It’s a “tipping point,” “an inflection,” a “crisis point.” That’s what Asian American leaders are calling this week in which eight people have been fatally shot at Asian spas in Atlanta. The mass shooting, they say, is a culmination of a yearlong surge in hate crimes and racist incidents against this highly diverse and sometimes split community, uniting them as never before.

From California to New York, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have put out statements and are organizing vigils to grieve for the victims in the Atlanta shooting, six of whom were women of Asian descent. On March 18, Congress held the first hearing on anti-Asian discrimination in more than 30 years. The day before in California, a diverse group of Asian American political leaders, plus Latino politicians, called on Gov. Gavin Newsom to appoint as attorney general someone of Asian Pacific Islander (API) identity to restore “trust” with law enforcement. The Golden State has the largest population of Asian Americans in the country.

“There has been an unprecedented level of organizing in the API community since the beginning of this pandemic,” says California Assembly Member David Chiu of San Francisco, one of those pressuring the governor. Incidents have “skyrocketed” around the country, and “this has motivated an entire generation of Asian American activists that we’ve never seen before.”

Although law enforcement have said the man arrested in the Atlanta shootings cited sex addiction as a motive, it’s clear that he targeted Asian spas – and Asian Americans nationwide are seeing this as a galvanizing moment.

Pandemic as a driver

As early as February last year, at the start of the pandemic, Asian American lawmakers and advocates had already been warning of a potential rise in xenophobia and attacks against Asian Americans from a virus originating in China. They blame President Donald Trump for fanning the flames with misinformation and inflammatory language, calling COVID-19 the “China virus” and another racist slur for the disease.

Last March, three experienced community activists and experts in California formed Stop AAPI Hate to collect personal accounts of hate against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. The nonprofit has reported more than 3,700 instances nationwide between March 2020 and February 2021, some of which can be read on its website. They range from verbal harassment (68%) to physical assault (11%). In its report, it notes that women are 2.3 times more likely than men to report these disturbing and frightening incidents. Experts say the numbers are just the tip of the iceberg.

David Lee credits this group with unlocking stories from thousands of “ordinary people” who otherwise might not have said anything due to a cultural and historical aversion to speaking up. “They’re realizing, it’s not just me,” says Mr. Lee, executive director of the Chinese American Voters Education Committee. 

He has his own account. Last year, when he ran for supervisor in his San Francisco neighborhood, he received racist emails that had nothing to do with his policy positions and was accused on the Nextdoor app of being an agent for mainland China. Windows were broken and graffiti sprayed on restaurants that featured his signs.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Asian Americans constitute 5.9% of the total U.S. population. That may seem small, but this is the fastest-growing major ethnic group in the country. It’s also a highly diverse population, with the term encompassing significant religious, cultural, economic, educational, and political differences among people who stem from at least 19 countries. Adding Pacific Islanders brings the total to 6.1 percent.

Some of them come from countries with a history of deep-seated enmity. Think India and Pakistan. Mainland China and Taiwan. South Korea and Japan. If you are a fan of the Netflix series “Kim’s Convenience,” a sitcom about a Korean Canadian family that runs a convenience store in Toronto, you will recall that Mr. Kim has not forgotten – or forgiven – Japan’s annexation of his homeland (1910-45).

But Mr. Lee and others say that unlike the past – for instance, the 1992 rioting in Los Angeles’ Koreatown – today’s violence is not targeted at any specific ethnicity. He points to viral videos and media accounts of brutal, and sometimes fatal, attacks on people of Chinese, Filipino, Korean, and Thai descent.

All in this together

“The situation has become so apparent, and so self-evident to everybody that we’re all in this together. And we have reached a tipping point where many of the intramural competitions, and intramural friction, that may have existed in the past has melted away in the face of the larger threat to the entire community,” he says. “Whether you are rich or poor, whether you live in the city or a gated community, you are not safe from racism and hatred.”

