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Examining the Debate Over Native American Land Acknowledgments

A civil rights lawsuit filed by a University of Washington computer science professor has called attention to a largely academic debate over land acknowledgments — formal statements that recognize Indigenous custodianship of geographic areas on which institutions stand or events take place.

Evolving out of the work of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, land acknowledgments are becoming increasingly common at U.S. universities and sporting events.

Yale University, for example, developed this statement:

“Yale University acknowledges that indigenous peoples and nations, including Mohegan, Mashantucket Pequot, Eastern Pequot, Schaghticoke, Golden Hill Paugussett, Niantic, and the Quinnipiac and other Algonquian speaking peoples, have stewarded through generations the lands and waterways of what is now the state of Connecticut. We honor and respect the enduring relationship that exists between these peoples and nations and this land.”

Native American students at Stanford University in Stanford, California, put together a video statement acknowledging the institution’s location on the the ancestral land of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe (below):

In 2020, the University of Washington acknowledged its location on the traditional land and waterways of the Suquamish, Tulalip and Muckleshoot Nations and encouraged faculty to include land acknowledgments on individual course syllabuses.

But Stuart Reges, a computer science professor at the University’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, opposes land acknowledgements and posted a dissenting statement on his course outline which read, “I acknowledge that by the labor theory of property the Coast Salish people can claim historical ownership of almost none of the land currently occupied by the University of Washington.”

He now faces disciplinary action by the university for that statement. In his lawsuit, Reges alleged his First Amendment right to free speech had been violated.

The labor theory he cites was proposed by English philosopher John Locke in 1690, who suggested that by laboring and making the land more productive than it was in its original state of nature, an individual assumes the right to own that land.

“Locke said that in the case of land, if you grew corn on an acre of land, then by mixing your labor with the land, you come to own the land,” Reges told VOA. “So, if you believe in the Locke idea, then it wasn’t Native tribes that made productive use of this land. It was the people who founded the university.”

What is the Locke Theory of Property?

For help in understanding this little-known theory, VOA reached out to Kyle Swan, a professor of philosophy at California State University, Sacramento, who has written about Lockean property rights.

“I think he [Reges] is making some mistakes in the way he applies Locke’s theory,” he said. “Locke was talking about the commons, earth in its original state, when nobody owned anything yet.”

In a later chapter of his “Second Treatise of Government” titled “On Conquest,” Locke said property could only be legitimately acquired when it was not already owned by someone else.

“Why were they making contracts to acquire land from the natives if the natives didn’t already own the land?” Swan asked. “They wouldn’t do that if they believed that the lands were unused, unoccupied and unowned.”

“The second thing is that the person appropriating something from the commons, they have to do that in a way that improves it through their productive activity — gathering berries, hunting, fishing,” Swan said. “And finally, in acquiring the land, they have to leave enough and as good [land] for others.”

Locke also posed a condition in cases of conquest, said Swan, reading directly from Locke’s essay: “The inhabitants of any country, who are descended and derive a title to their estates from those who are subdued and had a government forced upon them against their free consents, retain a right to the possession of their ancestors.”

“In other words,” Swan said, “if what you have is a conquest rather than a legitimate transfer of territorial rights, then Locke says that the original inhabitants retain their claims to it.”

Their different interpretations of Locke notwithstanding, Swan said he believed Reges had the right to exercise free speech.

Ties to current politics

Reges said he believes land acknowledgments support a “particular view” of American history that “has no place in the classroom.”

“You could call it the Howard Zinn view of history — that the United States is evil, and we stole the land, we are guilty, and so forth,” he said.

Zinn was a controversial historian and author of “A Peoples History of the United States,” which re-examined history through the experiences of those normally neglected in textbooks — African and Native Americans, immigrants and the working classes.

Critics condemn Zinn as a Marxist trying to turn Americans against their country. His name often comes up in discussions about critical race theory (CRT).

Reges isn’t alone in his views. In a July 18 article in Newsweek magazine University of Chicago Law School professor M. Todd Henderson called land acknowledgments “ahistorical nonsense,” and like Reges, invokes Locke’s theory of property rights.

“No one has a claim on land except if they put it to productive use and are capable of defending it. … Nearly every plot of land on Earth is inhabited today by groups of people that displaced other people who lived there before,” Henderson said.

Graeme Wood, a writer for the Atlantic and a lecturer at Yale, criticizes land acknowledgments as superficial and showy.

