The New Lebanese Government - The Devil Is in the Details

The U.S. and Europe Increasingly Aligned to Contain Iran

A Weekly Political News Magazine

Is Huawei a Pawn in the Trade War?

A Weekly Political News Magazine

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Issue 1734 - February 08/02/2019

Rawan: “I will appear in two series next Ramadan

Issue 1734 - February 08/02/2019

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The New Lebanese Government:

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Editorial International Relations is one of the most complex and unpredictable games played in our world.

It is a game that has many players, be they states or non-state entities, that either work together to accomplish something that they collectively want or compete with each other to protect their own self-interests. In many cases, International Relations can turn from a strategic game of chess to a violent contact sport that costs the lives of many innocent civilians along the way. This issue of Majalla takes a look at the different developments that have taken place throughout many of the world’s playing fields and venues and more importantly the implications that these developments have for the future.

This week’s cover story is “The Devil is in the Details” by Hanin Ghaddar. The article addresses the fact that the newly formed Lebanese government, which came about after nine months of political deadlock, is in many ways a Hezbollah controlled government. This comes from the fact that Hezbollah and its allies won more than 70 out of 128 seats in parliament, while Hariri lost a third of his parliamentary bloc. Moreover, many of the ministerial posts that have been occupied by pro-Hezbollah individuals still remain that way. The group can also now circumvent US sanctions targeting it; this is because it gained control of the Health Ministry. As a result, it can use funds from the ministry to fund its charitable projects, thus regaining a big portion of its lost support base.

The writer warns of the implications of the Lebanese state coming under more Hezbollah control.

For example, the terrorist group now has closer relations with state institutions and the military and it is this control that might prompt an attack on Israel without Hariri’s consent. This might make Lebanon susceptible to Israeli attacks, worse yet is the fact that a Hezbollah controlled government will probably not receive funds for reconstruction the same way it did back in 2006.

Joseph Braude writes on new Iranian threats on Europe which have persuaded the latter to join the US in sanctioning the Islamic Republic. These new threats range from cyber espionage to ballistic missile testing. Iran’s recent ballistic missile tests and news of its assassination plots in Europe have encouraged the EU to impose its first sanctions on Iran since 2015. Although Europe, unlike the US, has previously been more patient on Iran, the regime’s recent actions seem to have rekindled a trans-Atlantic alliance against it.

Oliver Stuenkel explores the failure of South American states in preventing a crisis like the one in Venezuela from happening. The writer goes back in time to the 1980s, a decade in which many South American states were democratizing for the first time. As this was happening, these states remained committed to the notion that they must resolve any crisis that might arise within the continent as to prevent any foreign intervention, something most South American states had long suffered from, within the continent. Brazil sought to make itself a continental leader and was keen on protecting democracy in South America. The continent set up regional organizations that would punish states that back tracked on democracy or in other cases suspend the membership of states that violated these norms. Brazil was initially successful in protecting democratic norms in the region, for example it persuaded general Lino Oviedo from staging a coup in Paraguay back in 1996. However, some leaders in the continent eventually found ways to avoid any sanctions due to back tracking on democracy, one of which was former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Now South America seems to have gone back to square one, as Venezuela has fallen into authoritarianism and foreign powers are a bit too keen in getting involved in a South American country. Furthermore even with new leadership Brazil can do little more than recognizing the opposition leader, Guaido, as president.

Nadege Rolland refutes reports that China’s Belt and Road Initiative is on its death bed. While she does not argue that the initiative faces many setbacks, she emphasizes the fact that the Chinese regime still hasn’t thrown in the towel. Rather, the Chinese government has decided to reform the way it went about the Belt and Road and is still keen on developing a new world economic order that ignores many liberal ideals.

Nour al-Huda Buhlok interviewed Lebanese actress Rawan Tahtouh. In the interview, Tahtouh discusses her start in acting, her break from the profession and what persuaded her to make a comeback. Tahtouh also talked about how Arab TV dramas that cast actors from all over the Arab world give many performers regardless of his or her nationality an opportunity to become the next big superstar.

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A Weekly Political News Magazine

16 The U.S. and Europe Increasingly Aligned to Contain Iran

Issue 1734 - February 08/02/2019

22 Reports of Belt and Road’s Death Are Greatly Exaggerated

32 18 How South America Ceded the Field in Venezuela

32 26 Is Huawei a Pawn in the Trade War?

36 Is Huawei a Pawn in the Trade War?

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Adjusting With Age

42 Fighting For More Representation 3

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Pro-EU and pro-Brexit protesters demonstrate near the Houses of Parliament in London on Jan. 29. (Leon Neal/ Getty Images)

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Migrants wait at a makeshift camp under Paris› ring road in the north of Porte de la Chapelle on Jan. 29. (Christophe Archambault/AFP/Getty Images)

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European Council President Donald Tusk makes a statement with Ireland's prime minister following a meeting on February 2019 ,6, at the European Council headquarters in Brussels. (Getty)

European Council President Calls Out Brexiteers

Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, has called out Brexiteers in a press conference after a meeting with Prime Minister of the Republic of Ireland Leo Varadkar. In the press conference, Tusk said he was wondering what that special place in hell looks like for those who promoted Brexit without a sketch of a plan of how to implement it. He did not retract the statement and has in fact opted to tweet the exact same statement later that day. Prominent Brexiteers took to twitter to hit back at Tusk, Nigel Farage tweeted: “After Brexit we will be free of unelected, arrogant bullies like you and run our own country. Sounds more like heaven to me”. While

Jacob Rees-Mogg appealed to his Catholic faith and upbringing as he tweeted: “Mr Tusk is hardly in the Aquinas class as a theologian and he seems to have forgotten the commandment about not bearing false witness”.

Pope Francis Visits the United Arab Emirates

Pope Francis visited the UAE this week, marking the first ever papal visit to the Arab gulf. During his visit he met with Egypt’s Grand Imam of Al Azhar, Dr. Ahmad Al Tayyeb.

Both religious leaders had viewed religious antiquities that would soon be displayed at the Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum. The religious

Liverpool's Mohamed Salah during the Premier League match between West Ham United and Liverpool FC at London Stadium on February ,4 2019 in London, United Kingdom. (Getty Images)

leaders were accompanied by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces as they were shown a statue of Jesus Christ showing his wounds and the famous Fatimid blue Quran. The Pope and Grand Imam also signed a declaration of fraternity calling for peace between religions, races and all humanity, the Pope would also reiterate his calls for an end to the wars in the Middle East. The Pope ended his visit with a mass at the Zayed Sports City Stadium, which an estimated 170,000 Catholics participated in.

Mo Salah Hit with Racist Chants at the London Olympic Stadium

Pope Francis arrives to celebrate Mass at Zayed Sport City on February 2019 ,5 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. (Getty)

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Last Monday Liverpool drew 1-1 to hosts West Ham as the latter hoped to extend their lead at top of the Premier League table. Video footage has emerged on twitter showing a West Ham fan directing derogatory language at Egyptian striker Mo Salah. In the video, the fan shouted: “Salah, you f*cking Muslim. F*cking Muslim c*nt”. An official from West Ham issued a statement which said that the club has zero tolerance policy to any form of abusive behaviour. The club also said that they are working to identify the fan and will pass his details to the police as well as give him a life time ban from the London Olympic Stadium.

US President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on February ,5 2019. (Getty Images)

Gabriel Jesus of Manchester City scores his sides second goal during the Premier League match between Everton FC and Manchester City at Goodison Park on February 2019 ,06 in Liverpool, United Kingdom.

(Getty Images)

Manchester City Closes Gap at Top of the League…For Now

On Wednesday, Manchester City beat Everton 0-2 at Goodison Park to level with Liverpool on points and go on top of the league with a 7 goal difference.

The game made many City fans nervous as their team only had a one goal lead throughout most of the match and could not afford to allow the game to end in a draw. The game also had a dramatic finish as 7 minutes were added at the end of second half, but relief would come to Pep Guardiola and his boys as Gabriel Jesus scored a second goal for the Citizens at the 97th minute. Nevertheless, Man City shouldn’t celebrate too soon as Liverpool still has a game in hand against 10th place Bournemouth on Saturday the 9th of February. Liverpool are the favourites to win their upcoming game and subsequently go back on top of the league, however Bournemouth should not be underestimated as they

shockingly beat Chelsea 0-4 on January 30.

Body Found at Sala Plane Crash Site

On Wednesday, the Air Accidents Investigation Branch in Britain (AAIB) said that a body was found at the wreckage site on the seabed near Guernsey, but has not disclosed the identity of the body. The body was discovered thanks to a privately funded search operation; however the rescue agency hasn’t been able to recover the aircraft carrying the footballer and his pilot. Moreover, the AAIB said that it halted operations due to “poor weather conditions". Emiliano Sala was signed by Premier League team Cardiff during the January transfer window and was on route to his new home and team, flying from France to Wales. During his flight, the plane he was on suddenly disappeared over the English Channel on January 21.

A body is taken off the Geo Ocean III, recovered from the wreckage of a plane carrying Argentine footballer Emiliano Sala at Weymouth harbour, south west England on February 2019 ,7. (Getty Images)

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Trump Delivers State of the Union Address

After temporarily opening the government, Trump was finally able to deliver the annual State of the Union Address in its traditional venue the House Chamber. In the speech, Trump called for both Republicans and Democrats to come together for the greater good of serving the US and its citizens: "We must reject the politics of revenge, resistance and retribution -- and embrace the boundless potential of cooperation, compromise and the common good".

