Dear Members of the Senate,

As you know, the Senate has debated the merits of the filibuster and related procedural rules for over two centuries. Recently, several senators who are advocating changes to Senate Rule XXII have renewed this discussion. We write this letter today to clarify some of the common historical and constitutional misperceptions about the filibuster and Rule XXII that all too often surface during debates about Senate rules.

First, many argue that senators have a constitutional right to extended debate. However, there is no explicit constitutional right to filibuster.^[1] In fact, there is ample evidence that the framers preferred majority rather than supermajority voting rules. The framers knew full well the difficulties posed by supermajority rules, given their experiences in the Confederation Congress under the Articles of Confederation (which required a supermajority vote to pass measures on the most important matters). A common result was stalemate; legislators frequently found themselves unable to muster support from a supermajority of the states for essential matters of governing. In the Constitution, the framers specified that supermajority votes would be necessary in seven, extraordinary situations -which they specifically listed (including overriding a presidential veto, expelling a member of the Senate, and ratifying a treaty). These, of course, are all voting requirements for passing measures, rather than rules for bringing debate to a close.

Second, although historical lore says that the filibuster was part of the original design of the Senate, there is no empirical basis for that view. There is no question that the framers intended the Senate to be a deliberative body. But they sought to achieve that goal through structural features of the chamber intended to facilitate deliberation -such as the Senate's smaller size, longer and staggered terms, and older members. There is no historical evidence that the framers anticipated that the Senate would adopt rules allowing for a filibuster. In fact, the first House and the first Senate had nearly identical rule books, both of which included a motion to move the previous question. The House converted that rule into a simple majority cloture rule early in its history. The Senate did not.

What happened to the Senate's previous question motion? In 1805, as presiding officer of the Senate, Vice President Aaron Burr recommended a pruning of the Senate's rules. He singled out the previous question motion as unnecessary (keeping in mind that the rule had not yet routinely been used in either chamber as a simple majority cloture motion). When senators met in 1806 to re-codify the rules, they deleted the previous question motion from the Senate rulebook. Senators did so not because they sought to create the opportunity to filibuster; they abandoned the motion as a matter of procedural housekeeping. Deletion of the motion took away one of the possible avenues for cutting off debate by majority vote, but did not constitute a deliberate choice to allow obstruction. The first documented filibusters did not occur until the 1830s, and for the next century they were rare (but often effective) occurrences in a chamber in which majorities generally reigned.

Finally, the adoption of Rule XXII in 1917 did not reflect a broad-based Senate preference for a supermajority cloture rule. At that time, a substantial portion of the majority party favored a simple majority rule. But many minority party members preferred a supermajority cloture rule, while others preferred no cloture rule at all. A bargain was struck: Opponents of reform promised not to block the rule change and proponents of reform promised not to push for a simple majority cloture rule. The two-thirds threshold, in other words, was the product of bargaining and compromise with the minority. As has been typical of the Senate's past episodes of procedural change, pragmatic politics largely shaped reform of the Senate's rules.

We hope this historical perspective on the origins of the filibuster and Rule XXII will be helpful to you as matters of reform are raised and debated. Please do not hesitate to contact us if we can provide additional clarification.

Very truly yours,

Sarah Binder
Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, The Brookings Institution
Professor of Political Science, George Washington University

Gregory Koger
Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Miami

Thomas E. Mann
W. Averell Harriman Chair & Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, The Brookings Institution

Norman Ornstein
Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research

Eric Schickler
Jeffrey & Ashley McDermott Endowed Chair & Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley

Barbara Sinclair
Marvin Hoffenberg Professor of American Politics Emerita, University of California, Los Angeles

Steven S. Smith
Kate M. Gregg Distinguished Professor of Social Sciences & Professor of Political Science, Washington University

Gregory J. Wawro
Deputy Chair & Associate Professor of Political Science, Columbia University

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Arne Duncan, former U.S. secretary of education during the Obama administration and now a nonresident senior fellow with the Brown Center on Education Policy, discusses the crisis of youth violence in Chicago and solutions that strengthen schools and encourage more opportunities for those who are marginalized to make a living in the legal economy.

“The best thing we can do is create hope, opportunity and jobs particularly on the South and West side for young and black men who have been disenfranchised, who have been on the streets. If we can give them some chances to earn a living in a legal economy not selling drugs and not on street corners, I think we have a chance to do something pretty significant here,” Duncan says. “My fundamental belief is that the police cannot solve this on their own we have to create opportunities for young people in communities who have been marginalized for far too long.”

Also in this episode, Bruce Katz, the Centennial Scholar, who discusses how European cities are addressing the refugee crisis in a new segment from our Refugee Series.

Thanks to audio engineer and producer Zack Kulzer, with editing help from Mark Hoelscher, plus thanks to Carisa Nietsche, Bill Finan, Jessica Pavone, Eric Abalahin, Rebecca Viser, and our intern Sara Abdel-Rahim.

Subscribe to the Brookings Cafeteria on iTunes, listen in all the usual places, and send feedback email to BCP@Brookings.edu 

       

       

       

       

ABSTRACT

In recent decades economists have turned their attention to data that asks people how happy or satisfied they are with their lives. Much of the early research concluded that the role of income in determining well-being was limited, and that only income relative to others was related to well-being. In this paper, we review the evidence to assess the importance of absolute and relative income in determining well-being. Our research suggests that absolute income plays a major role in determining well-being and that national comparisons offer little evidence to support theories of relative income. We find that well-being rises with income, whether we compare people in a single country and year, whether we look across countries, or whether we look at economic growth for a given country. Through these comparisons we show that richer people report higher well-being than poorer people; that people in richer countries, on average, experience greater well-being than people in poorer countries; and that economic growth and growth in well-being are clearly related. Moreover, the data show no evidence for a satiation point above which income and well-being are no longer related.

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• The New Stylized Facts About Income and Subjective Well-Being

      

At a time of decelerating regional growth in sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa—one of the continent’s leading economies—is facing the brunt of concurrent external and domestic growth shocks. During a Brookings event on April 14, 2016 moderated by Africa Growth Initiative Director Amadou Sy, South African minister of finance, the Honorable Pravin Gordhan, provided cause for encouragement, as he highlighted strategies that South Africa is implementing to reverse slowing growth trends, boost social cohesion, and springboard inclusive, sustainable development.

Throughout the event, Minister Gordhan emphasized that South Africa is refocusing its efforts on implementing homegrown policies to mitigate the effects of global and domestic shocks: “Our approach is not to keep pointing outside our borders and say, ‘That’s where the problem is.’ We've got our own challenges and difficulties, and potential and opportunities. And it's important to focus on those, and rally South Africans behind that set of initiatives so that we could go wherever we can in terms improving the situation.”

He began by explaining the major growth problems facing South Africa, including first-level structural challenges—consistent electricity supply and labor relations—as well as deeper structural challenges, for instance, reforming the oligopolistic sectors of its economy. To address these issues, he expanded on what collaborative, multi-stakeholder efforts would be necessary. Watch:

Contending with infrastructure needs—particularly energy and logistical, but also social, such as water and sanitation, health care, and educational facilities—will play a significant role in overcoming these aforementioned challenges. Minister Gordhan explained how the government aims to fill existing infrastructure gaps through innovative financing mechanisms. Watch:

Later in the event, Sy pressed Minister Gordhan on plans for implementation for the country’s ambitious goals. As an example, Minister Gordhan underlined “Operation Phakisa,” a results-driven approach to fast-track the implementation of initiatives to achieve development objectives. The government intends to use this methodology to address a number of social priorities, including unlocking the potential of South Africa’s coastlines and oceans. Watch:

Urbanization in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa as a whole is widespread and increasing, creating a demand for governments to both maintain their infrastructure as well as harness their energy and human capacity. Cities, especially those in South Africa’s Gauteng Province (Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Ekurhuleni), will continue to be crucial engines of economic development if municipal governance systems effectively manage the region’s expected rapid urbanization in the years to come. Minister Gordhan discusses some of the lessons learned from the Gauteng city region. Watch:

In sum, referring to the confluence of adverse global conditions and internal problems currently affecting South Africa, Minister Gordhan stated, “Whenever you are in the middle of a storm it looks like the worst thing possible—but storms don’t last forever.” He did not doubt the ability of the South African people to weather and emerge stronger from the storm, offering: “Ultimately South Africans are hopeful, are optimistic and resilient.”

You can watch the full event here. 

Video

• Pravin Gordhan notes the major growth challenges in South Africa
• Pravin Gordhan on addressing South Africa’s infrastructure gaps
• Pravin Gordhan on implementation of South Africa's development objectives
• Pravin Gordhan on the vital role of cities in economic development in South Africa

       

       

The Venezuelan opposition Movement for Democratic Unity (or MUD by its Spanish acronym) won a major victory over pro-government parties in the December 6 legislative elections. Updated official results show 107 seats for the MUD, 55 for the governing party, 3 representing indigenous communities, with 2 still undecided.

This is remarkable considering the extent to which the government manipulated electoral rules and conditions ahead of the elections. There were a number of reported problems on election day, the most serious of which was to keep polling stations open for up to two additional hours so government supporters could scour voter rolls to find eligible voters who had not yet cast ballots and take them to polling stations. The result was a record 74 percent turnout for legislative elections, with 58 percent voting for the opposition and 42 percent for the government—the mirror image of electoral results in almost all elections since former President Hugo Chávez first took office in 1999. 

In the end, electoral dirty tricks were not enough to prevent an opposition landslide, and President Nicolás Maduro was forced to concede defeat shortly after midnight on December 7. Although the final number of opposition-held seats in the legislature is not yet certain, there are three main questions that should focus our attention over the coming weeks and months:

1. What does opposition control of the National Assembly actually mean? 

Venezuela’s legislative election rules are designed to over-represent the majority party and rural areas. This traditionally favored Chavista parties, but in this election, they have given the opposition a boost in the number of seats they won relative to the popular vote. The opposition has already achieved a three-fifths majority, which enables them to pass laws, approve government-proposed budgets, censure and remove government ministers and the executive vice president, and name new appointees to lead the national electoral authority and new magistrates to the Supreme Tribunal. The MUD has already promised to pass an amnesty law for political prisoners aimed at liberating a number of opposition political leaders imprisoned by the Maduro administration. It has also pledged to move legislation designed to promote economic recovery.

The opposition appears to be within striking distance of securing a two-thirds majority (112 seats), which would allow them a much wider array of powers: to remove the existing electoral authorities (with the support of the Supreme Tribunal), submit legislation to approval by popular referendum, and the equivalent of the “nuclear option” for Venezuelan legislators: convene a Constituent Assembly to write a new constitution. But with a few remaining seats in play, it appears that the MUD has more work to do to clear this hurdle and then to maintain discipline among legislators to keep a razor-thin two-thirds majority.

Either way, there is a dangerous gap between the euphoric expectations created by the elections and the actual power of the National Assembly. Not only are legislatures in Latin America typically weak, but the legislative branch has not operated independently thus far during the Chavista period. So many of its potential powers have not been exercised in practice. 

2. What might the Maduro administration do next to limit the power of the legislature? 

Before the vote, there was a general consensus among analysts that President Maduro would try to limit the power of the legislature in the event of an electoral loss. The tactic has many precedents, with the governments of Presidents Chávez and Maduro previously gutting the power and budgets of opposition-controlled elected offices at state and local levels.

One possibility is that the outgoing Chavista-dominated National Assembly that leaves office in January 2016 will simply pass an enabling law (Ley Habilitante) that would allow President Maduro to rule by decree for the rest of his term. There are plenty of precedents for this in Venezuela, although an enabling law that lasted for the remainder of the presidential term would be exceptional. But others have suggested that given the overwhelming opposition victory, such an approach may run too blatantly contrary to public opinion and consolidate popular sentiment against the government.

Instead, the government may simply use the Supreme Tribunal to invalidate opposition-initiated legislation. Of the 32 magistrates appointed to the highest court in Venezuela, 13 judges are retiring. Together with 5 empty seats, that will allow the outgoing legislative assembly to approve 18 new judges. These will join 12 magistrates appointed by the Chavista-controlled legislature in December 2014. With the government appointing so many members of the Supreme Tribunal, it will likely be easy for the Maduro administration to block inconvenient legislative proposals. The question for the opposition then becomes whether it can figure out how to use control of the legislature to affect the composition of the court and dilute the power of pro-government magistrates, something that would undoubtedly set off a struggle among the various branches of government.

3. How is the Chavista movement likely to react to this new scenario? 

It seems unlikely that the Chavista movement will simply accept divided government, something unknown to Venezuela since 1999. There are simply too many in the Chavista movement who cannot afford an “accountability moment” due to alleged participation in official corruption; waste, fraud, and abuse; or drug trafficking. Others will be ideologically opposed to allowing so much power to flow to an opposition-dominated national assembly.

The Chavista movement spans from the military to the governing party to armed pro-government militias and gangs (colectivos). Former President Chávez was adept at keeping the movement together. President Maduro is not nearly as skilled, and with this stunning electoral loss, his leadership within the movement (already damaged by poor economic results) is likely to come under further pressure. 

