within social collectives however organized, and (2) technologies or actions that undermine that process of self development by projecting in the foreign in ways that contain a substantial element of deception. That deception, in turn can focus on the source of inward projection, the strategic leveraging of data (whether true or false as those things are understood), and the simulation of collective engagement. This is to be distinguished from, for example, transparent projections of views into one collective from another. At a very basic level the modalities of that deception focus on the much discussed strategies of mal-, mis- and dis-information.  But at the level of cognitive warfare (or battles for cognitive control) its focus is on the way in which a collective identifies, receives and processes this information in ways that are more likely to lead to conclusions and actions that align with the interest of the projecting power. 

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What "Deepening  the Response to Authoritarian Information Operations in Latin America"/ "Contrarrestar las operaciones de información de actores autoritarios en Latinoamérica" attempts is to understand those strategic maneuverings in the context of cold war--where oppositional or competitive forces act strategically to undermine their opponents and to take territory or relationships form one to another in ways that may be more permanent.  It represents a way of end running the governing apparatus and its administrative-intellectual complex by rewiring mass cognition out from under them. And thus, for the essays, the worry about the stability of liberal democracy in Latin America.  

 Authoritarian governments are escalating their efforts to manipulate the information ecosystem globally in order to undermine democratic institutions, advance their own interests, and buttress their autocratic allies In Latin America, where there has been significant democratic backsliding in recent years, malign information operations backed by the Russian government and sometimes the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) draw on well-worn narratives of Western imperialism to attack democracy These narratives are carried by a Russian-built communications infrastructure which floods news wires, television  programming, social media platforms, and other channels with made-for-export material that aims to make authoritarian systems and their repressive leaders appear desirable. Amid the deluge, work by civil society-led initiatives to secure the integrity of the information space in Latin America is intensifying. Current efforts mostly focus on innovations in fact-checking efforts and reinvigorating broken models of independent journalism however, the essays in this report, by two leading experts on Latin America’s information environment, suggest that these efforts may not be enough to counter intensifying uthoritarian efforts to manipulate information spaces to their benefit. In confronting increased collaboration by global authoritarian actors and their regional allies, the development of diverse civil society-led coalitions and new skill sets focused on highlighting and countering authoritarian influence is critical.

 Los gobiernos autoritarios intensifican sus esfuerzos para manipular el ecosistema informativo en todo el mundo con el fin de promover sus propios intereses, apoyar a sus aliados autocráticos y socavar las instituciones democráticas En América Latina, en donde se han registrado importantes retrocesos democráticos en los últimos años, las operaciones de información perniciosas respaldadas por el gobierno ruso y, en ocasiones, por el Partido Comunista de China (PCC), recurren a trillados mensajes sobre el imperialismo occidental para atacar la democracia Estas narrativas se transmiten mediante una infraestructura de comunicaciones de Rusia que inunda los cables de noticias, los programas de televisión, las plataformas de redes sociales y otros canales con material producido para la exportación a efectos de hacer que los sistemas autoritarios y sus líderes represivos parezcan deseable. En medio de este diluvio se intensifican las iniciativas lideradas por la sociedad civil para garantizar la integridad del espacio informativo de América Latina Las acciones actuales se centran sobre todo en la comprobación de datos innovadora y en la revitalización de modelos quebrados de periodismo independiente No obstante, los ensayos de este informe, realizados por dos destacadas especialistas para combatir los esfuerzos cada vez más ingentes que realizan los agentes autoritarios para manipular los espacios de información en
su beneficio. A fin de hacer frente a la creciente colaboración entre los actores autoritarios globales y sus aliados regionales es fundamental desarrollar coaliciones diversas, lideradas por la sociedad civil, así como nuevos conjuntos de habilidades dirigidas a resaltar y contrarrestar la influencia autoritaria

One wonders, though, whether the worry should go deeper. Collective cognitive lifeworlds and imaginaries, at least in the current stage of historical development, do not appear to maintain themselves.  Just as they may be altered by strategically successful interventions from outside, they might also require a substantial amount of work to protect from the inside. The current approach appears to be defensive and targeted against modalities of inward projection. It might be as useful to also consider the active cultivation of solidarity and stability protective internal measures to ensure the autonomy and coherence of a cognitive system. That requires, of course, an understanding of that system's core imaginaries--premises, ways of looking at the world and the like--and a focus on those rather than particular applications of that cognitive baseline from time to time. Old systems were better able to protect their cognitive cores when they were up to it through systemic reinforcement of core principles (rather than micro applications). But these systems did not operate nor where they created under conditions of digitalization, and open borders in which a measure of interpenetration is now cognitively good (from the bottom up, for example), as well as bad (from one control apparatus to another for strategic ends). Where the focus is on protection against episodic mis-, dis- and mal-informaiton, the larger threat is missed. These considerations are embedded in the marvelous essays that are included, but from the starting point of symptoms. This is a critically important contribution to a wider and more long term challenge for all collective cognitive systems in an age that rewards difference  but rewards the management and utilization of difference toward strategic ends more.

The Introduction to the essays follows below. 

The Fall of Sugar and the Management of Misery In Cuba

 

In 1969 Fidel Castro called on Cubans to join in bringing in the sugar harvest. The harvest was measured in the millions of tons--much of it slated for export to the Soviet Union at premium prices. Americans, some now prominent, engaged in solidarity with the Cuban Revolution by going to Cuba to help with the harvests. It was a heady time for youngsters and ideologues committed to a vision of an idealized communist state , something that many sought to export, along with sugar, back to the heart of what Mr Castro referred to as the Empire. 

But for decades, the industry has been in decline. While the island regularly produced more than 7 million tonnes in the 1980s, last season — squeezed by new “maximum pressure” United States sanctions — it yielded only 480,000 tonnes. This year, the target is even lower as Cuba heads for its worst sugar harvest in more than a century.  Once we were the country that exported the most sugar,” Dionis Perez, director of communications at Azcuba, the state agency that regulates sugar production, told Al Jazeera.  But “this is the first year that Cuba doesn’t plan to export more sugar than it consumes”. (here)

That was 2023.  It turns out that 2024 is going to be worse. Marc Frank now reports a sugar harvest so small that there may not be enough sugar to produce Cuban Rum, among the few reliable money making exports for a state whose economic system has entombed Cuba's productive forces. 

