Accommodating China

It is astonishing how opinions of China in the West have changed over the last ten years. Hostility has steadily climbed, and now there seems little hope of a change of trajectory. This feels like a tragic mistake to me, one that will harm all of humanity, especially the western nations pursuing the policy.

 

The Chinese people have endured much hardship. European colonialism left its mark and the nation was slow to develop in the modern era. Hostility with Japan was followed by a civil war and then an inward looking regime. Mao did untold damage during the Cultural Revolution, pitting citizen against citizen, murdering many and impoverishing everybody else.

 

Only after Mao’s death were Deng and his successors able to drag the country forwards, and what has been achieved has been truly remarkable. As many as half a billion people, the population of any other continent except Africa, have been raised up from subsistence into a life with substantial modern comforts. Using the GDP type measures preferred by the West’s financiers, China has contributed more than half of global growth during the past thirty years or so. The Chinese are doing something right.

 

Since 1947 China has been following a path labelled communism, but, as far as I can tell, Marx would recognise almost nothing from his manifesto. It is more helpful to consider China in terms of its people, its governance, the apparent goals of its leaders, and the impacts on the populace and the rest of humanity. Some of these are negative, but many seem to be positive.

 

During my lifetime the Western press and politicians have peddled a series of simplistic narratives about China. First they were folksy and backward. I experienced my youth in blissful ignorance of Mao’s atrocities, mainly because communications were so much more limited at the time, and perhaps because propaganda wanted to avoid discussion of atrocities being carried out in our names nearby in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

 

Once China escaped Mao, the narrative moved on, starting with disdain. Just like with Japan, we mocked early attempts to emulate western methods, and were then embarrassed by the ability to learn and even overtake our own standards. A sort of patronising admiration followed, including some do-gooding and some greed, as western companies spied the growing market and decided to take a share of the action. Then the Chinese learned to copy the elements of our methods we were less proud of, such as bullying and stealing and fixing the rules, and we started to cry foul, while still greedily grabbing what we could.

 

Then came Trump and the pointless fight back, lacking any goals or strategy beyond creating sound bites. China’s response has been to become as USA-proof as possible, and who can blame it? Biden’s team are more logical but possibly even more combative, and recent meetings have descended into acrimony. And how can China be sure that Trump, or worse, will not return?

 

It reminds me of the mistakes we all make as parents. Once our children are no longer cute and accepting, but instead demanding and rebellious, our reaction can lack maturity. When our offspring start to mimic our own flaws and to outperform us in other areas, it is hard for us to accept the required change in terms of our relationships. In some cases, we can resort to bullying and restrictions, generally making the situation worse for all sides.

 

Currently, it is hard to read any opinion about China that does not parrot the official negative propaganda. We hear about Hong Kong, Taiwan and Xinjiang without any attempt at seeing the Han Chinese perspective. How is the Chinese approach in Xinjiang more reprehensible to the American approach in Afghanistan, or for that matter towards its own indigenous population? The military build up is exaggerated and not seen as a logical response to US militarism, and explained as against an international law that our own side applies selectively. Economically, China’s inward moves are condemned, despite each step being a natural response to a provocation.

 

It is very sad for humanity. We should remember that the Chinese miracle did more than raise living standards for Chinese people. We all have China to thank for our abundance of cheap gadgets, and, more important, the rest of the developing world was being pulled up by Chinese bootstraps. Now this is all stopping and a new cold war is unfolding. Let us be clear: this is not China’s fault.

 

The silliest thing about the US policy is that it is bound to fail. The western economies are far more dependent on China than the Chinese one is on the west, even before the active Chinese decoupling taking place now. China must work out that military action by the west will surely not be a practical option, and at some point they will integrate Taiwan, thereby also securing dominance in one more critical sector, that of semiconductors. Demographics and education are strongly on China’s side.  Arguably, so is their political model, being more able to mobilise and push through aggressive measures: just look at Covid for evidence of that.

 

This tragedy is wholly unnecessary. I believe that China would be willing to accept a rebalancing of the world order that could lead to growing prosperity for a new generation. It is true that the small cabal of leaders at the heart of the Chinese communist party think first of their own power, but they are strategic and smart, and probably see that their best chance of holding on to power lies in continued development.

 

Viewed from China, external threats are everywhere. Their own shipping lanes are dominated by the US military, and hostile nuclear weapons lie nearby in Japan, Korea and Guam. The US holds the world economy hostage via the dominance of the dollar and overuse of sanctions. Cyber spies are ubiquitous. Increasingly, Chinese students and companies are no longer welcome in the west.

 

The new world order would need to rekindle the spirit of 1947. In terms of governance, a refigured and less skewed UN security council could find respect and be bolstered by international law that even the powerful accepted. Nuclear weaponry and other military spending could be curtailed by a rule that 50% of all new spending must be multilateral.

 

In economics, a true world bank could set monetary policy from a currency that no nation had excessive influence over, and a global Tobin tax could fund items of global importance, most notably climate change, but also cyber security, bioscience and poverty reduction.

 

The toughest nut to crack would be the social side. Neither China nor the US would find it easy to agree to any human rights charter that Eleanor Roosevelt might applaud, and especially not any enforcement mechanism. I would love a world moving towards global free movement, with transitional obligations on migrants towards their new and former domiciles. But I have to concede that we are long way from that utopia.

