The US-China Tariff War Has Widened to Concerns Over Military Technology

January 1, 2019 will mark the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the US and the People’s Republic of China. It is unlikely that the anniversary will be remembered amidst the current tenor rife with suspicion and antagonism. 

The US has virtually told China that it must stop trying to be No. 1, but Beijing continues to push back. Relations seem to be at their worst since 1979The two countries remain locked in what began as a conflict over trade and tariffs, but has now become all consuming and is affecting their relationship across the board. In the meantime, the clock is ticking for the March 1 deadline before which the two countries are supposed to work out their trade issues. Donald Trump had extended the deadline by three months after meeting Xi Jinping at the G-20 in Argentina earlier this month for the two to work out issues before the US clamps down additional tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods.

The signals coming out of the Central Economic Work Conference (CEWC) that concluded in Beijing last week suggest the Chinese will make efforts to stimulate their economy to combat a slowdown and at the same time work towards a trade deal with the US. The resolution following the CEWC indicated that as of now, there are no changes in China’s plans to become a “high end manufacturing powerhouse”. The Chinese Communist Party still views the current period as one of “strategic opportunity.”

To show that they are serious in addressing US concerns, China’s legislature recently began discussion a draft proposal that would prohibit the forced transfer of technology to domestic companies using administrative measures. Just how this would work is not clear, since the draft agreement speaks of promoting “voluntary technological cooperation based on business rules”.

Meanwhile there is serious business ahead, early in the New Year. The CEWC did make favourable noises about quickening reform, enhancing foreign investor access, protecting IPR of foreign companies and removing ownership caps in more areas and “implement the consensus from the China-US summit (in Argentina).” But so far, the Chinese have not provided any detailed list of concessions that could meet the heightened expectations of the Trump-Xi meeting.

Two spheres of technology

Some within the Trump administration, like Peter Navarro, want to shift supply chains out of China and even foresee two distinct technology areas – one Chinese and the other Western. They point out that it is the Chinese themselves who have created that division by excluding global giants like Facebook, Amazon, Google and Instagram from China.

Now the west is gearing up to exclude Chinese companies like Huawei from its sphere. It’s not that the Chinese sphere is backward – features in WeChat are better than those of WhatsApp – Alibaba and JD.com are difficult to beat in China.

But from the hardware point of view, in the short-to-medium term, there are the linkages, say in ICT, between Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan and China, and any disruption could be disastrous for all of them. Likewise, while Vietnam and Bangladesh are important garment producing centres, in the longer term, they cannot match China in terms of scale and integrated supply chains.

Yet, US business leaders are keen for a quick compromise before their bottom lines are hit. Notwithstanding the problems that some of them face in China, others are making huge profits. In November, Navarro criticised Wall Street leaders for trying to pressure the US President into compromising with China.

As of now, we are not clear as to what the US wants from the Chinese. While the conventional line is that they are seeking to balance their trade, it is well known that issues have gone well beyond that. At one level, the US has cracked down on visas for Chinese science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) students, at another, they are in the process of instituting export controls in 14 new areas ranging from genomics to AI chips, quantum computing and flight control algorithms.

US President Donald Trump holds a signed memorandum on intellectual property tariffs on high-tech goods from China, at the White House in Washington on March 22, 2018. Credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst/Files

The real undercurrent of US concern

The real undercurrent of concern in the US relates to how many of these technologies can enhance Beijing’s rising military capabilities. According to Christopher Ashley Ford, US assistant secretary for the Bureau of International Security and Non Proliferation, the Chinese want to ensure that they will be part of the next revolution in military affairs (RMA). The chine believe this would be based on intelligent military technology involving the incorporation of artificial intelligence into military systems and doctrines.

Americans express greater concerns to the Chinese policy of “Civil Military Fusion” (CMF), which seeks to ensure that new technologies developed by the private sector are shared by the military. In January 2017, Xi also became the Chairman of the a new Central Commission for Integrated Military and Civilian Development (CCIMCD), which is the apex body to promote this integrationAccording to US specialist Lorand Laskai, rather that waiting for technologies to develop, “China’s leadership is determined to bake Civil Military Fusion (CMF) into the overall design of emerging sectors through top-level planning. In some ways, this process is partly modelled on that of the US. Perhaps for that reason, the US is worried.