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The Cuban sugar harvest is winding down at the lowest tonnage since 1900, forcing the government to import and putting more pressure on its domestic rum, soft drink and pharmaceutical industries, according to official reports, two economists and a rum industry source. President Miguel Diaz-Canel said at the end of April that the state-run industry had produced 71% of the 412,000 metric tons planned, or just shy of 300,000 metric tons, and would mill into May. Cuba produced 350,000 metric tons in the last harvest and while some sugar mills remain open, yields drop sharply in May as hot, humid weather sets in, accompanied by summer rains. “This means we will have to import and, of course, less sugar means there is less syrup and alcohol for various industries and, of course, rum,” said Cuban economist Omar Everleny. The communist-run Caribbean island nation was once the world’s top sugar exporter, and produced 8 million metric tons of raw sugar in 1989, before the collapse of its former benefactor, the Soviet Union, sparked a steady decline. (Cuba may import sugar, rum industry pressed amid disastrous harvest)

It may well be time to call on the current generation of American youth to volunteer their labor. But there is no sugarcane to harvest. And soon, there may be no rum to drink. The only thing that is left are the ideals of a political economic model, reaffirmed less than a decade ago, that is increasingly detached from the realities of Cuban life. What is left is a political economic model that continues to exist at the sufferance of those states with an interest in its preservation , and is fueled by the extraordinary success of a pragmatic policy of controlled misery (here, here, and here).

"The Human Mind Becomes a Battlefield"--5th Cyber Power Symposium on Hybrid Conflict/Warfare (CHP) theme: "The Cyber and Hybrid Aspects of Cognitive Warfare/Superiority" and Sascha Dov Bachmann on "Hamas-Israel: TikTok And The Relevance of The Cognitive Warfare Domain"

 

The Defence Horizon Journal has recently published a series of quite remarkable essays around the theme "aspects of cognitive superiority"--an issue at the heart of modern warfare--as the recent  coherent eruptions on US campuses and elsewhere evidence quite brilliantly: Aspects of Cognitive Superiority: Shaping Beliefs and Behaviours (26 April 2024; free download HERE).   The issue was built around the 5th Cyber Power Symposium on Hybrid Conflict/Warfare (CHP) and its theme: "The Cyber and Hybrid Aspects of Cognitive Warfare/Superiority."  The object is to continue to advance the study of cognitive warfare, and in the process to consider some of its implication for traditional approaches to the protection of human rights, including speech.

All of the essays produced for that event are worth a careful read.  Dr. Teija Tiilikainen, Director of the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Treats, set the tone:

The recent focus on the cognitive dimension addresses a specific target of cyber threats, which may be far more difficult to protect than physical systems or structures. When threats are directed against the cognitive dimension, it is the mental structures, or the human mind in general, that become the target. This is nothing new, as conflicts and war have always included a strong ideational dimension. Apart from physical objectives, political conflicts deal with ideas, ideologies, and narratives. The novelty of current threats to the cognitive dimension is linked to modern technologies and the cyber capabilities they provide to influence and manipulate the human mind. In this way, the cyber and cognitive dimensions become a perilous combination that requires the immediate attention of the security policy community. (Teija Tiilikainen, ''The Cyber and Hybrid Aspects of Cognitive Warfare/Superiority,' Aspects of Cognitive Superiority, supra p. 4)

Major General Stefano Cont, Capability, Armament and Planning Director, European Defense Agency, noted in his keynote address:

In my view, cognitive warfare integrates cyber, information, psychological, and social engineering capabilities to achieve its ends. It exploits the internet and social media to target influential individuals, specific groups, and large numbers of citizens selectively and serially in society. Cognitive warfare therefore means that the human mind becomes a battlefield. The aim is not only to change what people think, but also how they think and act. When waged successfully, cognitive warfare shapes and influences individual and group beliefs and behaviours in favour of the tactical or strategic objectives of the attacker. We have to find the right answers to how we can strengthen our resilience against cognitive threats, and who we should educate, train and conduct exercises with to enhance our capacity to resist and respond. (Stefano Cont, ''The Cyber and Hybrid Aspects of Cognitive Warfare/Superiority,' Aspects of Cognitive Superiority, supra p. 6)

All of this, of course, has the potential to upend the carefully crafted and quite vibrant  foundational premises on which liberal democracy operates and that has served as its great strength. Premises crafted and so successfully applied  in a prior historical era may, in the face of technological, moral, and strategic revolutions in the present historical era, may be reshaped, whether the great liberal democratic institutions themselves drive them, or they are driven by events. The discussion, with additional non-military contemporary origins in the COVID mis- dis- and mal- information policy debates, is in its infancy. Its consequences, however, already are being felt.  

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At the same time it is necessary to pause for a moment to recall that the programming of people is an ancient science, one the domination of which has served as a foundation on which all social relations are built.  The process and its instruments were usually quite transparent, or at least easy enough for humans to track and expose. What makes the issue much more interesting now, and therefor far more useful as a critical instrument of warfare, is the way that technology has both enhanced and disguised the forms and projection of that programming. "Rudimentary capabilities previously limited CW-like operations to masses, nations, organizations, and occasionally high-priority leaders. Today, however, disruptive ICT has made identifying thousands—even millions—of specific individuals, analyzing their behaviors and traits, and targeting their cognition possible." (Majors Andrew MacDonald and Ryan Ratcliffe, U.S. Marine Corps, "Cognitive Warfare: Maneuvering in the Human Dimension," US Naval Institute April 2023 (Proceedings,Vol. 149/4/1,442). 

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Bernard Claverie and François du Cluzel noted that "Cognitive warfare is now seen as its own domain in modern warfare. . . Cognitive warfare is the art of using technological tools to alter the cognition of human targets, who are often unaware of any such attempt - as are those entrusted with countering, minimizing, or managing its consequences, whose institutional and bureaucratic reactions are too slow or inadequate." (Bernard Claverie and François du Cluzel, 'The Cognitive Warfare Concept' (December 2023).The programming of discursive contests around social relations have moved form the human to the virtual--and from physical reality to its simulacra. And, given the way in which the regulation of generative artificial intelligence, and big data tech is moving, it is likely to produce fundamental conflict between principles of control and the realities of the weaponization of technology for the control of the minds of physical beings who can then be deployed within the target political community (eg here, and here; more theoretical discussion here).

It is in this context that the essays in this issue are most useful. These include essays by (1) Sascha Dov Bachmann (TikTok And The Relevance Of The Cognitive Warfare Domain, pp. 7-10); (2) Peter B.M.J. Pijpers (On Cognitive Warfare: The Anatomy of Disinformation, pp- 11-17); (3) Matthias Wasinger (The Highest Form of Freedom and the West’s Best Weapon to Counter Cognitive Warfare, pp. 18-25); (4) Maria Papadaki (The Role Of Cyber Security In Cognitive Warfare, pp. 26-31); (5) Josef Schröfl and Sönke Marahrens (The Russia-Ukraine Conflict From a Hybrid Warfare Cognitive Perspective, pp. 32-40); (6) Chris Bronk (New Problems in Hybrid Warfare: Cyber Meets Cognition, pp. 41-47); (7) Gazmend Huskaj (Future Elections and AI-Driven Disinformation, pp. 48-59); (8) Matthew Warren (Hybrid Threats – The Chinese Focus On Australia, pp. 60-64); and (9) Bernard Siman (AI and Microtargeting Disinformation As A Security Threat To The Protection Of International Forces, pp. 65-69). 