 

Apart from the social side, I believe China would support a fair new world order, and indeed would be happy to take a leading role in forming it. The EU offers a wonderful template and many effective diplomats. Sadly, the stumbling block is the USA. Biden has to keep at least one eye focused on 2024 and a possible Trump return. But even so, I find it very sad that I find no discussion at all of any alternative to the current unintelligent, imaginative and ultimately doomed China policy. I believe our children will look back on this decade as a historic lost opportunity.  

Why is Violent Crime Increasing?

 I was shocked last month when finally returning to live choral rehearsals in Manhattan for the first time since the pandemic started. It was a joy to ride on half empty subways. But I was taken aback when the conductor asked if anybody wanted to finish the rehearsal early because they did not feel safe getting home.

 

Nobody spoke up, the rehearsal finished at the expected time, and I travelled home on the subway safely. It didn’t feel dangerous to me. But the comment of the conductor gave me pause for thought.

 

The first time I visited New York City was in 1982 as a tourist. I recall how shabby the city was. Walking only two or three blocks from Times Square, I took a wrong turning and immediately felt unsafe, the subject of prying eyes sizing up my potential for robbery. I understand things became worse by 1990, before Rudy Giuliani became mayor, launched zero tolerance, and started the clean up. Coming to live in the city from 2012, I have been a beneficiary. I am not especially careful about where and how I get about, yet I have not once felt unsafe here.

 

New York is not alone. I first lived in London in the early 1980’s, and my landlady in Herne Hill took out an A to Z on my first night there and pointed out various local streets and neighbourhoods that I should avoid. I suspect the need for such caution is much less now.

 

And yet the last eighteen months has seen worrying increases in violent crime in many cities in the developed world. Of course the papers and social media and even the police exaggerate the problem, quoting eye-popping percentages. Why do we overuse percentages so much? If Covid is up 300% in my district I don’t really care if the base line is low enough, yet I have to research in order to discover what that base line is.

 

Still, undoubtedly there is a problem. Gun crime, homicide and violent assault are all on the rise. Eric Adams captured the popular mood to win the mayoral primary. My conductor had been taken in by the scaremongering, but increasing violence is not good, and what if it is going to get worse? It is certainly worth trying to understand the causes.

 

To start to analyse the possible causes of the increase in violent crime requires first trying to understand why violent crime decreased so much in the long period before. Giuliani got things started in a positive direction, but violence has continued to reduce markedly ever since until the recent uptick. And Giuliani cannot take all the credit, because the same trend took root everywhere, including places where zero tolerance never became a mantra.

 

Still, smarter policing surely played a role. Perhaps more valuable than zero tolerance has been the use of technology, with lots of cameras to solve crimes and lots of data to pinpoint neighbourhoods for focused effort.

 

Demographics always play an important role in trends. In the USA, the number of people aged 15-22, the cohort responsible for most crime, decreased steadily since the millennium, but has ticked upwards recently (though it is set to decline again soon). Smaller families offer a second benefit too, because the number of kids growing up in chaotic surroundings will be fewer.

 

Improved education for the most disadvantaged kids must have played a role, as well as other public policies such as rehabilitation of the homeless and those leaving prison and support for children of poor families. The USA still lags in all of these areas, but I can believe that what efforts exist have become gradually more efficient. Other policies should not be overlooked either. It is reputed that lead in the water, formerly ubiquitous, caused young brains to be anxious and potentially more violent. Nutrition does not appear to have improved much, but faltering efforts to reduce salt and sugar, especially in school meals, may have helped as well.

 

Then there is more professional crime. My image of the hardened criminal has changed since the 1990’s, from somebody roaming the streets stealing cars and prone to violence when provoked, to somebody at a computer terminal hacking bank accounts. The latter probably does more societal harm, but is surely less violent. Probably many gangs have taken up less violent methods as well.

 

Hence the context of the recent rise in violent crime is a long trend of reduction, probably caused by a combination of causes, many of which are still in play today. So what is different that might have reversed the trend?

 

The most obvious difference is the pandemic, and the increase in violence seemed to start around about when the pandemic struck. My image here is of somebody becoming steadily more desperate and eventually succumbing to violence. The pandemic has made life seem hopeless at times, and being cooped up in an unhappy home without the social outlets of school or activities must have been tough for many.

 

An extreme example of this came to mind yesterday when I attended a funeral, and the priest told a story about an incident that reminded him of his mortality and led him to think about the really important things in life, love and kindness. We should indeed live each day as if it were our last. But what about somebody in anger or despair? Might such thinking during the pandemic have led people into reckless acts? If life is truly hopeless, how about taking out the partner you have lived in misery with for that last decade?

 

The second factor that has clearly changed since 2020 is policing. George Floyd and the ensuing protests will have made police intelligence and community work more difficult, and some police may be choosing to avoid tough situations for fear of becoming the next Derek Chauvin. In New York, we have one more factor. The start of 2020 saw a major change to the use of bail, which had previously been used to keep habitually violent people locked away in Rikers Island for long stretches, despite not having been convicted. Now more of them are on the streets, and more violence is a likely consequence, however well intentioned the reform.