What really worries the US is that in certain areas of technology, China is feeding off US research. It is well known, for example, that the leaders of Chinese AI research like Baidu have had a research lab in the US since 2014. Huawei promised $1 million for AI research to University of California, Berkley. The Chinese company CETC has partnered with the University Technology of Sydney in AI projects.

An Australian study found that the People’s Liberation Army had sent 3,000 scientists to universities in the west over the past decade to focus on AI disciplines. Chinese entities have funded 10-16% of all venture capital deals between 2015 and 2017 in Silicon Valley, according to a study by an outfit linked to the Pentagon.

The Wire December 27, 2018

Keeping close tabs on all

The December 20th government notification has authorised the 10 security and intelligence agencies to intercept and decrypt messages being ‘generated, transmitted, received or stored’ in any computer. The government claims it is merely notifying an existing legal provision that had been in place since 2009 when the UPA was the ruling party. But the notification flies in the face of the Supreme Court judgment of last year which had declared privacy to be a fundamental right, and this year’s decision restricting the use of Aadhaar.

Intercepting information being exchanged by the bad guys is important. But there is just one Internet. Why does the government have to give the authority to 10 agencies, thus making the task of preserving the secrecy of that information more complex? Can’t a single dedicated agency do that task and feed the other departments? Right now it appears that the entire government machinery has been given a carte blanche to snoop not just your emails, but your entire life.

The Information Technology Act, 2000, had given the Electronics and IT Ministry the right to surveil the newly emerging Internet, more with a view of regulating it and preventing its misuse. But Section 69, added in the wake of the Mumbai attack, gave  the Union government authority ‘to intercept, monitor, or decrypt… any information generated, transmitted, received or stored in any computer resource’.

Till this amendment, interception of communications was governed by the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, which permitted the authorities to block or intercept telegraphic messages  in the interests of public order, sovereignty and so on. In 1996, the Supreme Court held that the broad powers of interception assumed by the government  must be guided by established legal procedures and the SC laid down guidelines on requests for authorisation of interception, their period, the destruction of older intercepts  and so on. Subsequently, these were notified as rules by the government.

On paper, the Union Home Secretary or his counterpart in the state governments provides the authorisation for interception in writing. But, typically, powers are delegated so widely so as to make the restriction near meaningless. Officials can on most occasions get retroactive authorisation.

On paper, there is a review mechanism headed by the Cabinet Secretary and his counterpart, the state Chief Secretary, which must receive a copy of every interception order. All this looks very good on paper, but we do not know how effective both mechanisms have been. Some years ago, journalist Saikat Dutta filed an RTI application asking how many phones were tapped at the Union level every year. The answer was 1 lakh. The question then is, was the Union Home Secretary able to apply his mind and sign 300 orders per day?

In the US, the authorisation process goes through a duly constituted court and the requests for surveillance can only deal with foreign powers or their agents, the US agencies cannot target US nationals. Even so, the total requests to the court in 2016 were 1,485, and have averaged 1,200 since 2001.

Then there is the problem of highly secretive agencies like the IB and R&AW that are unlikely to share their activities with the Union Home Secretary, or even the Cabinet Secretary. They do not come under the ambit of any law and operate more or less directly under the PMO, and in the present case, the National Security Adviser.

The Radia tapes made a mockery of all these procedures when private telephone conversations of Nira Radia and a number of journalists, corporate leaders and others were disseminated. The recordings were reportedly done by the income tax authorities, but they became part of political football and no one has been held to account for their leakage.

As it is, whether it was the UPA amendments of 2008, or the current government’s new rules authorising almost all its agencies to snoop, has little to say about the rights of the citizen. The government has not explained why it has entirely excluded state intelligence agencies and their police forces. 

We are talking about tens of billions of email messages, chat strings and other communications going over the Internet every day. Does the government have the capacity to handle that traffic? Decrypt, translate and digest it? What exactly is being  authorised? Will it be the messages of an individual or a group? Or is the government giving a blanket go-ahead to the agencies to indulge in a big fishing expedition to scoop up whatever information they can? Where are the safeguards? Leave alone the Radia tapes, has any government official or functionary ever been punished for illegal interception of information or phone-tapping?