President Trump also took the time to congratulate the newly elected women in Congress, addressing the fact that more women than ever before are currently serving in the country’s legislative body and he also highlighted that today there are more women than ever before in the workforce. The statements were met with cheers and applause from many members of Congress especially the female members dressed in white to honour the suffragette movement. Trump then talked about the importance of erecting a wall at the southern border highlighting the dangers the US faces from said border.

Gucci Faces Backlash over "Balaclava Jumper"

The fashion company Gucci has faced controversy this week after unveiling its new “balaclava” jumper. The all black jumper covers the lower half of the face and features a red cut-out around the mouth resembling red lips. Due the way it was designed many people on social media compared the clothing item to blackface. The controversy was worsened as the clothing brand used a white model to advertise the item. Following the outcry, Gucci apologised for any offence that the item caused and said it would be removed from sale.

The company stated that the incident was powerful learning moment for its team.

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The New Lebanese Government:

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Hopes for a government-led effort to tackle corruption have been dashed. and its people. And now that the government has been formed it appears poised to make things worse.

To begin with, it is not a “national unity government.” This is a Hezbollah-controlled government that will only further empower the organization and its allies. Despite its diverse appearance on the surface, featuring four women and a careful sectarian balance, Hezbollah and its allies have the biggest part of the cake. They can now control all the significant decisions in Lebanon.

The devil is in the details.

THE ECONOMY AND ITS DISCONTENTS The new government was formed amid soaring public debt in Lebanon to the tune of 84$ billion — 150 percent of the gross domestic product — and unemployment believed to be around 36 percent.

In early January, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the country’s long-term investment issuer ratings to Caa1, from B3. Weeks later, Moody’s downgraded the country’s three largest lenders.

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri arrives to attend the first cabinet meeting at the presidential palace in Baabda, east of the capital Beirut on February 2019 ,2 (AFP)

Through a combination of direct control and domination by proxy, Hezbollah now dominates the Lebanese government.

In his first statement as Prime Minister, Hariri said that his government would enact reforms that will allow it to unlock around 11$ billion in soft loans and grants pledged by international donors at a conference in Paris last year. At the time of the CEDRE conference, Hariri pledged to reduce the budget deficit as a percentage of the gross domestic product by five percent in five years.

It took the Lebanese prime minister nine months to form a government. The period was filled with challenges that cast a dark shade over Lebanon

The ongoing deterioration began well before the parliamentary elections and is rooted in numerous factors unrelated to the current political

By Hanin Ghaddar

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situation, including a decrease in remittances from expatriates, rising global interest rates, a drop in overland exports to Persian Gulf countries due to the Syria war, and the previous government’s failure to pass key reforms.

So this is a Hezbollah government, not a “national unity” government. A designated terrorist organization has now has either direct or indirect access to all the ministries it needs to advance its domestic and foreign agendas.

In any case, even if the CEDRE pledges come through, they will not be enough to ease Lebanon’s crushing public debt without structural reforms to address widespread corruption. The country’s deteriorating infrastructure needs immediate attention—especially air transport, electricity, waste management, water, and roads.

Hezbollah’s main priority today is to use the new government to alleviate its own financial challenges. U.S. and international sanctions have affected Hezbollah’s budget and network of social services. As a result, Hezbollah’s relationship with its support base has deteriorated.

In a sign of the prior government’s interest in dealing with corruption, Lebanon created a ministry for combating corruption in December 2016. However, it is no longer part of the new government.

HEZBOLLAH AND SANCTIONS

But having gained the Ministry of Public Health – despite U.S. efforts to prevent the power grab – Hezbollah now enjoys access to a large portion of the state’s budget. After the Defense, Education, and Interior Ministries, the Health Ministry commands Lebanon’s fourth-largest budget at 338$ million per year. But most significantly, while most of the money in the top three ministries

Lebanese Hezbollah Ministers Jamil Jabbak (far left) stands next to Hezbollah ministers Mahmoud Qmati and Mohammed Fneish.

(EPA)

In the May parliamentary elections, Hezbollah and its allies won more than 70 of the 128 seats, while Hariri lost more than a third of his bloc.

Hezbollah’s enhanced mandate has enabled it to strong-arm Hariri into meeting all of its demands.

As expected, Hezbollah now holds direct control over the Ministry of Public Health and two other ministries, while its allies will hold most of the sovereign portfolios. Ali Hassan Khalil of the Amal Movement remains at his post as finance minister, while Free Patriotic Movement leader Gebran Bassil is staying on as foreign minister.

Elias Bou Saab, also part of Aoun’s bloc, is now the new defense minister.

Moody’s Investors Service has downgraded Lebanon’s issuer ratings and three largest lenders.

Violette Safadi, Lebanon's new Minister of State for Social and Economic Rehabilitation for Youth and Women, attends the first cabinet meeting at the presidential palace in Baabda, east of the capital Beirut on February 2019 ,2.(Getty Images)

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Hezbollah can use its newfound control over the Health Ministry to directly fund its base. is allotted to salaries, the majority of Health Ministry funds are given directly to the public. So Hezbollah can use the ministry’s funds to directly serve its support base, including and especially those fighters who have been wounded in Syria.

The U.S., for its part, has the option of pressing the international community and international donors to reconsider their aid to the Lebanese Health Ministry. The U.S. can also reconsider its aid to the Lebanese Armed Forces.

Lebanon and its state institutions would be more vulnerable to such sanctions as the pressure on Iran continues and Hezbollah’s control over Lebanon increases.

A peacekeeper of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) speaks on his talkie-walkie in front of a billboard bearing a portrait of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah during a patrol in the southern Lebanese town of Adaysseh, near the border with Israel, on January 2015 ,19, (Getty Images)

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ISRAELI WARNINGS The possible exposure of Lebanese state institutions to sanctions might not be the only exposure. As the line that separates Hezbollah from the Lebanese state grows even blurrier, Israel may begin to regard the state as Hezbollah’s main hub. Many Israeli officials have already warned that the Lebanese government will be held accountable if Hezbollah gains further control.

Today, Hezbollah coordinates directly with the Lebanese army and controls the Defense Ministry through its allies. It can meanwhile make war on Israel without defering to the Lebanese government. Accordingly, Israel will probably not differentiate between Lebanon and Hezbollah, or among the various parts of Lebanon for that matter, in its next war with Hezbollah or Iran.

This threat has grown more serious after recent tensions over the discovery of Hezbollah’s tunnels into Israel, in addition to the news that Hezbollah has been moving its precision missile project from Syria to Lebanon. The new Lebanese government will have to deal with the consequences.

In the event of war, it is also unlikely that the pro-Hezbollah government will receive the same support it received in 2006 for reconstruction.

As to how the government will handle tensions with Israel, it does not appear that Lebanon will adhere to international efforts to mitigate the conflict, such as UN Security Council Resolution 1701. It is also unlikely that Hariri and his government will stand against Hezbollah if the latter opts to continue digging tunnels or building missiles in civilian areas or in close proximity to Lebanon’s key infrastructure.

In another attempt to avoid dealing with thorny issues, Hariri gave the refugees portfolio to a Hezbollah ally. In the eyes of many Syrians and Lebanese, Hariri seems to have abandoned the Syrian refugees, and probably will not stand against his foreign minister, Gebran Bassil, if the latter decides to visit Damascus and meet with Bashar Al-Assad.

Syrian refugees in Lebanon face forced repatriation and peril and the hands of Assad.

Lebanon will likely endorse the Russian plan to return the Syrian refugees to Syria, even if that means that many of them will be imprisoned – or, at best, be forcibly conscripted into the Syrian army. Lebanon will turn a blind eye to the fate of these refugees if they go to Syria. As these refugees might go on to attempt to flee to Europe, European concerns might be the only deterrent to Lebanon’s plan to force them out aggressively.

REFUGEES AND THE SYRIAN REGIME

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A Syrian refugee child waits as refugees prepare to leave the Lebanese capital Beirut to return to their homes in Syria on September ,9 2018. - A group of Syrian refugees left the Lebanese capital for their homeland on September 9 as part of an organised operation coordinated between Lebanese and Syrian authorities.

(Getty Images)

Hezbollah and its allies are determined to help Assad re-enter the Arab diplomatic scene via the Lebanese arena. And Assad is counting on it.

The new Lebanese government will return Syrian refugees to Syria, help Assad reenter the Arab fold, expose state institutions to more sanctions, and expose Lebanon to more Israeli threats and attacks. Last but not least, the new government will likely fail to improve the economy. The repercussions will be very grave for Lebanon and its people. Meanwhile, amid more violent conflicts in the region — from Syria to Yemen — Lebanon will likely not top the list of regional priorities.

Yes, Lebanon has a new government after nine months of broken promises and challenges. But the new government will not save Lebanon. *Hanin Ghaddar is the inaugural Friedmann Visiting Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

A Lebanese man deposits money at a bank in Beirut. International ratings agency Moody's has downgraded to negative from stable the outlook on Lebanon's banking system. ( AFP)

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The U.S. and Europe Increasingly Aligned to Contain Iran New threats from Iran appear to be fostering trans-Atlantic unity

by Joseph Braude Tensions between Iran and its Western opponents sharpened over the past week, between Iranian

saber-rattling on the one hand and growing coordination among Western powers against Tehran on the other. The EU sounded the alarm over Iranian cyber espionage. The U.S. designated

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new Iranian proxy militias as terrorist entities. The French government, for its part, warned of new EU sanctions absent Iranian concessions on its missile program.