 

No doubt police practice will find a more healthy balance again over time as wise voices prevail and lessons are learned. The pandemic will pass too. So can we expect the more positive trends on violence to resume soon? Perhaps, but could it also be that the pandemic has simply accelerated a trend that would be occurring anyway? If the latter view is correct, we can expect more violence in the near future, not less.

 

Pessimists might extrapolate from my story of the one whose anger bubbles up until it explodes into violence. It is not only the pandemic that makes this more likely. In the USA, Trump stirred up enormous pent up anger that shows no sign of abating. Social media and popular culture make us believe we can achieve anything, yet most of us cannot. Many may mortgage their future on some hustle, or a self-image, or reckless behaviour, only to see everything collapse. Watching baseball nowadays, most adverts between innings are for sports betting – one more temptation for the unwary. For vulnerable young men, the wonderful march of female emancipation will have made some angrier as well.

 

All these societal trends are accelerating, so perhaps we are in for a prolonged period of more violence. Of course it does not help at all in the USA that guns are so readily available, so the angry have ready means to create havoc. A different possibility is all about gangs and organised crime. Perhaps something has changed recently in that landscape. If so, I have no idea what it can be.

 

The decline in violence has surprised many experts, and there is still much debate about its causes. No doubt the same will be true of the reversal of the trend. There are certainly many possible factors to consider. We might have reached an unfortunate tipping point, or we made simply be seeing a negative blip in a positive story. Let us hope it is the latter.         

Children and Cultures

 My daughter was brought up between the ages of seven and eighteen in Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands. One day I was even more smug than usual when I read a report listing these three countries among the leading five in the world for bringing up children. I could understand why that was.

 

The key to the culture in these countries was that the child would be offered agency as early as possible, so the child would get involved in decisions earlier than in most cultures. A consequence is some degree of risk, since the child may not be fully mature to make good decisions, but the reward of earlier learning and independence was deemed to be worth it. I agree.

 

I became accustomed to seeing seven-year-old kids cycling through city streets with a heavy backpack. At first this not only reckless but also cruel, and we were always on the cautious side with our daughter. But I came to realize that few kids were injured, and all developed skills and maturity more quickly. By the age of sixteen my daughter had experimented with all the teenage vices that are frowned upon by conservative parents and are often illegal in other countries. She worked out the pros and cons for herself and had moved on already from things where danger outweighed passing thrills. Of course such lessons became more embedded for having been discovered rather than enforced. But I have to confess to a few sleepless nights along the way.

 

Recalling this and linking it with some observations about different societies has led me to a new four box model. We can call the dimensions tools and scope. The tools dimension considers how much children, or whole societies, are encouraged to develop a toolkit for life. Education is the most obvious component of this dimension, but it needs to be defined widely and supplemented by other elements. The toolkit grows if formal education encourages questions, and if parents and other caregivers have the chance (and take it) to teach wider life skills.

 

There are other, more complex influences. Does society make learning simpler or more complicated? How much misinformation is out there? How much genuine debate? I found Sweden and the Netherlands excellent in all of these respects.

 

The second dimension of the model is scope. In a child, how much are they encouraged to explore and to find their own way? The seven-year-old cyclist is the poster child for high scope. A high scope society offers many paths without too much cultural or parental or governmental baggage in the way.

 

Progress can be seen as navigating a path whereby both tools and scope are expanded in parallel. Not even the Dutch think that newborns should be cycling, or that five-year-olds should choose careers. Parents should initially choose, before gradually stepping back to roles as a safety net and then a coach. The issue is whether tools or scope have the higher emphasis and how fast the overall development is allowed to move.

 

There are risks when tools and scope become out of balance. A child with many tools but no scope may become frustrated, rebelling against perceived limitations. A child with lots of scope and few tools will make many costly mistakes by taking on challenges he or she is not equipped for.

 

It may be a bit of a stretch, but we can extend the model from children to whole societies. We can also define the boxes by low tool and low scope, high tool and low scope, high tool and high scope, and low tool and high scope.

 

An example of a low tool, low scope society would be Saudi Arabia. Religious doctrine confines education and the family and the mosque have a big input towards acceptable choices for everybody. High tool and low scope could be China or Japan. Education and knowledge is prized, but culture sets limits for exploration. High tool and high scope would be the Netherlands. High low tool and high scope could be the USA or Brazil. Here education is mixed, knowledge sources are chaotic, but ambition is unlimited.

 

I could characterize the boxes by C words. Low-low is controlled or closed. High-low is conjoined or conflict focused (like an army). High-high is collective, but can be coddled or complacent. Low-high is competitive (between individuals), and chaotic.

 

There are no guarantees. Children or societies and all the boxes can fail spectacularly. The four boxes can respectively create the jihadist, the fascist, the mad scientist and the angry lone killer.

 

Most of us would agree that navigating carefully to develop both skills and scope is of benefit, to both kids and societies, so long as disasters can be averted. It might also be the case that deviating too far in one direction is especially dangerous. High-Low demands compliance and may cause a desire for rebellion to grow, such as the Arab spring. Low-High can become very unequal and exploitative and tough for the weak.