All this is not by way of rhetoric, but to say that experience has taught us that the government is not too good in preserving the privacy of the citizen. That can only be achieved by an informed citizenry. But all we have here are bland notifications and usual obfuscations and arguments. Just what persuaded the Union government to undertake this course at this juncture is not known, but coming as it does on the eve of the elections, it is likely to damage the ruling party’s standing in the computer-using middle class constituency.

National security is very important for all countries, but for democracies like India, personal freedoms are the very foundation of our polity. There is no point in having security minus liberty.

Tribune December 24, 2018

Five reasons why BJP lost Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh

To what extent are state Assembly elections a predictor of general elections?

This is the big question everyone has in mind following the Congress’ superb performance in the recent Assembly elections in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

There is the past.

In 2003, the BJP won the state Assembly elections to these three states and yet lost the Lok Sabha poll in 2004. Likewise, the Congress lost Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in the 2008 Assembly polls (they did win Rajasthan) and yet they won the Lok Sabha poll.

Anti-incumbency is the common factor. (Photo: India Today)

Reasons for decline

Getting an answer to the question really rests on an assessment of why the BJP fared badly in the state Assembly polls.

The common answer would be anti-incumbency.

After all, across the democratic world, electors tire of leaders in, at the most, ten years.

But Raman Singh had been CM for 15 years and Shivraj Chouhan for 13. But it would be churlish not to give credit to Congress leaders like Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot in Rajasthan, Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia in Madhya Pradesh, and in Chhattisgarh.

More important was the coming of age of the party’s top leader, “young” Rahul Gandhi. His low-key, can-do approach made a significant difference.

A third factor being spoken about is “rural distress”— farmers were unhappy, as indicated by the party’s greater loss in the countryside.

A fourth factor highlighted by India Spend is that in Chhattisgarh, MP and Rajasthan, where 43, 36 and 30 per cent of the seats respectively are reserved for SCs and STs, the BJP did not do too well. Across the three states, they lost 120 or 66 per cent of the 180 reserved seats as against the 77 they had won in 2013.

Equally telling is the fifth issue brought out by The Print in revealing that the party won only 46 per cent of the 80 urban seats, down from the 80 per cent they had won in 2013.

While losses in the countryside could be put down to “rural distress”, the erosion in the urban areas which voted strongly for the party earlier is a danger signal.

Demonetisation, the poor roll-out of the GST, as well as anti-incumbency seems to have dented the appeal of the party.

In the recent Assembly poll in Gujarat, the BJP faced strong headwinds, but was able to triumph once again because of the solid support it got from its urban constituency.

Agrarian crisis is another factor. But the BJP didn't do well in urban seats as well. (Photo: Twitter/@AIKS)

Numbers don’t lie

Nationally, Modi had generated enormous support among the young and aspirational for his agenda of development and promotion of a range of transformational initiatives, like StartUP India, Skill India, StandUp India, Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojna, Smart Cities mission, AMRUT and so on.

However, outcomes in most of these have been indifferent and many schemes are yet to get off the ground.

In the meantime, the economy has simply not been able to provide 10 million jobs per annum that Modi had talked of in his election campaign in 2014.

In fact, CMIE figures show that the number of formally employed Indians actually fell in the period 2017-2018. The government claimed that 3.11 million jobs were added between September 2017 and February 2018, while CMIE figures put the figure at 1.8 million for 2017.

Indeed, the CMIE data shows that new investment projects went down by 38.4 per cent in the financial year 2018 and the completion of new ones fell by 26.8 per cent over the previous year. FDI declined by 15 per cent. An indicator of just how fraught the situation was is brought out by the fact that when the Indian Railways advertised for 90,000 jobs, they got 23 million applications. Things have not been too good in FY 2019 either.

Coming to power in three states will help Congress in filling up its depleted coffers. (Photo: Reuters)

A new hope

All these issues will be in play in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The period now and then is too short for the Congress Party to be expected to deliver on promises. This is perhaps to its advantage because fulfilling some of those would not be easy. Perhaps, the most important outcome of the election was that it gave a lifeline to the Congress, which was floundering in the face of repeated defeats.

Coming to power in three states will also help in filling up its depleted coffers, something that will be very important when it faces the cash-rich BJP in the 2019 contest. But far more important is the sense of confidence and “can do” spirit the state Assembly results would have given to Rahul Gandhi’s neophyte leadership and the Congress party.