EU Warns of Rising Iranian Cyber Threat On Monday, the EU’s Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA) published a report warning that Iran is likely to expand its cyber espionage activities as its relations with Western powers worsen: “Newly imposed sanctions on Iran are likely to push the country to intensify statesponsored cyber threat activities in pursuit of its geopolitical and strategic objectives at a regional level.”

Iran, deprives them of access to basic services such as education, and uses them as human shields for the Syrian conflict … Treasury’s targeting of Iran-backed militias and other foreign proxies is part of our ongoing pressure campaign to shut down the illicit networks the regime uses to export terrorism and unrest across the globe.”

Iranian Military Exercises Threaten “Rapid and Crushing Blow”

Iran, for its part, staged war games last Friday, showcasing newly developed ‘rapid redeployment units’ and over 12,000 elite troops, armored vehicles, fighter jets, and drones. The exercises took place over two days in the central The report follows a recent EU decision to impose province of Isfahan. General Kioumars Heydari, its first sanctions on Iran since the 2015 nuclear head of the regular army’s ground forces, told deal — a reaction to Iran’s ballistic missile state television, “[Through] these war games tests and a new round of assassination plots on we will showcase two important developments: European soil. The regime immediately dismissed a special-forces rapid deployment battalion and the report as “part of a psychological war launched a highly mobile offensive armored battalion.” by the United States and its allies against Iran.”

Any “aggressors,” he added, would face a “rapid and crushing blow.”

US Sanctions Target Iranian Militias

Supporters of Hezbollah hold posters of Iran›s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the movement›s slain former military commander, Imad Mughniyeh, on Sept.

2018 ,20 in Beirut.

(ANWAR AMRO/ AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

Washington has meanwhile augmented its staunch economic measures to contain Tehran’s ambitions. On January 24, the U.S. Treasury Department announced new sanctions on two of Iran’s militia proxies in Syria: the Fatemiyoun Division, composed of Afghan nationals; and the Zaynabiyoun Brigade, consisting of Pakistani nationals, both led and directed by the Qods Force.

While Congress has sought to persuade both the Trump and Obama administrations to designate Iran’s militia network in Syria -- meeting varying degrees of resistance along the way -- this measure was the first time that an administration voluntarily initiated the process.

Commenting on the measure, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said, “The brutal Iranian regime exploits refugee communities in

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French Patience Wearing Thin Alongside the American announcement of new sanctions, France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian declared last Friday that his country was ready to impose further sanctions on Iran if no progress is made in talks over its ballistic missile program. “We are ready, if the talks don’t yield results, to apply sanctions firmly, and they know it,” Le Drian told reporters.

The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded with a warning of its own. Spokesman Bahram Qasemi said, “Iran’s missile capability is not negotiable… [and] any new sanctions by European countries will lead to a reevaluation by Iran of its interactions with those countries.” But Foreign Minister Zarif sounded a more conciliatory tone, adding cryptically that he “could not confirm whether or not there are secret negotiations with France about the missile program.”

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How South America Ceded the Field in Venezuela Outside Powers Will Decide the Outcome in Caracas 18

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As the crisis in Venezuela shows, South America is once again the playground of foreign powers. crisis. Maduro and his youthful challenger both know that although the armed forces will be the decisive domestic player, the only external actors that really matter are the United States and China and, to a lesser extent, Cuba and Russia.

This is a humiliating turn of events for South American governments, which since the region’s transition to democracy in the 1980s have made reducing interference from outside the region a paramount foreign policy goal. For Brazil in particular, such impotence in the face of a geopolitical crisis at its border symbolizes the dramatic failure of decades of Brazilian foreign policy, in which Brasília sought to make itself into the region’s diplomatic and political leader. As the crisis in Venezuela shows, South America is once again the playground of foreign powers.

HOW WE GOT HERE

Former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez speaks during a news conference while attending the United Nations General Assembly September 2006 ,20 at the UN in New York City. (Getty)

By Oliver Stuenkel* Last week, the young Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó declared himself interim president, claiming that the country’s current president, Nicolás Maduro, had forfeited his right to rule by rigging elections in May 2018. Soon after, the United States, Brazil, and most other South American governments (with the exception of Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname, and Uruguay) recognized Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate president.

The decision by the majority of South American governments to back Guaidó was hailed by many as a crucial step forward in confronting Maduro’s authoritarianism. Yet in fact, South Americano longer plays any significant role in the Venezuelan

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South America has a long and troubled history with foreign interference—throughout the twentieth century, outside powers such as the United States backed coups and military dictatorships across the continent in pursuit of their own foreign policy interests. Since the region’s transition to democracy in the 1980s, governments have sought to protect both their sovereignty and their democracy by developing intraregional mechanisms to address one of South America’s major historical challenges: democratic backsliding and the political crises that often derived from it. These mechanisms have included so-called democracy clauses—joint commitments to punish those governments that violate democratic norms—such as the Organization of American States’ Inter-American Democratic Charter or the Southern Common Market (Mercosur)’s Protocol of Ushuaia.

They have also included the use of concrete measures, such as suspension from regional organizations like Mercosur in response to democratic ruptures. Governments in the region have failed to prevent certain instances of democratic backsliding— Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, for example, was removed in a coup in 2009, and Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo was ousted in a controversial impeachment in 2012. In both cases, however, these countries suffered temporary diplomatic isolation in response to what regional leaders considered to be a break from normal constitutional practice.

Brazil has played a key role in setting and enforcing these norms—part of a conscious attempt by the country’s democratic rulers to position Brazil as the major diplomatic player in South Americaand actively engage in moments of regional crisis.

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In 1996, Brazil helped convince a power-hungry Paraguayan general, Lino Oviedo, not to stage a coup against President Juan Carlos Wasmosy, the country’s first democratically elected civilian in decades. Three years later, it again helped solve a political crisis in Paraguay, this time by granting asylum to (and organizing for the swift departure of) the beleaguered President Raúl Cubas Grau. And in the aftermath of a failed coup against Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in 2002, Brazil organized the “Friends of Venezuela” group, which included the United States, Portugal, and Spain alongside Latin American governments, to mediate between the embattled president and the opposition.

These efforts at protecting democracy on the continent, however, proved to be no match for Chávez. The former Venezuelan president keenly understood that the mechanisms established over the past decades were designed to prevent overt political ruptures, such as coups, rather than to stop an elected government from taking incremental steps to undermine democracy. Chávez helped his case by signing shady oil deals with numerous governments, including Argentina, Bolivia, and several countries in Central America and the Caribbean, and by granting lucrative but equally opaque infrastructure contracts to Brazilian firms. Left-wing governments in Buenos Aires and Brasília had a degree of ideological sympathy for Chávez, but it was above all the Venezuelan president’s oil diplomacy and benign treatment of Brazilian firms that kept him on other governments’ good side. Indeed, Argentina and Brazil became enablers for Chávez during the first decade of this century, shielding him from international pressure while telling diplomats from the United States and elsewhere that they were able to control events in Caracas.

For Brazil, in particular, recent domestic political and economic crises have further reduced the country’s influence in Venezuela.

Since 2013—the year that Maduro assumed the Venezuelan presidency following Chávez’s death from cancer—successive Brazilian governments, consumed by recession and then the outbreak of a major corruption scandal, have reduced Brasília’s foreign policy footprint, leaving the region largely rudderless and allowing the crisis in Venezuela to fester. In the interim, high-ranking diplomats across South America have privately admitted to me that Venezuela would inevitably collapse and that the political situation there had deteriorated so much that any mediation would be little more than window-dressing. Although they were right that any action taken after 2013 would likely have been too little too late, both Argentina and Brazil could have done much more during the Chávez years to pressure the Venezuelan president to respect basic democratic norms—for example, by making Venezuela’s 2012 accession to Mercosur conditional on respect for democracy.

FOREIGN ENTANGLEMENTS Today, South America is paying the price for its dramatic failure

to act in Venezuela. After two decades in which the continent’s governments have tried to reduce the sway of outside actors, the four most influential countries in Venezuela now are, in order, the United States, China, Russia, and Cuba. Other states in the region have only a limited ability to shape events in Caracas.

This is a particular concern given that migration from Venezuela is already putting a strain on neighbors such as Brazil and Colombia. A continuation—or intensification—of the crisis will have spillover effects for years to come.

Despite recent political changes—symbolized by the election of President Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil—and a renewed determination across most of the region to address the Venezuelan crisis, South American governments will have little say in resolving it. Colombia may consent to host U.S.troops, but no countries in the region are willing to countenance direct interference.

Bolsonaro, for instance, seems keen to support the United States rhetorically, but this is unlikely to amount to much in the way of practical assistance. The Brazilian military will not agree to putting their troops on the ground in Venezuela, which even pro-U.S. governments in the region would see as a dangerous precedent. In fact, governments are unlikely to go beyond the diplomatic measures, such as recognizing Guaidó, that they have already adopted.

Even if the Maduro government collapses, moreover, subsequent events in Caracas will be shaped in Washington and Beijing,

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Venezuelan migrants are seen during last day at the migrant passage camp in Bogota, Colombia, on January 2019 ,14. (Getty)

The former Venezuelan president keenly understood that the mechanisms established over the past decades were designed to prevent overt political ruptures, such as coups, rather than to stop an elected government from taking incremental steps to undermine democracy.

thanks to the latter’s economic importance for Venezuela.