In a normal country, one might imagine some incentives for both sides to negotiate—the legislature and executive could work together to avert the coming economic catastrophe, for one. And the weakening of President Maduro’s leadership may lead to more open disagreement within Chavismo about the way ahead, allowing the possibility that moderates on both sides will find room to work together. But as journalist and long-time Venezuela observer Francisco Toro has argued, Chavismo is a machine for not negotiating; the selection process for top leadership has been designed to winnow out anyone who would consider sitting down to talk with the opposition. And in such a polarized situation, moderates always run the risk of being targeted by radicals from their own side if they negotiate with opponents.

Get the house in order

All Venezuelans should feel proud (and relieved) that these highly significant elections have been carried out peacefully. But a lot of work remains to be done. 

First, the outside study missions and electoral accompaniment missions need to remain focused on the tabulation process to ensure that the few undecided legislative seats are allocated according to electoral rules and the votes cast rather than government fiat. 

Second, Venezuela is entering a period of divided government, one that will potentially be riven by conflict among the branches of government. The outside actors that have thus far played a positive role—such as regional multilateral institutions, civil society, legislators across the hemisphere, and governments interested in supporting democracy—will need to continue to pay attention to and support favorable outcomes in Venezuela even when the country is out of the international headlines. 

And third, Venezuela’s economy is in very serious trouble now that oil has fallen as low as $35 a barrel. Further economic contraction, poverty rates not seen since before Hugo Chávez took office, and inflation in excess of 200 percent are all expected in 2016. If the government (both Chavistas and opponents) come to their senses and agree to a negotiated plan on how to address the economy, they will need the support of both traditional multilateral financial institutions and non-traditional sources of financing (such as China). 

As the opposition celebrates this major electoral win, it will undoubtedly dwell on the political implications of its victory over Chavismo. But it should not lose sight of the mandate it has now been given to make needed policy changes as well.

Update: As of December 9, 2015, media are reporting that the opposition party has won at least 112 seats, achieving a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly.

      

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Editors’ Note: How do states manage their armed forces, domestic politics, and foreign affairs? Stephen Cohen, senior fellow with the India Project at Brookings, has studied this and a range of other issues in Southeast Asia since the 1960s. In a new book, titled “The South Asia Papers: A Critical Anthology of Writings,” Cohen reflects on more than a half-century of scholarship on India, describing the dramatic changes he has personally witnessed in the field of research. The following is an excerpt from the book’s preface.

[In the 1960s, questions about how states manage their armed forces] were not only unasked in the South Asian context by scholars; they were also frowned on by the Indian government. This made preparation both interesting and difficult. It was interesting because a burgeoning literature on civil–military relations in non-Western states could be applied to India. Most of it dealt with two themes: the “man on horseback,” or how the military came to power in a large number of new states, and how the military could assist in the developmental process. No one had asked these questions of India, although the first was relevant to Pakistan, then still governed by the Pakistani army in the form of Field Marshal Ayub Khan.

***

During my first and second trips [in the 1960s] my research was as a historian, albeit one interested in the army’s social, cultural, and policy dimensions. I discovered, by accident, that this was part of the movement toward the “new military history.” Over the years I have thus interacted with those historians who were interested in Indian military history, including several of my own students. 

While the standard of historians in India was high in places like the University of Calcutta, military history was a minor field, just as it was in the West. Military historians are often dismissed as the “drums and trumpets” crowd, interested in battles, regiments, and hardware, but not much else. My own self-tutoring in military history uncovered something quite different: a number of scholars, especially sociologists, had written on the social and cultural impact of armed forces, a literature largely ignored by the historians. While none of this group was interested in India, the connection between one of the world’s most complicated and subtle societies, the state’s use of force, and the emergence of a democratic India was self-evident. 

***

A new generation of scholars and experts, many of them Indians (some trained in the United States) and Indian Americans who have done research in India, have it right: this is a complex civilizational-state with expanding power, and its rise is dependent on its domestic stability, its policies toward neighbors (notably Pakistan), the rise of China, and the policies of the United States. 

The literature that predicts a conflict between the rising powers (India and China), and between them and America the “hegemon,” is misguided: the existence of nuclear weapons by all three states, plus Pakistan, ensures that barring insanity, any rivalries between rising and established states will be channeled into “ordinary” diplomatic posturing, ruthless economic competition, and the clash of soft power. In this competition, India has some liabilities and many advantages, and the structure of the emerging world suggests a closer relationship between the United States and India, without ruling out much closer ties between China and India. 

There remain some questions: Can the present Indian leadership show magnanimity in dealing with Pakistan, and does it have the foresight to look ahead to new challenges, notably environmental and energy issues that require new skills and new international arrangements? Importantly, some of the best work on answering these questions is being done in India itself, and the work of Kanti Bajpai, Amitabh Mattoo, Harsh Pant, C. Raja Mohan, Rajesh Basrur, and others reveals the maturity of Indian thinking on strategic issues. It has not come too soon, as the challenges that India will face are growing, and those of Pakistan are even more daunting.

      

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U.S. policy towards South Asia has changed considerably over the last seven decades. The nature of U.S. engagement with different countries in the region has varied over time, as has the level of U.S. interest. While India and Pakistan have received the most attention from Washington, the United States has also been engaging with Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, albeit to different degrees. 

On May 19, The India Project at Brookings hosted a panel discussion exploring the past and present U.S approaches towards South Asia, based on Senior Fellow Stephen Cohen’s new book, “The South Asia Papers: A Critical Anthology of Writings” (Brookings Institution Press, 2016). Panelists also assessed the Obama administration’s policies toward the region, and the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for the next U.S. administration. Fellow Tanvi Madan, director of The India Project, moderated the discussion.

After the discussion, the panelists took questions.

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• U.S. policy toward South Asia: Past, present, and future

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• U.S. policy toward South Asia: Past, present, and future

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• Uncorrected Transcript (.pdf)

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Editors’ Note: In Southeast Asia, democratization went hand in hand with Islamization, writes Shadi Hamid. So where many assume that democracy can’t exist with Islamism, it is more likely the opposite. The Aspen Institute originally published this post.

In both theory and practice, Islam has proven to be resistant to secularization, even (or particularly) in countries like Turkey and Tunisia where attempts to privatize Islam have been most vigorous. If Islam is exceptional in its relationship to politics — as I argue it is in my new book Islamic Exceptionalism — then what exactly does that mean in practice?

As Western small-l or “classical” liberals, we don’t have to like or approve of Islam’s prominent place in politics, but we do have to accept life as it is actually lived and religion as it is actually practiced in the Middle East and beyond. What form, though, should that “acceptance” take?

If Islam is exceptional in its relationship to politics ... then what exactly does that mean in practice?

First, where the two are in tension, it means prioritizing democracy over liberalism. In other words, there’s no real way to force people to be liberal or secular if that’s not who they are or what they want to be. To do so would suggest a patronizing and paternalistic approach to the Middle East — one that President Barack Obama and other senior U.S. officials, and not just those on the right, have repeatedly expressed. If our own liberalism as Americans is context-bound (we grew up in a liberal democratic society), then of course Egyptians, Jordanians or Pakistanis will similarly be products of their own contexts.

One should be suspicious of “models” of any kind, since models, such as Turkey’s, tend to disappoint. That said, there are good examples outside of the Middle East that deserve a closer look. Indonesia and to a lesser extent Malaysia are often held up as models of democracy, pluralism, and tolerance. Yet, perhaps paradoxically, these two countries feature significantly more shariah ordinances than, say, Egypt, Tunisia or Morocco.

In one article, the Indonesia scholar Robin Bush documents some of the shariah by-laws implemented in the country’s more conservative regions. They include requiring civil servants and students to wear “Muslim clothing,” requiring women to wear the headscarf to receive local government services, and requiring demonstrations of Quranic reading ability to be admitted to university or to receive a marriage license. But there’s a catch. According to a study by the Jakarta-based Wahid Institute, most of these regulations have come from officials of ostensibly secular parties like Golkar. How is this possible? The implementation of shariah is part of a mainstream discourse that cuts across ideological and party lines. That suggests that Islamism is not necessarily about Islamists but is about a broader population that is open to Islam playing a central role in law and governance.

Islamists need secularists and secularists need Islamists. But in Indonesia and Malaysia, there was a stronger “middle.”

In sum, it wasn’t that religion was less of a “problem” in Indonesia and Malaysia; it’s that the solutions were more readily available. Islam might have still been exceptional, but the political system was more interested in accommodating this reality than in suppressing it. There wasn’t an entrenched secular elite in the same way there was in many Arab countries. Meanwhile, Islamist parties were not as strong, so polarization wasn’t as deep and destabilizing. Islamism wasn’t the province of one party, but of most. In a sense, Islamists need secularists and secularists need Islamists. But in Indonesia and Malaysia, there was a stronger “middle,” and that middle had settled around a relatively uncontroversial conservative consensus.

In Southeast Asia, then, democratization went hand in hand with Islamization. To put it more simply, where many assume that democracy can’t exist with Islamism, it is more likely the opposite. What distinguishes Indonesia and Malaysia, as well as their electorates, isn’t some readiness to embrace the gradual privatization of religion. The difference is that their brand of Islamic politics garners much less attention in the West, in part because they aren’t seen as strategically vital and, perhaps more importantly, because the passage of Islamic legislation is simply less controversial domestically. There has been a coming to terms with Islam’s role in public life, where in much of the Middle East, there hasn’t — at least not yet.

       

In a long-awaited ruling prepared under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), an arbitration panel has handed an unequivocal victory to the Philippines in its case against China, which it first filed in early 2013. The arbitration panel deemed invalid virtually all of Beijing’s asserted claims to various islands, rocks, reefs, and shoals in the South China Sea, determining that Chinese claims directly violated the provisions of UNCLOS, which China signed in 1982.

From the outset of Manila’s initiation of the arbitration process, Beijing has refused to participate. However, it did issue a position statement of its own in late 2014, claiming that the arbitration panel violated various UNCLOS provisions and additional agreements signed by the two governments. As the arbitration neared its conclusion, China released a steady stream of editorials and commentaries, claiming that the ruling sought “to deny China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea.” 

Beijing has repeatedly stated that “it does not accept any means of third party dispute settlement or any solution imposed on China.” At the same time, UNCLOS has no enforcement mechanism for carrying out the panel’s judgments. But Beijing’s repeated efforts at shaming and stonewalling have imposed an undoubted cost on its political standing in the region. Moreover, China’s signing of UNCLOS obligated Beijing to compulsory third party determination, though it is not the only power contesting this commitment. 

Beijing’s repeated efforts at shaming and stonewalling have imposed an undoubted cost on its political standing in the region.

The fundamental weakness of China’s policy defense was its reliance on various “historic claims” to most of the maritime expanses of the South China Sea, including areas that directly encroached on the sovereign territory of various neighboring states. Its claims have frequently been encapsulated in the nine-dash line, an ill-defined geographic demarcation initially appearing in a map prepared by cartographers in the Republic of China in 1947 (i.e., prior to the victory of the Chinese Communist Party in 1949). But China’s sweeping claims to “unequivocal sovereignty” failed to address the multiple layers of ambiguity and conflicting judgments found in various policy documents released by Beijing.

Moreover, the arbitration panel emphasized from the outset that its authority did not extend to determinations over sovereignty. Rather, its mandate (distilled from a list of 15 claims in Manila’s original brief) focused on Chinese claims to the continental shelf and to exclusive economic zones extending from land features, reefs, and rocks over which China claimed indisputable sovereignty. The Philippines also contested Chinese activities that infringed on the rights of Filipino fishermen, Beijing’s construction of artificial islands, and the operation of Chinese law enforcement vessels in various shoals. 

Even if Beijing persists in its angry defiance of the arbitration panel’s findings and continues to contest their legitimacy, the sweeping character of the rulings (in a document exceeding 500 pages in length) is impossible to deny. UNCLOS specifically states that land features not deemed an island are entitled only to a 12-mile territorial sea, not to an exclusive economic zone or to a continental shelf. In an especially controversial finding, the panel concluded that Itu Aba (known in Chinese as Taiping Island and the largest land feature in the Spratly Island group and controlled by Taiwan) was not an island; this has been strongly contested by Taipei as well as by Beijing.

The biggest looming issues will focus on how China opts to respond.

The biggest looming issues will focus on how China opts to respond in words and deeds. The arbitration proceeding has triggered strongly nationalistic responses from leaders and experts in China, with many alleging a hidden U.S. hand in the arbitration. American political and military support for the Philippines and other claimants and heightened U.S. air and maritime activities in the South China Sea—all justified as ensuring freedom of navigation in the vital waterways of the region—engenders additional angry responses from the Chinese leadership. 

Beijing continues to insist that it is prepared to enter into bilateral negotiations with Manila over various disputed claims. But with China claiming indisputable sovereignty over various contested features and possessing maritime capabilities that vastly exceed those of any other claimants, will it be prepared to demonstrate flexibility, restrain its responses, and give any credence to the diligent labors of the arbitration panel? Can Beijing envision quiet diplomacy, either with the United States or with regional claimants, as opposed to seeing itself as the endlessly aggrieved party? If Beijing doesn’t exercise restraint and instead takes steps that heighten the risks, these could readily pose new threats to the regional maritime order that cannot possibly be in anyone’s interest. 