Mail Today December 16, 2018

SC’s Rafale Verdict is Narrow, Govt Still Has A Lot to Answer For

The Supreme Court bench that has dismissed all the petitions relating to the Rafale deal, has taken a narrow and orthodox view of the issue.

The judgment read out by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi has said that the need for the aircraft and its quality are not in doubt. That is, indeed, true. The aircraft is first-rate, and, yes, the Indian Air Force needs them badly. Further, it has said that issues relating to business decisions such as pricing and choice of offset partner, are not within its purview. But that is precisely where the rub lies.

SC Hasn’t Looked Into How Govt Acquired Rafale

The allegation against the ruling party is that it bought the aircraft at a vastly inflated price, which was related to the issue of offsets being given to an inexperienced company.

It is the manner in which the government acquired the aircraft that is being questioned, and the apex court has not quite looked at that.

Essentially, the court seems to have argued that national security concerns override many of the concerns expressed by the petitioners, and in any case, the apex court cannot become an appellate court for defence deals.

They said they had no reason to doubt the decision-making process and nor was there any material to show that there was commercial favouritism in the deal, despite allegations that the Modi government had taken the offset contract from the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd and given it to Anil Ambani’s Reliance Defence.

Also Read : Rafale Deal: ‘Rahul Should Apologise,’ Says Shah After SC Verdict

Questions Looming Over Rafale

Petitions had demanded a court-monitored investigation into the deal after former President Hollande told a French journal in September that the Indian government had proposed Ambani’s company as a partner for the deal. The Congress accused Prime Minister Modi and his government of corruption and crony capitalism, and demanded that the pricing details of the aircraft be made public. The government had rejected this citing ‘secrecy clauses’ in the deal.

Notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s action, the questions surrounding the deal are not going to go away. We haven’t really got answers for some important aspects of the deal.

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First, how come a deal for 126 aircraft was suddenly reduced to 36? That the Indian Air Force needs more fighters is evident from the fact that earlier this year, the IAF put out a formal Request for Information (RFI) for 114 fighter aircraft, and, surprise, surprise, Dassault is among the six companies who have responded, offering its Rafale.

Why the Need for Offsets?

So we are in a bizzare situation where the government first accepted the need for 126 aircraft, chose the Rafale, then for reasons it has not disclosed, reduced the number to 36, and has now expressed a desire to acquire 114 more.

Considering that the Rafale won the last competition, we would assume that they would win it again and that we would end up paying more for what we could have acquired several years ago, or even a year ago. The Indian Air Force and the government would then have tied themselves into knots.

Second, of course, how and why Dassault  chose as its partner a company (Reliance Defence) which has no experience in the aviation business.

One can understand why HAL was rejected—its record for quality control is pretty shoddy. But there are other Indian companies that have considerable experience in manufacturing defence products. Actually, the basic question that can be asked is: why offsets? 

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Because it is a well-known practice that defence companies simply add the cost of offsets to their base price for a product. Indeed, if you do not ask for them, you can get that as a discount on the price. The theory behind offsets is that they will help create a defence manufacturing eco-system by compelling manufacturers to invest in making parts of the product in India.

The reality has actually been otherwise. Those who have invested have done so in a straightforward way, not because they were compelled to do so, but because of offsets.

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Little Regard for Procedure & Processes

There is, of course, a possibility which we can only examine as a speculation since it is so sensitive that no information will be forthcoming.  That is, that the government was in no position to acquire the entire lot of 126 Rafales and decided on 36 because it urgently needed to upgrade the aircraft that are designated for use by the Strategic Forces Command, who are tasked to deliver nuclear strikes.

These aircraft would have special bells and whistles  which could include hardening their electronics for EMP, as well as equipment to penetrate enemy air space. So, National Security Adviser A K Doval, who is in-charge of the nuclear arsenal, persuaded the prime minister to acquire a limited number of the highly capable aircraft.

That was the time Modi was riding high and he took a peremptory decision to dump the old deal and initiate a new one, with little regard to procedures and process.

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Why Reliance Defence? Speculation Continues

As for explaining the choice of Reliance Defence and Anil Ambani, that, too, will have to remain in the realm of speculation, because we have Hollande’s word against that of Dassault. And one of them is an interested party.

It would be too much to expect the Opposition not to keep hold of the issue as the country goes into a general election. The Rafale deal and the SC judgment leaves too many questions unanswered.