“The acknowledgments never include any actual material redress — the return of land, meaningful corrections of wrongs against Indigenous communities — or sophisticated moral reckoning,” he wrote.

A Native American perspective

Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee), president of the Morning Star Institute and former executive director of the National Congress of American Indians, scoffs at these criticisms.

“People who enjoy their privilege are like sea anemones. At the slightest ripple in the water, they withdraw and turn into something that looks like a very carefully protected stone,” she said. “Every time Native peoples began to own something or control something or aspire to — or even just be — in a certain place, there’s always a backlash against any sort of exercise of our treaties, our sovereignty, our inherent rights, our original rights that pre-date everyone else’s here in this hemisphere.”

She pointed out that opponents of land acknowledgments and CRT say they want to save their children from feeling guilt.

“What we’re doing — different people of color — is trying to stop our kids from thinking badly of themselves. That’s what happens if you’re treated badly, if you’re treated like second-class citizens, even though you have treaties, even though you have absolute rights and you’re constantly denied them. Pretty soon, their kids start thinking it’s them, that they are the bad persons.”

“So, yeah,” she added. “We are trying to save our kids.”

 
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US Warns Pacific Isles of ‘Struggle’ Against Coercive Regimes

A top U.S. diplomat warned Pacific Islands of a new struggle against violent power-hungry regimes Sunday, as she visited the Solomon Islands to mark the 80th anniversary of World War II’s Battle of Guadalcanal.

With China’s military carrying out war drills around Taiwan and Russia bombarding Ukraine, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman hit out at a new crop of world leaders reviving “bankrupt” ideas about the use of force.

Visiting a battlefield memorial in the Solomon Islands, Sherman said “some around the world” had forgotten the cost of war or were ignoring the lessons of the past.

She hit out at “leaders who believe that coercion, pressure, and violence are tools to be used with impunity,” without citing any leader by name.

Sherman is leading a U.S. delegation to the Solomon Islands to mark the anniversary of the Battle of Guadalcanal.

The brutal seven-month land, sea and air fight between Allied and Japanese forces killed tens of thousands of troops — most Japanese — and was a turning point in the war.

Painting the situation today as carrying faint echoes of the fight against Nazism and Imperial Japan in the 1930-40s, the State Department No. 2 urged the region to push back.

“We remember how bankrupt, how empty, such views were then, and remain today,” she said.

“Today we are once again engaged in a different kind of struggle — a struggle that will go on for some time to come.”

Sherman’s trip comes as the United States scrambles to rebuild diplomatic relations in a region where China is growing stronger and democratic alliances have faltered.

Nowhere is America’s waning regional influence more evident than in the Solomon Islands itself.

The government of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare recently signed a secretive security pact with Beijing, has moved to curb press freedoms, and suggested delaying elections.

Sherman, again without naming names, told her hosts “It is up to us to decide if we want to continue having societies where people are free to speak their minds.”

It is time, she said, to decide “If we want to have governments that are transparent and accountable to their people.”

As well as warnings, Sherman said Washington wants to increase cooperation with the “absolutely critical” Pacific islands, including by opening embassies in Tonga, Kiribati, and the Solomon Islands.

As part of the charm offensive, U.S. President Joe Biden is also expected to invite Pacific Island leaders to the White House for a September summit.
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Senate Rules Referee Weakens Democrats’ Drug Plan in Economic Bill

The Senate parliamentarian Saturday dealt a blow to Democrats’ plan for curbing drug prices but left the rest of their sprawling economic bill largely intact as party leaders prepared for first votes on a package containing many of President Joe Biden’s top domestic goals. 

Elizabeth MacDonough, the chamber’s nonpartisan rules arbiter, said lawmakers must remove language imposing hefty penalties on drugmakers that boost their prices beyond inflation in the private insurance market. Those were the bill’s chief pricing protections for the roughly 180 million people whose health coverage comes from private insurance, either through work or bought on their own. 

Other major provisions were left intact, including giving Medicare the power to negotiate what it pays for pharmaceuticals for its 64 million elderly recipients, a longtime goal for Democrats. Penalties on manufacturers for exceeding inflation would apply to drugs sold to Medicare, and there is a $2,000 annual out-of-pocket cap on drug costs and free vaccines for Medicare beneficiaries. 

Her rulings came as Democrats planned to begin Senate votes Saturday on their wide-ranging package addressing climate change, energy, health care costs, taxes and even deficit reduction. Party leaders have said they believe they have the unity they will need to move the legislation through the 50-50 Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote and over solid Republican opposition. 