(Moscow’s and Havana’s ties to Venezuela are largely political and would shrink if Maduro left office.) Maduro’s successor will need to sign massive deals with both Western and Chinese development banks to begin reconstructing the country—a painful process that will likely take decades. Indeed, many of Venezuela’s problems, including its extreme inequality and dependence on oil revenues, precede the rise of Chávez, and no future government will be able to solve them easily. Recovery to anything resembling pre-crisis levels is likely to take many years, requiring sustained attention from and help by U.S. and Chinese leaders.

The most likely candidates for regional leadership, meanwhile, are unlikely to offer much. Argentine President Mauricio Macri is weak owing to a struggling economy and a grueling reelection fight, while Bolsonaro must show that he can fix Brazil’s domestic economic and political problems before he will be in any position to take an active role abroad. Even Colombia, a close U.S.ally and Venezuela’s neighbor, still faces significant domestic challenges—including the need to integrate around one million Venezuelan migrants, a number that could grow in the coming months—and lacks both the ability and the political will to take on responsibility for reconstructing Venezuela.

Realistically, there are four useful actions that South American governments can take to help. First, they can better coordinate the

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response to the Venezuelan migration crisis across the continent.

Leaders should organize a regional summit to discuss the matter and decide to jointly coordinate the registration, distribution, and integration of Venezuelan migrants. They should also set up a fund to compensate the countries most affected by the migratory crisis, such as Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Second, regional governments can help coordinate the delivery of medical and humanitarian aid to Venezuela once the Maduro government— or any successor government—allows it.

Third, South American states should offer amnesty and asylum to leading figures in the Maduro government. Although deeply frustrating, such a step would go a long way toward convincing Venezuela’s current leaders that they need not fight a bloody battle to remain in power to avoid the fate of Saddam Hussein in Iraq or Muammar al-Qaddafi in Libya—authoritarian leaders who were executed after relinquishing power.

Finally, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and others should use the collapse of the Maduro regime as an opportunity to deepen cooperation among their armed forces. This could operate through existing institutions such as the Council of South American Defense and should involve, among other initiatives, joint military exercises, joint missions to deal with natural disasters, and joint participation in UN peacekeeping. The goal should be to increase peer pressure on Venezuela’s military— which stands to lose from a transition to democracy, given the privileges it has accumulated under Maduro—to stay within its barracks under any future leader. Although such cooperation would have only a limited and indirect impact on Venezuela’s military, it would, in future crises of this kind, offer neighboring countries an additional channel for dialogue and coordination—a necessity if South American governments ever want to influence what happens in their own backyard.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

OLIVER STUENKEL is an Associate Professor of International Relations at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, Brazil.

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Reports of Belt and Road’s Death Are Greatly Exaggerated Don’t Underestimate China’s Resilience

By NADÈGE ROLLAND* With the vast, ambitious investment project known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China meant to pull the world closer, making itself the political and economic center of gravity for more than 60 countries within the project’s sweep. But domestic and international opposition to the initiative has mounted in the five years since President Xi Jinping announced its start.

Intellectuals within China have expressed concerns about wasteful spending and overstretch. Several governments that were initially enthusiastic about Chinese investment have faced

popular backlash to the terms of the loans and the potential for corruption. And the United States has recently joined countries in Europe and the Indo-Asia-Pacific region in an effort to counter the Chinese endeavor with an alternative investment scheme.

Instead of expanding its “circle of friends” and gaining influence, China seems to have done the opposite, spurring a group of disgruntled countries to band together to resist its predatory practices. Some observers claim that the Chinese leadership fails to understand the dynamics that have led other countries to push back and that this blindness increases the likelihood that Xi’s “project of the century” will soon become a fiasco.

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Instead of expanding its “circle of friends” and gaining influence, China seems to have done the opposite, spurring a group of disgruntled countries to band together to resist its predatory practices. beginning. Far from being paralyzed, the central government has taken measures to respond: since the end of the summer, Xi has been pushing back against the pushback. This course correction does not alter BRI’s fundamental vision and objectives but rather follows a well-known Leninist precept: “If you strike steel, withdraw; if you strike mush, advance.”

THE BACKLASH IS REAL

A Chinese site engineer is seen on site as the extension of the Southern Expressway from Matara to Hambantota continues under construction on November 2018 ,16 near Hambantota, Sri Lanka. (Getty)

It would be premature, however, to write off BRI. The project remains the core of China’s foreign policy strategy. Since the 19th Chinese Communist Party Congress in October 2017, BRI has been enshrined in the party’s charter, and its corollary, the “community of shared future for mankind,” has been included in the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China since March 2018. Beijing is due to host its second Belt and Road Forum, an international planning and brainstorming event for heads of state, in April 2019.

Moreover, China’s leaders are not surprised by the current pushback. Rather, they envisaged it as a possibility from the

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Resistance to BRI first became apparent in 2015. That year, Indonesia and Thailand both discontinued high-speed railway projects that China had underwritten because of differences with Beijing over financing and land acquisition. In 2017, Bangladesh decided to work with Japan—rather than China, as it had initially agreed—to build its first deep-water port. That same year, Nepal canceled a deal it had struck with China to build a hydropower plant. And bigger setbacks were soon to follow.

The government of Sri Lanka had borrowed heavily from China to build its Hambantota port. By the end of 2017, the port had failed to pull in traffic, and Sri Lanka could not pay its debts.

The Sri Lankan government decided to cede the port to China for 99 years. The transfer sparked worldwide alarm about Beijing’s strategic intentions, along with allegations that China was setting a “debt trap” for smaller countries, which would fall increasingly under its control. Recipients of Chinese loans took heed. In May 2018, Malaysia’s prime minister, Mahathir bin Mohamad, announced his intention to renegotiate his country’s contracts with China, describing them as “unequal treaties” and a “new version of colonialism.” The Maldives, Myanmar, Pakistan, and Sierra Leone soon raised concerns about their own BRI projects and began to reconsider the scale and scope of their cooperation with China.

Critical news media reports and academic studies largely drove the shift in sentiment within Belt and Road countries. The Hambantota case, in particular, served as a wake-up call for countries that fear sliding into unsustainable debt. With such a cautionary tale in mind, governments are likely to negotiate BRI contracts more carefully with Beijing. Moreover, in the last two years, other potential investors have emerged on the scene: the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor, negotiated between African countries, India, and Japan, was signed into being in May 2017;

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and this fall, the European Union unveiled a plan for investing in Asia’s infrastructure. These alternatives will supply local governments with leverage to bargain for better terms from all potential lenders, including Beijing.

THE LONG VIEW China’s leaders appear undaunted, not least because the change in international perceptions did not come as a surprise to them.

To the contrary: Beijing anticipated a backlash from the start.

Chinese experts wrote papers for decision-makers envisaging many potential stumbling blocks, including the Belt and Road countries’ complex sociopolitical environments, with which China was not always familiar; the possibility of local conflicts or terrorist attacks stemming from the project or targeting its investments; and the criticism that would likely emanate from both jealous great powers and reluctant recipient countries.

The Chinese leadership is not cavalier about the headwinds BRI now faces. But its assessment of the pushback is likely more measured than that of some Western commentators. And to the extent outside analysts anticipate that Beijing will fail to understand the problems, to respond to them, and hence to accomplish its objectives, China’s response will likely defy expectations, too.

The stalled projects that have drawn attention recently are only part of the BRI story. According to official Chinese sources, during the past five years more than 80 Chinese state–owned enterprises have undertaken over 3,100 Belt and Road projects.

Even accounting for some inflation of those figures, the sheer scale of Belt and Road dwarfs the number of failures that have come to public attention. And some of the countries that put projects on hold in 2017 have already come back to the negotiating table: Nepal did so after a new government came to

In other words, Belt and Road reflects Beijing’s vision of its role as a great power atop a Chinacentric regional order—one free of the liberal rules, norms, and values that Beijing rejects as relics of an unfair and obsolete order led by the West.

power in February 2018; Mahathir has confirmed that his country still wants to be part of BRI; and Myanmar intends to allow the Chinese to develop its Kyaukpyu port project, even if on a more modest scale than initially imagined.

The Hambantota story inspired such wariness that it may not soon be replicated elsewhere. Even so, with the Sri Lankan port in hand, China has gained control over one of the Indian Ocean’s most important strategic positions for the next century. From Beijing’s perspective, the gathering storm of criticism may look like a tempest in a teacup—easily weathered for long-term gains.

XI’S NEXT PHASE Xi hardly seems like a leader inclined to give up his ambitions because of a few complaints. His anticorruption sweep, and his purging of potential challengers, provides ample evidence of a leader willing to eradicate rather than accommodate those who do not fall into line. Nevertheless, the Chinese leadership is not tone-deaf, and evidence suggests that it has recently undertaken a slight course correction, adjusting not BRI’s objectives but its tactics.

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Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak (L) meets Chinese President Xi Jinping ahead of the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing on May 2017 ,13.

(Getty)

would focus on the positive impact of Belt and Road projects on daily life. China’s message to governments, especially in the so-called Global South, would be to promote a “fair and equitable governance system”: one that opposes protectionism and preferential trading agreements, offers tangible financial rewards, and supports the local countries’ own development plans.