Damian Dovarganes/AP

Minister Tony Truong (right) prays at an altar for victims of violence at a "Love Our Communities: Build Collective Power" rally outside the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles on March 13, 2021. So far, the nonprofit Stop AAPI Hate, founded a year ago, has collected more than 3,700 personal accounts of hate against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders nationwide.

Indeed, many people, particularly older individuals, say they are afraid to go out. In some places, volunteers are coming forward to protect them.

“It’s a Pan Asian American movement,” says Dr. Russell Jeung, a professor of Asian American studies at San Francisco State University and a co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate. He has seen leaders from different ethnic groups, including South Asians and members from the Muslim community, turning up in support. And that’s because they had gone through similar experiences, such as confronting Islamophobia post-9/11. “We’re building on their wisdom and experience to address the anti-Asian hate.”

A rain-swept vigil in New York

That unity was evident at an evening vigil of about 100 people in the Queens borough of New York on March 18. People of all races and ages – and backgrounds from East Asian to South Asian – braved cold rain, holding candles and glowsticks as traffic roared past and trains rumbled overhead. They listened to a prayer, and the names of the Atlanta victims known so far: Delaina Ashley Yaun. Xiaojie Tan. Daoyou Feng. Hyeon Jeong Park. Julie Park. Paul Andre Michels. 

“For us to be here is actually sad and unnecessary. We shouldn’t be doing any sort of event like this,” says Jason Molina, who came to the vigil with a friend. Mr. Molina moved to the United States from the Philippines 12 years ago. “Racism has been around so long that it’s become such a regular thing that people are like, it’s normal so we don’t really have to talk about it,” says Mr. Molina. “But we have to talk about it ... because if we set it aside, other people will think it’s OK for us.”

While it’s important to celebrate the diversity of the Asian American community, they also need to come together as one, says Julie Won, a first-generation Korean American who co-organized the vigil with Steven Raga, a Filipino American. Both are running for the New York City Council. “We need to protect each other even though you and I may not be from the same country,” says Ms. Won.

Solutions start with education

Leaders say the demand of the hour is to better educate the public about the causes and effects of discrimination and verbal and physical attacks on API people. The need is also, they say, to increase efforts to organize politically and run for office, and to bring more API representation to film and other media, including multidimensional characters that move beyond stereotypes.

“The most important thing ... is to educate the general public and policymakers that this isn’t new to our community,” says Cynthia Choi, another of the co-founders of Stop AAPI Hate. Another priority is to aid victims. It’s a complex issue, she says, including that “not every incident that involves a member of another race is a hate crime.”

In times of crisis, drivers of violence and crime have to do with poverty – the scramble for affordable housing and other basic needs, a condition that cuts across racial and ethnic groups, she explains. But the “myth of the model minority” – the conventional view of Asian Americans as successful, highly educated, and wealthy – hides this struggle, and adds a sense of incredulity that this population experiences racism at all.

“It’s really had a deleterious effect on our ability to talk about our experiences,” Ms. Choi says.

History of stereotypes

Part of the education process has to do with the history of the API community in the U.S. that has fed racism, say community leaders and activists. This week California’s Board of Education unanimously approved an ethnic studies course curriculum – a controversial issue – even while the state Legislature considers making a high school ethnic studies class a graduation requirement.

Today’s stereotypes – of API people as foreigners, fungible, submissive, unfair competitors, and a model minority – come from the past, says Jerry Kang, an expert on Asian American communities and law professor at the UCLA School of Law.

The record includes the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 that barred Chinese immigrants – a law that lasted well into the mid-20th century – and internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. “The past is not the past,” he says. 

Professor Kang says Asian Americans are trying to confront a question of power. “If your own elders are being beaten up randomly and you can’t do anything about it, what does that mean for any group? It feels like you lack power.” Two places where power makes a much bigger difference, he says, are in politics and, broadly speaking, the media.

In Congress, for instance, the API community makes up only 3.2% of Senate and House members – underrepresented compared with its population. But the numbers have been growing, from seven in 2001 to 17 this year. As voters, API people surged to the polls in 2020 and played a key role in tipping Senate races in Georgia to Democrats while also helping two GOP Korean American women from California take back Democratic seats in the House.