“This is a major win for the American people,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said of the bill, which both parties are using in their election-year campaigns to assign blame for the worst period of inflation in four decades. “And a sad commentary on the Republican Party, as they actively fight provisions that lower costs for the American family.” 

In response, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Democrats “are misreading the American people’s outrage as a mandate for yet another reckless taxing and spending spree.” He said Democrats “have already robbed American families once through inflation and now their solution is to rob American families yet a second time.” 

Dropping penalties on drugmakers reduces incentives on pharmaceutical companies to restrain what they charge, increasing costs for patients. 

Erasing that language will cut the $288 billion in 10-year savings that the Democrats’ overall drug curbs were estimated to generate — a reduction of perhaps tens of billions of dollars, analysts have said. 

Schumer said MacDonough’s decision about the price cap for private insurance was “one unfortunate ruling.” But he said the surviving drug pricing language represented “a major victory for the American people” and that the overall bill “remains largely intact.” 

The ruling followed a 10-day period that saw Democrats resurrect top components of Biden’s agenda that had seemed dead. In rapid-fire deals with Democrats’ two most unpredictable senators — first conservative Joe Manchin of West Virginia, then Arizona centrist Kyrsten Sinema — Schumer pieced together a broad package that, while a fraction of earlier, larger versions that Manchin derailed, would give the party an achievement against the backdrop of this fall’s congressional elections. 

The parliamentarian also signed off on a fee on excess emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas contributor, from oil and gas drilling. She also let stand environmental grants to minority communities and other initiatives for reducing carbon emissions, said Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Thomas Carper, D-Del. 

She approved a provision requiring union-scale wages to be paid if energy efficiency projects are to qualify for tax credits, and another that would limit electric vehicle tax credits to those cars and trucks assembled in the United States. 

The overall measure faces unanimous Republican opposition. But assuming Democrats fight off a nonstop “vote-a-rama” of amendments — many designed by Republicans to derail the measure — they should be able to muscle the measure through the Senate. 

House passage could come when that chamber returns briefly from recess Friday. 

“What will vote-a-rama be like. It will be like hell,” Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, said Friday of the approaching GOP amendments. He said that in supporting the Democratic bill, Manchin and Sinema “are empowering legislation that will make the average person’s life more difficult” by forcing up energy costs with tax increases and making it harder for companies to hire workers. 

The bill offers spending and tax incentives for moving toward cleaner fuels and supporting coal with assistance for reducing carbon emissions. Expiring subsidies that help millions of people afford private insurance premiums would be extended for three years, and there is $4 billion to help Western states combat drought. 

There would be a new 15% minimum tax on some corporations that earn over $1 billion annually but pay far less than the current 21% corporate tax. There would also be a 1% tax on companies that buy back their own stock, swapped in after Sinema refused to support higher taxes on private equity firm executives and hedge fund managers. The IRS budget would be pumped up to strengthen its tax collections. 

While the bill’s final costs are still being determined, it overall would spend more than $300 billion over 10 years to slow climate change, which analysts say would be the country’s largest investment in that effort, and billions more on health care. It would raise more than $700 billion in taxes and from government drug cost savings, leaving about $300 billion for deficit reduction — a modest bite out of projected 10-year shortfalls of many trillions of dollars. 

Democrats are using special procedures that would let them pass the measure without having to reach the 60-vote majority that legislation often needs in the Senate. 

It is the parliamentarian’s job to decide whether parts of legislation must be dropped for violating those rules, which include a requirement that provisions be chiefly aimed at affecting the federal budget, not imposing new policy. 

 
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Native American News Roundup July 31 – August 6, 2022

Here is a summary of Native American-related news around the U.S. this week:

Supreme Court to Consider ICWA in Biggest American Indian Case in Decades

The newly released U.S. Supreme Court schedule shows that the justices will begin hearing arguments November 9 in Haaland vs. Brackeen, a consolidation of three cases that challenge the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA): Cherokee Nation v. Brackeen, Texas v. Haaland and Brackeen v. Haaland.

Congress passed the ICWA in 1978 to discourage states from placing Native American children in non-Native American homes. Before the ICWA, between 25% and 35% of all American Indian children had been placed in adoptive homes, foster homes or institutions; the vast majority were raised by non-Natives.

The ICWA sets guidelines for how states should handle child welfare cases involving Native American children.