Each is worth a careful read; the abstract/summaries (in the form of abstract; problem statement; and 'so what?')  of each follow below. I want to briefly highlight one of the contributions for its connection with recent events in the United States.

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Sascha Dov Bachmann (TikTok And The Relevance Of The Cognitive Warfare Domain, pp. 7-10; see also here) argues that the Hamas-Israel war is being fought both on the battlefield but also in the domain of cognitive warfare.  The cognitive objective is narrative control--to manage the way that foreigners see, understand, and approach the war and its combatants, and in this way to sway the governments that might ally themselves with one (the Israeli) side. One combines narrative premises that are then embedded into interpretive processes around events, making it possible to have a target group believe the unbelievable and to reject as specious facts provided to refute false assertions on the basis of the premises that change cognitive processes. The success of this cognitive war was illustrated with the affair of the bombing of the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza. 

Bachmann notes that in the Gaza context, the global network managing cognitive operations use a combination of disinformation, robustly leveraged through supportive traditional news organs and other reliable mouthpieces with some influence among target collectives, and the management of the cognitive processes through which target collectives are trained to receive and process information. To that end cognitive rewiring is made more successful when existing cognitive and interpretive processes are redirected or developed rather than when they are substituted with something else. In the Gaza case that is an easier proposition according to Bachmann. 

Recycling old historical positions and facts regarding colonialism and oppression are part of the new cognitive warfare approach. . . . Targeting Western audiences with anti-Ukraine and anti-Israel content on TikTok is highly sophisticated and shockingly successful. Young Australian and U.S. audiences have become convinced that Israel is a foreign coloniser of indigenous land and is waging a genocidal war against the Palestinians as the land’s indigenous people. . . . TikTok’s targeting of Generation ‘Z’ in the context of the Palestinian– Israel conflict highlights the role this generation is being accredited for in going against the political and diplomatic position their governments would take.

The management of the story of the Al-Ahli Hospital suggests the utility of cognitive techniques. A New York Times analysis  in its own tentative way framed the issue and the consequences:

The hospital explosion is important in its own right: It was the biggest news story in the world for days and sparked protests across the Middle East. The explosion also has a larger significance: It offers clues about how to judge the claims about civilian casualties that are central to Hamas’s war message. * * * This evidence, in turn, suggests that the Gaza Ministry of Health, controlled by Hamas, has deliberately told the world a false story. U.S. officials believe that the health ministry also inflated the toll when it announced 500 deaths; the actual number appears to be closer to 100. This episode doesn’t mean that Gazan officials always mislead or that Israeli officials always tell the truth. * * * But the hospital explosion offers reason to apply particular skepticism to Hamas’s claims about civilian deaths — which are an undeniable problem in this war. Hamas’s record on the war’s most closely watched incident does not look good. (Revisiting the Gaza Hospital Explosion)

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 The role of Tik Tok and its  imitators is especially interesting. It suggests a number of strategic considerations. The first is that the transmission of knowledge  is increasingly detached from its older forms. That, in turn, suggests tat the old premises on which authoritativeness and relevance for knowledge production and transmission--grounded in text and its sources in conventional institutional voices and their bureaucracies (including academia)--is giving way to new markers of authority.   The third is that notions of transparency are increasingly failing as the voices projected virtually may not be who they represent themselves to be, nor, for that matter, are the virtual representations human in the sense of the recording of natural persons. It follows that the transmitters of knowledge and their legitimacy are masked within expectations of legitimacy--grounded in age, and the emerging identitarian categories. But in the virtual anyone can be anything. The fifth is that while the performance of knowledge production and transmission through virtual spaces may be detached from its sources, the forms and objectives of that production and dissemination are easier to obscure. It follows that obscurity can hid both contestations and the guidance of baseline premises and modes of thinking from out of which it is possible to direct "correct" or "intended" interpretation of data. The seventh is that the forms of knowledge transmission, and the tending to the structures of cognition, have shifted in form as well as content. The visualization of knowledge, and the processes of making sense of imagery, connected to the shifting of cognition as something felt rather than thought, substantially shifts as well the way in which a subject population can be made to think in a particular way or approach understanding of stimuli (now visual and aural, supported by text but not driven by it) in a way that predictive modeling can help produce. For examples images of dead babies and blasted civilian apartment complexes may be connected to a bombing or it may be connected to a decision to embed combatants in a space reserved for medical care of civilians. The pathways to cognition as a function of that imagery will depend on the hard work of managing predicate presumptions about justification of belief that guide targeted groups to think, in this example, in terms of "knowing"that the moral unworthiness of striking an opponent and "knowing" that the decision to conduct military operations from under a civilian apartment building is a matter of moral indifference or in this case a positive moral stance.

Two last points are worth mentioning as perhaps consequences of these movements.  The first is that what follows is that the management of cognition permits the management of emotion (currently the politics of rage, though that also has a long pedigree in the pre-virtual world) that reduces the necessity of the rational by substituting pre-packaged analytical pathways. Cognition cultivates feeling rather than understanding. Triggering, fear, elation, anger, rage, and the like, are the cognitive pathways not just to knowledge, but to its interpretation. An anti-rationalism, long in the making from the time of the first efforts at psychoanalysis, permits an alignment of cognition and pre-digested meaning. In one sense this takes one back in time to the pre-modern; but in another is it a quite post-modern project, fusing psychologies of the self with collective meaning making that is driven by (eventually generative) big data tech.  That, in turn, permits the insertion of interpretive conclusions that make sense even against physical data. It is not  merely that facts don't matter; it is the control of the cognition of facticity in virtual realms that make it possible to detach ourselves from the limits of the observable in the physical in space, place and time. In a sense, these are well evidenced by the Al Ahli affair. 