Politicians, whether at the national or local level, have the spotlight to highlight issues and make change. In March, Democratic Rep. Grace Meng of New York introduced a nonbinding resolution calling on all public officials to condemn and denounce anti-Asian sentiments in any form, and for law enforcement to investigate all forms of hate crime. 

Calls for change at Justice Department

Today, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took that to heart as they visited with API leaders in Atlanta – and Mr. Biden urged Congress to pass hate-crime legislation. Earlier this week, the president ordered flags at half-mast in honor of the shooting victims. Last week, Congresswoman Meng and Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Democrat from Hawaii, announced they were reintroducing hate crime legislation that would dedicate an official at the Justice Department to review and prioritize hate crimes reported to all levels of government, and, among other things, set up a way for people to report hate crimes and other incidents in multiple languages online.

Celebrity power can also be transformative, says Professor Kang. This year’s Oscar nominations are the most diverse in history, with nine of the 20 acting nominees having ethnic-minority backgrounds. Steven Yeun is the first Asian American to be nominated for lead actor in Lee Isaac Chung’s movie “Minari,” about a Korean father who moves his family to an Arkansas farm in the 1980s. Mr. Chung has also been nominated for best director along with Chloé Zhao, the first woman of color to be nominated for directing (in “Nomadland”).

But here, too, progress for the API community is painfully slow. As an actor, Daniel Dae Kim seemed to encompass both the political and media worlds when he testified at the congressional hearing this week about a pollster telling him that Asian Americans are “statistically insignificant” in polling models.

“Statistically insignificant means we literally don’t matter,” he said.

From the voices being raised, including his own, it looks like the API community – and many others – are determined to change that.

For Milena Fernandes, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s eight years as president of Brazil marked an era of opportunity.

“I was a poor kid, who studied and worked my way up,” says Ms. Fernandes, who grew up in a far-flung suburb in Rio de Janeiro’s North Zone and now works at a nonprofit’s school in the Tabajaras favela. “The Lula era was great for me. I had good opportunities.”

But Ms. Fernandes has mixed feelings about the prospect of a political comeback by Lula, as the former president is popularly known, now that a judge has scrapped corruption convictions that barred him from politics. “I don’t have a bone to pick with Lula – it was the best government we’ve had until now,” Ms. Fernandes says. “But I would really like to see a political renewal, a Brazil that’s moving forward.”

While last week’s Supreme Court decision does not absolve Lula of the corruption charges, it has restored his political rights and fueled hopes among supporters that he may now challenge far-right President Jair Bolsonaro in next year’s presidential elections.

Even in the midst of corruption scandals, Lula, who entered office in 2003, has remained a divisive but still wildly popular figure in Brazil. A poll just days before the decision to annul his convictions signaled that half of voters said they would or could cast a ballot for him in 2022, compared with just 38% who would or could back Mr. Bolsonaro.

“Lula is the only political figure that has the strength to dispute the elections with Bolsonaro today,” says Lincoln Secco, a professor at the University of São Paulo, who has written extensively about Lula and his leftist Workers’ Party (PT). “And he stands a good chance.”

Lula’s return to the political stage comes at a grim moment for Brazil. Mr. Bolsonaro has presided over one of the world’s worst outbreaks of COVID-19, which has so far killed 285,000 Brazilians. The populist leader’s denialist response to the crisis – including his rejection of lockdowns, masks, and until recently, vaccines – has spurred calls for his impeachment and left many Brazilians starved for a political alternative.

But Lula will still have to win over the many Brazilians who grew disillusioned with the PT during its 14 years in power, as a deep economic recession and a far-reaching corruption scandal broke the party’s spell and tainted its image. With the PT’s golden years long behind it, some wonder whether Lula can craft a compelling vision for post-pandemic Brazil.