“Before you can place an Indian child in a non-Indian home, you have to first look for another member of the immediate family, then another member of the tribe, then another Indian family before you can place that child in a non-Indian home,” Stephen Pevar, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney, told VOA in 2018.

A Texas federal court in 2018 struck down the ICWA as “unconstitutional,” saying the law discriminates against non-Native couples looking to adopt Native children. The case worked its way through several lower courts, and in September 2021, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Native Americans worry that if a conservative majority of justices rule against the ICWA, other federal Indian laws, including tribal sovereignty itself, could be threatened.

Affirmative action cases up first in November argument calendar

A Look at Supreme Chief Justice Neil Gorsuch’s record on tribal sovereignty

This week, Insider looks at the record of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch on matters involving U.S. treaty obligations to tribes.

Gorsuch broke from the conservative majority in his June 29 opinion in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, which considered whether the state could prosecute non-Native Americans for crimes against Native victims on tribal land. That case revisited a 2020 decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma, which determined that a large swath of eastern Oklahoma remained an Indian reservation and that only tribal and federal governments had criminal jurisdiction over crimes committed on reservations.

Insider examines Gorsuch’s career to shed light on how his experience in a Western appellate court informs his opinions today.

“Gorsuch would have seen many Native law cases under various contexts, helping him gain a deep understanding of the historic precedents,” the article states.

Justice Neil Gorsuch’s background primed him to break from the other conservatives on Native law and defend tribal sovereignty

Michigan Next Stop on Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s ‘Road to Healing’ Tour

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland will visit Pellston, Michigan, as part of a year-long tour aimed at giving Native Americans, Native Hawaiians and their descendants an opportunity to speak about their experiences in Indian boarding schools. An outgrowth of the 2021 Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, the “Road to Healing” tour also gathers permanent oral histories. The Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa of Harbor Springs, Michigan, will host the August 13 event with 35 Tribal Nations invited to participate. There will be trauma support available at the site, as there was at the first listening session July 9 in Anadarko, Oklahoma. Haaland and Newland will hold further listening sessions in Arizona and Hawaii later this year.

Road to Healing set for Pellston, Michigan

SUV Driver Plows Through New Mexico Ceremonial Parade

Citizens of the Navajo Nation are expressing shock and sorrow after the driver of an SUV plowed through a parade in downtown Gallup, New Mexico, Thursday evening. Several people were injured, including two police officers. The driver was taken into police custody.

The parade was part of the 100th annual Gallup Intertribal Ceremonial, one of the oldest continuous celebrations of Native American culture and heritage in the U.S. and a major tourist attraction.

Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez and fellow tribal officials were among those caught in the path of the vehicle but were unharmed.

In a video statement he made at the scene, Nez expressed shock and anger.

“You would see [events like] this on television. You would think it will never happen here. I’m sorry to say it happened here in Gallup, New Mexico,” he said, adding, “This is just evil creeping into our communities.”

SUV plows through 100th annual Gallup Intertribal Ceremonial parade

Archaeologists find ancient ‘ghost footprints’ in Utah

Archaeologists working for the U.S. Air Force at a missile test site in Utah have discovered a set of 88 footprints made 12,000 years ago when the Great Salt Lake Desert was a vast wetland.

Archaeologist Daron Duke explained that thousands of years ago, a group of adults and children walked through shallow water. Wet sand rushed in to fill their footprints, but impressions of their feet remained in a layer of mud beneath the sand.

Today, scientists call these tracks “ghost footprints” because they show up only after it rains and then disappear after the ground dries.

Back in 2016, scientists working a half-mile from the footprints discovered a fire pit, tools and charred tobacco seeds dating back 12,300 years, the earliest documented use of tobacco ever found.

‘Ghost footprints’ left by ancient hunter-gatherers discovered in Utah desert

National Science Foundation Awards Haskell University Major Scientific Grant

Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas, was awarded a $20 million grant from the National Science Foundation to support an Indigenous science hub project.

It is the largest NSF grant ever for a Tribal College or University.

Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland called the award “a tremendous step forward in supporting tribal communities as they address challenges from a rapidly changing climate.”

The project, “Rising Voices, Changing Coasts” will bring together scientists and Indigenous knowledge keepers from various coastal regions to study and develop ways to manage coastal hazards in indigenous communities.