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The second is that, especially when combined with strategic political agitation, the stress on the 18th century construction of notions of speech, speech acts, and engagement within a political collective, may require, or may make inevitable, some substantial redevelopment of the core premises of those structures.  The semiotics of speech and speech acts already point in that direction in the era of the virtual. Speech is an object, it is an embodiment of signification, and its meaning and power is a function of collective rules for its interpretation and consequences. The 18th century construct presumed an (idealized) identity between the three, as well as its circularity, self-referencing character, and the identification and differentiation of the internal and external. What is emerging as cognitive warfare principles and practice merely suggest what semiotics has understood for some time: that this ideal within political systems can be managed to guide, in turn, the stability and solidarity of groups presumed to be engaged in self-referencing dialectical experiences. Tik Tok, in this sense, is a semiotic representation of the 20th century age of the therapeutic and of self-actualization within identitarian categories, now digitized and (re)manufactured within manufactured virtual spaces from which new ways of embracing group feeling can be projected; what appears free, again, is managed. Again, one partial way to begin to try to think about how/why this different from the past is both (1) the utility of the virtual in detaching physical from digitalized spaces; and (2) the diffusion of presumptions of authority from its old institutions (from which pre-modern cognition wars were fought in the form of religious ans cultural wars) downward (to individual speakers), inward (to virtual sources), and outward (toward interlinked and masked generators of strategic hard rewiring of cognitive processes to specific ends) (longer and more theoretical discussion of implications and sources here). Where that takes social structures, at this point, is anybody's guess.

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All of these are quite preliminary thoughts. Prof. Bachmann provides a quite useful way to organize that thinking. What makes for cognitive success is implied in the analysis though unconsciously--the willingness of target collectives to presume the proclivities of one side and the other; the premise that one side must be both capable and morally indifferent enough to undertake that action, and the willingness to believe the power of that amorality to produce substantial death. Even after investigation, there is a reluctance to credit the facts--because they get in the way of the underlying premise, and with it the cognitive certainty that there is a villain in the story is is always the Israelis. The reluctance is always expressed in the form of something like, well they were right this time but we know they are otherwise morally suspect in what they do and say. They cannot be believed at least without substantial proof (eg here). When generalized we come back to Prof. Bachmann's thesis--that segments of the population can be trained to approach reality in a specific way that can be managed in a way that advances the interests of those doing the managing. In this case it is Hamas that has co opted control of the cognitive development of important segments of targeted populations to serve its own interests in ways that may have consequences for cognitive solidarity structures within the state targeted. And in the domains of cognitive warfare the combatants include the governing institutions of the United States the stability and control of which is the subject of the intervention (here, here, and here).

 

Call for Experts on a Road Paved With Consultations: "Roadmap Towards the 10th Session of the Open-Ended Intergovernmental Working Group on Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises With Respect to Human Rights"

 

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The  open-ended intergovernmental working group on transnational corporations and other
business enterprises with respect to human rights (OEIGWG) continues its now decade long march toward the incarnation of its vision for the control of the human rights effects of economic activity through the forms of traditional international law.  The OEIGWG has now produced a  "Roadmap Towards the 10th Session of the Open-Ended Intergovernmental Working Group on Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises With Respect to Human Rights. My thanks to the incredible Linda Wood (Change the Law) for making this available.

On behalf of the Chair-Rapporteur of the open-ended intergovernmental working group (IGWG) on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights, we are pleased to transmit thereby the updated version of the roadmap towards the 10th session. The call for nominations of legal experts (electronic form to fill) has been published, with a deadline of 14th June 2024. More information (including both documents) can be found here.

The text of that Roadmap follows below including its proposed calendar of activities leading up to  the 10th Session. Among the Roadmap's most interesting features is the call for nominations of legal experts to help manage proposed intersessional and inter-regional thematic consultations:

That the Chair-Rapporteur convene intersessional, interregional thematic consultations to discuss the draft LBI, in line with the mandate established by HRC in its resolution 26/9, with the assistance of at least five legal experts. The selection of the experts should be suggested by the OHCHR. The experts should represent different legal systems, their selection should aim at geographical and gender representation and the regional coordinators should be informed of the selection in a timely manner. (Roadmap).

The call for expert nominations (also following below) explains qualifications and expectations:

Nominated experts should have relevant expertise and established competence related to business and human rights and the issues covered by the draft legally binding instrument. As indicated in paragraph 31(e) of the report on the 9th session, the legal experts should represent different legal systems and their selection should aim at geographical and gender balance. As no financial resources are available for interpretation, the intersessional consultations will take place in English and the legal experts are therefore required to be fluent in English. (Nomination webpage HERE)

Nominations are due by 14 June 2024.  Please consider nominating someone. Please send any additional information or questions to ohchr-igwg-tncs@un.org. For more information, please visit the 10th session page of the OEIGWG: https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/wg-trans-corp/session10

Remarks by President Biden at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Annual Days of Remembrance Ceremony

 

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To the Jewish community, I want you to know I see your fear, your hurt, and your pain. Let me reassure you, as your President, you are not alone. You belong. You always have, and you always will. (Remarks by President Biden at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Annual Days of Remembrance Ceremony )

 Once upon a time in many parts of the world, Jews were permitted residence on the sufferance of the suzerain. As easily as they were invited into a place, they could be forced to leave. This applied in all contexts, even when they might have resided in the place long before the suzerain and their ethno-demos. Usually they could stay as long as they were useful; and they were useful as long as they  produced wealth or service of value to the rulers. For a long time Jews tended to bounce back and forth between the parts of the Roman Empire that had morphed into Christian and Muslim camps--expulsions from one region moved them to another; in Muslim states the vagaries in the condition of the Jewish dhimmi ( ذمي residence in return for tax) was the order of the day until modernity. 

Recent analyzed data sets have been used to try to find patterns for expulsions--for example in weather patterns (see "From the Persecuting to the Protective State? Jewish Expulsions and Weather Shocks from 1100 to 1800" or moneylending (see , No Return: Jews, Christian Usurers, and the Spread of Mass Expulsion in Medieval Europe (Princeton University Press, 2023). The constant, though, was the notion of residence at sufferance--at least until France after the Revolution, and the start of the process of formal emancipation--and periodic eruptions and extortion against resident Jews by the princes whose protection was also a necessary condition of residence. It lingers, from time to time erupting with horrendous consequences, radiating out from its Mediterranean heartland everywhere else.

But the fundamental principle, one expected, had been abandoned. Residence at sufferance, at least, was all in the past; and in the United States, at least, it was not even a part of the national memory. Mr. Biden emphatically reassured the nation on that point in his Remarks by President Biden at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Annual Days of Remembrance Ceremony(7 May 2024). 

And yet. . . .  the discursive tropes of the position of the Jew in a social collective do not merely suggest whatever negative judgment or belief encased in the trope itself. They sometimes provide a shorthand signification, a semiotic bridge, into a wider set of meanings, expectations and conditions. The reassurance that   It also appears to carry, inherently, the associated and consequential notions--of a tentative emancipation; and of the apparently undiminished subtext that the Jewish condition in any place, space, or time, is continued on good behavior (however that is defined), utility, and ultimately sufferance. 