 

For most of my life, I have been indoctrinated to believe that low-high is better than high-low. Low-high allows democracy, and innovation, and individual liberty, while High-low can lead to Hitler. But the respective states of China and the USA at the moment cause me to challenge my assumption. High-Low is clear, efficient and focused, so long as there is no capture by a tyrant or loss of credibility.

 

Look at Covid. The societies that have performed the best are generally High-Low. China, Korea, Taiwan and even Germany have managed to gain support from an informed and educated public for policies to contain the spread. It does not surprise me that Sweden (and the Netherlands to an extent) was an outlier, delaying lockdowns and relying on intelligent public response. The closed societies have performed well, partly because people move about less. And the Low-Highs have seen the worst outcomes. Misinformation, distrust in institutions, inequality and a perceived value in personal liberty have all hampered efforts to suppress Covid. Perhaps Covid is merely a symptom of a general malaise in these places: is the Low-High model unsustainable?

 

Whether we lean towards High-Low and Low-High is determined by cultural factors and the starting point. A classic example is the fall of the Iron Curtain, where High-Low societies were encouraged to become High-High or even Low-High overnight. The change was initially highly counter-productive. Perhaps the same could be said of the Arab spring. Societies should move cautiously in this particular four-box-model. The same could apply to families: rapid attitudinal change by parents, perhaps following a divorce, can be too difficult to absorb by a growing child.

 

This model is far from clean, but I am finding it interesting to think through. Anything that can seem to draw links between Covid response, parenting and the advantages of US or Chinese models is of interest to me. I will enjoy developing this idea.  

Just Deserts

 We have just returned from two and a half lovely weeks in Dubai. It was far too hot to be outdoors very often, but that did not matter, since our goal was to spend time with our beautiful first grandchild, who grew from four weeks to six weeks old during our visit.

 

So the title of this blog could have referred to the land that Dubai is built on – just deserts. At a pinch, it could also be referring to some of the all-you-can-eat brunch meals favoured by privileged Dubai expats, even if those rarely consist of just desserts. But instead it is about what we deserve, and how the idea is so dangerous to us.

 

This thought came about before the trip, but the lifestyle in Dubai only strengthened my idea. It is possible to look down on how people live there, owing to its lack of history and rather thin culture, but overall the top strata of society do very well. Unless you are local, you have to accept that you can be deported at a moment’s notice and your access to justice can be rather limited, but the other side of that equation is a modern place where everything works well, leisure is abundant and ambitious people can easily find a satisfying social life. Part of me still finds it sad that, offered the chance to build a project from scratch to represent an ideal human existence, the result seems to comprise endless shopping malls. But hey, those malls are impressive as malls go.

 

I know from my own expatriate experiences that one risk with such a lifestyle is that we can come to think we deserve it. In a limited sense, perhaps some of them do. It is always a brave move to leave the comforts of home, even if the salary and tax structure are appealing and those malls entice. Many people have the opportunity but lack the bravery, so those that do have earned some of their rewards.

 

But even looking around Dubai it should be clear that those deserts are rather questionable and can be transient too. Society there functions by dividing its residents into strata. The locals and wealthy Arabs sit atop the structure: anybody born in Dubai is given substantial land and money on their eighteenth birthday. Then come the white corporate expats, followed by the Arab and Chinese merchants. Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Africans and Filipinos, who build the new structures, drive the taxis and work in retail and as domestic helpers, underpin society. For each of these groups, the life they can enjoy in Dubai is better than that available at home, but still far from the comfort of the privileged strata. Then there are the billions of people who have no chance at all of making it to Dubai or anywhere like it, simply because of the circumstances of their birth.

 

Enjoying dessert at the end of brunch, overlooking the marina yachts and anticipating a return to a cleaned apartment and fed children, it is easy to forget humility. I am delighted to note that the people I met this trip, including my own family members, have not generally fallen into the trap.

 

Feeling deserts is simply setting ourselves up to fail and be miserable. It is especially true in a place like Dubai, where privileges can be fleeting and a return to normality in a home country can be tough, after opulent habits have become entrenched. But it is true in any situation. I love the expression that an expectation is a preordained disappointment. A feeling of deserving something is much the same thing. It is far better to be grateful for what we have and for life to be a series of happy surprises.

 

On the two long flights, I deliberately chose entertainment to help me remember that none of us deserve very much. Avoiding traditional Hollywood fare, I found Illegals and also Minari, both excellent films about immigrants to the USA. And I read The Language of Kindness – a Nurse’s Story. Our granddaughter might be lucky in life and might not, and that book reminded me that most such things depend on chance and that Kiara has already been lucky, born with fully functioning organs.

 

Like other female professions, nurses do wonderful work for poor rewards. Getting to know such people can help to ground us and avoid thoughts of what we might deserve. In a similar way, so can volunteering. One thing I learned very quickly where we volunteer was not to expect any gratitude. That may not always feel fair, but it is healthy to recognise it.

 

Many individualistic societies slip into unhealthy territory when it comes to deserts and expectations. Hollywood does not help, and nor does most advertising. Every time some voiceover tells me I deserve a fancy car or vanity health treatment I feel like shouting at the TV. Admittedly addictive, Love Island has the same effect on me. How can those young people be so unaware of their greed and the context of their existence?