       

The much-awaited rulings of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague—in response to the Philippines’ 2013 submission over the maritime entitlements and status of features encompassed in China’s expansive South China Sea claims—were released this morning. Taken together, the rulings were clear, crisp, comprehensive, and nothing short of a categorical rejection of Chinese claims.

Among other things, the court ruled China’s nine-dash line claim to the South China Sea invalid because of Beijing’s earlier ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). In a move that surprised many observers, the court also ventured a ruling on the status of every feature in the Spratly Islands, clarifying that none of them were islands and hence do not generate an exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Significantly, it ruled that Mischief Reef, which China has occupied since 1995, and Second Thomas Shoal, where China has blockaded Philippine marines garrisoned on an old vessel that was deliberately run aground there, to be within the EEZ of the Philippines.

In the neighborhood

Now that the rulings have been made, what are the implications and way forward for concerned states?

For the Philippines, the legal victory presents a paradoxical challenge for the new government. Prior to the ruling, newly-elected President Rodrigo Duterte indicated on several occasions that he was prepared to depart from his predecessor’s more hardline position on the South China Sea to engage Beijing in dialogue and possibly even joint development. He even hinted that he would tone down Manila’s claim in exchange for infrastructure investment. Given that the ruling decisively turns things in Manila’s favor, it remains to be seen whether the populist Duterte administration would be able to sell the idea of joint development of what are effectively Philippine resources without risking a popular backlash. This will be difficult but not necessarily impossible, given that the Philippines would likely still require logistical and infrastructural support of some form or other for such development projects. 

Since the submission of the Philippine case in 2013, China has taken the position of “no recognition, no participation, no acceptance, and no execution,” as described by Chinese professor Shen Dingli. Beijing continues to adhere to this position, and is likely to dig in its heels given the comprehensive nature of the court’s rejection of China’s claims. This, in turn, will feed the conspiracy theories swirling around Beijing that the court is nothing but a conspiracy against China. 

[T]he rulings are likely to occasion intense internal discussions and debates within the Chinese leadership as to how best to proceed.

Not surprisingly, in defiance of the ruling, China continues to insist on straight baselines and EEZs in the Spratlys. Away from the glare of the media however, the rulings are likely to occasion intense internal discussions and debates within the Chinese leadership as to how best to proceed. Many analysts have the not-unfounded concern that hawkish perspectives will prevail in this debate, at least in the short term—fed by the deep sensibilities to issues of security and sovereignty, and a (misplaced) sense of injustice. This would doubtless put regional stability at risk. Instead, China should do its part to bring the Code of Conduct it has been discussing with ASEAN to a conclusion as a demonstration of its commitment to regional order and stability, and the peaceful settlement of disputes. Beijing should also continue to engage concerned states in dialogue, but these dialogues cannot be conducted on the premise of Chinese “unalienable ownership” of and “legitimate entitlements” in the South China Sea. 

ASEAN will be hosting several ministerial meetings later this month, and the ruling will doubtless be raised in some form or other, certainly in closed-door discussions. For ASEAN, the key question is whether the organization can and will cobble together a coherent, consensus position in response to the ruling, and how substantive the response will be (they should at least make mention of the importance of international law to which all ASEAN states subscribe). For now though, it is too early to tell. 

U.S. policy

As an Asia-Pacific country, the United States has set great stock in the principle of freedom of navigation, and has articulated this as a national interest with regards to the South China Sea. There are however, three challenges for the United States as it proceeds to refine its policy in the region:

1. First, going by the attention it has commanded in Washington, it appears that the South China Sea issue has already become the definitive point of reference of America’s Southeast Asia policy. Southeast Asian states, on the other hand, have expressed their desire precisely that the South China Sea issue should not overshadow or dominate the regional agenda. Hence, even as the United States continues to be present and engaged on South China Sea issues in the region, equal attention, if not more, should be afforded to broaden the scope of their engagement. 
2. Second, in pushing back Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea, the United States must be careful not to inadvertently contribute to the militarization of the region. There is talk about the deployment of a second carrier group to the region, and the U.S.S. John C. Stennis and U.S.S. Ronald Reagan are already patrolling the Philippine Sea. On the one hand, this is presumed to enhance the deterrent effect of the American presence in the region. Yet on the other hand, Washington should be mindful of the fact that China’s South China Sea claim is also informed by a deep sense of vulnerability, especially to the military activities that the United States conducts in its vicinity. 
3. Finally, in its desire to reassure the region, the United States has sought to strengthen its relations with regional partners and allies. This is necessary, and it is welcomed. At the same time however, Washington should also ensure that this strengthening and deepening of relations is undergirded by an alignment of interests and shared outlooks. This cannot, and should not, be assumed. 

       

The International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea has ruled on the case that the Philippines brought in 2013, challenging China's claims and behavior in the South China Sea. International lawyers and the policy commentariat has judged the ruling as a sweeping victory for the Philippines and a significant loss for China, which refused to acknowledge the tribunal's jurisdiction or to take part in the proceedings.

The question going forward is how China will respond. Will it double down on the aggressive and coercive activities of the past six years, behavior that has put most of its East Asian neighbors on guard? Will it continue to interpret the Law of the Sea in self-serving ways that very few countries accept? Or, might China recognize that its South China Sea strategy has been an utter failure and that its best response is to take a more restrained and neighborly approach? 

What got us here?

Critical as the next weeks and months will be, it is also useful to take a look back and examine recent events in the broad context of Chinese foreign and security policy over the last four decades. The premise of that reform policy, initiated in the late 1970s and early 1980s, was that a weak China could best ensure its security by engaging and accommodating the international community, in order to gradually build up all aspects of its national power. The most clear-cut feature of this strategy was to join the global economy: China accepted the leadership of the IMF and World Bank; opened the Chinese economy to international trade and investment; carved out critical roles in global supply chains; accepted the liberalization disciplines of the World Trade Organization; and, more recently, began to provide public goods to other developing economies. Not everyone has benefitted from China's economic engagement, but on balance it has been a signal success.

China's reformist leaders also recognized the value of taking an accommodating stance toward its East Asian neighborhood, of which the United States is a part. One side of accommodation was to execute a skillful diplomacy designed to reduce tensions and avoid conflict unless Beijing's fundamental interests were under threat. Accommodation's other side was to delay the modernization of the Chinese military and exercise restraint in the use of those capabilities that it did create. This made sense because China both lacked the power to challenge the United States and Japan militarily and needed the help of those and other countries to grow economically. 

That approach changed in the early 2000s, when Beijing judged that it would only be secure if it expanded its eastern and southern strategic perimeters into the East and South China Seas. That judgment had its own logic, which maritime territorial disputes and reports of maritime energy and mineral resources only intensified. Thus began a program to build the capabilities to project power into the maritime domain and then use them to press its claims. That campaign created frictions with its neighbors. An increasingly overbearing diplomacy didn't help China's reputation either. 

It’s your move, China

Another part of China's grand strategy has been to integrate itself in the system of international institutions, law, norms, and regimes—both global and regional. This step did not signify a fundamental acceptance of the international order that had emerged and evolved after World War II. Rather, it reflected a belief that China could and should use institutions, law, norms, and regimes to protect China's interests against hegemonic behavior by others, particularly the United States. (Conversely, the "West" believed that binding Beijing to "its" order would restrain Chinese bad behavior.)

The tribunal’s decision on the Philippines case was a clear blow to China's long-standing strategy to use international law to advance or protect its interests, prompting feelings of buyer's remorse. The hardy perennial that China has been the victim of humiliation at the hands of Western countries will only add to the resentful reaction. Of course, China rejects the widely-held view that it is bound by the ruling even though it did not participate in the case. Also, this is a court with no enforcement powers, so Beijing could simply ignore the ruling and use its military and law enforcement assets to continue its past pattern of aggressive and coercive actions—essentially increasing the salience of its military power. That course of action would only further push the test of wills between it and Washington, even though neither benefits from a downward spiral of increased competition and conflict.

Beijing could simply ignore the ruling...That course of action would only further push the test of wills between it and Washington, even though neither benefits from a downward spiral of increased competition and conflict.

China could go even further than simply doubling down. Contrary to the tribunal's ruling, it could treat the Spratly Islands as islands under international law; define them as a single unit for purposes of defining maritime boundaries; accordingly draw straight baselines around them; then declare for itself an exclusive economic zone that covered most of the waters of the South China Sea; and finally, over time, challenge the rights of other countries to freedom of navigation and the exploitation of natural resources. For the lay-reader, what is important here is that none of these actions would accord with the widely accepted principles of the Law of the Sea. (Ultimately, China might someday insist to the countries of East Asia that it will no longer tolerate their relying on China for economic prosperity and depending on the United States for security.)

On the other hand, China could conduct a serious assessment of how it has exercised its diplomatic, coercive, and legal power over the last half-decade. Is China really more secure after alienating its East Asian neighbors through heavy-handed diplomacy, stimulating a very public coercive counter-response from the United States (too public in my view), and suffered a significant defeat in the international court of law? Might a tactical retreat at this stage, including a recommitment to international law and institutions, better serve China's strategic interests than more domineering behavior?

A key principle of Chinese diplomatic statecraft beginning in the 1980s was taoguang yanghui, a phrase that basically means to exercise restraint as one steadily builds one's power. The Chinese national security establishment has forgotten that principle as it conducted its recent policy towards the South China Sea. It would do well to revive it.

       

South African court rules President Zuma violated the constitution

Thursday, South Africa’s highest court found President Zuma guilty of violating the constitution as he refused to reimburse the large sum of money spent on improvements to his personal home. Between 2010 and 2014, the home located in the president’s rural hometown of Nkandla received improvement which cost an estimated $23 million. The improvements include a chicken coop, an amphitheater, a swimming pool, and a helipad. President Zuma has stated that the improvements were necessary to ensure his security and should consequently be paid for with taxpayers’ money. In 2014, public prosecutor Thuli Madonsela ruled that the president should repay part of the taxpayers’ money spent on the improvements of his personal home. In refusing to do so, he violated the country’s constitution “by not complying with a decision by the public protector, the national watchdog.” The court has given the National Treasury 60 days to determine the sum the president must repay. The opposition has stated that they will seek Zuma’s impeachment.

In other South African news, this week, the rand strengthen against the U.S. dollar and reached its highest value since December 8, 2015, the day before President Zuma fired former Finance Minister Nhlanla Nene. The strengthening of the rand was coupled with the strengthening of other Emerging Markets currencies. This hike follows the statement from Federal Reserve Chair Janey Yellen, reiterating the importance to raise U.S. interest rates cautiously, amid risks in the global economy. Investors—weighting prospects of higher U.S. borrowing costs—were holding off in acquiring emerging-market assets.

Seventeen Angolan activists are sentenced to jail time

This week, 17 Angolan activists were sentenced to jail time for rebellion against the government of Jose Eduardo dos Santos. The sentences ranged from two years to eight and a half years. Last June, the activists were arrested during a book club meeting focusing on Gene Sharp’s book titled From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation—a book on nonviolence and resistance to repressive regimes. Monday, the activists were charged and sentenced with acts of rebellion, planning mass action of civil disobedience, and producing fake passports, among other charges. Amnesty International has accused the Angolan court of wrongfully convicting the activists and using the judicial system to “silence dissenting views.”

Later in the week, in response to the jailing of the young activists, the Portuguese branch of hacking group Anonymous claimed the shutdown of 20 government websites, including that of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, among others. In a Facebook post claiming the attack, the group states, “The real criminals are outside, defended by the capitalist system that increasingly spreads in the minds of the weak.” The functionality of the websites has been restored.  

Aid cuts due to disputed election rerun hit Tanzania

On Monday, March 28, the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) withdrew $472 million in aid from the government of Tanzania after the result of the last weekend’s disputed presidential election rerun in the semi-autonomous archipelago of Zanzibar was announced. Incumbent President Ali Mohamed Shein of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi party was declared the winner with 91.4 percent of the vote. However, the rerun was boycotted by the opposition Civic United Front party over the cancellation of last October’s election by the Zanzibar Electoral Commission. The commission claimed the October poll was fraudulent, while the opposition says the allegations of fraud were fabricated to thwart a victory by their candidate.

The MCC was planning a number of power and infrastructure projects in Tanzania, but its development assistance programming is conditional upon beneficiaries meeting certain standards of good governance. The MCC’s board of directors held a vote on Monday, in which they determined that Tanzania was no longer eligible to partner with the MCC given the election outcome. Although the loss of the MCC partnership is a sizable blow to the Tanzanian government, the Tanzanian finance minister appeared optimistic that the power projects would continue despite the MCC’s decision, as he stated: “We weren’t surprised at all because we were prepared for whatever the outcome. We will implement those projects using local sources of fund and the support of from other development partners.” Meanwhile, 10 out of the country’s 14 key western donors withdrew general budget support to Tanzania over the contested election.

       

Once upon a time, long ago, the development industry was fixated on measuring aid from richer to poorer countries. They called it ODA, standing for Official Development Assistance. For decades this aid has been codified, reported, and tracked, mostly by the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (DAC/OECD), a club of advanced economies. In advance of the Spring Meetings of the IMF and World Bank, the DAC announced that ODA has risen by 6.9% over 2014 levels to 132 billion dollars, a record amount. Importantly, ODA increased even after stripping out funds spent on refugees.