That, perhaps unintentionally, appears to come out quite distinctly in words that President Biden meant as solace and comfort for the citizens and residents of the United States who also happen to be, believe themselves to be, or are believed by others to be Jews. And perhaps that is a reminder--not so much for its intended audience--but for the rest of the nation, who tend to approach the discourse about and around Jews in a perpetually out of context (space, place, or time) way.  That resonates with the parallel unintentionally uttered but inherent in the parallelism of the legitimacy of the Jewish presence in Israel (the context for which was the student eruptions on university campuses) and the more general (and more traditional) contingent legitimacy of Jewish residence anywhere where they o longer serve a purpose. One does not deal here with antisemitism, as such; one encounters here the much older and quite potent impulse about belonging in a political society with respect to which the object of that impulse (the Jew) appears to have little to contribute but utility. That then conflates the idea of settler colonialist in a much more comprehensive way. If the Jew lives on sufferance everywhere, then the idea of a Jewish homeland becomes incomprehensible, as does permanent Jewish presence anywhere. The power of this signification, of course, is that it need not be uttered to be effective, it need only be triggered. And, inadvertently, that may well have been where a President, in an act of generosity and kindness, revealed  what might lie behind the rhetorical curtains of precisely antiseptic speech around which his intervention was made necessary.

 President Biden, inadvertently, reminded the nation of space, place and time by resort to an ancient reality and premise in an effort to assure Jews in the U.S. that there is nothing to worry about. For many of them it would not be unexpected for them to think that indeed there had been nothing to worry about until the President suggested that it well might be. If the President must reassure the nation that he will protect the nation's Jews then the question of protection, and the old premise of residence on sufferance, appears to be very much on the table.

The text of the remarks along with earlier remarks delivered as the Gaza related student protests began in 2 May follow below.

 

Now Available Spring 2024 Issue of Academe the Magazine of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP)

 

I pass along the contents of the Spring 2024 issue of Academe, in which the journal reconsiders the role of race in its history. This from the announcement:

Our spring issue takes an overdue step toward reconsidering the role of race in the AAUP’s history. Articles look to the past and draw lessons for the present, examining such topics as W. E. B. Du Bois’s membership in and resignation from the AAUP; the Association's discriminatory membership practices during the segregation era; academic freedom investigations and the Black freedom struggle; the AAUP’s work with HBCUs; the Angela Davis case at the University of California, Los Angeles; and the AAUP’s role in fights over affirmative action.

The issue contents with links follows below.

Letter From Elected Officials of the United States to Karim A.A. Khan KC, Office of the Prosecutor, International Criminal Court

 

This does appear more and more to be an age in which people and institutions are not only exposed but in which people and institutions are more eager to make choices and take sides in ways that will irrevocably change the dynamics of those social relations carefully constructed after 1945.  

On Friday 3 May, Karim A.A. Khan KC, for himself and as the current incarnation of the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court rose (textually) to defend the prerogatives of the Office to do what it likes within its own sense of its kompetenz-kompetenz respecting, in this case allegations of wrongdoing by Israeli elected and appointed officials, with respect to whom a determination will have to be made that the Israeli courts are incapable of  applying international principles and law (as seen from the ICC). It was blunt.

Officials at the International Criminal Court warned on Friday against efforts to try and sway the court after reports that Israel and its allies are attempting to dissuade the UN court from issuing arrest warrants against senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over the war in Gaza.

While the ICC “welcomes open communication” with government officials and non-governmental bodies alike, it will only engage in such dialogue so long as it is “consistent with its mandate under the Rome Statute to act independently and impartially,” ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan said in a statement.

“That independence and impartiality are undermined, however, when individuals threaten to retaliate… should the office, in fulfillment of its mandate, make decisions about investigations or cases falling within its jurisdiction,” he added, demanding that “all attempts to impede, intimidate or improperly influence its officials cease immediately.” (ICC prosecutor slams effort to ‘intimidate’ him on possible arrest warrants for Israelis:Karim Khan warns against trying to impede investigation into Israel’s conduct in Gaza, after US lawmakers reportedly meet with senior court officials).

It tweeted this:

Tweet credit here

 

The response, perhaps was to a letter, dated 24 April 2024, to which twelve members of the U.S. Senate appended their names, addressed to Prosecutor Khan. It was blunt, but oddly so around its edges. And the signatories did not appear to spend much time on it on their social media platforms. One has to wonder. One wonders if the sudden appearance of this text is not an element in the cognitive warfare  enveloping development in this conflict. But constructs also take on a life of their own. And none of its signatories has yet disavowed its contents. Either way it may be worth reading as a provocation and an indication of the trajectories of sentiment. With these caveats, and assuming, then, that it is not a construct, the text of the letter provides:

 Mr. Karim A. A. Khan KC
Office of the Prosecutor
International Criminal Court
Oude Waalsdorperweg 10
The Hague, The Netherlands
Dear Mr. Khan,
We write regarding the reports that the International Criminal Court (ICC) may be considering issuing international arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials. Such actions are illegitimate and lack legal basis, and if carried out will result in severe sanctions against you and your institution.
The ICC is attempting to punish Israel for taking legitimate actions of self-defense against their Iranian-backed aggressors. In fact, in your own words, you witnessed "scenes of calculated cruelty'' conducted by Hamas in Israel following the October 7 attacks. These arrest warrants would align the ICC with the largest state sponsor of terrorism and its proxy. To be clear, there is no moral equivalence between Hamas's terrorism and Israel's justified response.
The ICC is also prohibited by its charter from proceeding in any case unless the relevant government is unwilling or unable to police themselves. You yourself have said that "Israel has trained lawyers who advise commanders and a robust system intended to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law." By issuing warrants, you would be calling into question the legitimacy of Israel's laws, legal system, and democratic form of government.
Issuing arrest warrants for the leaders of Israel would not only be unjustified, it would expose your organization's hypocrisy and double standards. Your office has not issued arrest warrants for Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei or any other Iranian official, Syrian President Bashar al Assad or any other Syrian official, or Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh or any other Hamas official. Nor have you issued an arrest warrant for the genocidal General Secretary of the People's Republic of China, Xi Jinping, or any other Chinese official.
Finally, neither Israel nor the United States are members of the ICC and are therefore outside of your organization's supposed jurisdiction. If you issue a warrant for the arrest of the Israeli leadership, we will interpret this not only as a threat to Israel's sovereignty but to the sovereignty of the United States. Our country demonstrated in the American Service-Members' Protection Act the lengths to which we will go to protect that sovereignty.
The United States will not tolerate politicized attacks by the ICC on our allies. Target Israel and we will target you. If you move forward with the measures indicated in the report, we will move to end all American support for the ICC, sanction your employees and associates, and bar you and your families from the United States. You have been warned.