And while Ms. Fernandes still sees Lula as the politician best prepared to return Brazil to progress, she says he will need to offer much more than nostalgia for the past – or a promise that he’s different than the incumbent – to reach the presidency again.

“We as a country are in a deep hole right now,” she says. “I want to see a plan for how we will move forward.”

A tainted legacy

Fueled by a commodity boom, Lula’s two terms in office were marked by rapid economic expansion, plunging unemployment, and heady optimism for the future. Some 36 million Brazilians climbed out of extreme poverty, partially thanks to social policies championed by Lula and the PT.

“All of this turned Lula into a very powerful figure, with a loyal base in the lowest income groups,” says Antonio Lavareda, a political scientist and professor at the Federal University of Pernambuco in Brazil’s northeast. “It’s because of this legacy that Lula still has political strength.”

But the tide turned against the PT as Brazil sank into economic recession and a sprawling corruption scandal implicated dozens of the country’s business and political elite. Lula’s plans to run for a third term in 2018 were derailed when he was jailed on disputed corruption charges, clearing the way for a landmark victory by Mr. Bolsonaro, a retired military officer.

Yet observers say the anti-PT wave that lifted Mr. Bolsonaro to power is now subsiding, creating an opportunity for Lula. This is mostly thanks to the unravelling of Brazil’s vast corruption investigation – known as Operation Car Wash, or Lava Jato – amid allegations of foul play and political vendettas.

“Lava Jato lost its prestige, its credibility,” Mr. Secco says. “With all these revelations, it became clear it was acting like a type of political tool. And this is helping Lula.” Mr. Bolsonaro’s own family has also become embroiled in corruption allegations, undermining his self-made image as a crusader against kickbacks and graft.

Lula also has the advantage of not being at the helm during the worst public health disaster in Brazil’s history. A poll this week showed 54% of Brazilians see Mr. Bolsonaro’s handling of the pandemic as bad or terrible.

Mr. Bolsonaro’s broader performance has also left many wanting more. In 2018, he lured centrist voters with promises to put the economy back on a path toward growth. But the pandemic has dealt a painful economic blow and deepened unemployment. Creeping inflation has sent prices of basic staples like rice soaring, leaving millions of Brazilians struggling to put food on the table.

“Bolsonaro was elected with a certain vision for the economy,” says Maria do Socorro Sousa Braga, a political scientist and professor at the Federal University of São Carlos. “Part of the electorate sees that he’s not able to deliver and it’s looking for an alternative.”

Mr. Bolsonaro was able to keep growing discontent at bay last year, thanks to a generous emergency cash voucher for those worst hit by the pandemic. But his popularity has plummeted as the program was replaced by a new, far more modest one. A recent poll shows 63% of Brazilians believe he is leading the economy in the wrong direction. Ms. Braga says winning over this centrist voter concerned with the economy will be key for Lula.

“I believed in Bolsonaro, along with the majority of Brazil,” says Gilberto Zumbiachi, an electrician who lives in the coastal city of Florianópolis. “He promised many things – but he didn’t follow through.”

Now, Mr. Zumbiachi says it’s time for a political shake-up, and he sees Lula as a welcome alternative in the next elections. “The Workers’ Party brought a lot of good to Brazil; it cared about the population. It’s become clear that the current government doesn’t care about the people.”

A new message?

Still, rejection of Lula remains strong among many Brazilians, as the PT has struggled to reinvent itself in the aftermath of corruption scandals. The party posted only a slight recovery in last year’s municipal elections, signaling it has not repaired its image yet, says Mr. Lavareda.

For Antoni Wroblewski, an art teacher in the southern city of Curitiba, the PT is stale and worn out. “It should wake up and talk to society about what it needs, like it did in the past,” he says.

Mr. Secco, the historian, agrees, noting the key to winning back the skeptical and disillusioned voter lies in offering a compelling vision for Brazil beyond the pandemic, as the country grapples with economic pain, a battered health system, and an uncertain future.

“Lula has a legacy and a memory that guarantees him support in one part of the population. But he also needs to bring a new message for everyone else. And so far, nobody is offering a plan for the future – neither the right nor the left.”