 

Many of us are lucky to have lived in an era without wars or hardships and where many luxuries have become normal. Covid gave us a jolt, and also showed how pampered we have become. When complaining about having to wear a mask and being deprived of some restaurants, it would pay us to remember disabled people or those without running water or electricity.

 

As so often, religion is a double-edged sword when it comes to our attitudes. Religion can steer us towards kindness, gratitude and charity. But sometimes we can misinterpret or be misled so we expect rewards, even in this life. Even worse, religion can make us believe that our own tribe is somehow more deserving than the rest of humanity. That way of thinking never leads anywhere positive.

 

Politics can go the same way. Phrases such as “Hard working Americans” are code towards unrealistic expectations and protecting unjust privilege, while perpetually disadvantaged groups can too easily fall into victimhood. The Trump clan are led into all the rabbit holes at once. Often already in a tribal mindset from their religious interpretations, they can easily fall prey to feeling superior, unjustly treated and under threat all at the same time. If the belief becomes strong enough, then leaders can discard all logic and still retain support. In this way of thinking, even if the methods might be questionable, the cause feels right and the ends justify the means.

 

The last weeks have helped to remind me that I deserve very little and owe huge gratitude for what I have, mostly by lucky chance. I guess I was a little brave when I was younger. I suppose I can have a small expectation that having put money into a pension scheme I might get some back in old age. I suppose that, having invested some effort and a modicum of kindness into parenthood, my children might offer some kindness in return. I suppose I can even rely a little bit on some justice and human rights.

 

But there are no guarantees. I can hope with all my heart that my granddaughter has a fruitful life. I will try to help where I can to make such an outcome more likely. But I can’t expect it. And perhaps, innocent though she is, I can’t even say she deserves it. May God save me from my expectations.         

New York City's Next Mayor

 By the time we leave New York, probably in 2023, we will have been here ten or eleven years. For the first eighteen months, Michael Bloomberg was mayor. Since then it has been Bill de Blasio. Next week the primaries take place to start the process of choosing our third NYC mayor.

 

Mayor of the city is quite an influential job, although power in many areas is circumscribed by the state and federal authorities. New Yorkers are obsessed by transport, reasonably enough, and love to blame the mayor for its failings, but in truth that is an area where the state has the power. But there are other fields, notably schooling and housing, where the mayor is an important voice. Further, the mayor controls many agencies and a large budget.

 

Bloomberg is an interesting character, unappealing in many ways, but he certainly left his mark as mayor. His overriding principle was to make decisions based on data, and that helped him to challenge shibboleths. The establishment did not like him but he got some good things done, including stabilising finances and enabling useful growth. Our expanding skyline, for good and ill, is a Bloomberg legacy.

 

De Blasio has been a more traditional mayor, and, like most politicians, is coming to the end of his term amid public derision, so much so that all but one candidate to take his job has said they would rather not have his endorsement. I think that judgment is harsh: he has been flawed but can also point to some signature achievements.

 

On the plus side, De Blasio successfully implemented the signature policy that got him elected, the admirable programme offering universal pre-schooling. Pre-school is a proven long-term driver for reducing poverty, crime and inequality, and NYC will enjoy the benefits of De Blasio’s effort for generations.

 

The other policy that de Blasio might be remembered for is bail reform. A laudable advocate for improved criminal justice, De Blasio set in place a process that will eventually close the squalid Riker’s Island prison. He also stopped the practice of using slow courts and bail as a way to keep many youths almost permanently on remand there, despite many not being convicted of crimes. It is a good policy, but one that clearly has a downside. Many of these youths are troubled and are habitual criminals, and now they are back on the street. This must be factor in the increase of murders and gun crime since 2020. Many New Yorkers remember when the city was unliveable and fear a return of that.

 

De Blasio’s long-term solutions for this problem are the right ones, but he has not managed to execute well during his tenure. He placed his wife in charge of an expensive mental health and rehabilitation program, which has so far not yielded results. And he has not had success in reducing homelessness either.

 

I give De Blasio a similarly mixed performance grade in other areas. Vision Zero for road safety is well chosen but could have been bolder, as were his initiatives to promote cycling and for open streets. During the pandemic he spoke well and showed heart. He avoided the rabbit hole of Trump bashing, but did not manage the same feat with Cuomo – perhaps the governor deserves the most blame for this, but De Blasio has also been naïve and petty. De Blasio was blamed for flip- flopping on school reopening, but on that I thought he was brave to push for a laudable priority, and it was a no-win to take on a public game of bluff with the teachers union.

 

De Blasio has also bloated the budget and has not succeeded in taking on vested interests. Efficiency and follow through do not seem to be important enough to him. He made a start with the NYPD but backed off, and other public sector workers are as entrenched as ever.

 

Although I will be glad when all the dull political ads stop on TV after next week, I have enjoyed the Democratic primary. The coverage on New York 1 has been excellent throughout – chapeau to Errol Lewis and his team.

 

There are some unfortunate quirks to the process. The main problem is that the election itself is in November and will feature a Republican, probably the odious vigilante leader Curtis Sliwa. We should not discount the chance that he might win, should crime get worse before November and if the Democrat is somehow tainted. Surely the Californian system of blended primaries leading to a run off between the two best candidates overall is an improvement.