The letter, a facsimile of which appears above, appears to take the position that courts, at least in this context, are actors confined to the four corners of their jurisdictional mandates within the larger structures of the state system and international law. Somewhat interesting is that the letter did not appear to be generally circulated until 6 May 2024, well after the better reported news that "Three House Republicans from New York wrote a letter Tuesday imploring the Biden administration to prevent the "sham prosecution" of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli government officials by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes." (Here).  More interesting is the implication that both the prosecutor, and the ICC apparatus as a whole, are in some sense political actors operating within the sensibilities and conduct expectations of a dispute resolution body (perhaps like a national Constitutional Court, e.g. here and here), and to that extent (as well as with respect to its decisions and judgments) responsible for their decisions, will have to bear the political consequences of the choices they make.  But that, largely, appears to be the case for a long time within liberal democratic systems (see, e.g., here, and here).

The circulation of that letter, however, does underscore a larger and more important issue. Indeed, as Prosecutor Khan has made clear, the Kompetenz-kompetenz issue is wrapped around what might be in the end a fundamental shift in jurisdictional narratives fueling interpretive exercises: from one in which the ICC and its apparatus understand themselves as "a detached apex of the international criminal justice system" to one in which the ICC and its apparatus are embedded as "a hub of global accountability efforts." Two very different narratives fueling two very different interpretive and operational projects.  Two very different structures for the development of an internationalized criminal law. And the intense scrutiny of the Jews in a context in which they are hardly the only players will produce additional lessons, especially respecting the value (now substantial) of building a human wall  as a a critical  structure for tactical military operations, may well become an important template in other military actions where the level of global scrutiny is less intense. Which prevails remains to be seen. But either one will exact a price. And again, the consequences of the Hamas actions on 7 October and its aftermath continue to produce some significant effects.

Pix credit ICC Here

Carter Center China Focus Program (Virtual): "How Should the U.S. and China Manage their Nuclear Relationship During the 'New Cold War'?" 28 May 2028

 

 Delighted to pass  this along from our colleagues at the Carter Center China Focus and Yawei Liu. The Carter Center will be hosting a Virtual Program entitled "How Should the U.S. and China Manage Their Nuclear Relationship During the “New Cold War”?" The brief Concept Note provides:

Rising Sino-American tensions have prompted widespread discussion of a “New Cold War.” China has continued to expand its nuclear capabilities while the United States feels under pressure to enhance its own capabilities. While some experts describe the bilateral relationship currently as being in a moment of “fragile stability,” this remains precarious. Bilateral military-to-military talks have resumed after Presidents Biden and Xi met in San Francisco last November; and the two sides held a consultation on arms control and nonproliferation last November, but the meeting produced no specific results. During this period of fragile stability, to what extent has risk in the nuclear domain decreased, and what risks remain? What actions do experts recommend both sides take to reduce nuclear risk? What should we expect for the future of U.S.-China nuclear relations?  

The Virtual event will be held 28 May 2024 at 1500 US East Coast Time. Speakers include Dr. Tong Zhao, Senior Fellow at Carnegie Endowment for Peace; Dr. David Santoro, President of the Pacific Forum; Dr. M Taylor Fravel, Political Science Professor at MIT. The program is occasioned by the Carter Center’s publication of Modernizing Sino-U.S. Confidence-Building Measures: Cold War Case Studies and Chinese Perspectives (Raven Witherspoon, Jenna Wichterman, and Shivam Shankar Singh; March 2024), a study drawing lessons from U.S.-Soviet nuclear confidence-building measures to apply to the Sino-U.S. nuclear relationship today. Tong Zhao's recently published essay in Foreign Affairs, "The Real Motives for China’s Nuclear Expansion: Beijing Seeks Geopolitical Leverage More Than Military Advantage (March 2024) (点击此链接阅读中文版 (Read in Chinese)), adds perspective.

Tong suggests greater clarity on Chinese perspectives as a point of departure for engagement:

A close assessment of the evolving thinking within China’s political leadership and security policy circles reveals that Chinese officials are not simply expanding their nuclear arsenal for military-technical purposes. Rather, Chinese leaders seem to have embraced the untested belief that nuclear weaponry grants them greater geopolitical leverage to counter perceived threats. Beijing’s objections to what it sees as an unfair U.S. nuclear strategy and illegitimate U.S. security interests further solidify its willingness to use unilateral measures to address its security concerns. Washington must understand how these underlying perceptions shape Beijing’s nuclear policy if it wants to steer the U.S.-Chinese relationship in a more prudent direction—or risk responding on the basis of flawed assumptions, with potentially counterproductive or even catastrophic results. [仔细评估中国高层和安全政策圈内的思想演变显示，中国并非是完全出于军事和技术层面的目的而扩大其核武库。相反，中国领导人似乎接受了一种未经验证的理念，即认为核武器可以赋予中国更大的地缘政治影响力，以对抗其所认为的战略威胁。同时，北京认为美国的核战略不公平、美国追求的安全利益也不合理，这进一步巩固了中方使用自主措施解决战略关切的意愿。华盛顿必须了解这些潜在观念如何塑造了中国的核政策，以推动中美关系朝着更稳定的方向发展，并降低由于错误假设而造成适得其反甚至灾难性后果的风险。] ( "The Real Motives for China’s Nuclear Expansion)

Witherspoon, Wichterman, and Shankar suggest the utility lessons from the last nuclear crisis updated in time, space, and place:

Rising Sino-American tensions have prompted widespread discussion of a “New Cold War,” and analysts increasingly worry that flashpoints in the bilateral relationship could trigger conventional war that could escalate to the nuclear domain. * * * The authors draw on these Cold War case studies and as well as Chinese perspectives on CBMs to inform policy recommendations for the modern Sino-U.S. nuclear relationship. The United States and China should institute measures to enhance mutual understanding and foster epistemic communities to generate mutually acceptable shared principles and ideas about nuclear crisis prevention and management, personnel, and mechanisms. These ideas should be discussed among government officials in Track 1 dialogues prior to implementation. Furthermore, the U.S. and China should prioritize reducing risks of miscalculation and misunderstanding by revitalizing direct communications links (DCLs) and strengthening institutions that mimic the functions of the National and Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers. (Cold War Case Studies and Chinese Perspectives, p. 7).