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At this point the judicial system has said what it had to, but the political system, too will have to have its say because the politics of the time demands it.

The Quint December 14, 2018

The politics of surgical strikes

LT GEN DS Hooda (retd) is right when he talks about needless hype over operations like the surgical strikes. Note, of course, that he is not arguing that such strikes are wrong, but that the accompanying hype, often aimed at playing to the political gallery, undermines their military value.

There is, of course, the larger question as to the very nature of the so-called surgical strikes of September 29, 2016, that had been launched to avenge the Uri militant strike of September 18. Northern Army Commander Lt Gen Ranbir Singh who, as DGMO, announced the strikes, responded to Hooda by saying  that the strikes were a successful tactical operation that  had conveyed a message to  Pakistan.

Lt Gen Ranbir Singh’s statement is not borne out by facts. Pakistan did not stop its ‘misadventures’ as he quaintly put it. Almost two months later,  on November 29, Jaish militants attacked an Army base in Nagrota and in the ensuing shootout 10 soldiers, including three officers were killed.  

The Nagrota strike was far more serious than the Uri one. Unlike Uri, which is very close to the LoC and more vulnerable, Nagrota is somewhat inland. More important, it is the headquarters of the huge 16 Corps and should thus have had a much higher level of protection.

But by far the more damaging was the fact that the Indian Army did not react to this provocation. If the surgical strikes after Uri were meant to deter further Pakistani ‘misadventure’, the only way it would work as a strategy, would be if the Army hit Pakistan hard every time it launched an attackThe next year, 2017, there were several attacks across the LoC attributed to Pakistani jihadis and forces. In one, an Indian patrol was attacked in Krishna Ghati sector of the Poonch district, killing two soldiers. In December, a Pakistani Border Action Team (BAT) came half a kilometre into Indian territory and killed four soldiers, including a Major.

Early this year, there was another Jaish attack on the Sunjuwan camp housing soldiers and their families, a few kilometres to the east of Jammu City. As many as 11 soldiers and a civilian were killed and 20 injured.  Yet, there was no reaction comparable to the surgical strikes. So it is evident that  the strikes did not deter Pakistan. 

You can draw many conclusions from this. One is that the Indian policy of surgical strikes was flawed to start with. Perhaps publicising it the way it was done was not a good idea. Or, the Army had not thought through its strategy because if it was aimed at sending a signal that India would no longer sit back and tolerate attacks such as the ones on Pathankot and Uri,  the Army needed to demonstrably hit back at Pakistan every time jihadis or BAT attacks took place.

Clearly, there are hazards in the latter policy. If demonstrable strikes take place, the two countries could get locked into an escalatory cycle which could eventually lead to war. That neither side wants this is evident from the fact that their cross-LoC activity remains limited. Even episodes of cross-border bombardment that occasionally take place on the LoC or the border in Jammu, usually end in a ceasefire. That is why, it is important to keep a tight control on the escalatory framework. The way of doing this earlier was to keep the retaliatory cycles secret and not let them enter the political or electoral cycles in either country because hype tends to be the hand-maiden of politics. That the strikes were politicised is no secret. Whether it is in the speeches of BJP leaders or the posters that came up, the strikes were widely featured in the Uttar Pradesh state Assembly elections of 2016.

At the end of the day, there is the challenge of deterring Pakistan. It is one thing to deter it from the point of view of nuclear weapons and large-scale conventional conflict, and quite another to make it cease and desist from sending groups of militants in the name of ‘political support’ to the Kashmiri militancy.

India has not yet found the formula of dealing with them. The so-called surgical strikes were mooted as the solution, but they have clearly not worked.  

Having initiated a policy, it was important for the Army to follow through with that policy, which it did not, because the main purpose of the strikes was to make a political statement which was aimed at the UP elections. The Indian challenge was neatly side-stepped by Islamabad which simply denied that such strikes took place and did not feel compelled to respond to the Indian action in word or deed.

New Delhi certainly has the option of using military retaliation every time the Pakistanis act. The politicians do not mind basking in the glory of the strikes because they took out a few terrorist launching pads for no loss of life. But escalation, even a larger skirmish, always has the possibility of going awry and putting pressure on the government to enhance the level of violence when things don’t go according to plan. We cannot be sure just how Islamabad will react and we should not exaggerate our capabilities with regard to Pakistan. In such matters, sober realism is the best approach, and this would tell us that we need a different menu of options when it comes to bringing down and eliminating the violence in Jammu & Kashmir.