The United Nations has established targets for ODA—like the famous 0.7 percent of national income—which have taken on legendary status as benchmarks of national generosity. Only six out of 28 DAC countries met this target last year: Denmark, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Some institutions and lobby groups remain fixated on ODA, but many development actors now reject it as flawed. A major theme of the Spring Meetings is how to move beyond ODA and expand other forms of financing for development. ODA is, among other things, symptomatic of a charity perspective, rather than investment; inappropriate for South-South cooperation; and unable to capture the big new landscape of public-private links. What’s more, it is riddled with self-serving quirks like scoring numerous flows—the cost of university places in donor countries, and administrative costs of aid agencies—that never reach developing countries.

Perhaps the most telling weakness of ODA is that emerging powers like China and India see little merit (and arguably, some residual stigma) in this concept and, therefore, will not report on that basis to a club to which they do not belong. As their share of the world economy and their interactions with other “developing” countries continue to grow, this means ODA will inevitably start to represent an ever smaller share of official financing for development.

TOSSD to the rescue?

TOSSD stands for Total Official Support for Sustainable Development. The idea, still being fleshed out, is to have a universally accepted measure of the full array of public financial support for sustainable development. TOSSD should differ from ODA in at least three ways:

• First, it should take a developing country perspective rather than a donor country perspective. So it should cover the value of all funding for development that is officially supported, from pure grants to near-market loans and equity investments, as well as guarantees and insurance.
• Second, it should measure cross-border flows from all countries, not just the rich members of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee.
• Third, it should include contributions to global public goods needed to support development, like U.N. peacekeeping and pandemic surveillance.

There are many complications behind any international attempt to define and track such a huge range of activities. Some are technical, but can probably be resolved with enough goodwill and professionalism. So, for example, we can debate how to establish whether and how official support to private investors changes their behaviour, delivering “additional” development results compared to a situation without that support. In the end, sensible solutions and workarounds will be found.

More difficult are a couple of politically sensitive challenges, which at the same time underlie the value of reaching consensus on a new measure. How far, for example, should the new measure recognise indirect spending on global public goods? Take for example public research on an AIDS vaccine that could lead to prevention of millions of deaths in developing countries. Right now, this would not count as ODA because the promotion of the economic development and welfare of developing countries is not its main objective.

We tend to think that consideration of globe-spanning benefits like these, which do not fit the simple mould of money crossing borders, is an essential feature of a new measure of development finance. However, it will need to be bounded sensibly, not least because of underlying suspicions that the countries that are today most likely to deploy such tools, and claim them as a large part of their distinctive contribution, are among the “old rich”—though that could change quickly. We suggest that spending on a defined list of global public goods should be included, perhaps those that support Agenda 2030, such as U.N. peacekeeping or a global research consortium like GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance.

A second potentially divisive issue, already alluded to, is how to value non-monetary flows, like technical assistance, and in a fair way across countries. We think it would be a powerful positive signal for international cooperation if even modest contributions by low- and middle-income countries are recognised, celebrated, and valued according to the contribution being made, not the cost of providing the assistance. The assistance provided by professionals from developing countries (think Cuban doctors) should be measured at the same prices as assistance provided by professionals from rich countries. Some form of purchasing power parity equivalence would need to be defined and used.

Who should collect all this information and ensure it is more or less consistent?

This is a hugely contentious question. Neither of the most obvious answers, the well-organised but globally unloved OECD and the legitimate but under-resourced U.N. secretariat, are likely to be acceptable without some changes. A preferred candidate has to have a sufficiently broad group of countries prepared to self-report on even a loose set of definitions in order to get momentum. At a minimum all the major economies of the world, for example members of the G-20, should be willing to participate. It should also have the technical capacity to help countries provide information in a consistent way.

The International Monetary Fund or World Bank could be candidates—most countries already report to them on a range of data, including financial flows. The Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation, with its membership of many development actors and technical support, could be another. Or a new group could be created in much the same way as the International Aid Transparency Initiative. This could even be a revamped Development Assistance Committee that operates with broader support in much the same way as the OECD’s tax work has many non-OECD members participating. What is important is that the guiding principle be to measure official cross-border financial resources that support the new universally-agreed Sustainable Development Goals, and to start now and learn by doing.  Such initiatives are too easily killed by subjecting them to endless external criticism that a perfect solution has not been found.

Finally, what’s in name?

TOSSD may be one of the least attractive acronyms on offer today. Without disrespect to its OECD authors, it will anyway have to change to something that works for all the major stakeholders, and is not visibly invented in Paris and that also encourages players who are not strictly speaking “official,” like foundations, to sign up. We tend to favor a plainer, simpler wrapper like International Development Contributions (IDC), or Defined Development Contributions (DDC). 

       

       

       

       

This week, Royal Dutch Shell announced that it would postpone oil drilling in the Chukchi Sea and the broader American Arctic indefinitely. The decision came in the wake of disappointing output from its Burger field, the high costs associated with the project (already nearing $7 billion), the “challenging and unpredictable federal regulatory environment in offshore Alaska,” and a growing public relations problem with environmental groups opposed to Arctic drilling.

This decision is a momentous one—both for the future of the U.S. energy policy and the ability of the international oil industry to balance global oil supply and demand. The announcement came only days after Hillary Clinton spoke out against the Keystone Pipeline, not only because it would lead to the consumption of more fossil fuels but also because much of the oil might be exported. With broader opposition to lifting the ban on crude oil exports gaining momentum in the White House, it is clear that at least part of the nation’s political leadership is moving in a nationalistic direction. This means that the United States—with its vast resources—is unwilling to help meet the burgeoning energy needs of the world’s population: especially the 1.2 billion people who have no access to commercial energy.

Shell’s decision highlights four significant and diverse areas of concern for the future of energy globally and energy policy here in the United States.

Mapping supply and demand

Shell and much of the rest of the international petroleum industry had viewed the Chukchi Sea as one of the last great oil frontiers. The Chukchi and adjoining Beaufort Seas are vital for meeting the estimated 12 to 15 million barrels per day (mmbd) of additional oil demand projected by almost all oil forecasts (both inside and outside the industry) needed between 2035 and 2040. 

Without the U.S. Arctic, the other areas projected to make major contributions by this time are Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, shale oil around the world (including North America), the Orinoco region of Venezuela, and the pre-salt offshore Brazil. Needless to say, given the political turmoil in Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, and Brazil—as well as concerns about the long term stability of Saudi Arabia—one has to wonder: Where will the world discover additional, reliable crude oil supplies without a major contribution from the Arctic?

Many in the environmental community argue that we will not need fossil fuels in the future, predicting a turn to renewables, enhanced energy efficiency, large scale battery storage, and electric vehicles. Unfortunately, this has no basis in fact. Clearly renewables will grow exponentially as their prices fall, new technologies will increase energy efficiency, large scale battery storage will commence, and many electric vehicles will hit the road. But there are currently more than 260 million gas and diesel vehicles running on U.S. roads alone, with less than 1 percent of these running on electricity. With transportation fuel demand mushrooming globally, it’s unlikely that oil consumption in the transportation sector will die or even decline significantly. 

Fossil fuels for development

Drilling in the Arctic poses unique environmental risks which must be managed through state-of–the-art technology and accompanied by the most stringent regulatory enforcement. A recent National Petroleum Council examination of all possible challenges involved in Arctic offshore drilling found that drilling can be done safely. Yet despite these findings, most major national environmental groups have opposed any drilling in the Arctic and have even asserted that Shell’s decision is a vindication of their position. But these groups don’t seem concerned or even thoughtful about the long-term implications of the U.S. energy industry’s abandonment of the Arctic.

With the world’s population forecast to rise by 1.6 billion people by 2035, do we really think global oil demand won’t continue to rise? While I recognize that we must do everything to limit the growing use of fossil fuels to attack climate change, do we really have no moral obligation to help countries emerge from poverty, which will almost certainly involve continued use of fossil fuels? 

During his recent visit to America, Pope Francis called for the world to make a renewed commitment to help the “poorest of the poor,” and the United Nations has also put forward new sustainable development goals that include an expansion of energy access to those who are either unserved or underserved. Focusing our policies exclusively on shutting down U.S. fossil fuel development, as some environmental groups advocate, takes away resources that can be used to improve global health, education, clean water, and women’s empowerment—all of which are all directly related to energy access. In looking at girl’s education, for example, increasing energy availability allows water to be pumped up from the river, obviating the need for arduous, tedious work for the women and girls that would otherwise have to carry this water by hand to their communities, limiting time for education. The availability of energy allows vaccines to be safely stored, crops to be refrigerated, and children to have the electricity available to study at night. 

All of these benefits—and many others—cannot happen without improving electricity access, which still involves fossil fuel. The United States can and should play a role in this effort.

Jostling for Arctic access

Shell is not the only company to experience setbacks in the Arctic. Italy’s ENI SpA and Norway’s Statoil ASA just yesterday had another regulatory setback due to delays in obtaining permission from Norway to commence production. In June, a consortium including Exxon and BP PLC suspended its Canadian Arctic exploration, noting insufficient time to begin test drilling before the expiration of its lease in 2020. In addition, Exxon had to curtail its plans to drill in the Russian Arctic after the United States imposed sanctions on Moscow and its energy industry following the annexation of Crimea. 

Russia, though, remains active in the Arctic, and it can be assumed that once sanctions are lifted, many oil companies will try to gain a toehold. China, Korea, India, and Singapore, among other countries, have expressed interest in gaining access to the region’s mineral, energy, and/or marine resources. In several cases, they are building ice-worthy vessels to give them the capability to do so. The Bering Strait is emerging as a significant new maritime route in desperate need of enhanced regulation.

In a report last year, my colleagues and I looked at key recommendations for offshore oil and gas governance as the United States assumed chairmanship of the Arctic Council. Beyond highlighting the resource potential of the region, our work looked at increasing needs for safety and security as a result of increasing transportation across the Arctic. Even as the United States stands to be less involved in Arctic energy development, it is our duty as chair of the Arctic Council to lead in region. 

Alaska is a state, not a park

The promise of the Arctic has inspired adventurers, explorers, geographers, scientists, and entrepreneurs for generations and will continue to do so in the future. The United States should be actively involved in helping to ensure that Arctic resources are developed and used prudently—rather than sit on the sidelines with myopic dreams of leaving the region a pristine wilderness. Arctic inhabitants—both natives and others—of course want to keep the Arctic safe, but they do not want to make it a museum. 

Development of the region’s resources accounts for nearly 95 percent of Alaska’s revenues. If we deny its development, are we prepared to make a line item in the federal budget to pay for Alaska to remain a park? 

       

       

       

       

       

       

Every 10 years, we have to count people. At least that's what Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution says. It doesn't sound too complicated. But it is. Who gets counted, and how, determines not only congressional representation but how funding is distributed for a slew of federal programs that affect all of us. As we prepare to stand and be counted in 2010 -- and the U.S. Census Bureau is spending a lot of advertising money to make sure that everyone is -- let's note a few misconceptions about our population and the efforts to tally us up.

1. Immigration is the biggest force behind the nation's racial and ethnic diversity.

If immigration stopped today, we would still see substantial gains in our minority populations for decades to come. Recent Census Bureau projections showed that under a "no further immigration" scenario, the minority share of our population would rise from about 35 percent today to 42 percent in 2050. The preschool (under age 5 ) population would become minority white. The greater minority presence would arise from higher natural-increase rates for minorities than for the aging white population. This momentum is already in place: Since 2000, natural population increase accounted for 62 percent of the growth of Hispanics, the country's largest minority group, with immigration responsible for the rest.

Already, the District and four states (Hawaii, New Mexico, California and Texas) are minority white, and in six more, whites are less than 60 percent of the population. Minorities now make up more than 30 percent of the residents in half of the nation's congressional districts, compared with a quarter in 1992.

The census will tell us more about the dispersal of Hispanics and other groups to traditional white enclaves -- suburbs and the country's midsection. A majority of all Hispanic, black and Asian residents of major metro areas now live in the suburbs. And since 2000, according to recent estimates, the fastest Hispanic growth occurred in South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Arkansas.

Color lines within our population are blurring in a different way, too, with people who identify with more than one race. The number of mixed-race married couples more than doubled since 1990, and they make up nearly 8 percent of all marriages.

2. The country is getting uniformly older.

As a baby boomer, I am part of a demographic mob. As we age over the next 20 years, the nation as a whole will see a surge in senior citizens. But different parts of the country will be aging at different rates, largely because selective "younging" is going on. This is evident from census estimates showing that during the first nine years of this decade, 25 states -- mostly in the Northeast, Midwest and Great Plains -- and the District exhibited absolute declines in their child populations, while 25 others, led by Nevada and Arizona, showed gains.

This variation in where families and children live is poised to shape a young-old regional divide that could intensify over time. Census projections for 2020, made earlier this decade, showed median ages over 40 in Maine, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, compared with below 36 in Utah, Texas, Georgia and California.

3. Big states will keep getting bigger -- especially in Congress.

For much of the postwar period, the Sunbelt megastates of California, Florida and Texas just kept growing: They led all other states in adding congressional seats based on censuses since World War II. But the economic turbulence of this past decade will affect their political fortunes. Florida was one of the nation's growth leaders for the first half of the decade and was poised to gain as many as three congressional seats after the 2010 Census, tying or overtaking New York's congressional delegation. But the mortgage meltdown led to an unprecedented exodus from the state in the past two years. Florida's likely gain of one seat will be its smallest addition since the 1940 Census.