 

A consequent problem is that the electorate is pitifully small for such an influential post. Many will vote in November, but in the June primaries only registered party members can vote, and the number of Democrats who will may be as few as 100,000.

 

Lastly we have the introduction of ranked choice voting. Another laudable initiative, this might have unintended consequences. It might be the reason that we still have such a large and confusing pool of candidates. It also might lead to a result where the driving factor is people trying to block one candidate.

 

The Democratic candidates are an interesting mix. The good news is that all seem informed and many seemed qualified to be mayor: partly thanks to New York 1, there has been meaningful exposure and debate. The race has ebbed and flowed as more people have tuned in to the candidates.

 

Eric Adams seems to be the favourite. A black career politician, he seems to have done a reasonable job as Brooklyn borough president, and even more circumscribed position. He comes across as austere, perhaps having had to sell himself for so long as an acceptable African-American. He has skilfully exploited the current fear of crime in the city, posing as a former NYPD officer who understands how to control crime. He lost my support though on the day he told Pat Kiernan on New York 1 that he thought De Blasio had done a good job in managing placard abuse by the NYPD. That laughable claim told me that he was in the pocket of the disgusting Pat Lynch. Police advocates have done a good job at reframing the debate since the left’s unwise slogan of Defund the Police. In reality, the police must be reformed. Adams would not do this.

 

Andrew Yang started in the lead, but has run a disappointing campaign. It is not enough to smile a lot and run ads enjoying roller coaster rides. Maya Wiley is an accomplished media performer, a true progressive and seemingly intelligent, but was too slow gathering endorsements from AOC and others (were they initially behind Stringer?), and has missed the mood on crime.

 

A dark horse is Kathryn Garcia, on stage a rather dull manager but someone who everyone seems to admire. Both Adams and Yang declared her their second choice, which may have been a tactical ploy to appear collegiate without feeding a genuine rival. But Garcia has patiently risen through the pack and ranked choice will certainly benefit her, as will her New York Times endorsement.

 

Scott Stringer was a very credible candidate, and has the best ads too, but lost the race the day a former staffer accused him of inappropriate sexual advances years ago. Sean Donovan is no doubt competent but is also dull, while Ray McGuire may also be competent but has not managed to differentiate himself. Diane Morales has differentiated herself strikingly, but in a bad way, revealing the sadly all-to-common managerial incompetence of the left.

 

I am not an eligible voter, but if I were I might go for Garcia and then Wiley and Yang, in an attempt to block Adams and his cosy NYPD relationship. Adams will probably win, but a surprise is possible with such a small electorate. In the same way, any of them will probably beat Sliwa, and we must pray that turns out to be the case, or we will have a Trump-like experience on our hands.     

Smarter Covid Reviews

 Last week Joe Biden announced that he had asked his secret service to explore the possibility that Covid originated in the Wuhan lab in China. It seems to me that this is a rather pointless exercise, and there are at least five alternative studies that Biden could sponsor that might have more value.

 

The study is one more example of how the world is in the process of fracturing into two competing blocks, manifested as a second cold war. The driver for Biden to become sucked in is mainly political. The Republicans have few credible policy arguments, and they can only win with jingoism. So Fox News carries continuous coverage of the Mexican border and also drums up fear of China, reminding us how “tough on China” Donald Trump was. The tangible benefits of this toughness are hard to discern and the global consequences are dire, but Biden feels he has to dampen the political threat. Publicly implying that China is so incompetent as to release a deadly virus into the world and so devious as to cover it up serves his purpose well.

 

Why is the study pointless? It is political theatre. It is also unlikely to decide the issue at hand, so long after the fact and with few useful trails of evidence. But the many reason for its pointlessness is that essentially it does not matter. It is possible that Covid originated in the Wuhan lab. It is also possible that it transferred from animals, likely involving the Wuhan wet market. Both possible origins offer lessons to minimise the risk of future pandemics, and no doubt China is busy quietly applying those lessons and other countries can too. But whichever cause was to blame, Covid is here and knowing the origin won’t make dealing with it any easier. It would make sense to assume that both causes could have been to blame rather than wasting time, money and diplomatic capital trying to establish which. But that would not be such good domestic politics.

 

So what about the five alternative studies? I would start with a critical review of the US health institutions during the period between December 2019 and February 2020. One quote that has remained with me from my reading during the pandemic was from an epidemiologist who claimed that almost all viruses are circulating for many weeks or months before symptoms appear en masse. This makes sense to me and was obviously the case with Covid, since the virus managed to travel from Wuhan to Italy and New York somehow and then quietly disperse among unsuspecting populations.

 

During this period the US seems to have been asleep at the wheel. To be fair, it was not just the US, but US is the place with the largest budgets and the claims of pre-eminence. Surely some of this resource should have been trying to understand Covid, putting early measures in place while preparing a menu of tougher measures, and briefing politicians. It is too easy to blame Trump. If he wouldn’t listen, others could have been briefed instead. It was usually possible to work around Trump on important issues. It is too easy to blame the WHO as well, or the Chinese.