Heikki Saukkomaa/Lehtikuva/AP/File

A view of the offices of Vastaamo psychotherapy center in the Pasila neighborhood of Helsinki, Oct. 24, 2020.

Katleena Kortesuo wasn’t completely unprepared when the extortionist known as “RANSOM_MAN” got in touch with her last October.

Two days earlier, it had been reported that hackers had stolen confidential therapy records from Vastaamo, a private psychotherapy center based in Helsinki where Ms. Kortesuo was a patient. RANSOM_MAN – perhaps the original hacker, perhaps not – had been sending emails to patients threatening to make their stolen information public if they didn’t pay the sum demanded, usually €200 ($238).

“They knew my name, my email, and my personal identification number [the Finnish equivalent of the U.S. Social Security number],” says Ms. Kortesuo. “And they knew that I had been a patient at Vastaamo.” Even though it wasn’t a total surprise, she says, it was hard to process the affair – especially after the hacker backed up his threat by leaking some of the stolen data relating to the victims on the dark net. As of February, some 25,000 criminal reports had been filed in connection with the hack.

“This was the biggest crime in Finnish history, as well as one of the most horrific,” says Ms. Kortesuo, who is now writing a book about the breach and its societal repercussions.

The Vastaamo hack and subsequent blackmail has deeply shaken Finnish society. While the crime would have been intrusive anywhere, it has struck at some of Finland’s cornerstone values, including privacy and faith in online connectivity. But it may at least be opening the door to a more public discussion of the importance of mental health and health care.

“This was definitely a watershed event for Finland,” says Michael Franck, a noted Finnish documentary filmmaker. “The fact that this sort of thing could happen here in Finland, a country which prides itself on being one of the cradles of connectivity, as well as one with a strong and secure health-care system, was shocking.”

Shaking societal trust

“Break-ins to computers and stealing databases are unfortunately not so unusual anymore,” says Detective Chief Inspector Marko Leponen of the Finnish National Police. “Still, if we look at this case, it was basically unprecedented.”

Inspector Leponen ought to know. He is the head of the task force that is investigating the case. “The amount of personal data that was targeted was just enormous,” he says. Also, he notes that this is the first instance in Finland where ransom was demanded not just from the breached organization, but from the patients whose data was stolen.

“One of the reasons why this hack has been so devastating is trust,” he says. “We Finns trust our society and trust that all of our sensitive systems are properly secured.”

The fact that the victims were psychotherapy patients, including those with depression and other severe problems, added to the public shock, particularly in a society whose members are not used to discussing their private lives, no less that they or their loved ones are in therapy to begin with.

Psychotherapy isn’t taboo, says veteran Finnish diplomat Petri Tuomi-Nikula, but talking about it is. “We don’t talk about therapy the way people do in the U.S. In this sense we are more private.”

Ami Hasan, a leading Finnish advertising executive, agrees. “Going into therapy isn’t as natural for Finns as it is for Americans,” he says. “Then, to have a hacker take advantage of this shyness, or avoidance, or whatever you call it, and tell the patients whose therapy notes he stole, ‘Pay me or I will let your employer or loved ones know that you have mental problems.’ Well, Finns don’t take that lightly.”

“Of course, breaching the trust and secrecy of what you would tell your therapist would be – ought to be – egregious anywhere,” says Teivo Teivainen, professor of world politics at Helsinki University, “but perhaps here it was even a greater shock because the level of societal trust is high.”

Dr. Teivainen says that Finns’ trust in society is probably due to a combination of factors, including a tradition of relative equality tracing back to Swedish rule, the influence of the once powerful Lutheran Church, and the relative homogeneity of Finnish society.

“Vastaamo was a kind of perfect storm for Finns,” says Mark Maher, an American art curator who has lived in Finland for many years. “It wreaked havoc with several pillars of the Finnish ethos at once – their pride in being one of the first digitalized societies, their sense of privacy, and their trust in institutions, both public and private. ... All that was damaged here.”