California is not positioned to gain any seats for the first time since statehood in 1850. Despite its status as an immigration magnet, the Golden State lost large numbers of people fleeing high housing costs during the bubble years. California might have even lost a seat had that bubble not burst.

Of the three Sunbelt behemoths, Texas will take the biggest prize, probably four congressional seats -- its largest increase since the 1880 Census. It was largely immune from the housing crisis late in the decade, while it gained Katrina-driven migrants from Louisiana.

4. The census is the main source of information about our population.

Not as much as before. Unlike previous censuses, the 2010 count will provide only bare-bones information that does little more than fulfill its constitutional mandate. The questions will include the age, sex, race, Hispanic origin and household relationship status of each individual, and the size and homeownership status of each household.

What happened to all the rich data on poverty, income, ancestry, immigration, marital status and some 30 other categories we have come to expect from the census? Those "long form" questions have been given to a sample of census respondents in every count going back to 1940 -- but they won't be handed out this year. The queries have been diverted to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey.

In 2005, the bureau began administering the ACS to 3 million households each year to elicit the same kind of information that was previously available only every 10 years. This large and sophisticated survey has already provided important and timely insights on changing poverty, immigration and migration patterns in this economic roller coaster of a decade.

5. New technology gives us much more demographic data than the census can.

Not true. Technological developments and data collected via the Internet do give us new ways of looking at the population, and complex surveys and estimates conducted by the Census Bureau and other organizations allow us to monitor change over the decade -- but there is no substitute for counting everyone. Aside from the census's constitutional mandate to provide the basis for congressional apportionment, a national headcount also allows us to know how many people live in the nation's cities, suburbs and neighborhoods and to break them down according to race, age and gender.

There are plenty of examples of a decennial census surprising the experts. The 2000 Census, for instance, discovered sharp population surges in many old, large cities. This was unanticipated for Chicago, which had experienced decades of decline. And the spread of the nation's Hispanic population into new states such as North Carolina far exceeded expectations.

Many government and private surveys, including the ACS, rely on the decennial census to make sure their work accurately reflects the population as a whole.

This census will also tell us more about small but growing groups, such as same-sex married partners and multiracial populations, whose presence and interests can change laws and public policies.

The Census Bureau's ad campaign urges Americans to answer "10 Questions in 10 Minutes" -- and those are still 10 very important questions, whose responses will guide us for the next 10 years.

      

At a news conference in Seoul today, the United States and the Republic of Korea jointly announced the decision to deploy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system on the Korean Peninsula, with operational deployment planned by the end of 2017. Though many details are still pending, the decision is not a surprise, and the purposes of the deployment are wholly transparent.

As elaborated in the official announcement, the THAAD deployments are intended to defend the infrastructure and citizens of South Korea, and to protect core military capabilities underpinning the U.S.-Korea alliance. It is not a panacea for South Korea’s potential vulnerabilities to North Korean missile attack, but it will appreciably buttress Seoul’s still-limited air and missile defense capabilities, and explicitly link them to the far greater assets of the United States. 

Seoul did not undertake this commitment lightly. In recent years, South Korean strategic analysts have hotly debated the missile defense issue, but the political-military leadership has proceeded very deliberately. It was only in the aftermath of North Korea’s fourth nuclear test in early January and a long-range rocket test that soon followed that President Park Geun-hye’s administration agreed to initiate consultations on the “earliest possible” deployment of a THAAD missile battery. The North’s accelerated missile testing program, evident since April, reinforced the need for a meaningful response to Pyongyang’s actions.

Neither China nor Russia seems mollified by today’s announcement. Beijing and Moscow both perceive a malign U.S. strategic design, purportedly intended to detect and intercept Chinese and Russian strategic missiles, thereby invalidating their respective deterrence capabilities. But these worst-case estimates attribute technical reach and refinement to the Raytheon radar system likely to accompany the THAAD deployment that substantially exceeds even the manufacturer’s claims. 

China and Russia also contend that the THAAD deployment will further complicate the larger goal of denuclearization and threat reduction on the Korean Peninsula. But this places the cart before the horse. Pyongyang’s determination to expand and diversify its nuclear and missile programs has triggered the THAAD decision. Without the North’s accelerated military efforts, it is very doubtful that sentiment in Seoul would favor deployment of THAAD. Beijing and Moscow assuredly know how to connect the dots, but they seem unwilling to do so. 

At a time of increased Chinese wariness about U.S. military strategy along China’s periphery, it is not a surprise that Beijing has paid little heed to American and South Korean assurances.

Beijing also calculates that warning South Korea of unspecified consequences will convince Seoul to forego the THAAD decision. But this underestimates the South’s determination to proceed with missile defense, which will tie Seoul even more integrally to longer-term cooperation with the United States. This decision is unwelcome in China, but it is wholly within Seoul’s sovereign right to defend its vital interests by all appropriate means; China routinely does the same.

In meetings with Chinese counterparts, senior Korean officials have repeatedly stated that the THAAD deployment serves one irreducible purpose: the protection of South Korean vital national security interests. Seoul is keenly aware of Chinese strategic equities, and will remain very mindful of Beijing’s concerns as it moves ahead with this program. 

At the same time, Seoul and Washington have repeatedly conveyed their willingness to impart to officials in Beijing the limited purpose of the THAAD deployment. It will be directed entirely towards the North’s threats against the South; it will be exclusively bilateral in design; and it will not be targeted against the capabilities of any other party. 

At a time of increased Chinese wariness about U.S. military strategy along China’s periphery, it is not a surprise that Beijing has paid little heed to American and South Korean assurances, at least publicly. But officials and analysts in China must quietly grasp the reasons for the THAAD decision. The North’s nuclear and missile programs worry China deeply, as well. 

The need for a quiet, private conversation about the risks to stability on the peninsula has never been greater. The United States and South Korea are surely ready for this conversation. Whether China is ready remains to be seen.

       

How has the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—signed between the P5+1 and Iran one year ago—played out in practice? Several Brookings scholars, many of whom participated prominently in debates last year surrounding official congressional review, offered their views.

Strobe Talbott, President, Brookings Institution: At the one-year mark, it’s clear that the nuclear agreement between Iran and the major powers has substantially restricted Tehran’s ability to produce the fissile material necessary to build a bomb. That’s a net positive—for the United States and the broader region.

Robert Einhorn, Senior Fellow, Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence and Senior Fellow, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative, Foreign Policy program: One year after its conclusion, the JCPOA remains controversial in Tehran and Washington (as I describe in more detail here), with opponents unreconciled to the deal and determined to derail it. But opponents have had to scale back their criticism, in large part because the JCPOA, at least so far, has delivered on its principal goal—blocking Iran’s path to nuclear weapons for an extended period of time. Moreover, Iran’s positive compliance record has not given opponents much ammunition. The IAEA found Iran in compliance in its two quarterly reports issued in 2016. But challenges to the smooth operation and even the longevity of the deal are already apparent. A real threat to the JCPOA is that Iran will blame the slow recovery of its economy on U.S. failure to conscientiously fulfill its sanctions relief commitments and, using that as a pretext, will curtail or even end its own implementation of the deal. But international banks and businesses have been reluctant to engage Iran not because they have been discouraged by the United States but because they have their own business-related reasons to be cautious. Legislation proposed in Congress could also threaten the nuclear deal.  For now, the administration is in a position to block new legislation that it believes would scuttle the deal. But developments outside the JCPOA, especially Iran’s regional behavior and its crackdown on dissent at home, could weaken support for the JCPOA within the United States and give proponents of deal-killing legislation a boost.  A potential wildcard for the future of the JCPOA is coming governing transitions in both Washington and Tehran. Hillary Clinton would maintain the deal but perhaps a harder line than her predecessor. Donald Trump now says he will re-negotiate rather than scrap the deal, but a better deal will not prove negotiable. With President Hassan Rouhani up for re-election next year and the health of the Supreme Leader questionable, Iran’s future policy toward the JCPOA cannot be confidently predicted. A final verdict on the JCPOA is many years away. But it is off to a promising start, as even some of its early critics now concede. Still, it is already clear that the path ahead will not always be smooth, the longevity of the deal cannot be taken for granted, and keeping it on track will require constant focus in Washington and other interested capitals.

Suzanne Maloney, Deputy Director, Foreign Policy program and Senior Fellow, Center for Middle East Policy, Foreign Policy program: The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action has fulfilled neither the worst fears of its detractors nor the most soaring ambitions of its proponents. All of the concerns that have shaped U.S. policy toward Tehran for more than a generation—terrorism, human rights abuses, weapons of mass destruction, regional destabilization—remain as relevant, and as alarming, as they have ever been. Notably, much the same is true on the Iranian side; the manifold grievances that Tehran has harbored toward Washington since the 1979 revolution continue to smolder. An important truth about the JCPOA, which has been wielded by both its defenders and its detractors in varying contexts, is that it was transactional, not transformational. As President Barack Obama repeatedly insisted, the accord addressed one specific problem, and in those narrow terms, it can be judged a relative success. The value of that relative success should not be underestimated; a nuclear-armed Iran would magnify risks in a turbulent region in a terrible way.  But in the United States, in Iran, and across the Middle East, the agreement has always been viewed through a much broader lens—as a waystation toward Iranian-American rapprochement, as an instrument for addressing the vicious cycle of sectarian violence that threatens to consume the region, as a boost to the greater cause of moderation and democratization in Iran. And so the failure of the deal to catalyze greater cooperation from Iran on a range of other priorities—Syria, Yemen, Iraq, to name a few—or to jumpstart improvements in Iran’s domestic dynamics cannot be disregarded simply because it was not its original intent.  For the “new normal” of regularized diplomatic contact between Washington and Tehran to yield dividends, the United States will need a serious strategy toward Tehran that transcends the JCPOA, building on the efficacy of the hard-won multilateral collaboration on the nuclear issue. Iranians, too, must begin to pivot the focus of their efforts away from endless litigation of the nuclear deal and toward a more constructive approach to addressing the deep challenges facing their country today.

Bruce Riedel, Senior Fellow, Center for Middle East Policy and Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence and Director, Intelligence Project, Foreign Policy program: As I explain more fully here, one unintended but very important consequence of the Iran nuclear deal has been to aggravate and intensify Saudi Arabia's concerns about Iran's regional goals and intentions. This fueling of Saudi fears has in turn fanned sectarian tensions in the region to unprecedented levels, and the results are likely to haunt the region for years to come. Riyadh's concerns about Iran have never been primarily focused on the nuclear danger. Rather, the key Saudi concern is that Iran seeks regional hegemony and uses terrorism and subversion to achieve it. The deal deliberately does not deal with this issue. In Saudi eyes, it actually makes the situation worse because lifting sanctions removed Iran's isolation as a rogue state and gives it more income.  Washington has tried hard to reassure the Saudis, and President Obama has wisely sought to build confidence with King Salman and his young son. The Iran deal is a good one, and I've supported it from its inception. But it has had consequences that are dangerous and alarming. In the end, Riyadh and Tehran are the only players who can deescalate the situation—the Saudis show no sign of interest in that road.

Norman Eisen, Visiting Fellow, Governance Studies: The biggest disappointment of the post-deal year has been the failure of Congress to pass legislation complementing the JCPOA. There is a great deal that the legislative branch could do to support the pact. Above all, it could establish criteria putting teeth into U.S. enforcement of Preamble Section III, Iran's pledge never to seek nuclear weapons. Congress could and should make clear what the ramp to seeking nuclear weapons would look like, what the triggers would be for U.S. action, and what kinds of U.S. action would be on the table. If Iran knows that, it will modulate its behavior accordingly. If it does not, it will start to act out, and we have just kicked the can down the road. That delay is of course immensely valuable—but why not extend the road indefinitely? Congress can do that, and much more (e.g. by increasing funding for JCPOA oversight by the administration and the IAEA), with appropriate legislation.

Richard Nephew, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative, Foreign Policy program: Over the past year, much effort has gone into ensuring that the Iran deal is fully implemented. To date, the P5+1 has—not surprisingly—gotten the better end of the bargain, with significant security benefits accruing to them and their partners in the Middle East once the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verified the required changes to Iran's nuclear program. Iran, for its part, has experienced a natural lag in its economic resurgence, held back by the collapse in oil prices in 2014, residual American and European sanctions, and reluctance among banks and businesses to re-engage. But, Iran's economy has stabilized and—if the deal holds for its full measure—the security benefits that the P5+1 and their partners have won may fall away while Iran's economy continues to grow. The most important challenge related to the deal for the next U.S. administration (and, presumably, the Rouhani administration in its second term) is therefore: how can it be taken forward, beyond the 10- to 15-year transition period? Iran will face internal pressure to expand its nuclear program, but it also will face pressure to refrain both externally and internally, should other countries in the region seek to create their own matching nuclear capabilities.  The best next step for all sides is to negotiate a region-wide arrangement to manage nuclear programs –one that constrains all sides, though perhaps not equally. It must ensure—at a minimum—that nuclear developments in the region are predictable, understandable, and credibly civilian (something Bob Einhorn and I addressed in a recent report). The next White House will need to do the hard work of convincing countries in the region—and beyond—not to rest on the victory of the JCPOA. Rather, they must take it for what it is: another step towards a more stable and manageable region.