The authors all share a fundamental view about the importance of confidence building measures to stabilize and perhaps diffuse the threat.  A lively discussion is anticipated.  Chinese language announcement and translation of the Tong essay follows (赵通：中国扩大核力量的真实关切).

Registration may be accessed here.

 

Asian Lawyers Network, The 29 Principles and Lawyers for Lawyers: "A Legal Analysis of Hong Kong’s New Safeguarding National Security Ordinance and What it Means for Lawyers"

Pix credit here

The Hong Kong National Security law has attracted a substantial amount of attention outside of HR-SAR (eg here, here), and generated the start of what is likely to be a lively judicial debate (eg here).  That attention continues to be divided on ideological lines. Those lines have a significant effect on the way in which the issue of HK_SAR position is understood as an actor in international law. The position of China is the most traditional--the HR-SAK is and remains a part of the sovereign territory of China, and that consequently its governance structure  is ultimately a matter of China's own constitutional system. China has chosen to develop a One Country Two Systems structure which, after 2020  was built on political solidarity and economic variability. In contrast traditional internationalists, including the UK and elements in the US, reject the Chinese position and instead continue to advance the position that under international law China acknowledged limits in operational sovereignty (in its most narrow version) through 2047 under the terms of the Sino-British Joint Declaration (and here).  A broader view takes the position that Hong Kong's regional political development is protected under international norms. Lastly, a more radical version, held by some, took the last position and argued that Hong Kong was entitled to at least limited self determination because its people and norms had developed autonomously of that on the Mainland and were entitled to international recognition and protection (discussed in my book, Hong Kong Between “One Country” and “Two Systems”).

The ramifications of these divergences continue to be felt. It is much in evidence in the Report of the Asian Lawyers Network (ALN), A Legal Analysis of Hong Kong’s New Safeguarding National Security Ordinance and What it Means for Lawyers. In its announcement of the circulation of that Report ALN explained:

The Asian Lawyers Network (ALN) has written a report on the threats and negative impacts that Hong Kong’s new Safeguarding National Security Ordinance poses for lawyers, which has been cosigned by two other organizations, The 29 Principles and Lawyers for Lawyers. The report lists 11 categories of threats against lawyers under the law, and it recommends that Hong Kong authorities repeal the law, as well as relevant authorities repealing other laws restricting civil and political rights in Hong Kong.

Full statement below and a pdf version here. 

Asian Lawyers Network (ALN) was founded in 2021 as a network of lawyers and activists around the world that advocates for the rights of lawyers and legal activists throughout the Asia region that are subject to arbitrary detention, sanction, and harassment for their legal advocacy, as well as for strengthening standards of protection for lawyers and for civil and political rights generally. (here).

 

信鬼神 [Belief in Ghosts and Gods]: 官员信鬼神患的是“精神缺钙”病 [Officials who believe in ghosts and gods are suffering from "mental calcium deficiency" disease]

Pix Credit here: luopan compass

 

 

Fortune Teller, Summer Palace Long Corridor, Beijing; Pix credit here

 Early in the leadership period of Xi Jinping, the vanguard party offered guidance and leadership on the meaning and practice of atheism for Communist Party cadres. The object of that guidance was 信鬼神 [Belief in Ghosts and Gods]. The object was to distinguish spiritualism, belief in ghosts and gods (信鬼神) from believe in science (相信科学). It builds on a long process of re-imagining Chinese civilization now through the lens of Marxist-Leninist rationality (for a quite interesting readings, see, Xiaofei Kang, Enchanted Revolution: Ghosts, Shamans, and Gender Politics in Chinese Communist Propaganda, 1942-1953 (OUP, 2023). But the move was bound up in the ancient conneciton between the spirit, morality, and the administration of the State that can be traced back in one form or another  to earliest times.One gets a sense of this from Remarks delivered by  Xi Jinping early in the time of his leadership:

Strengthening ideals and beliefs and adhering to the spiritual pursuit of Communists have always been the foundation for Communists to settle down and live their lives. Belief in Marxism, socialism and communism is the political soul of Communists and the spiritual pillar for Communists to withstand any test. To put it figuratively, ideals and beliefs are the spiritual "calcium" of Communists. Without ideals and beliefs, and if ideals and beliefs are not firm, there will be a spiritual "calcium deficiency" and "rickets." In real life, some party members and cadres have problems of this kind. In the final analysis, they are confused in their beliefs and spiritually lost. (Speech delivered at the first collective study session of the Political Bureau of the 18th CPC Central Committee on November 17, 2012).
坚定理想信念，坚守共产党人精神追求，始终是共产党人安身立命的根本。对马克思主义的信仰，对社会主义和共产主义的信念，是共产党人的政治灵魂，是共产党人经受住任何考验的精神支柱。形象地说，理想信念就是共产党人精神上的“钙”，没有理想信念，理想信念不坚定，精神上就会“缺钙”，就会得“软骨病”。现实生活中，一些党员、干部出这样那样的问题，说到底是信仰迷茫、精神迷失。（2012年11月17日在十八届中央政治局第一次集体学习时的讲话）(习近平：坚定理想信念 补足精神之钙, 二 [Xi Jinping: Strengthen ideals and beliefs to replenish spiritual calcium, at ¶ 2 ]).

That fundamental position was elaborated a little in 2013 in 官员信鬼神患的是“精神缺钙”病 [Officials who believe in ghosts and gods are suffering from "mental calcium deficiency" disease], the text of which follows below.

But these sorts of pronouncements require constant examples--stories that can be used to illustrate and train. Here is one from the Mudanjiang Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision related by Liao Yongsong and Huang Shi (廖永松 黄师) in in 2023 on cadre "mental "calcium deficiency" and loss of direction" (精神“缺钙” 迷失方向). It is entitled: "Take the case as a lesson | He ended up in jail for lack of ideals and beliefs" [以案为鉴｜理想信念缺失 他终陷囹圄].

Tan Shengxian claimed to be loyal to the party, firmly believed in Marxism-Leninism, and science, but secretly he engaged in feudal superstitious activities. After serving as the main leader of Jinchengjiang District, he did not appreciate the organization's training and trust, but became more superstitious about Feng Shui, and even pinned all his hopes for fame and fortune on gods and Buddhas. In order to "seek luck", Tan Shengxian has been friends with so-called "Feng Shui masters" for a long time. Whenever he encounters difficulties or setbacks in work or life, he invites so-called "Feng Shui masters" to his home or even the office to see Feng Shui, measure good and bad luck, and perform "faithful rituals" with the intention of changing his "fate" and achieving "smooth sailing." In August 2019, after learning that the organization was investigating his violations of discipline and law, Tan Shengxian used his public holidays to visit the statues in the scenic spot, pray for "peace charms" and "amulets", and purchased Five Emperors ancient coins to carry with him, with the intention of protecting his career.  In May 2020, after learning that the relevant personnel with whom he had jointly obtained financial funds were subject to organizational review and investigation, Tan Shengxian hired a "Feng Shui master" to perform "legal services" for him at a high price in an attempt to defuse and evade the organizational review and investigation. On the day he was detained by the organization, Tan Shengxian carried an amulet of Five Emperors ancient coins with him. Even the screen saver on his mobile phone was a peace amulet. When the investigators were confiscating his mobile phone, he also asked the investigators to leave him the safety charm on the back of the phone case.