Responding to the hack

The damage and the aftershocks from it have been seen at Victim Support Finland (RIKU), an organization that provides counseling and support to victims of crimes. “We have had victims of identity theft,” says RIKU director Leena-Kaisa Åberg, “but never on this kind of scale.”

All told, she says, her agency had more than 22,600 clients in 2020, an increase of nearly 50% from 2019. The Vastaamo hack has been a significant driver behind the increase, she says.

The government is trying to fix the security holes revealed by the hack, says Olli-Poika Parviainen, the state secretary to the Ministry of the Interior. “The digitalization of health care and welfare require a high level of security,” he says, “and we are doing our best to ensure that.”

However the trauma and gnawing sense of insecurity for the thousands of victims of the blackmail continues, says Ms. Kortesuo, who has been keeping a blog about the case. “Clearly people are suffering from insecurity, hopelessness, anxiety, and powerlessness in this matter.”

As an example, she cites one message she received from an anonymous victim. “This is a hell that lasts for the rest of my life,” the victim wrote. “I might find my data after 4, or 6, or 12 years. My anxiety and stress levels are going through the ceiling.”

Still, as traumatic as the affair has been, she says she feels some good has come out of it as well. “Companies’ awareness and investment in cybersecurity has risen. I also appreciate the fact that the whole nation supported the victims and condemned the criminals.”

Perhaps most important, Ms. Kortesuo says, “we learned to discuss mental health as a nation,” pointing to the growing number of people, including health care professionals, who have admitted that they were in therapy too, something which many Finns have been loath to do.

“In the past one's therapy, or the fact that one was in therapy – or not – was not something one discussed here,” says Mr. Tuomi-Nikula. “But that’s changing fast, at least in part because of this affair.”

Courtesy of Framingham Folk Dancers Photo Archive

The author (far left) leads a folk dance later in his dancing career, which, he says, had a rocky start.

The first thing I learned in folk dancing was the emphatic apology. “Sorry!” “Forgive me!” and “Did that hurt?” There was no pretending that this was my kind of dancing or my kind of music. On this dance floor, I was a well-meaning menace. 

My wife, Chrissie, said that dancing would improve our quality time together. The folk dance community was not so sure. As I struggled to learn Greek, Turkish, and Balkan dances – all of them far more complex than ballroom staples – I’m certain my fellow dancers hoped I’d find a new hobby fast.

Folk dancing circles had few African Americans back then. Tall, big, and older, I wasn’t a typical folk dancer, either. I was as easy to spot as I was tough to avoid. I also came with cultural baggage: The interactions among guys in my neighborhood, growing up, did not include the finer social graces. The general attitude was wariness and physical aggression, followed by bouts of breathless sprinting. This was not ideal preparation for folk dancing.

Dance etiquette was a shock. I found myself dancing in lines while holding hands with other men. What would Grandma Nana have said? She’d taught me, in no uncertain terms, the norms of behavior as far as she was concerned. Another of these was never to stare at someone, lest it be seen as a threat. That was a lesson I had to abandon quickly. How could I learn from a dance instructor without staring at them? 

Chrissie and I stuck with it – or, rather, Chrissie stuck with me as I struggled. I gauged my progress by the decline in injuries to those around me. It was humbling to see others cringe based on painful prior contact. But there was usually a shortage of men at folk dances, so I could at least fill space or be an emergency substitute, neither of which reflected well on my folk dancing prowess.

But I was determined. I began attending multiple dance groups far afield on my own to expedite my progress. In remote areas of New England, where persons of color were seldom seen outside of TV crime dramas, there were lots of dropped jaws. Astonishment became alarm when, after a bruising initial session, I’d keep showing up. 

I wasn’t trying to be mean, but my focus made me less sensitive to others’ stress. My quick-footedness should have been a blessing – except that it also made me inescapable. Experienced dancers who wore an extra belt for people to grab onto during fast, energetic dances were in danger of torn clothing if I grabbed the wrong belt – and there was no stopping for wardrobe malfunctions. Sincere, quick apologies ensued. I was just trying to get better.