Tamara Wittes, Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Middle East Policy, Foreign Policy program:  This week, Washington is awash in events and policy papers taking stock of how the Iran nuclear deal has changed the Middle East in the past year. The narratives presented this week largely track the positions that the authors, speakers, or organizations articulated on the nuclear deal when it was first concluded last summer. Those who opposed the deal have marshaled evidence of how the deal has "emboldened" Iran's destabilizing behavior, while those who supported the deal cite evidence of "moderated" politics in the Islamic Republic. That polarized views on the deal last year produce polarized assessments of the deal's impact this year should surprise no one. In fact, no matter which side of the nuclear agreement’s worth it presents, much of the analysis out this week ascribes to the nuclear deal Iranian behavior and attitudes in the region that existed before the deal's conclusion and implementation. Iran has been a revisionist state, and a state sponsor of terrorism, since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The Saudi-Iranian rivalry predates the revolution; Iran's backing of Houthi militias against Saudi and its allies in Yemen well predates the nuclear agreement. Most notably, the upheavals in the Arab world since 2011 have given Iran wider opportunities than perhaps ever before to exploit the cracks within Arab societies—and to use cash, militias, and other tools to advance its interests and expand its influence. Iran has exploited those opportunities skillfully in the last five years and, as I wrote last summer, was likely to continue to do so regardless of diplomatic success or failure in Vienna. To argue that the nuclear deal somehow created these problems, or could solve them, is ahistorical.  It is true that Iran's access to global markets might free even more cash for these endeavors, and that is a real issue worth tracking. But since severe sanctions did not prevent Iran from spending hundreds of millions of dollars to support and supply Hezbollah, or marshaling Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and militia fighters to sustain the faltering regime of Bashar Assad in Syria, it's not clear that additional cash will generate a meaningful difference in regional outcomes. Certainly, the nuclear deal's conclusion and implementation did not alter the trajectory of Iranian policy in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, or Lebanon to any noticeable degree—and that means that, no matter what the merits or dangers of the JCPOA, the United States must still confront and work to resolve enduring challenges to regional instability—including Iran's revisionist behavior.

Kenneth M. Pollack, Senior Fellow, Center for Middle East Policy, Foreign Policy program:  When the JCPOA was being debated last year, I felt that the terms of the deal were far less consequential than how the United States responded to Iranian regional behavior after a deal was signed. I see the events of the past 12 months as largely having borne that out. While both sides have accused the other of "cheating," the deal has so far largely held. However, as many of my colleagues have noted, the real frictions have arisen from the U.S. geostrategic response to the deal. I continue to believe that signing the JCPOA was better than any of the realistic alternatives—though I also continue to believe that a better deal was possible, had the administration handled the negotiations differently. However, the administration’s regional approach since then has been problematic—with officials condemning Riyadh and excusing Tehran in circumstances where both were culpable and ignoring some major Iranian transgressions, for instance (and with President Obama gratuitously insulting the Saudis and other U.S. allies in interviews).  America's traditional Sunni Arab allies (and to some extent Turkey and Israel) feared that either the United States would use the JCPOA as an excuse to further disengage from the region or to switch sides and join the Iranian coalition. Their reading of events has been that this is precisely what has happened, and it is causing the GCC states to act more aggressively. I think our traditional allies would enthusiastically welcome a Hillary Clinton presidency. She would likely do all that she could to reassure them that she plans to be more engaged and more willing to commit American resources and energy to Middle Eastern problems. But those allies will eventually look for her to turn words into action. I cannot imagine a Hillary Clinton administration abrogating the JCPOA, imposing significant new economic sanctions on Iran, or otherwise acting in ways that it would fear could provoke Tehran to break the deal. Our allies may see that as Washington trying to remain on the fence, which will infuriate them.  So there are some important strategic differences between the United States and its regional allies. The second anniversary of the JCPOA could therefore prove even more fraught for America and the Middle East than the first.

       

Few issues are closer to President Obama’s vision of the global future than his convictions about reducing the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security strategy. Less than three months after entering office, in a major speech in Prague, he put forward an ambitious nuclear agenda, declaring that the United States (as the only state ever to employ nuclear weapons in warfare) had a “moral responsibility…to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”

Seven years later, despite the administration’s having advanced other goals in non-proliferation policy, the larger vision of a nuclear-free world remains very much unfulfilled. But President Obama apparently hasn’t given up. In late May, he became the first American president to visit Hiroshima, where the United States first employed a nuclear weapon in warfare. In his speech, the president declared that “nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles…must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them.” Moreover, as President Obama approaches his final six months in office, senior officials are purportedly deliberating additional policy changes that they believe could be undertaken without congressional approval. As Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said in a June 6 speech at the Arms Control Association, the president remains intent on advancing his “Prague agenda” before leaving office.

According to recent press reports, the policy options under consideration include U.S. enunciation of a nuclear “no first use” doctrine. Such a step would represent a profound shift in U.S. policy. Non-nuclear states living in the shadow of nuclear-armed adversaries have long relied on U.S. security guarantees, specifically the declared commitment to employ nuclear weapons should our allies be subject to aggression with conventional forces. They have based their own national security strategies on that pledge, including their willingness to forego indigenous development of nuclear weapons.

Northeast Asia presents a clear contradiction between President Obama’s non-nuclear aspirations and existing circumstances.

These issues bear directly on the credibility of U.S. guarantees to allies in Europe and Asia, with particular relevance in Northeast Asia. Since the end of the Cold War, the content of the U.S. extended nuclear deterrence pledge has already narrowed. Washington has long deemed any use of nuclear weapons a matter of absolute last resort. Since the early 1990s, Washington has also enunciated an unambiguous distinction between employment of conventional and nuclear weapons, including the unilateral withdrawal of all tactical nuclear weapons deployed on the Korean peninsula. 

The Obama administration itself has also moved closer to limiting nuclear weapons use exclusively to deter another state’s first use of such a weapon against the United States, its allies, and partners—in fact, the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review declared that this was a “fundamental role” of the American nuclear arsenal. At that time, it also pledged to “work to establish conditions” under which it was safe to adopt universally a policy where the “sole purpose” of U.S. nuclear weapons was to deter a nuclear attack by an adversary. The implication of such a “sole purpose” policy would be that North Korea need not fear American nuclear retaliation if it mounted only a conventional attack against South Korea. 

Whether it is “no first use” or “sole purpose use,” Northeast Asia presents a clear contradiction between President Obama’s non-nuclear aspirations and existing circumstances. The Republic of Korea and Japan (the only state ever subject to nuclear attack) confront the reality of a nuclear-armed North Korea. Pyongyang continues to enhance its weapons inventory and the means to deliver them. It also regularly threatens Seoul and Tokyo with missile attack, potentially armed with nuclear weapons. 

[A]ny indications that the United States might be wavering from its nuclear guarantees would trigger worst-case fears that the United States, above all, would not want to stimulate.

Both U.S. allies are therefore strongly opposed to a U.S. "no first use" pledge, and would likely have deep concerns about a sole purpose commitment. Though the United States possesses a wide array of non-nuclear strike options in the event of a North Korean attack directed against South Korea or Japan, any indications that the United States might be wavering from its nuclear guarantees would trigger worst-case fears that the United States, above all, would not want to stimulate. At the same time, choosing not to issue a "no first use" pledge should not in any way suggest that the United States favors nuclear use, which would play directly into North Korean propaganda strategy. Rather, the United States should not preemptively remove the nuclear option, especially when North Korea is in overt defiance of its non-proliferation obligations and is single-mindedly intent on a building a nuclear weapons capability.

The Obama administration must therefore balance its clear desire to advance a non-nuclear legacy with Northeast Asia’s inescapable realities. Enunciating a "no first use" doctrine or a sole purpose commitment in the administration’s waning months in office is a bridge too far. Though the United States can and should engage South Korea and Japan in much deeper consultations about extended deterrence, it cannot put at risk the security of allies directly threatened by attack from a nuclear-armed adversary. 

The next U.S. president will have to square this circle. In the meantime, the Obama administration should do all that it can to plan for the road ahead, even if it means policy pledges that might not be as visionary as it would prefer. 

       

       

Editor's Note: This discussion with John Turnbull, director of asset management at the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority, is the first in a series of Q&As with urban practitioners for the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Initiative on Innovation and Placemaking.

Pike Place Market in Seattle is a leading example of how intentional governance can help vibrant urban spaces reach their potential as platforms for innovation. John Turnbull, director of asset management at the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority, sat down for an interview to tell us more about the market and the role of the Preservation and Development Authority (PDA) in its operation.

People outside Seattle tend to know Pike Place as a fish market, but it offers so much more. What makes the market special?

The Pike Place Market is a beloved part of Seattle and really unlike any other place. It’s open 363 days a year and provides space for local farmers, artisan vendors, and small businesses to thrive. It offers a wide range of social services, including a food bank, a health clinic, a senior center, child care and preschool, and assisted living for the elderly. It’s also home to nearly 500 residents who live in a mix of rent-subsidized apartments, market-rate units, and luxury condos as well as a boutique hotel and a bed-and-breakfast—all within the four-block district. Our sense of place depends on the permeability of private/commercial/public spaces, and we make a great effort to ensure that the corresponding mix of activity creates space for personal interactions.

Public support has always been a key component of the market’s success. It was first established in 1907 in response to public demand for fresh produce at fair prices. Seattleites kept the market from the wrecking ball in the 1960s and 1970s and have consistently provided public funds for capital investments—even in the midst of the Great Recession.

The market’s focus on supporting local independent business and one-to-one relationships is unique enough to create both a community sense of identity—Seattle’s “soul”—and an attraction for tourists and visitors. This has been part of the market’s identity for more than a century and has continued under the PDA’s stewardship these last 40 years.

How does the market operate? Who’s in charge?

The market’s been around since the early 1900s but its current governance structure dates back to the 1970s, when the market was almost leveled in the name of urban renewal. A group called Friends of the Market formed to fight the city’s redevelopment plans and in 1971 ran a successful ballot measure campaign to save the market. That ballot measure established the Market Historic District and created the Pike Place Market Historical Commission to make decisions about future construction and capital investments.

Commissioners are appointed by the mayor, half from a list drawn up by community organizations and half from people who live, conduct business, and own property in the market district. The commission was created to keep city government from dismantling the market, so its decisions on use, design, and business management are final, not just advisory. Overturning a commission decision requires a court appeal—and even then, appeals can be based only on questions of fair process and/or failure to follow commission guidelines.

The commission reworked the urban renewal plan to preserve the architectural and social fabric of the market. To support these goals, the city created an independent Preservation and Development Authority to oversee financial operations, development, and day-to-day management of the market. The charter [document download] that established the PDA in 1973 continues to be a guiding force for us—we refer to it all the time. It defines the PDA’s specific powers and responsibilities, which include managing the properties in the Market Historic District, supporting local farmers and small-business owners, and providing social services for low-income residents and others in the market community. Funding for social services and programs is coordinated by the Pike Place Market Foundation, which is separate from the PDA. 

How are decisions made?

The PDA executive director and staff handle day-to-day business operations, but most decisions concerning contracts, tenant relations, budgets, and the like are finalized by the PDA Council, a group of 12 volunteers who are appointed for four-year terms by either the mayor, the Pike Place Market Constituency, or the PDA Council itself (each appoints four councilmembers).

The charter created the PDA as a public steward for the market that’s much more nimble than a governmental agency and much more accountable to the surrounding community. The charter requires unusual transparency, including public meetings to approve any expenditures over $10,000; bond issues; donations made by the PDA; and adoption of the annual budget and capital budget. Meanwhile, new businesses, changes in business ownership, and modifications to buildings require approval from the Market Historic Commission, which has regular biweekly meetings that include time for public comment. Nothing happens behind closed doors.

How does the PDA get its funds and how is that funding deployed?

Over 60 percent of our revenue comes from commercial tenants, with residential rents, daystall rents and fees, parking fees, and incomes from various programs and investments making up the rest. This year we expect total revenues over $18 million, which is more than $1 million more than we projected for 2015.

About three-quarters of budgeted expenses come from tenant services, which include everything from maintenance and security to insurance, utilities, and property management. Another 14 percent goes to PDA management and administration, and the last 10 percent goes toward marketing and other programmatic expenses.

The charter also gives the PDA bonding authority, which we used for the first time this past year. The $26 million in bonds will pay down existing debt and finance the new MarketFront expansion that’s slated to open next year.

The PDA Council operates the market as a business, but it doesn’t make decisions strictly based on profit. We think about return on investment in terms of social benefit to the community. The council looks at a whole host of qualitative measures that aren’t easily captured by quantitative metrics. For instance, how do you measure “local pride”? That’s why we end up referring to our charter so often—and also why we encourage our constituents to use the charter guidelines to measure our results. 

So through the council and the charter, we’ve created a form of community-oriented economics that keeps us accountable to our constituents and lets us reinvest earnings to provide social services and keep residential and commercial rents low.

Lots of places are looking to innovation as a way to drive sustainable economic growth. Do you see Pike Place Market as a place for innovation?