Haskell Indian Nations University Receives $20 Million for Indigenous Science Hub

 
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US Senate Preps for Landmark Climate Legislation

Congressional Democrats appear to be on the cusp of passing legislation that would dedicate $369 billion to combat climate change through a combination of grants, tax cuts, subsidies and other measures aimed at reducing carbon emissions.

In addition to its climate-related elements, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) makes it possible for Medicare, the government-sponsored health insurance program for older Americans, to negotiate certain drug prices with the pharmaceuticals industry, a move expected to lower drug costs for all Americans. It also creates a minimum tax on large corporations, raises taxes on the wealthiest Americans, and will reduce the federal deficit by an estimated $300 billion over 10 years.

In a statement issued Thursday, President Joe Biden praised the legislation and called on lawmakers to pass it quickly.

The bill, Biden said, “makes the largest investment in history in combating climate change and increasing energy security, creating jobs here in the U.S. and saving people money on their energy costs. I look forward to the Senate taking up this legislation and passing it as soon as possible.”

Key provisions

A major element of the bill is a package of rebates, tax credits, and grants to help individual American families reduce their reliance on fossil fuels by subsidizing energy efficient home improvement projects and the purchase of electric vehicles.

The bill would dedicate $60 billion to helping establish clean energy production in the U.S. That includes tax credits to support $30 billion in spending on the domestic production of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and other critical clean energy components as well as $20 billion in low-cost loans to support the manufacture of electric vehicles.

Other elements of the bill aim to support a broad range of decarbonization efforts across the economy, including $30 billion in grants and loans to states and electric utilities to “accelerate the transition to clean energy.”

The bill also earmarks tens of billions of dollars for “environmental justice” efforts meant to reduce the impact of climate change on disadvantaged communities and billions more toward increasing the climate resilience of farms and rural communities.

A catalyst for global action

“We could not be more excited about this huge breakthrough,” David Kieve, president of EDF Action, an arm of the Environmental Defense Fund, told VOA. “There’s been a shift in the attitudes of the American public in recent years towards an understanding that the jobs of the future are going to be in clean energy. And the only open question is, are they going to be here in the United States?”

Kieve said that in addition to creating those jobs in the U.S., he believes the investments in the bill will put the U.S. “on the fast track” to hitting the administration’s broader climate goals. He said he also expects it to catalyze action in other countries.

“What we’ve heard from other nations for quite some time, is that it’s nice that America has a president who’s saying the right thing about climate change, but do they really have the political will to execute on it?” he said. “When this bill is passed, and goes to President Biden’s desk, we will have answered that question definitively for the rest of the world and other nations will have no excuse but to get in line and follow our lead.”

Big promises

In an effort to push the bill across the finish line, Democrats in Congress have been touting its expected impact on the Biden administration’s pledge to reduce U.S. carbon emissions. While the $369 billion of climate-directed spending falls short of the $555 billion that the administration was seeking last year, many experts say that the IRA will have a major impact.

As negotiations were ongoing last week, Sen. Tom Carper, a Democrat from the state of Delaware who chairs the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works issued a statement that said, “In what would amount to the most ambitious climate bill ever enacted, this legislation would put our nation on track to nearly 40% emissions reduction by the end of the decade, unleash the potential of the American clean energy industry, and create good-paying jobs across the country.”

Experts and activists who have reviewed the legislation have broadly agreed that the bill lives up to the hype.

In a statement calling the legislation “transformative,” Sierra Club President Ramón Cruz said the bill “will be the single largest investment in our communities — including those that have long been disproportionately impacted by climate-fueled disasters — and a healthy and secure future for all of us.”

Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology, a non-partisan energy and climate policy think tank analyzed the legislation and issued a report that read, in part, “We find that the IRA is the most significant federal climate and clean energy legislation in U.S. history, and its provisions could cut greenhouse gas emissions 37-41% below 2005 levels.”

Criticism from the right

Not all analyses of the bill’s climate provisions were positive. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, argued that the effort to move the country toward greater use of renewable energy is an infringement on Americans’ freedom.

“Energy impacts every aspect of our lives and every sector of the economy. By dictating how we produce and consume energy, this bill would dictate how we live our lives and limit the freedoms we enjoy,” the report argued. “It’s a pretext for control. And there is little to no regard for the high prices incurred by Americans and the costs that will arise for trying to achieve the left’s radical climate agenda. And what’s even worse, this is all pain for no gain.”

Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, who represents West Virginia, a state that relies heavily on fossil fuel for both jobs and energy, also criticized the bill.