I inspired fear, but I was not immune to it. Few things frightened me the way one particular dance teacher did. She was determined that I learn couple and set dances, in addition to line dancing. I could not count on an understanding Chrissie as my partner, so this was dangerous territory. When I saw couple dances coming up on the program, I’d retreat to the safety of the men’s room. This teacher would find me and demand that I come out – or she would come in. So I learned couple and set dances, too.

The turning point came when I finally mastered a few of the most difficult dances. Not many participants could lead these dances, so my ability to do so began to break down barriers. Even my detractors would seek me out to lead those dances, because they were also favorites. As I became recognized for my hard-won competence, I felt motivated to reach out to help others. By my fifth year I was regularly teaching and coaching, finding ways to connect with those needing help. As I had already broken every rule and made every mistake possible, I was well suited to this task. And that, in turn, helped me win forgiveness. 

The lesson for a loner like me was in seeing the experience in terms of connecting with others more than simply mastering movement. Dance became a medium for friendships I never would have imagined. Patience, graciousness, compassion, and camaraderie propelled me from unfamiliarity to accomplishment. Those qualities, my wife’s encouragement, and that transcendent view of dance colored and informed the way I danced. As I grew in skill and mastered technique, I was no longer a danger to those around me. But more important, I was dancing more soulfully, more gracefully. And limited views of race gave place to a more inclusive sense of siblinghood.

My wife and I achieved our goal of quality time together. And by embracing a new experience, we found to our surprise that we had also embraced others. 

AP

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, far right, speaks as Chinese Communist Party foreign affairs chief Yang Jiechi, left, and China's State Councilor Wang Yi, second from left, listen at US-China talks in Anchorage, Alaska, March 18.

In a symbolic gesture of meeting each other halfway, the top foreign policy officials of China and the United States met in Alaska on March 18 and 19. Less symbolically, the meeting’s main purpose was to agree on issues where the two countries can cooperate – as a way to ease tensions in so many other points of conflict.

Which issue might turn out to hold the most immediate promise of an American-Chinese partnership? Climate change? North Korea’s nuclear program? COVID-19 vaccinations?

One opportunity could be the newest issue: whether Myanmar returns to its democratic path after a Feb. 1 military coup and a violent crackdown on mass protests.

“Myanmar may present a unique opportunity for the two powers – at odds on so much – to address in unison the growing international crisis radiating out of Myanmar,” states Jason Tower, country director for Burma at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Hints that the authoritarian regime in Beijing might not ultimately back the authoritarian generals in Myanmar have been growing stronger. Soon after the coup, China supported the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy that won parliamentary elections last year. She was arrested and charged of dubious crimes. China’s ambassador in the country said the coup was “absolutely not what China wants to see.” And on March 8, China emphasized the importance of its ties to the NLD and suggested a willingness to play a “constructive role.”

China has major economic and strategic interests in a stable Myanmar. It needs peace along the long shared border and access to the ports in the Southeast Asian nation. The big question is whether it also wants a democracy next door or a regime like its own.

For its part, the U.S. could hope that any Chinese support of democracy in Myanmar is “a chance to evaluate China’s willingness to act as a responsible member of the international community,” stated Mr. Tower. The people of Myanmar have already experienced semi-democratic rule, said an editorial in the Beijing-friendly South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. “Rolling back the clock will be near impossible,” it concluded.

A convergence of trust on Myanmar may be what China and the U.S. could use right now. Their tensions over China’s island claims in East Asia have put their navies on high alert. And the U.S. under President Joe Biden is poised to counter China’s cyberattacks, industrial theft, and human rights abuses.

To cool their passions and prevent conflict, China and the U.S. can find common purpose in Myanmar. They can focus on a shared problem without engaging in a contest of who is right – or whether “might is right.” If they build up goodwill on something of mutual interest, it could begin to establish a virtuous circle of trust and help the two nations reduce their fears of each other.