The Tribune December 11, 2018

Growth, employment, healthcare: Which numbers to believe in Donald Trump's US

The US presents a bewildering pattern of images.

Like in a kaleidoscope, the same elements yield a different pattern every time you twist it.

By some accounts, the economy is doing spectacularly well. It has seen the longest period of economic growth in its history, currently averaging 3.5 per cent annually. Wages are rising, unemployment is at a historic low and consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of the economic activity, continues to grow.

Yet, naysayers say that growth will peter out soon and that there are signs of slowdown in the automobile, agriculture and house construction sectors.

Divided nation

GM’s recent decision to shut five plants and cut 14,000 jobs was a shock.

Trump supporters say that the tariff war with China and the re-designed NAFTA (now called the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement) will strengthen the US economy further. But it would be difficult to miss the signs of a building political crisis as the investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller over the Russian interference in US elections.

Till this week it appeared that the investigation was on people working for Trump. But now it has begun focusing on Trump’s own actions.

Among these were reports that Trump was in close contact with his aides as they contacted the Russians and Wikileaks. This was the burden of the testimony of Michael Cohen, Trump’s lawyer, who made it clear while submitting a guilty plea that his criminal actions were on behalf of Trump and that Trump had been involved in discussions about building a skyscraper in Moscow even while campaigning for the office of President.

In last week’s court filings by Mueller, Trump was labelled “individual 1”. This filing spelt out the facts that led to Cohen’s guilty plea to lying to Congress.

Underlying this is the political situation in the US, which remains a deeply divided nation. This was manifested by the outcome of the recent elections that saw the Democrats make massive gains in the lower House of Representatives, and the Republicans expanding their lead in the Senate.

Observers say that the Democrats dominated the suburban House constituencies, while the Republicans won the rural Senate states.

Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen made it clear that his criminal actions were on behalf of Trump. (Photo: Reuters)

Mounting issues

Twist the kaleidoscope once more and there is more alarming news.

We are aware, of course, that America’s infrastructure has been deteriorating for a while now. With tax cuts being the prevailing ideology, governments, federal and local simply lack the money to carry out the much-needed repairs and new constructions.

Trump had promised to change things, but he has gone the same way, pushing a tax cut that has helped stimulate the economy but provided little money for the federal coffers.

This has been done along with a massive rise in defence expenditure.

The 2019 military budget of $716 billion for 2019 is $82 billion more than the one for 2017. About 17 per cent of America’s federal government expenditure of $4 trillion goes to the military. Pouring billions into defence prevents the US from spending money on health care, child care and repairing its infrastructure.

Even so, it is a shock to hear that there has been a drop in the life expectancy of the Americans.

Trump had apparently been involved in discussions about building a skyscraper in Moscow even while campaigning for the office of President. (Photo: Reuters)

Latest figures of the Centres of Disease Control show a slight drop from 78.6 per cent from the 2016 figure of 78.7. Life expectancy figures provide a snapshot of the country’s overall health, says the CDC Director Dr Robert R Redfield.

The reason for this is the rising opiod-related mortality and the rise in suicide rates. Between 1999 and 2017, suicide rates have risen 33 per cent. Drug overdose deaths increased in the past year from 63,632 to 70,237.

Rejecting prosperity

Another issue roiling the country is that of immigration. This is surprising from a country that was founded by immigrants and owes its prosperity to successive waves of migrants who continue to come to this day and enrich the country, not just by their labour, but their various talents.

It is well known, for example that while US-born scientists have won the most Nobel prizes, the number two category belongs to scientists who immigrated to the US. But talent comes in many shapes and sizes.

Among the more famous is Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, whose father was a Syrian immigrant.

Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski, who is being called the world’s next Einstein is a 23-year old Cuban-American. She is currently in a unique Ph.D. programme in Harvard University, where she can study whatever she wants on her own terms.

The US still has a lot going for it especially its physical and intellectual resources. But it risks undermining itself by the kind of bitter internal divisions it has and by its tendency of using the military as a solution for political problems.

Mail Today December 4, 2018