“It will hurt our industries in West Virginia, our hard working men and women in the oil and gas business or in the coal business,” she said. “That will also, I think, hamper our energy security in this country.”

Former EPA officials in support

A bipartisan group of former Environmental Protection Administration leaders released a statement Friday in support of the bill’s climate components.

“The legislation meets the moment of urgency that the climate crisis demands, and will position the U.S. to meet President Biden’s climate goals of reducing emissions 50-52% by 2030, while making unprecedented investments in clean energy solutions that will save families hundreds of dollars a year and create new, good paying union jobs across the country,” the former administrators said.

The group included Carol Browner, who ran the EPA under President Barack Obama, and Christine Todd Whitman, who ran the agency under President George W. Bush.

Complicated process

The bill is the product of months of negotiations among Senate Democrats, who had to make a number of concessions to appease centrist members of their party. Keeping all Democrats on board was essential because the Senate is currently divided 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris able to cast deciding votes in the instance of a tie. Republicans appear united in opposition to the bill.

Democrats are moving to pass the bill through a process called “budget reconciliation” that makes legislation immune to the filibuster, a rule that allows a minority of senators to block a piece of legislation unless it receives 60 votes in the 100-member body. Under budget reconciliation, the Democrats’ 50 votes, plus Harris’s tie-breaker, would be sufficient to pass the Inflation Reduction Act even if Republicans unanimously oppose it.

If the Senate passes the bill, which could happen within days, it would then go to the House of Representatives, where it is expected to pass and to be sent to Biden for his signature.
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Pelosi Visit to Taiwan May Prompt More High-Level Visits

The impact of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s whirlwind visit to Taiwan is beginning to be felt, experts say, as another group of high-profile politicians solidifies plans to drop in on the self-ruled island that China considers a breakaway province. 

While China has been preventing Taiwan from sending its leaders to global forums, “they cannot prevent world leaders or anyone from traveling to Taiwan to pay respect to its flourishing democracy,” Pelosi said in a statement published after she concluded her Taiwan visit Wednesday.

The visit has put China’s leadership in a lose-lose situation, said Ali Wyne, a senior analyst at Eurasia Group.

“If it does not respond, it [the Chinese leadership] worries that it may lose political legitimacy at home and project weakness abroad, inviting other high-profile leaders to visit Taiwan and revealing that China’s alleged ‘red lines’ are not, in fact, inviolate,” he wrote in an emailed response to VOA Mandarin.

Yet if Beijing continues to respond to Pelosi’s visit with provocative rhetoric, military drills and threats to retaliate against the United States, other countries may view China as belligerent or even reckless, according to Wyne.

“It is difficult for Beijing to respond in a manner that conveys the strategic importance that it attaches to reunification without undercutting its diplomatic stature,” Wyne added.

China has started a live-fire military drill over seven swaths of water around the self-governed island, according to Taiwanese officials.

In a statement issued Wednesday, foreign ministers of the Group of Seven leading industrial nations warned China not to escalate tension in the region and emphasized that it is routine for legislators from their countries to travel internationally.

Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the world is keeping a close eye on these drills.

“Beijing’s rhetoric over the last 24 to 48 hours suggests this will not simply be a one- or two-day crisis. Based on an initial assessment, the already tense situation will likely deteriorate further before eventually stabilizing,” he said in an email to VOA Mandarin.

No-win situation for China

China has long tried isolate Taiwan, blocking exchanges between Taiwanese politicians and officials from other countries, especially high-profile representatives such as Pelosi, whose office puts her second in line for the U.S. presidency, behind Vice President Kamala Harris.

But since Pelosi’s sojourn, Beijing may now be facing a domino effect as other high-profile politicians aim to cement their own ties with Taipei by visiting the island.

The Guardian reported Monday that Britain’s House of Commons foreign affairs committee was planning a visit to Taiwan later this year. A source told the British daily that the trip had been scheduled earlier this year but was postponed because a member of the delegation tested positive for COVID-19.

On Tuesday, after Pelosi arrived in Taiwan, China’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Zheng Zeguang, addressed those countries considering a visit to Taiwan: “We hope that the other countries will recognize the extreme sensitivity of the Taiwan question, honor their commitment to the one-China principle, exercise prudence in words and actions relating to the Taiwan question, and not be led astray by or dance to the tune of the United States.”

When asked about U.K. lawmakers’ plan to visit Taiwan, Zheng said at a press conference [[ ]] that if the visit transpired, it would lead to “severe consequences” for China’s relations with the U.K., adding that “the U.K. side knows this all too well.”