Xi called on various Chinese entities to make good on their responsibilities for BRI’s success. He instructed the Communist Party to strengthen its leadership and oversight, particularly in risk assessment and mitigation. Chinese companies operating overseas must act as “BRI ambassadors,” making sure that their behavior and practices reflect well on projects that are “worthy of praise.” Finally, Chinese provincial governments, each of which conducts its own economic diplomacy with its near abroad, should ensure that BRI connects back to them by promoting the project and using it to achieve their own development objectives. In advancing BRI, Xi insisted, “there are no bystanders.”

SHARED DESTINY

In August of last year, Xi chaired a high-level symposium to mark Belt and Road’s fifth anniversary. Leading officials, business representatives, and provincial delegates told Xi that the project was going well: the conceptual work was done, and BRI was gradually transforming from vision to reality, having laid roots in the participating countries and made its presence felt internationally. Xi did not dwell on revisiting the events of the past five years as much as on setting the direction for the project’s next phase. He compared the work already accomplished with the bold strokes of a Chinese freehand painting style called xieyi and declared that the time had come to shift to the gongbi style, in which the painter carefully traces the sharp details and fine lines.

Xi gave specific guidance for this detail work. The needs and sensitivities of local governments and populations would be better taken into account. Big government-to-government projects had been a great kick-start for BRI, but now was the time to add small-scale projects that responded to the immediate needs of local populations. To make the case that BRI would benefit the masses and not just the elites, Xi called for more peopleto-people exchanges (such as education programs, tourism, and cooperation in science, technology, and culture). Propaganda

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The Belt and Road Initiative is not just about building infrastructure or even sowing economic cooperation. Rather, as Xi made clear during the August symposium, China considers the project nothing less than a means to “improve the global governance system” and to bring forth a “community of shared destiny.”

In other words, Belt and Road reflects Beijing’s vision of its role as a great power atop a China-centric regional order—one free of the liberal rules, norms, and values that Beijing rejects as relics of an unfair and obsolete order led by the West. The initiative lies at the core of the Communist Party’s grand strategy, which means the leadership will not easily abandon it. But BRI is also a laboratory. Having put aside Deng Xiaoping’s admonition that the country should “keep a low profile” in international affairs, the party leadership is feeling its oats and, in Xi’s words, “striving for achievement.” But it is still “crossing the river by feeling the stones” (another Dengism). Because this is the first initiative Beijing has undertaken on such a grand scale, the communist leadership understands that time and effort may be required for both the party and the outside world to adapt.

The Communist Party is doing exactly that. Western observers should not over interpret signs of pushback to the Belt and Road Initiative as harbingers of its failure, nor should they underestimate the capacity of the Chinese Communist Party to adapt and learn. As the United States and other countries contemplate how best to defend their version of a free and open international order, the Chinese leadership has already begun to make its next move.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com. *NADÈGE ROLLAND Senior Fellow for Political and Security Affairs at the National Bureau of Asian Research.

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Is Huawei a Pawn in the Trade War? The Politics of the Global Tech Race 26

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Already, major Western telecoms like the British giant BT and its French counterpart Orange have announced plans to limit or exclude Huawei from their 5G networks.

A man speaks on his mobile phone in front of a Huawei 5G billboard during PT Expo China 2019 at China National Convention Center on September ,26 2018 in Beijing, China. (Getty)

the company of systematically violating U.S. sanctions against Iran and stealing trade secrets from its U.S. business partner T-Mobile.

The arrest of Meng came just as Washington and Beijing reached a -90day truce to halt their recent tit-for-tat escalation of tariffs while trade talks continued. This timing—and U.S. President Donald Trump’s suggestion that he could use Meng as a bargaining chip in the negotiations— prompted an outcry from Chinese officials, who painted her arrest as a cynical power play.

The response from Beijing was swift: almost immediately after Meng was picked up in Vancouver, China detained two Canadians in what was widely seen as a retaliatory measure. A few weeks later, a third Canadian was sentenced to death for drug smuggling at a perfunctory court proceeding that was ordered shortly after Meng’s arrest.

Despite Trump’s reckless tweeting, it’s highly unlikely that Meng’s arrest was timed to give Washington additional leverage over Beijing.

She was arrested on charges of fraud connected to sanctions violations, and the U.S. criminal investigation of Huawei began long before the current round of U.S.-Chinese trade talks. Meng is not a hostage; her detention was a legitimate act of law enforcement.

By Robert Williams* There is, however, a less transactional and more It’s not been a great few weeks for Huawei, the fundamental connection between the heightened Chinese telecommunications giant and one of scrutiny of Huawei and Washington’s trade war Beijing’s “national champion” tech firms. On against Beijing: both stem from the growing December 1, Canadian authorities in Vancouver tensions and mistrust between Western states and arrested the company’s chief financial officer, China in matters of technology, economic policy, Meng Wanzhou, at the behest of the United and national security. Both are driven, in part, by States. On January 11, news broke that Polish the fear that the Chinese Communist Party’s grip officials had arrested a Huawei employee on on the country’s private sector means that Chinese espionage charges. On January 28, the U.S. companies cannot truly be independent from the Justice Department unveiled indictments accusing Chinese state.

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DON'T TRUST BEIJING’S PROCESS As big data and artificial intelligence advance, the global economy is set to rely more and more on fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks, which enable large machine-to-machine data flows at ultra-fast speeds. As the world’s largest producer of the telecom equipment needed to operate such networks, Huawei is a colossal player in the global race for 5G dominance. As of late 2018, the company boasted 28 percent of the global market for telecom equipment and had signed more than 25 contracts around the world to deploy its equipment in the 5G networks of the future.

But even before the arrest of Huawei’s CFO in December, the company’s global expansion had hit a snag. As early as 2012, the intelligence committee of the U.S. House of Representatives issued a report warning that Huawei might install “malicious implants” in critical network infrastructure, possibly opening a backdoor for the Chinese government to conduct cyberespionage and cyberattacks. Such concerns loom even larger in the case of 5G networks that could undergird everything from smart electric grids to autonomous vehicles—not to mention the commercial networks on which U.S. military communications and logistics depend.

Over the past year, the U.S. government began pulling up the drawbridge. In February 2018, U.S. intelligence officials cautioned Americans against buying Huawei phones, and in April, the Pentagon banned the sale of Huawei smartphones on U.S. military bases. In August, Trump signed a bill that restricts the government’s use of technology

Washington must move ahead swiftly on regulatory reforms to incentivize private-sector investment in the United States’ own 5G infrastructure.

made by Huawei and another Chinese tech firm, ZTE. Now the Trump administration is mulling an executive order that would bar all U.S. companies from using Huawei or ZTE equipment.

U.S. officials have taken their campaign global, and the bid is gaining traction. Last August, Australia barred Huawei from supplying 5G equipment; New Zealand followed suit in November. A month later, the Japanese government effectively banned Huawei equipment from government contracts, and the country’s main telecom firms announced they would do the same. Canada, Norway, and the United Kingdom are now conducting security reviews of Huawei’s 5G technology, and the French, German, and Polish governments are considering bans of their own. Already, major Western telecoms like the British giant BT and its French counterpart Orange have announced plans to limit or exclude Huawei from their 5G networks.

It is unusual for Western states to march in lockstep in this way, particularly where China is concerned. Just a few years ago, the U.S. allies

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Huawei logo is seen on an android mobile phone with United States of America flag on the background.

(Getty)

now lining up to scrutinize China’s largest tech company ignored Washington’s pleas not to join China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

The current show of unity is all the more striking given that there is no smoking gun incriminating Huawei—no public evidence proving, say, that the company is rigging its hardware or spying on behalf of the Chinese government. To be sure, Huawei has previously been linked to the theft of intellectual property from Cisco and at least one case of compromised data involving the African Union headquarters in Ethiopia. The U.S. Justice Department's latest indictments paint a picture of a company that deliberately flouted sanctions law and stole technology from its business partners.

But Western governments have yet to present detailed public evidence that Huawei has indeed been spying for China, and the company denies that it does so.

Rather than reacting to specific incidents of cyberespionage or cyberattack, Western governments are likely driven by a broader concern: the Chinese Communist Party’s deepening control

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over China’s corporations and other ostensibly nongovernmental institutions. There is good reason to worry. In the United States and most other advanced democracies, there is a clear legal process for the federal government to obtain access to private communications for foreign intelligence purposes, and some American companies have actively resisted government attempts to obtain data in the name of national security. The Chinese system lacks these procedural constraints. The state operates with a broad conception of national security and in recent years has been tightening its grip on companies and citizens alike. It has strengthened the role of party committees in Chinese companies, rolled out widespread domestic digital surveillance programs, and created an anti-corruption agency that sits above the reach of due process constraints. Against this backdrop, there is a serious risk that, as the 2012 House intelligence report put it, Huawei “would be obligated to cooperate with any request by the Chinese government to use [its] systems or access them for malicious purposes under the guise of state security.”

Chinese officials themselves appear quite willing to blur the line between state and private sector.

Huawei’s CFO Meng reportedly held a passport typically issued only to employees of China’s government or state-owned enterprises. And when China detained two Canadians in response to Meng’s arrest, its ambassador to Canada invoked national “self-defense.” No wonder, then, that many governments no longer trust that there is a meaningful distinction between Huawei and the Chinese government.