 

Michael Lewis, he of Moneyball and The Big Short fame, studies the root causes of this inaction in his latest book. I intend to read this book soon, but the reviews and preview material are already clear. The CDC is one of many US agencies that has become bloated and politicised. The leader is a political appointee, so liable to be short-term, under-qualified and in hoc to those with impure motives. The permanent staff become thinned out, disillusioned and risk averse. Bad news does not receive the airtime it needs. Meanwhile by all sorts of role overlaps with other institutions magnify confusion and inactivity. There is the NIH, the Health and Human Services agency, the WHO and many state bodies. It is no wonder that policy in practice is set by political imperatives and the lobbyists for Big Pharma.

 

Such bureaucratic muddle tends to spread over time. Whoever coined the phrase “never waste a good crisis” knew this well. Biden has a rare chance to improve some key institutions. Will he take it? No, of course not, he will bash China instead.

 

A second useful study would review how the guidance changed in light of new information about how the virus spread. Here it has become clear that an early mistake took far too long to correct, indeed parts of the US establishment still stubbornly defend out-dated findings.

 

A limited early study concluded that the primary means of spread was either close contact or from surfaces. Remember how we all feared touching doorknobs early in the pandemic? Slowly we started reading that an alternative means of spread was via aerosols lingering in the air, but the formal advice did not seem to react quickly enough to this new information.

 

A key data point was the early super spreader event involving a choir in Washington State, where one person managed to infect as many as fifty others with fatal consequences for some. As a choir singer, friends of mine made me aware of this event, and it has spooked us all ever since, leading us to be very cautious about singing, for good reasons. It never made sense that this event could have involved spreading via surfaces or very close contact, and surely it was a strong pointer towards aerosols, which linger longer and further after the strenuous exhaling involved in singing. But much guidance continued to emphasise surfaces over airborne spread, to the extent that many officials doubted the efficacy of masks for too long, giving ammunition to the deniers and conspiracy theorists. How experts incorporated new data in a timely fashion, domestically and internationally, would surely make a valuable study.

 

A third study might try to learn from a positive bi-product of Covid. The rapid development of vaccines is a triumph for science, one where the US should share credit and one that even casts Trump in a very good light. One interesting consequence has been that suddenly vaccine development has accelerated in other fields, such as finding an effective vaccine against malaria or dengue fever.

 

My study question is how it took the Covid crisis to spur innovation in areas that cried out for solutions for decades. What were the mechanisms in place? Where were the incentives? And what changes could be made that could accelerate innovation without the kick-starter of Covid? Humanity could have benefited generations ago from a malaria vaccine, and science could probably have developed one if the right incentives had been in place. If malaria were prevalent in the rich world, I suspect it would have been supressed a long time ago, in the same way that if it were men who suffered menopause, mitigating treatments would be a lot better by now. This are is ripe for international study. I am sure Bill Gates would have some useful ideas.

 

My fourth study is about efficient state disbursement of benefits. Another wonderful side effect of Covid has been to open up the political possibility of direct payments to those who need them. The Biden child support initiative might become his most enduring legacy.

 

But, admittedly acting in haste, Congress probably wasted a lot of money too and misfired with other money. There are stories about small business grants being swallowed by large businesses and those with strong relationships with banks (and therefore good sources of alternative support). No doubt many schemes are open to fraud, or simply too slow to be useful. It is great to offer a total of $3200 in cash, but the eligible member of my family has not seen a cent of his yet. If, as we can hope, that direct transfers will play a bigger role in public policy going forward, then it is important to learn practical lessons from early attempts.

 

There are many candidates for my fifth review. Perhaps somebody could work out how to help Americans understand the concept of probability (rather worrying given how many seem to enjoy gambling). It would be good to avoid debate about whether six feet is a better safe distance than five, or why somebody had a vaccine and still caught the virus. A specific review about how to keep schools open during pandemics would be useful, given what a low priority most states seemed to place on that. Something about state versus federal roles might help too.

 

I expect Biden will call for none of these potentially useful reviews. To be fair, the Republicans would probably try to spike most of them, like they spiked the insurrection review. But I do wish he would not drag himself down to their level with petty, pointless barbs at China. 

Non Solutionism

 This weeks Economist coined a new term – Non Solutionism. More bravely, it did so in the context of promoting a new policy in the Israel-Palestine conflict. For the Economist,the dream of a two state solution is now so unrealistic that it prefers focusing on improving the lot of Palestinians on a more immediate basis.

 

Non Solutionism is defined by The Economist more or less by looking at the behaviour of the protagonists in the conflict, most notably Israel under Netanyahu. The parties agree to a rather vague long-term end point to the conflict, that of two states living side by side. Many details are unclear, and a stepwise process nominally seeks to negotiate each of these details so that the end point can eventually be reached. Meanwhile facts are being created on the ground that do not exclude the professed desired end point but make it more difficult to achieve and more likely to skew the details of any negotiated settlement in favour of one side. There is no incentive to accelerate progress towards an end point while these facts are moving the goalposts.

 

Netanyahu’s actions fit this description neatly. Most of the time he professes lukewarm support for a two state solution. He claims a willingness to negotiate but states, reasonably, that there currently is no “partner for peace” on the other side. He gives the impression of moving the process forward when possible, for example with the hopelessly one-sided proposals drawn up with Jared Kushner with no Palestinian input at all. This is generally enough to maintain support from key international allies.