Yun Sun, a senior fellow and director of the China Program at the Stimson Center, said if Western countries interpret Beijing’s countermeasures to Pelosi’s visit as “overreacting,” China will find itself working against its own interests by inspiring lawmakers from other Western democracies to visit Taiwan.

“I think the current backlash from China, including some military threats, will lead to more democracies thinking they have to align together to stand against China,” she told VOA Mandarin in a phone interview. “Following that line of thinking, I think we will see more parliament members visiting Taiwan to showcase their support for democracy.”

Another worry for Beijing, according to analysts, is that it’s losing the narrative on the “One China” policy because visits such as Pelosi’s bring more international exposure and recognition of Taiwan. The “One China” policy is the diplomatic acknowledgement of China’s position that there is only one Chinese government. The U.S. recognizes and has formal diplomatic ties with China yet maintains a robust unofficial relationship with Taiwan.

China thinks Pelosi’s visit might shake the long-standing policy, which is a cornerstone of U.S.-China relations, said Patrick Cronin, the Asia-Pacific security chair at Hudson Institute.

“They see the visit as hollowing out the ‘One China’ policy and accelerating the gradual independence of Taiwan,” Cronin wrote in an email to VOA Mandarin. “What they don’t say but may also think is that for [Chinese President] Xi Jinping and the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] to control the narrative and policy direction over Taiwan requires demonstrating China’s resolve and power in the face of what they believe to be a declining hegemonic power, the United States.”

Sun from the Stimson Center cautioned that China should be careful not to overact.

“I think the best way for China now is to maintain a strong rhetoric, that is, to put its posture at a more aggressive level but be sure to reduce direct military and security losses,” she said.
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Women Gubernatorial Hopefuls Break Records with Primary Wins

Even with several U.S. primary elections still to go, women candidates for governor are already shattering records. At least 20 female gubernatorial candidates have won their party’s nomination and will be on the ballot in November, breaking the previous high of 16, which was set in 2018.

“It’s notable because this is an area where women’s underrepresentation has been quite persistent,” says Kelly Dittmar, director of research at the Center for American Women in Politics (CAWP) and an associate professor of political science at Rutgers University-Camden. “This disrupts gendered perceptions about who can and should lead … we’ve had some really stubborn biases about the association between executive office and masculine traits.”

There are currently nine women state governors in the United States, the most ever.

So far this year, there are 13 Democratic and 7 Republican female nominees for governor, as tracked by CAWP. And while being a major political party’s nominee isn’t a guarantee of winning office, the numbers do increase the likelihood that there could soon be a record number of women serving at the highest level in their states

“It’s a powerful and influential political position where we want women’s voices and experiences to be heard. But it’s especially important as we see major policy issues being allocated back to the states,” Dittmar says. “When we think about abortion or voting rights or education — where a lot of our key policy debates are today are at the state level and governors will play a key role in them. And so having women in those positions is only more important now.”

In all, 47 gubernatorial candidates have already been selected ahead of November’s midterm elections. With 36 of the 50 states electing their governors this year, another 25 nominees are still to be selected. Several women — both Democrats and Republicans — are competing for those slots.

There are also more woman vs. woman gubernatorial matchups in 2022 than ever before. In all of American history, there have only been four all-women contests in races for governor. This year, there are already five, which highlights the fact that women don’t all think alike.

“Women are not monolithic in their experiences, in their perspective, and their policy agendas and positions,” Dittmar says. “It’s a good reminder for us not to make assumptions that women are the same in ways that we don’t make that assumption for men who are competing against each other.”

Seeing women in positions of power sends an important message to donors, voters and future potential female candidates about the ability of women to succeed at the highest political levels, says Dittmar. It also helps fulfill the promise of a representative government, one of democracy’s key premises.

But having women in these high public offices isn’t enough when it comes to a representative government, she says.

“We want enough women in these offices that there are a diversity of them,” Dittmar says. “You know, we’ve only ever had three women of color governors in all of U.S. history. We only have one woman of color currently serving as governor. We’ve never had a black woman governor.”
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Democrats Say They’ve Reached Agreement on US Economic Package

Senate Democrats have reached an accord on eleventh-hour changes to their top-priority economic legislation, they announced late Thursday, clearing their major hurdle to moving the measure through the chamber in coming days.