 覃生贤嘴上说对党忠诚，坚信马列主义、相信科学，而背地里却大搞封建迷信活动。在担任金城江区主要领导之后，他不感谢组织的培养和信任，而是更加迷信风水，甚至将名利双收的希望全部寄托在神佛身上。 为了“求运势”，覃生贤长期与所谓的“风水大师”结交。每当工作、生活中遇到困难或挫折，他就邀请所谓的“风水大师”到家里，甚至是到办公室看风水、测吉凶、做“法事”，意图更改“命数”，获得“一帆风顺”。 2019年8月，覃生贤在得知组织对其违纪违法问题进行核查后，利用公休时间参拜景区神像，祈求“平安符”“护身符”，购买五帝古币随身携带，意图保佑自己仕途平安。 2020年5月，覃生贤在得知与其共同套取财政资金的相关人员被组织审查调查后，又高价找来一名“风水大师”为其做“法事”，企图化解、逃避组织审查调查。 被组织采取留置措施当天，覃生贤就随身携带着五帝古币的护身符，就连手机屏保也是平安符。当办案人员在对其手机进行收缴时，他还请求办案人员将手机壳背后的平安符留给他。(以案为鉴｜理想信念缺失 他终陷囹圄)

The consequence was corruption: 

Mentally "calcium deficient" and with incorrect outlook on life, especially a severely distorted outlook on power, Tan Shengxian completely lost his direction in life. During his tenure as the main leader of Jinchengjiang District, he would not refuse red envelopes from his subordinates during holidays, weddings, and weddings. Not only that, he also used his power to intervene and intervene in many engineering projects in the fields of development and reform, finance, transportation, education, water conservancy, urban investment and other fields, greeting and providing help to project bosses in project contracting. 精神上“缺钙”，三观不正，特别是权力观严重扭曲，让覃生贤彻底迷失了人生方向。在担任金城江区主要领导期间，逢年过节、红白喜事，面对下属的红包，他来者不拒。不仅如此，他更是利用手中的权力干预和插手发改、财政、交通、教育、水利、城投等领域多个工程项目，为工程老板在项目承揽方面打招呼、提供帮助。(Ibid.)

And the penalty: expulsion from the Party, a large fine and a long prison sentence.  "In February 2022, Tan Shengxian was expelled from the party and public office for serious violations of discipline and law; in August 2022, he was sentenced to 12 years and six months in prison for bribery and corruption, and was fined 1 million yuan." 2022年2月，覃生贤因严重违纪违法被开除党籍和公职；2022年8月，因犯受贿罪、贪污罪被判处有期徒刑十二年六个月，并处罚金100万元。(Ibid.).

The problem is not necessarily belief in ghosts and gods, but rather such a belief is symptomatic of ideological deterioration. That deterioration, in turn, is understood, as the pathway to corruption of all sorts. This line was made clearer in 今日锐评 | 迷信背后是信仰迷失 [Today's critical commentary | Behind superstition is the loss of faith (8 August 2022)]. "If a person has no faith, his spirit will easily collapse and collapse; if a party member and cadre does not have strong communist ideals and Marxist-Leninist beliefs, his soul will become empty, and decadent things will take advantage of it." (一个人没有信仰，精神就容易坍塌、崩溃；一个党员干部，共产主义理想、马列主义信念不强，心灵就会变得空虚，腐朽没落的东西就会乘虚而入。) (Ibid.).

There are limits, though these come with some ambiguity. In 党纪学习教育·每日一课丨关于党员信仰宗教、搞迷信活动的处分规定 (30 April 2024) (“Party Discipline Study and Education: Daily Lesson丨Regulations on Penalties for Party Members to Believe in Religion and Engage in Superstitious Activities”) the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the State Supervision Commission  explained:

In the process of practice, there are two points that need to be grasped: First, the identification of party members’ religious beliefs does not require party members to participate in religious initiation ceremonies or obtain religious certificates such as lay certificates and conversion certificates for lay followers of Buddhism and Taoism. The premise is that the party member has participated in religious activities in a legal religious venue, but the criterion should be that the party member abandons his communist beliefs and believes in a certain religion. The second is to distinguish organizing or participating in superstitious activities from organizing and participating in general folk customs and customary activities, as well as normal participation in tourist activities. Some folk customs and customary activities with historical, cultural traditions and national and regional characteristics cannot be regarded as superstitious activities. Party members and cadres occasionally visit some temples, Taoist temples, churches and other legal religious venues to visit or participate in activities and ceremonies. The purpose is only for sightseeing or work, and should not be regarded as participating in superstitious activities. 实践过程中，有两点需要把握：一是认定党员信仰宗教问题的，既不以党员参加入教仪式或取得佛道教在家信徒的居士证、皈依证等宗教类证件为前提，也不以在合法宗教活动场所参加过宗教活动为前提，而是应当以该党员背弃共产主义信仰，信仰某一宗教为判定标准。二是把组织或参加迷信活动与组织、参加一般的民俗、习俗活动，以及正常参加游览活动区分开来。不能把一些有着历史文化传统和民族、区域特色的民俗、习俗活动当成迷信活动。党员干部偶尔到一些寺庙、道观、教堂等合法宗教活动场所参观游览或参加活动仪式等，其目的仅仅是为了游览或工作，也不应认定为参加迷信活动。

Context matters, as does place, space and time. And the ideal against which much is measured is corruption. Corruption, interestingly enough, is now measured, at least conceptually, against the expectations of decisions undertaken n the spirit of the Mass Line. "To further inquire, for a leading cadre who "does not ask the people but ghosts and gods", how much can he listen to the demands and sufferings of the people? How scientifically can the various principles and policies of the party and the country be implemented?" (进一步追问，对于一个“不问苍生问鬼神”的领导干部，百姓的诉求、群众的疾苦能听多少？党和国家的各项方针政策能科学地落实多少？) (今日锐评 | 迷信背后是信仰迷失).