THE MEANING OF THE TRADE WAR Although the diplomatic fallout from the recent arrests has put Huawei’s case into high relief, the company’s close ties to the Chinese party-state are no outlier. As the legal scholars Curtis Milhaupt and Wentong Zheng have written, a number of major Chinese firms receive preferential treatment through their deep links with the government. Even if nominally private, they benefit from subsidies and insulation from competition in the massive Chinese market. This state-led approach has helped propel the growth of high-tech companies that now rival their Western competitors in areas such

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as artificial intelligence and quantum computing.

But it has also raised hackles in Western capitals, which have complained about a host of unfair practices, including forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft, industrial policy, and various non-tariff barriers, all of which make it harder for foreign firms to compete fairly in key technology sectors. This economic competition matters all the more to states because many of the next-generation technologies being developed by leading tech firms have both civilian and military applications.

These concerns explain why the Trump administration’s goal in trade negotiations with China is much more ambitious than a mere reduction of car tariffs. The United States wants structural changes to China’s economic policies and its relations with private companies. That is in part why the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an executive branch interagency group that reviews the national security implications of foreign investments in U.S. companies, is expanding its scrutiny of Chinese investment in so-called critical technologies.

Likewise, Congress has updated the U.S. export control regime to limit the export of certain “emerging and foundational” technologies, which could be interpreted to cover broad categories such as AI, biotechnology, and microprocessors.

Washington can take further steps to protect U.S. intellectual property, but there is reason to doubt that the campaign against Huawei or the current trade negotiations will yield anything but symbolic progress on the core question of the party-state’s role in the Chinese economy. For one, there is the matter of political optics. Chinese President Xi Jinping wants to avoid the impression that he is caving in to Washington’s pressure campaign. In a speech last December, he rejected the notion that outsiders could “dictate to the Chinese people” and committed to maintaining and strengthening the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership “over all tasks.”

The crackdown on Huawei and efforts to protect U.S. technology could also reinforce the view, already taking hold in the party’s politburo, that

Trump’s trade war is just one part of a broader effort by the United States to thwart China’s rise— one which requires China to adopt aggressive state policies to achieve technological self-sufficiency.

Leaders in Beijing still remember that, just months ago, the U.S. Commerce Department brought the Chinese telecom-equipment company ZTE to the brink of collapse with an export ban on U.S.-made semiconductors that ZTE uses in its products. The company only avoided this fate—a punishment for its repeated violations of U.S. sanctions against Iran and North Korea—when Trump intervened at the last minute to reverse the penalty. With the prospect of a similar (if less existential) threat looming above Huawei’s operations, those in China who argue for doubling down on a statedirected drive toward self-sufficiency have new ammunition for their case.

Still, there are some within China who think otherwise. Many Chinese elites, particularly in the academy, think that Xi has overreached

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Police officers stand guard outside the Canadian embassy in Beijing on January ,27 2019. (Getty)

of opening and reform. China’s slowing growth, enormous debt overhang, rising labor costs, and aging population make such an overhaul more urgent than ever.

DON’T BOO. ACT.

both in his foreign policy and in his domestic consolidation of power. A number of prominent Chinese analysts have argued that the marketopening reforms demanded by the United States are in line with China’s long-term goal of moving up the value chain and developing an innovationbased economy driven by fair market competition.

Despite the advances in China’s tech sector, they argue, its state-led approach and tightened political control have spawned bureaucratic sclerosis, waste, and inefficient management.

It is possible, though far from preordained, that this friction—both domestic and international—may begin to shift Chinese leaders’ calculus. News that China’s top planning agency will rewrite its Made in China 2025 industrial strategy to allow for more foreign competition is a welcome start, but the true test will be whether such promises are followed through. Structural Chinese reforms need not be framed as concessions to U.S. pressure, as they are largely consistent with years of official Chinese rhetoric about deepening the country’s process

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The United States, for its part, should heed the difference between competing and merely whining. On the technological front, this means recognizing that Huawei will continue to be a major player in the global market for 5G infrastructure. Washington must move ahead swiftly on regulatory reforms to incentivize private-sector investment in the United States’ own 5G infrastructure. It must work with like-minded allies and partners to address cybersecurity vulnerabilities and protect strategically sensitive technologies without undermining the innovation ecosystem that gives rise to their development.

The Trump administration should also avoid overstating its case against Huawei and the Chinese state. As bad as Huawei’s sanctions violations and its theft from corporate competitors may have been, that malfeasance should not be conflated with spying on behalf of the Chinese government. This distinction can be made without minimizing the security risks of embedding Huawei technology in 5G infrastructure. Similarly, there is little doubt that China has stolen intellectual property from abroad, but many other countries have done the same, and Washington needs to better explain how Chinese practices fundamentally differ in their scope, scale, and long-term impact on American economic and national security.

U.S. officials should also be sensitive to the danger that friends and foes alike will interpret the timing of charges against a senior Huawei executive as geopolitical maneuvering rather than a legitimate, independent law enforcement action. That perception could undercut one of the “soft” advantages the United States has in any strategic competition: its deeply institutionalized commitment to the rule of law.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs. com.

ROBERT WILLIAMS is a senior research scholar and lecturer at Yale Law School, where he serves as executive director of the Paul Tsai China Center.

A Weekly Political News Magazine

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Issue 1734 - February 08/02/2019

Rawan: “I will appear in two series next Ramadan

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Adjusting With Age

Easy Ways to Adapt Exercises When You Have Arthritis Harvard Health Letter Don’t miss out on exercise benefits. Use these shortcuts to avoid overloading arthritic joints.

You might think that exercising would be harmful when you have osteoarthritis, a degenerative wearing away of cartilage in the joints. In reality, exercising is one of the most helpful strategies for living with the condition. “Arthritic joints like movement. The pain and stiffness tend to get better once you get going,”

says Clare Safran-Norton, clinical supervisor of rehabilitation services at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

But because you have arthritis, you may need to exercise differently to avoid injury and pain.

HOW EXERCISE WORKS There are several aspects of exercise that help you

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feel better when you have arthritis. One is repetitive motion. As you move your arms or legs back and forth, your body pumps a natural lubricant called synovial fluid into the joints. That’s the “grease” that makes it a little more comfortable to move.

Another aspect is muscle strengthening. The stronger your muscles, the better they’re able to support your joints and absorb the pressure you place on them.

That helps reduce arthritis pain.

EXERCISE RISKS As helpful as exercise is for osteoarthritic joints, it can also lead to injury if you’re not careful. For example: • Lifting too much weight overhead can irritate arthritic shoulder joints or even lead to a tear in the rotator cuff (the group of tendons that helps you raise and rotate your arm).

• Running or walking aggressively on pavement places a lot of force on arthritic knees and hips, which may worsen pain.

• Doing deep squats increases pressure on arthritic knees, which can also make pain worse.

In addition, says Safran-Norton, “exercising with tight muscles may limit motion in your joints, which can create abnormal wear patterns on the joint surfaces and possibly lead to degenerative changes.”

ADAPTING EXERCISE Young Woman Doing Squats with Dumbbells (Getty)

You can avoid the risks by adapting exercise to your needs and making sure you don’t place excessive force on your joints. That may mean ditching highimpact classes that include a lot of jumping and opting for low-impact classes or trying a pool aerobics class.

“The water makes your body more buoyant, and the warmth of the water may make your muscles relax so that you can move with greater ease,” Safran-Norton explains.

“Arthritic joints like movement.

The pain and stiffness tend to get better once you get going,” says Clare Safran-Norton, clinical supervisor of rehabilitation services at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital. example, modify push-ups by leaning against the wall instead of doing them on the floor. Modify squats by lowering your body only slightly (see “Move of the month”).

Move of the month: Squat Movement: Modify a squat by standing up straight with your feet hip-width apart, hinging forward at your hips, and bending your knees to lower your buttocks only six inches. Place your hands on your thighs for support. Return to the starting position.

Repeat 10 times.

OTHER TIPS Safran-Norton advises warming up the muscles before exercising. Try a few minutes of marching in place, and then static (-30second) stretches of the shoulder, arm, hip, and leg muscles. (People who do not have arthritis are advised to stretch after working out.)

Other good class choices are tai chi and yoga, both of which involve movements that gently stretch and strengthen your muscles.

When strengthening muscles, pay special attention to the ones that support your arthritic joints. If you have knee arthritis, Safran-Norton recommends that you focus on the quadriceps (in the fronts of the thighs), the hamstrings (in the backs of the thighs), and the gluteal muscles (in the buttocks).

For hip arthritis, she recommends strengthening those same muscle groups as well as the stomach muscles.

At the gym, Safran-Norton suggests using a stationary bicycle or elliptical machine for low-impact aerobic conditioning. When using dumbbells or using weight machines, try lighter weights with more repetitions.

You can also modify body-weight exercises. For

Start slowly for each workout session; don’t push your body if an exercise is painful; and cut back on activity if your joints become warm, red, or painful. But don’t forgo exercise and lose out on its benefits.

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Triple Threat Challenge Obesity, Climate Change and Hunger Must be Fought as One

By Melissa Healy* Maybe, when it comes to finding a way out of a global crisis of obesity, we’re just thinking too small.

Maybe the steps needed to reverse a pandemic of unhealthy weight gain are the same as those needed to solve two other crises of human health: malnutrition and climate change.

So instead of trying to tackle each of these problems individually, public health experts recommend that we lash the three together.