Innovation is an important aspect of what happens in the market, though it looks different from what you might see in other more tech-oriented innovation districts. We offer highly localized small business incubation that’s focused on building a strong local economy. By providing a supportive environment for new businesses and strictly limiting opportunities to new ventures that haven’t yet built a customer base, we’ve created an active laboratory for experimentation.

We have a history of providing a solid base for new businesses—especially ones that are food-related. Starbucks, Sur La Table, and a large number of specialty food businesses got their start in the market. And there are an equally large number of culinary ventures whose lead chefs look to the market as a central source of inspiration and community. We support economic growth by helping new ventures get established—which for many involves developing an international presence—while also attracting customers to spend money in our community.

Seattle has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years, thanks in large part to a vibrant tech sector. How has this affected Pike Place Market?

Over the last few years, we’ve seen some significant changes in shopping patterns. Lots of neighborhoods now have weekly farmers’ markets, and grocery stores have been moving toward a more market-like shopping experience, which has meant fewer people shopping for groceries at the market. We’re also seeing more millennials and a lot more tourists, especially in the summer.

These changes got us thinking about what the market needs to do to stay relevant. Bringing in new businesses and younger entrepreneurs is part of this strategy, as are initiatives like our pop-up Express Markets, which bring fresh produce to different locations throughout the city mid-June through September. This summer we’re starting a weekly evening market at Pike Place so that local customers can shop without having to wade through the weekend tourist crowds.

We’ll always be hyper-local and focused on building a strong community of market patrons and vendors. That emphasis on personal connection sets the market apart—it’s something you just can’t replicate with e-commerce. 

       

       

Young people in Northeast Asia have become famous around the world for their creativity and consumer flair: K-pop and the Korean Wave, fancy smart phones and IT entrepreneurism, high-end fashion, obsession with plastic surgery, and web-based social networks. Political activism and participation are not the first two words that pop into one’s head when we think of young East Asians. 

But in recent years, youth in Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are leading political movements and asserting their interests onto the national political agenda. Although the specific issues of political concern differ, they are motivated by a common fear of economic decline for their generation, a rejection of political marginalization, and a moral awakening that their governments and the older generations are endangering their future, including democracy. 

Since 2014, young Japanese took up the issue of national security policy and the democratic process and became new defenders of the peace Constitution. They passionately opposed the Legislation for Peace and Security (aka Collective Self-Defense law), which Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government put before the Diet to permit Japan’s Self-Defense Forces to engage in military action outside Japan and in the aid of allies. The leading organization, Students Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy (SEALDs), used peaceful means to stage multi-faceted challenges—via street protests, songs, livestream broadcasts, humor, as well as slogans deliberately marked in the English language—to what they viewed as fundamentally unconstitutional and a violation of the democratic process. Most of Japan’s constitutional scholars agreed with them.

All protesters, young and old, condemned the CSD measures as a way for Japan to do what Article 9 of the Constitution forbids: engage in offensive military action without amending the Constitution. Many called it the “war law.” Not only college students but those in middle school and high school participated in protests and meetings while still in their school uniforms. Teens Stand Up To Oppose War Law (T-ns SOWL) is their main organization. In late August 2015, at the height of the protests across Japan, over 120,000 people held their rally in front of the Diet building while tens of thousands more gathered in other cities. In the mass gatherings, the SEALDs slogan, “What does democracy look like? This is what democracy looks like,” reverberated. Young people were drawing attention to themselves as practitioners and protectors of Japanese democracy, as opposed to the older Abe establishment in the government and the Diet. Although their protests did not stop the passing and enactment of the bill (March 2016), Japanese youth continue to oppose the government’s penchant to increase Japan’s military capabilities and posture. Their weakness, however, lies in having no institutional structure of leadership and influence. This reflects SEALDs’ belief in horizontal political participation and organizing, in itself a political stance in a society that is hierarchical and hyper-organized.

In Korea, President Park Geun-hye’s conservative Saenuri Party was projected to be the overwhelming winner of South Korea’s legislative election on April 13, 2016 as no pundits or surveys predicted the opposition Minjoo Party to emerge as the victor. But in a stunning twist, the Minjoo Party gained a single seat advantage over the ruling Saenuri Party and secured a liberal majority with an additional 44 seats from two minor opposition parties. This surprise outcome was not credited to the success of the opposition, but instead largely attributed to the increased turnout of voters in their twenties and thirties who are frustrated by socioeconomic conditions and the political status quo. Leading up to the election, university student bodies and various youth groups mobilized young voters to go the polls, which resulted in a 13 percent increase among 20-year-olds since the last election. Once labeled as a politically detached generation, South Korea’s youth sent a loud and powerful message that they have had enough.

On May 20, 2016, Taiwan inaugurated Tsai Ing-wen, its first woman president, and completed its third democratic transfer of power. In February, following the January 2016 elections, Taiwan’s opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) became the majority party in the Legislative Yuan for the first time. While the Kuomintang, the conservative ruling party, was predicted to lose the executive, the losses in the Legislative Yuan validated the growing progressive movement that had been initiated by students in March 2014.

Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, student activist groups have mobilized beyond mass demonstrations, such as the Umbrella Movement of fall 2014. Angered by the setback to political reform and expanded citizen participation in choosing their leaders, the young students have organized into formal political parties, looking ahead to the September 2016 Legislative Council (LegCo) elections. Similar to the student groups in South Korea, the younger generation in Taiwan and Hong Kong has concluded that their voices are not only important, but necessary in determining their political and economic futures.

Why now? Why have younger activist movements emerged or gained ground recently?

Like their counterparts in South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, Japanese youth were affected by a series of political, legal, and economic events that decreased their trust in their respective governments and increased their sense of vulnerability and insecurity. The most prominent catalyst was the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster of March 2011. It generated a rash of citizen activism, including investigation and documentation teams, increased opposition to nuclear power plants, and lawsuits against the Japanese government and the Tokyo Electric Power Company. Because so many of the victims were children and youth, the political action was particularly poignant. Parents of the nearly 400,000 children residing in the Fukushima area at the time of the power plant melt-downs began organizing in April 2011.

One group sued the Koriyama City government, demanding that it provide financially and logistically for the affected children to reside and attend school in safe areas. Two years later, their lawsuit failed as the Sendai High Court ruled against the plaintiffs, stating that radiation levels are safe enough, even for children, and that families should pursue evacuation if they wish, at their own cost. The 400,000 or so children (up to 18 years of age at the time of the accident) will be required to get tested for radiation-related health effects for the rest of their lives because children are known to be more vulnerable to radiation than adults. As of April 2016, citizens were disappointed again as their injunction against the reopening of two reactors at a nuclear power plant in Kagoshima Prefecture was overturned by the Fukuoka High Court. Young and old alike have joined together to oppose nuclear energy in Japan.

Young people also resent the expansion of non-regular employment and the Worker Dispatch Law, which decreased the labor rights and protections of dispatched or temporary workers since its inception in 1985. The global economic crisis of 2007-09 highlighted young people’s economic vulnerability as jobs became harder to obtain and those in temporary arrangements, with no seniority in age and experience, were easily laid off. The 2012 revision of the Dispatch Law prohibited the employment of a temp for more than three years in certain job categories was another blow to young people, who worry that they will face “lifelong dispatch.” SEALDs also warns against the economic hardship on many Japanese, including young adults, when the proposed consumption tax of 10 percent kicks in come April 2017: “If the consumption tax is increased without rebuilding the system of redistribution centered on social security, the wealth gap will continue to widen.”

For South Korea, signs of frustration began to brew in 2013 when a hand-written poster at the elite Korea University circulated around the internet. Written in the form of a letter, the poster conveyed frustration against perceived social injustices (e.g. 4,213 workers were dismissed for protesting the privatization of the state-owned Korea Railroad Co.), which reverberated beyond the student population. Most striking was the poignant criticism of the lack of youth representation in government and young people’s sense of repeated neglect by the older political establishment. The letter was a sobering reminder that today’s youth feel they have little say in shaping their own futures.

This political wake-up call was amplified following the government’s inadequate handling of the Sewol ferry tragedy in spring 2014 and the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome outbreak (MERS) in spring 2015. When reports revealed that state collusion with the shipping industry led to lax maritime regulations and that the government had failed to distribute time-sensitive information about MERS, an enraged public demanded accountability for the tragic loss of innocent lives. The sinking of Sewol killed 304 passengers out of 476 on board, most of whom were high school students. This wave of public distrust and resentment triggered a larger outcry against the lack of transparency and corruption in both government and businesses.

Mounting frustrations from the younger generation culminated in the creation of “Hell Joseon,” a satirical phrase and an online community named after the country’s “hellish” economic conditions and the class-based society of Joseon, Korea’s former kingdom before Japanese colonization. The phrase is used to describe a grim society where social mobility is impossible, only the privileged are immune from the plight of unemployment, and immigration is the only way out. The popularity and wide circulation of this term led to a public debate about the hardships of Korean society, prompting even politicians to use the term during the 2015 National Assembly inspection of government offices. Naturally, both the term and its implications made its way into the campaign trails, as evidenced in the prioritization of domestic issues in candidates’ platforms for the 2016 general election.

In Taiwan, the younger generation burst onto the political scene in March 2014, when a group of activists stormed and occupied the Legislative Yuan for twenty-three days. The occupation, known as the “Sunflower Movement,” was the culmination of the growing frustration with Taiwan’s economic climate coupled with the younger generation’s political upbringing in a democracy. The student occupiers focused on the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement (CSSTA), which, to them, embodied both economic and security perils created by the then-president Ma Ying-jeou’s practice of political thaw and tighter economic ties with mainland China. The protesters viewed the benefits of the CSSTA as biased favoring big corporations but hurting small-to-medium enterprises. Additionally, these young occupiers felt that under the KMT, Taiwan’s worsening economy was becoming more dependent on the Mainland. They feared that Beijing was taking advantage of these agreements as a means to leverage its power over the island, which would make China’s ultimate goal of reunification all the easier.

Hong Kong’s political reform process, which was initiated prior to Britain’s handover of the territory back to China in 1997, has garnered more attention in recent years due to upcoming milestones. Since the reversion, China has taken gradual steps to ensure Hong Kong’s political system adheres to the Basic Law, which is the mini-constitution that protects “one country, two systems”, the guiding principle for China’s sovereignty over the territory, at least until 2047. As outlined by a 2007 PRC National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPC-SC) decision, Hong Kong residents would be able to choose the chief executive by means of “universal suffrage” for the 2017 election.

However, China’s interpretation of “universal suffrage” differed from the definition pursued by the pan-democratic political camp in Hong Kong. When an August 2014 NPC-SC decision outlined that the Hong Kong public could only choose between two to three candidates, who would be selected through a screening committee biased towards Beijing, high school and university students felt particularly deceived. Several veteran pan-democratic activists had already formed the “Occupy Central” movement, which adhered to non-violent, consultative, civil disobedience norms. Without a representative government, demonstrations have become the go-to way for Hong Kong people to voice their opinions. So, following this tradition, young activists decided to move beyond the “Occupy Central” methods when they boycotted class in September 2014, and thus, launched the three-month mass demonstration known as “the Umbrella Movement.”

What is driving these movements? Economic factors or political values?

In all four cases, economic factors including youth unemployment, job insecurity, low wages, and social inequality are critical motivators driving the younger generation’s political actions. The youth unemployment rate in South Korea hit a record high of 12.5 percent in February, which is three times the overall unemployment rate, and about one-third of those who are employed hold temporary jobs. In Taiwan, between 2014 and 2015, youth unemployment averaged 12.9 percent, reaching a high of 14 percent in August 2014. Even for those with jobs in South Korea, real wages have not increased commensurate with the country’s economic growth. Over the past five years, the annual average increase in real wages was only 1.34 percent, barely half the average economic growth rate of 2.96 percent. The unemployment rates among Japanese youth are lower (8 percent in 2011 declining to 6.5 percent in 2014), but a large number of young Japanese with jobs consider themselves as temporary, contract or part-time workers. What’s startling is that the Japanese government “Survey of Employment of Young People” (ages 15-34) in 2014 found that a whopping 40.3 percent of the respondents stated that their “main source of income” comes from parents. In addition, a recent survey by the Japanese branch of the U.K.-based Big Issue Foundation, which assists the homeless, found “77 percent of the nation’s low-income unmarried youths live with their parents mainly for financial reasons.”^[1] Even if these young folks have not launched their version of “Hell Nippon,” they certainly would sympathize with their Korean counterparts’ fears of economic uncertainty and worries about social marginalization through extended infantilization.

Inequality also is manifested in access to affordable housing, with both Taiwan and Hong Kong experiencing exorbitant real estate markets. In Taipei, the ratio of median housing price to median annual household income hit 15.7 in 2014, thus coining the phrase that you’d have to neither eat nor drink for 15 years to afford housing. In Hong Kong, 180-square-foot “mosquito apartments” can cost $US 517,000. Housing prices have steadily increased in South Korea as well, where the average price of an apartment is roughly $10,000 per 35 square feet. 