Democrat Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a centrist who was seen as the pivotal vote, said in a statement that she had agreed to changes in the measure’s tax and energy provisions and was ready to “move forward” on the bill.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, said lawmakers had achieved a compromise “that I believe will receive the support” of all Democrats in the chamber. His party needs unanimity to move the measure through the 50-50 Senate, along with Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote.

Schumer has said he hopes the Senate can begin voting on the energy, environment, health and tax measure on Saturday. Passage by the House, which Democrats control narrowly, could come next week.

Final congressional approval of the election-year measure would be a marquee achievement for President Joe Biden and his party, notching an accomplishment they could tout to voters as November approaches.

Sinema said Democrats had agreed to remove a provision raising taxes on “carried interest,” or profits that go to executives of private equity firms. That’s been a proposal she has long opposed, though it is a favorite of other Democrats, including conservative West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, an architect of the overall bill.

The carried interest provision was estimated to produce $13 billion for the government over the coming decade, a small portion of the measure’s $739 billion in total revenue.

It will be replaced by a new excise tax on stock buybacks, which will bring in more revenue than that, said one Democrat familiar with the agreement who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the deal publicly.

The official provided no other details.

The Senate won’t be in session Friday as Democrats continue their talks. That pause will also provide time for the Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, to decide if any of the bill’s provisions violate the chamber’s rules and should be removed.
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Biden Pushes Inflation Reduction Act, Amid Divided Opinion

The Biden administration on Thursday pushed Congress to pass its proposed $260 billion Inflation Reduction Act, which the White House says will “lower costs, reduce inflation, and address a range of critical and long-standing economic challenges.”

“My message to Congress is this: Listen to the American people,” Biden said during a virtual roundtable of U.S. business leaders. “This is the strongest bill you can pass to lower inflation, continue to cut the deficit, reduce health care costs, tackle the climate crisis and promote America’s energy security, all while reducing the burdens facing working-class and middle-class families.” 

Economists, politicians and ordinary consumers alike agree that rising prices are a problem — U.S. inflation hit 9.1% in June, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Food price hikes are especially painful for many American families: In the past year those have risen, on average, by about 10%, the highest yearly increase in more than 40 years.

What few can agree on, however, is what needs to be done to bring it back down.

Biden’s supporters say the act will raise government revenues by $313 billion by imposing a 15 percent minimum corporate tax — a move that will affect some of the nation’s wealthiest companies, especially those that paid nothing in federal corporate income taxes on their profits in 2020.

It will also reform prescription drug pricing, which the administration estimates will save the federal government $288 billion a year. The act also invests more than $400 billion in energy security, climate change mitigation and health care.

The country’s largest union umbrella group, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, supports the act, its president said Thursday during the roundtable with Biden.

“I’m bringing the voice of our 57 unions, 12.5 million members, who believe this bill is going to help us reshape the future and deliver real help to working families by reducing rising energy and health care costs,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. “This is going to deliver fundamental economic change across America.”

But some economists are not so sure.

A study from the Penn Wharton Budget Model predicts the act would have little impact on inflation, forecasting prices would slightly increase for another two years and then fall.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget reached the opposite conclusion, saying that the act would “very modestly reduce inflationary pressures in the near term while lowering the risk of persistent inflation over time.”

Moody’s Analytics reached a similar conclusion, while the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill would trim U.S. budget deficits by $102 billion over 10 years.

Economist Steve H. Hanke, a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University and founder and co-director of the university’s Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise, said Thursday that the act is “ill-conceived” and involves the one thing that people seem to dislike more than rising prices: taxes.

“The idea it’s going to do anything with inflation is ridiculous,” he said Thursday during a seminar with the Jewish Policy Center. “It will change the relative prices of different things — exactly how, I don’t know, because I haven’t gone through the 10,000-page thing. And it looks to me like it’s a tax increase bill.”

The U.S. Senate hopes to vote on the act in coming days. Given Democrats’ razor-thin majority in the Senate and the fractious nature of current American politics, Biden needs every Democrat in the upper chamber to vote for it.

Democratic holdout Senator Joe Manchin made news last week when he dropped his opposition to the act, but Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema, the other holdout on Biden’s economic proposal, has yet to indicate whether she will support it.
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Blinken to Lay Out Strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa During Visit

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will launch a three-country tour of Africa on Sunday in South Africa. He is expected to deliver a major speech laying out the Biden administration’s strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa. Experts tell VOA that human rights concerns will likely be high on the agenda. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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