In a treatise published in the British medical journal Lancet, a multinational commission argues that consumers, business leaders and policymakers must focus their efforts on steps that address at least two of these crises at a time. Only then can they can resolve

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And no, the experts added: Tackling climate change, world hunger and obesity all at once is not an overreach. subsidized, raised and distributed in new ways.

And, the commission said, it will require governments to stand up to the world’s food manufacturing giants and the industries that support them — a collection of actors known as “Big Food.”

Made up of 43 public health experts from 14 countries, the Lancet Commission on Obesity emphasized that the problems of obesity, malnutrition and climate change are inextricably linked by factors such as overconsumption,

Antarctic Ocean, near Casey Station, Antarctica - December 2017 ,27: Five Adelie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) perched on top of a bergy bit on a grey sea. (Getty)

this trio of emergencies fast and fully enough to make a difference, they wrote.

And no, the experts added: Tackling climate change, world hunger and obesity all at once is not an overreach.

But, the commission warned, it will require an ambitious restructuring of the economic incentives that drive the production and marketing of food. It will require new kinds of transportation systems. And it will demand that consumers demand and help pay for food that is

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unchecked marketing and government failures.

If consumers, producers and regulators take those links into account with each choice they make, humans might stand a chance of averting global catastrophe, the experts wrote.

This way of thinking is so novel that the commission created a word for the three-headed hydra they are trying to address: “syndemic.”

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The World Obesity Federation’s Tim Lobstein, a member of the commission, described the syndemic of obesity, malnutrition and climate change as “a synergy of co-occurring pandemics which interact with each other in place and time and have common societal and economic drivers.”

Those common drivers include industries that are not required to pay for the downstream costs their products impose on the health of consumers or the environment, Lobstein said.

The result, according to the commission’s reckoning: — Roughly 2 billion people worldwide are overweight, and despite the costly health risks that come with this trend, no country has succeeded in reversing the fattening of its population.

— Chronic undernourishment afflicts 815 million people in the world, and more than 200 million of the world’s children are stunted or wasted by hunger.

— The food production system that allows these trends to continue is a major contributor to climate change, which threatens to exacerbate these nutritional disparities by fueling floods, droughts and wildfires.

“A transformative social movement … is needed to overcome the policy inertia,” the commissioners wrote.

For that to happen, “a new narrative” is needed, they added.

They called for an international treaty — similar to those addressing tobacco use and climate change — to limit the political influence of agricultural and food production giants. And they recommend the redirection of 5$ trillion in government subsidies away from harmful food products and toward sustainable alternatives.

Roughly 2 billion people worldwide are overweight, and despite the costly health risks that come with this trend, no country has succeeded in reversing the fattening of its population.

Industries with commercial interests at stake will not yield without the kind of fight that has stymied change for decades, they wrote. Breaking their grip on policy will require funding from philanthropists to empower consumers’ demands for products, services and policies that feed the world healthier food produced with more respect for the planet.

Is such ambition fanciful?

“Changes around this issue have to begin at the local level,” said Dr. William Dietz, a professor of public health at George Washington University and one of the commission leaders. “To think this is going to happen right now at the national level is foolhardy.’

But some of the changes needed are already underway, Dietz said: Cities and states are raising taxes on sugary drinks and also aiming to meet goals set by the Paris climate treaty The World Resources Institute estimates that consumer demand for food that is healthier and sustainably produced is growing by at least 5 percent a year, Dietz said.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents the nation’s leading manufacturers of foods and beverages, responded to the Lancet commission’s report with a call for cooperation.

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Overweight woman buttoning up her jeans.

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of fruits, nuts, vegetables and legumes, with a massive redistribution of meat consumption. The ideal amount of beef or lamb would be about a half an ounce per day, per person, the commission found — a small fraction of U.S. consumption.

The livestock industry denounced those recommendations as radical, and it challenged the new report as well.

“U.S. farmers and ranchers lead the world in efficient practices that deliver unmatched nutrition and continue to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture to record lows,” said Kay Johnson Smith, president and CEO of the Animal Agriculture Alliance.

“The global challenge of feeding the world’s growing population and keeping our climate healthy will certainly not be met by excluding farmers’ experience and expertise,” she said.

The U.S. food, beverage and consumer product industry “shares a commitment to the well-being of consumers everywhere,” the GMA said in an emailed statement.

“Only together can we solve some of the most pressing issues facing the world today.”

Commission member Corinna Hawkes of the University of London insisted “we are not trying to put the food industry out of business.But we want it to exist in a different way,” she said. It should be a market in which smaller farmers and food producers can gain a foothold and thrive, she said.

Others weren’t so sure that regulating the food industry is the answer to such sprawling challenges.

Marlene B. Schwartz, who directs the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at the University of Connecticut, applauded the commission’s willingness to look beyond the science of diet and call for broad-based action to change the way food is made and marketed.

“The food industry absolutely has to change,” Schwartz said. And if scientists from disparate fields are to inform the steps that need to be taken, she said, “we need to start talking to each other.”

“I’m reminded of the adage that for every complicated problem, there is a simple — and wrong — solution, said Dan Glickman, a senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington who led the Department of Agriculture during the Clinton administration. “To blame it all on Big Food — whoever that is — is not terribly helpful. How about taking on the medical world, and how few doctors know anything about nutrition?

How about the role of schools and educators?”

The Lancet Commission on Obesity began with a more limited mandate: to update reports that were published in 2011 and 2015. But despite the issuance of 190 wellfounded recommendations to improve diets and more than 50 to improve physical activity, Lobstein said, “barely any of these have been implemented in more than a handful of countries.”

Christopher Snowdon of the British libertarian think tank Institute of Economic Affairs denounced the members of the Lancet commission as “nanny-state zealots.”

With their embrace of tobacco-style regulation of food and soft drinks, he added, they “make no secret of their desire to bypass democracy and use unaccountable global institutions to further their agenda.”

Two weeks ago, a related panel called the Lancet EAT Commission outlined global targets for a diet that is both healthy and sustainable. Those commissioners called for most consumers to double their consumption

*Melissa Healy is a health and science reporter with the Los Angeles Times writing from the Washington, D.C., area.

Originally Published in the LA Times

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Rawan Tahtouh: “I will appear in two series next Ramadan...I look forward to taking a role in a comedy film” Acting in ‘Amir El Leil’ series was a great experience in her career Interview by: Nour al-Huda Buhlok Beirut- Rawan Tahtouh is a star who, since childhood, has cemented her place in the Lebanese and Arab drama soaps.

She has played several and distinctive roles and was a leading actress in many series. Acting started out as a childhood hobby for her, but she has since adopted it a profession.

Her debut was playing the role of Buthaina (Bisi) in “Banat Ammati w Binti w Ana” series (My cousins, My Daughter and I), which was one of the most successful comedy series in the history of Lebanese television. She acted alongside some of the most important stars in Lebanese drama such as Ward al-Khal and Yorgo Shalhoub.

In this interview, Tahtouh shares with us some details about her absence from acting and her significant return to the art scene. < What is the difference between your debut at the age of 10 and your return to the acting scene today in the “Habibi al-Ladoud” series?

- In my debut I was very young and I gaps in my mouth after losing baby teeth. I was acting for fun, and it was a normal and beautiful experience for me. I used to finish my homework and go to the studio to have some fun and enjoy acting. However, today, playing Rima’s role in this series forces me to be more responsible and self-conscience as there is an audience watching and there is a director who’s committed to my work and keen to preserve my image. I also feel like I should give more since I am acting alongside some veteran stars.

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< You have acted twice with Yorgo Shalhoub. The first time was when you were a child and the second time is now in your current series. What has changed?

- I can honestly say that nothing has changed. I was surprised the first day I met Yorgo Shalhoub; he arrived on time, he was serious, he promptly started acting and was fully prepared. Today, Yorgo is still committed to being punctual, giving his all to his role and everything he does. This is proof of his professionalism. < What is the secret behind your long absence from acting? Who encouraged you to return?

- After my first experience, I was offered a lot of roles, but I refused to take them since I was busy finishing my studies and building my future. Finishing my studies was important to me. Later on, I received an offer to act in â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ishq al-Nisaaâ&#x20AC;? series, which encouraged me to

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Today many genres are competing in Lebanese cinema, and comedy is currently on top return to acting, and it was worth it. < Participating is some of the most important drama series, including Amir al-Layl, Bilahza, Ishq al-Nisaa and Habibi al-Ladoud, the characters you played influenced your audiences. Which role would you say was your favorite?

- They are all special and important to me. Each series

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required effort due to their length, many of which constituted about 60 episodes. I also have my own business away from acting, so I can’t be present more despite the many offers I receive.

Basel Khayyat and Taim Hassan. These two names are the ones that just now popped in my head. < Which of the TV series you appeared in was your favorite?

- “Habibi al-Ladoud” was the most challenging for me as it is not easy to appear in a show that had the serious premise of love and war, even if there were some funny moments throughout the series. Furthermore, the themes of the show can also be difficult to present in a country like Lebanon.

< Do you enjoy public reactions on social media?

- I enjoy them a lot. The fans’ reactions are great, and I enjoy reading their comments on the roles I play. I would like to thank them for always encouraging me to improve myself. < What do you think of the Arab TV industry today?

- The industry is great as it presents a lot of opportunities for actors in general regardless of his or her nationality. Amir al-Layl series, for example, was a purely multinational Arabic series which included actors from Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Morocco. This in turn helped the series spread and achieve more success. Acting in the series was truly an amazing experience.