But compounding these economic disappointments is young citizens’ disillusionment with their respective governments. Since 2013, when President Park Geun-hye took office, Freedom House has downgraded South Korea’s score from the highest at #1 for political rights to #2 in 2014 and 2015. Its overall freedom score slipped from 1.5 to 2.0. Specifically, the report emphasized the “increased intimidation of political opponents of President Park Geun-hye and crackdowns on public criticism of her performance following the Sewol ferry accident.” Additionally, President Park’s administration has been plagued with controversies from the start, with charges of election meddling in her favor by the National Intelligence Service, a divisive debate over state-sanctioned history textbooks, which her administration has spearheaded Additionally, her administration’s arbitrary use of the controversial National Security Law to restrict freedom of speech and freedom of association reminded many Koreans of the pre-democratic Korea under the control of her father, the late President Park Chung-hee.

Like their peers in South Korea, the younger generation in Taiwan has only known a democratic Taiwan, so unlike their parents’ generation who lived under an authoritarian regime, they now seek a higher standard of governance and fairness and accountability from political institutions. But, the democracy they know is a young democracy, one trying to overcome, but still prone to, corruption, unfair practices and deep partisan divides. So, when they see problems in their democratic institutions, such as opacity in passing the CSSTA bill, they regard themselves as protectors of Taiwan’s democracy, justified in opposing the government and articulating their criticism.

The young Japanese of SEALDs profess a similar purpose: “We believe it is absolutely essential for [sic] opposing the current government to establish a unity of opposition parties and its supporters who share liberal values such as constitutionalism, social security and peace diplomacy. This unity will create a new political culture which encourages citizen’s political participation and revitalizes representational democracy.”^[2]

Economic frustrations in Hong Kong have coalesced into a political pursuit toward a more representative and democratic political system. In particular, for the millennial generation, the year 2047 – when the one country, two systems agreement expires – is not a distant date in the future as it was for the creators of the Basic Law in the 1990s. Therefore, the young activists believe they should help set the parameters and pace of the political reforms they deem necessary to achieve a society they envision and that they, not their elders, will have to lead.

Implications for the future? Forerunner of divisive generational politics?

With the September 2016 legislative council (LegCo) and 2017 chief executive elections approaching, Hong Kong’s student groups have begun to organize beyond demonstrations into political parties. Joshua Wong, one of the student leaders during the Umbrella Movement, launched the Demosisto party, which plans to run several candidates in the LegCo elections, and calls for a referendum on one-country, two-systems and on self-determination after 2047. Other new parties led by young activists have taken even more extreme stances, such as the Hong Kong National Party, which calls for Hong Kong independence. The upcoming challenge for the new political parties, however, is that the pan-democratic camp is fractured, while the pro-Beijing establishment camp has remained more-or-less unified. As witnessed in the failed political reform bill in June 2015, which, as Richard Bush argues, could have provided a narrow path for a pan-democratic candidate, Beijing can ride out a political deadlock in Hong Kong. But, the younger generation in Hong Kong feels that they have little time to waste in implementing political reforms. The greatest challenge ahead of Hong Kong will be finding a way for the moderate and radical sides of the pan-democratic camp to compromise and unify.

The “Sunflower Movement” helped ignite the pan-green coalition in Taiwan, leading to demoralizing defeats for the Kuomintang (KMT) Party in both the local elections of November 2014 and presidential and legislative elections of January 2016. In addition to the DPP gaining a majority in the Legislative Yuan, the New Power Party, which emerged directly from the Sunflower Movement, won five legislative seats, making it the third largest party in Taiwan. During her inauguration speech on May 20, 2016, President Tsai Ing-wen focused on a wide range of domestic issues, and even spoke directly to young people, vowing to help change their current predicament through a new model of economic development “based on the core values of innovation, employment and equitable distribution.”

In reference to cross-Strait relations, Tsai did not say what Beijing wanted her to say, which means Taiwan can expect some economic and strategic blowback from the Mainland. In particular, if Beijing punishes Taiwan via economic tools, then that could derail Tsai’s plans to help pull young people out of their economic rut. So, while it’s tempting to say the Taiwanese youth movement succeeded in getting on the national agenda through the recent election, the Tsai administration has many hurdles to jump in order to fully achieve the movement’s objectives.

While Tsai has time to consider and clear the political hurdles, President Park is poised for a rough run in the final stage of her term as she faces a formidable progressive bloc in the new legislature. Political commentators are already discussing the prospects of a progressive-led Blue House in 2017 and what this would mean for ROK foreign policy, especially toward North Korea. But beyond the immediate policy implications, the generational divide that emerged so starkly in the recent election may portend significant changes for South Korean politics. What was noteworthy in this election was the role of the People’s Party, a new minor opposition that offered an alternative choice for young voters disillusioned by the traditional two parties. Led by an unassuming yet popular figure vowing to tackle the old establishment, the People’s Party managed to win a higher percentage (26.7 percent) of the popular vote than the Minjoo Party (25.5 percent) and contributed to a progressive majority despite concerns over vote-splitting. In fact, this third party only split regional loyalties, receiving a significant amount of the proportional votes from regions traditionally tied to the two major parties.

Northeast Asia is a region with the fastest-ageing population and the lowest birth rates in the world. It is possible that young people will increasingly find themselves at the bottom of an upside-down pyramid, holding up or held down by the size and weight of the older generations. The latter will form the majority of voters with the capacity to choose leaders and policies that support or undermine the interests of the younger generations. Youth today need to prepare for and practice greater political participation now if they are to lead their respective societies into the depths of the 21st century. Most likely, generational politics will become a sharper and more potent force in northeast Asia. 

       

       

The “diversity explosion,” described in my recent book, is altering all parts of American life but particularly the lives of our younger population. As the white population ages and whites continue to decline in numbers among our under-30 population, as recent Census tabulations project, a growing portion of America’s children are racial minorities from a kaleidoscope of backgrounds in terms of their parents’ or grandparents’ place of birth. Origin countries include Mexico, China, the Philippines, India, Vietnam, El Salvador, Korea, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Jamaica, Colombia, Haiti, Honduras, Ecuador, Peru, Taiwan, Brazil, and others. 

A dramatic remaking of the nation’s child population is under way; in growing parts of the country growth of the child population is synonymous with the growth of minority children. More than one-third of the 100 largest metropolitan areas now have minority-white child populations. California and Texas house the largest number of these metropolitan areas, and Hispanics constitute the largest minorities. Florida, Georgia, and Arizona each contain more than one of these metro areas; the newest include Atlanta, Orlando, and Phoenix. And in many other “whiter” areas, such as Allentown, Pa. on the periphery of the New York megalopolis, the share of minorities among children is increasing. 

Of course, metro areas such as Los Angeles, Miami, and New York are used to accommodating large numbers of young children from dozens of foreign countries. Yet the first-generation immigrant children in large sections of the Southeast and Mountain West and scattered parts of “middle America” represent the front lines of the country’s diversity explosion. For an overview of U.S. county profiles by race and age, see the U.S. interactive map.

Material adapted from Diversity Explosion: How New Racial Demographics Are Remaking America by William H. Frey, 2014.

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

       

      

       

       

Updated, 11/14/14 with new content.

President Obama is traveling this week in the Asia-Pacific region. He is attending the APEC Summit in Beijing Monday and Tuesday; the ASEAN Summit and the East Asia Summit in Myanmar Tuesday; and the G-20 Summit in Brisbane Saturday and Sunday. Brookings experts have offered significant commentary on the president's agenda and challenges during this trip:

Richard Bush, director of the Center for East Asia Policy Studies and the Michael H. Armacost Chair, reflects on what Presidents Obama and Xi said about the situation in Hong Kong during their summit.

Charles Freeman, a nonresident senior fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center, reflects on Chinese President Xi's address to business executives during APEC during which Xi discussed the "new normal" of Chinese economic growth and more open visa policies. His remarks, Freeman notes, "sounded a contrasting note to those he made just a month earlier" and "were also out of tune with the well-chronicled anxieties of foreign investors about the souring business environment they face in China."

Neil Ruiz, a senior policy analyst and associate fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program, says that the new visa rules agreed to by Presidents Obama and Xi "is an important step in building economic bridges between Chinese cities and U.S. metropolitan areas."

Senior Fellow Michael O'Hanlon, the Sydney Stein, Jr. Chair in International Security, focuses on two prospective agreements on military matters, dealing with confidence-building and operational safety issues, reached between the U.S. and China. "The Obama and Xi teams should be proud of a good summit," writes O'Hanlon, "But situating these accords in a broader framework underscores how much work remains to be done."

On the U.S.-China climate agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions: Brookings Managing Director William Antholis calls it "dramatic" for both diplomatic and domestic political reasons; and Fellow Tim Boersma, acting director of the Energy Security Initiative, says it is "a big deal."

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Miriam Sapiro, a visiting fellow and former deputy U.S. trade representative, says that the trip "gives the White House the chance to emphasize foreign and economic policy goals that can be broadly embraced by Democrats and Republicans." Sapiro also commented on the importance of trade policy, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership, in a recent Brookings Cafeteria podcast.

Experts recently joined together in a full-day conference to examine the economic, environmental, political, and security implications of President Obama's trip to China and his interactions with President Xi Jinping. Full audio, video, and a transcript of remarks by former U.S. National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon are available.

Six experts from the John L. Thornton China Center recently offered their views on how President Obama can have a productive visit with President Xi. Their comments covered issues including Hong Kong, trade, and domestic Chinese reforms, among others.

Lynn Kuok, a nonresident fellow with the Center for East Asia Policy Studies, offers her perspectives on Obama's trip to Myanmar. 

In Think Tank 20, experts from Brookings and around the world address interrelated debates about growth, convergence, and income distribution—three elements likely to shape policy debates beyond the G-20 Summit. Use the handy globe interactive to navigate to countries and regions.

Kemal Derviş—vice president and director of Global Economy and Development and the Edward M. Bernstein Scholar—and Peter Drysdale—emeritus professor of economics at Australian National University—are the editors of a new volume on the G-20 summit at five years. They explore questions including, Will these summits add ongoing value to global economic governance, or will they will become purely ceremonial gatherings, which continue to take place because of the inertia in such processes?

      

As much as the nostalgic might hate to admit it, a new year is coming up. And for climate change negotiators, 2015 is a big one: it’s the make-it-or-break it year for a serious, last-ditch effort at an international agreement to slow runaway climate change. 

A new year brings new, hopeful resolutions. Of course, just as ubiquitous are the pesky memories of past resolutions that one never quite accomplished.

Some resolutions fade, understandably. But failure is less forgivable when the repercussions include the increased exploration of fossil fuels at the expense of our warming world. To avoid the most destructive effects of climate change, we must keep two-thirds of existing fossil fuel reserves underground, instead of providing subsidies to dig them up.

One group not living up to its resolution: the G20 members —19 countries and the European Union that make up 85% of global GDP. At the 2009 G20 summit in Pittsburgh, the group agreed to “rationalize and phase out over the medium term inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption.” At the 2013 summit in St. Petersburg, they reaffirmed this resolution. Yet that same year, these countries funneled $88 billion into exploring new reserves of oil, gas, and coal.

Another resolution abandoned.

This year’s G20 summit will convene in Brisbane, Australia (November 15^th - 16^th) — a perfect opportunity to commiserate about the backsliding on the agreement and to develop a new approach that includes some means of holding each other accountable. So how can the G20 follow through on its laudable and necessary pledge?

1. Get help from the experts.

A new report by the Overseas Development Institute and Oil Change International criticizes the G20 for “marry[ing] bad economics with potentially disastrous consequences for climate change.” It points out that every dollar used to subsidize renewables generates twice as much investment as the dollar that subsidizes fossil fuels.

And the G20 can try harder to heed the doctor’s orders. This report outlines specific recommendations, including revamping tax codes to support low carbon development instead.

2. Set a timeline and stick to it.

National timelines for fossil fuel subsidy phase out would be different depending on the governmental structures and budgeting processes of individual countries. Also, countries can utilize the timeline of the incoming international climate treaty, by including a subsidy phase out as part of a mitigation plan to be measured and reported.

3. It’s easier with friends.

The G20 got it right that no one country should have to go it alone. Now it is time to strengthen its methodology for peer review of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, and agree upon a transparent and consistent system for tracking and reporting.

That said, it can also be easier to cheat with friends. The new report tracks where investments from G20 state-owned energy companies are directed. As it turns out, G20 countries continue to fund each other’s fossil fuel exploration. Instead of cheating together on their own resolution, G20 members should leverage these relationships to advance investments in clean energy.  

4. Hold each other accountable.

The G20 is not the only group that has committed to phase out fossil fuel subsidies. The issue has received support from advocacy groups, religious leaders, and business constituencies alike. The public will be able to better hold leaders accountable if the G20 declares its commitment and progress loud and proud.

Moreover, G20 members and advocacy organizations can make the facts very clear: fossil fuel subsidies do not support the world’s poor, and the public ends up paying for the externalities they cause in pollution and public health. This accountability to addressing concerns of the people can help the G20 stand up to the fossil fuel industry.

5. If at first you don’t succeed…

True, phasing out fossil fuel subsidies is no piece of cake. There is no G20 standard definition of “inefficient subsidies” or timeline for the phase out. It also hasn’t helped that countries report their own data. They can even opt out of this unenforced commitment altogether. Yet the pledge is there, as is the urgency of the issue. New Year’s resolutions take more than just commitments — they take work. This week’s G20 Leaders Summit is a wonderful place to commit to phasing out fossil fuel subsidies. Again.