 

Meanwhile the ground is constantly shifting in Israel’s favour. Palestinian rights are eroded step by step, perhaps most notably when Netanyahu declared Israel as a Jewish state despite 20% of its population being Arabs. Settlements spread, taking more and more of the best land and leaving the rump of the potential second state less and less viable. Varying between those living in Israel, the West bank or Gaza, Palestinians have limited rights and very limited economic prospects, all justified by credible imperatives of security. If this is not apartheid, I don’t know what is.

 

The Palestinians and their Arab brothers do not help their own cause. Indeed, The Economist reasonably argues that there is Non Solutionism going on there too. Old man Abbas sits in Ramallah with no legitimacy but an incentive to maintain a status quo with possibly corrupt income for cronies. Hamas has no credible plan either beyond exploiting the exploitation to build support. Egypt is happy to continue to take dollops of much needed US aid in returning for keeping a lid on things.

 

So The Economist says that enough is enough. We hide behind the fig leaf of a moribund peace process, meanwhile tolerating human atrocity and despair. Its recommendation is to call out the peace process for the sham that it is, abandon any thought of a two state outcome for the time being, and instead focus on immediate improvements. That implies demanding that Israel follows international law and principles of human equity in all of the territory it currently controls. Any progress forced upon Israel should also improve the leadership of both sides, and help to give pause to the zealots and voice to those demanding fairness in the US and elsewhere.

 

I am not an expert in the conflict, but I like the courage and the logic of The Economist. My only qualm is that the change of policy in some way seems to reward Israel for its actions in creating favourable conditions until now. But I accept that sort of thinking only perpetuates the status quo, and the opportunity for Israel to create even more favourable conditions.

 

When I thought it through, Non Solutionism is present in many situations; indeed most of us practise it again and again. As a parent, our adolescent child rebels and demands more than we are willing to offer and more than their maturity warrants. What do we do? We procrastinate. We make vague promises for the future. We lock them in to our system while we have most of the power. We are experts in Non Solutionism.

 

Even more simply, how do we behave when we have an impulsive boss throwing tasks around? We say yes, but delay, expecting that the task will be radically changed or even superseded if we wait. If pressed, we might ask questions of clarificationor seek to wrap the task into a more complex context. This is also Non Solutionism.

 

Many businesses follow similar logic. The most notable examples are banks. Banks like it best when their clients teeter along the edge of failure, because that maximises their income. At least in the US, a bank is reluctant to offer a credit card to somebody who pays all their bills on time: that client is gaining free credit at the bank’s expense. They much prefer someone who lets the balance hover near its limit, incurring more and more interest charges. By the time they pull the plug, the client has paid interest much higher than any final bad debt. During this process, of limited demands and apparent tolerance, the bank is using Non Solutionism. It is exactly the same with overdrafts and loans to businesses.

 

Other examples abound. Putin is an expert. Look at how he uses patience and cynicism in his treatment of Lukashenko, and previously in Ukraine. Moldova, bordering the EU, has been a divided country with a frozen conflict for thirty years. In some ways it defies logic: consider the incentives of the protagonists and the use of Non Solutionism as a strategy and it is all too understandable.

 

In the US, Mitch McConnell is a prime exponent of Non Solutionism. His guiding principle is for congress to pass as few laws as possible, since he thinks big government is bad and his pet interests are well served by legal neglect. He has a great ally in partisanship and the filibuster rules. He outmanoeuvred Obama, essentially timing him out after Obamacare and the rescue act after the financial crisis. Biden witnessed this and his determined not to fall into the same trap: expect a lot more use of reconciliation in the next eighteen months.

 

Benign neglect is not always a silly strategy, as we parents can attest. It works when the alternative is impulsiveness, or pandering to a fad, or risking uninvited consequences. But Non Solutionism as a default strategy can also be disastrous. If equilibrium is unstable then the strategy can hamstring action: consider climate change. It can also be judged based on its human effects, such as the never-ending suffering of Palestinians.

 

I have a theory to propose: Non Solutionism will occur more frequently and for longer than logic seems to dictate. If you are betting, bet on Non Solutionism. The theory is similar to my idea that cock-ups are far more frequent than conspiracies.

 

An example of my theory in action is to look at tobacco companies. Logic suggested they were doomed from the 1960’s, when evidence that cigarettes caused cancer became clear. Instead, they thrived until very recently. The reason is Non Solutionism. They made vague promises and participated in a process, all the time delaying and seeking short-term advantage. They had witting and unwitting allies on the other side: which politician wants to lose billions of tax revenue or to upset millions of constituents? The result is that tobacco company shares were great investments for many years, for anybody whose ethics permitted such a cynical bet.

 

For those of us interested in stifling Non Solutionism, the first step is to recognise it. That can be tough: consider that we have all fallen for it in Israel for a generation. Once recognised, the next steps are short-term focus and project management. Rather than allowing people to hide behind vague long-term goals, instead organise behind promoting well-defined short-term targets and actions. Sadly, liberals are not often good at this, as the Guardian proves week after week.

 

I have sold all my oil company shares, but this was premature. At least, if I follow my own logic, it can reduce any anxiety about my primary financial asset, my Shell pension. Non Solutionism usually wins.