< Will you be appearing in a new Ramadan series?

- I will be appearing in two series this Ramadan, but I won’t say which ones; they’ll be a surprise.

I can’t give any further information or details, but I can tell you that both are Arab series with a myriad of Arab actors and not just a Lebanese series with only Lebanese actors. < What do you think of the Lebanese cinema industry today?

- Today many genres are competing in Lebanese cinema, and comedy is currently on top. Coincidentally I think comedy is the one genre that the Lebanese TV industry is greatly lacking.

< What is the difference between your work in the field of nutrition and acting?

- I can’t consider acting as a hobby because it takes a lot of my time; I spend more time acting than I do in my other job. I balance between both professions and can’t give acting less time since that surely would affect my public image.

< Is there any possibility of you entering the cinema industry?

- Why not? Of course I would, and I’d want to my first film role to be in a comedy. That would mean a lot to me.

The fans’ reactions on social media are great, and I enjoy reading their comments on the roles I play.

< You have acted along with many stars throughout your career. Which star would you most like to act with now?

- I would very much like acting with Arab actors such as

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Fighting For More Representation Gina Rodriguez Hopes â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Miss Balaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Paves the Way For More Latino-Led Films 44

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She has recently headlined her first big studio movie: Sony’s $ 15 million action thriller, “Miss Bala.”

And she’s back to hoping - hoping the film will perform well enough that Latino-fronted films won’t be so rare.

Jennifer Lawrence had,” she says. “But I don’t look like Jennifer Lawrence, and this industry doesn’t take me the way they take a woman that looks like Jennifer Lawrence — and that’s no divisiveness at all. That just is what it is.”

These days, she’s trying to change the way it is. And not just for herself.

Since becoming a household name in her own right with her Golden Globe-winning turn as the title character on the CW’s “Jane the Virgin,” Rodriguez has been steadily building her portfolio as a director and producer to help bring steady gains for Latino representation in front of and behind the camera.

She has recently headlined her first big studio movie: Sony’s -15$million action thriller, “Miss Bala.” And she’s back to hoping — hoping the film will perform well enough that Latino-fronted films won’t be so rare.

General view of atmosphere during the premiere of Columbia Pictures' 'Miss Bala' after party on January 2019 ,30 in Los Angeles, California.

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By Yvonne Villarreal* LOS ANGELES — It was around this time seven years ago that Gina Rodriguez was deemed the “It” girl out of the Sundance Film Festival with her role as a struggling East L.A. rapper in the hip-hop drama “Filly Brown.” Maybe it was naïvete, but she had hoped the attention would bring the same sort of career boost it had brought other young ingenues, such as Carey Mulligan or Jennifer Lawrence.

“I thought I was going to have a trajectory like

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“I’ve been very aware of what the success of ‘Jane’ has done and what it hasn’t,” says Rodriguez, who is of Puerto Rican descent. “And what the success of ‘Miss Bala’ can do — and what, unfortunately, we can miss the opportunity on. I would hate for Sony to have made this amazing opportunity for so many Latinx [creatives], and then, it just kind of ends here.

That would devastate me. That [Hollywood] would say, ‘OK, we tried that. See, it doesn’t work.’”

It’s a sunny morning a couple of weeks before the film’s release, and Rodriguez had barely settled into her seat in the patio of a Culver City restaurant before confessing that she munched on a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos the night before — pausing to scan her nail beds to make sure she had eliminated any trace of that oh-so-stubborn bright red powder residue. She attributes the questionable dinner choice to being

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in director mode this particular week on “Jane the Virgin.” (Her second stint in the director’s chair this season.)

She speaks quickly and passionately when the conversation veers toward “Miss Bala.”

Directed by Catherine Hardwicke (“Twilight,” “Thirteen”), the film is a remake of the critically acclaimed 2011 Spanish-language Mexican picture

by Gerardo Naranjo. In this updated film, Rodriguez stars as Gloria, a young American who, after traveling to Mexico to help her best friend win a local beauty pageant, gets kidnapped and unwittingly caught up in the deadly crimes of a cartel in Tijuana.

It’s a more feminist take on the original film. And Hardwicke gives a lot of credit for that to Rodriguez.

“I remember our first meeting at my house,” Hardwicke says by telephone. “Gina said, ‘Look, I’ve got some ideas about the character. I want her to be even more active.’

“That was already a big thing that the writer and the producer set out to do. And I wanted even more agency when I came in. But Gina was like, ‘Let’s push it even further.’ She had notes in the script.”

The topic of her character finding her power has Rodriguez revved up: “Gloria doesn’t find her way out of it unrealistically,” she says. “She’s not, all of a sudden, like the most bomb Muay Thai fighter who starts beating a**. She just makes decisions. When we got the script, all I kept asking continuously is like, ‘If this were a man, what would he do?’ It’s really cool to see a woman with agency versus being saved or being a victim. The continuous projection of that gives a young girl a very specific idea of what they are to do in those circumstances.”

Rodriguez spent three months living in Tijuana, going back and forth to the States on weekends to get prepped meals because, she says, it was important to her that Gloria have a different body than Jane did (“Gloria going through this tumultuous experience — I wanted that to reflect in her body.”)

Hardwicke recalls a moment when they were shooting at Valle de Guadalupe on a scorching day and turning to see Rodriguez donning sparring mitts during a break in shooting, getting in some rounds with her dad.

“Everyone else was wilted like a dead flower and scarfing down food during lunch, and Gina’s out there boxing.”

The -34year-old actress, whose big-screen profile has

been on a steady rise with recent roles in “Deepwater Horizon” and “Annihilation,” is eager to have a film like “Miss Bala” hit the marketplace. In addition to having a Latina lead the film, the cast and crew on the project is 95 percent Latinx, the gender-neutral term for Latino.

“That was something I knew I wasn’t gonna have often,” Rodriguez says. “Since then, I haven’t had it again. I made that movie two summers ago, dog.

Have I been offered anything like that since? Have I auditioned for anything like that since? No. The answer is no. That is profound.”

The film arrives during a charged cultural moment in America. Here’s a movie looking at the world of crime and drugs in Mexico — with a young American in peril — at a time when there are fears that Mexico’s violence is a threat to the U.S. “To condemn our action movie because of what’s currently happening in our times is unfortunate, because that means only everybody else is allowed to play in the action trope,” Rodriguez says.

“I had one person ask me, ‘Do you think this is gonna make people want to build a wall?’ The fact of the

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For Rodriguez, the film arrives in a period of transition. She has a wedding to plan with her fiance, Joe LoCicero, and “Jane the Virgin” is about to come to an end after five seasons. really easily these days because I’m a raw nerve.”

Rodriguez will always have a soft spot for her role as Jane Villanueva, who began the series as a virgin and whose life soon rivaled the telenovelas she admired after she was mistakenly artificially inseminated. Her portrayal earned her a Golden Globe in 2015.

“The availability of opportunities, the resources, the networking that I was exposed to because of this show has allowed me to fulfill so many goals I had set out for myself,” Rodriguez says. “‘Jane’ has been the ultimate opener of doors and opportunity.”

Ismael Cruz Cordova, Gina Rodriguez and Cristina Rodlo attend Premiere Of Columbia Pictures' 'Miss Bala' at Regal LA Live Stadium 14 on January ,30 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Getty)

matter is that what’s happening in reality is not what’s happening in this movie. We’re living in a pretend space. We re-imagined a film to contextualize it to a woman that is empowered and finds her own strength in saving herself, when we don’t see a lot of visions of that, period, in the action space ever.”

For Rodriguez, the film arrives in a period of transition. She has a wedding to plan with her fiance, Joe LoCicero, and “Jane the Virgin” is about to come to an end after five seasons.

In the same breath, she’s become the voice of animated character Carmen Sandiego for Netflix, and her company, I Can & I Will Productions, recently sold a Latino-led show called “Diary of a Female President” to Disney’s planned streaming service.

Not to mention an upcoming romantic comedy for Netflix, “Someone Great,” in which she’ll star and have a producing credit.

“There’s mad transitions happening, and I love transitions,” she says. “Doors close, and others open up. But I’m definitely feeling the emotions right now of saying goodbye to ‘Jane.’”

She adds: “I feel it. I 100 percent feel it already. I cry

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Jennie Snyder Urman, the creator and showrunner of the CW dramedy, says Rodriguez’s intensity hasn’t slowed as the show heads into its final stretch.

“She’s always full-throttle; she’s always present,” Urman says. “With the final season — I mean, she’s talked about this at our table reads: about how we’re in this very special space and we only have so many more to make, so let’s be there for each other and savor it and support each other and make the best last season that we possibly can.

“It’s a combination of sentimental but also just showing up, doing the work and not taking it for granted. And I don’t think she ever has. I think she’s always walked onto the space of ‘Jane’ with a sense of gratitude and confidence.”

As Rodriguez ponders the future, all she knows is she’s not waiting for things to happen.

“The next three movies I do, I’m producing all of them,” she says. “I’m doing it my damn self, and I’m not waiting for any studio to come and be like, ‘Hey, would you like to play this progressive role?’ ‘Cause I’m not sitting back. I’m not gonna sit and wait for that ‘cause it hasn’t happened.”

Originally Published in LA Times *Yvonne Villarreal covers the ever-expanding television industry.