Brynn Anderson/AP

County Clerk Che Alexander departs a courtroom in Fulton County Superior Court in Atlanta, Aug. 14.

When the staff at Fulton County courthouse in Georgia published the names of the 23 grand jurors who voted to indict former President Donald Trump, many Americans were taken aback. Why would you reveal the names of grand jurors in such a sensitive case?

But in Georgia, no one was surprised. It is standard practice here to print grand jurors’ names, unredacted, on indictments. After all, the rationale goes, why should those who make serious allegations against fellow citizens be granted anonymity?

That effort toward transparency has now become a potential liability. Some of Mr. Trump’s supporters have begun circulating the jurors’ names online – along with purported addresses, pictures of homes, and in some cases, racist invectives and threats.

“Everyone on that jury should be hung,” one person wrote on a right-wing online forum. Another wrote, “I see a swift bullet to the head if, and when, somebody shows up at their homes.”

The Georgia grand jury teed up one of the most controversial and emotional prosecutions ever for the republic when it voted to indict the former president earlier this week – bringing the number of indictments he now faces to four. Mr. Trump has not made any overt threats against jurors, but he has repeatedly painted the process, judges, and prosecutors as corrupt. Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over his federal election interference trial in Washington, has warned him against making comments that could be seen as intimidating or threatening. This week, a woman in Texas was charged with threatening to kill Judge Chutkan. 

The situation is posing a new and serious challenge: how to protect the well-being and safety of jurors, judges, and prosecutors while guaranteeing every American – including Mr. Trump – the right to a fair, impartial, and transparent process, as well as constitutional free speech.

“Threats against members of juries who are just doing their legally obligated citizen service ... are shocks to the heart of our rule of law,” says Rachel Kleinfeld, a senior fellow at Carnegie’s Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program in Washington. “Democracy can’t stand when rule of law is threatened in this way.”

For most of American history, jurors were peers with names and faces, homes and places of work. Most Americans saw jury duty as an essential civic endeavor – an act of responsibility with lives hanging in the balance. That reputation became part of a shield against retribution.

But that shield has rusted. Political polarization has challenged basic American values, norms, and institutions – including the judicial system. Now, invectives not just threaten safety, but also raise questions of how intimidation and harassments can jam the wheels of justice.

Ms. Kleinfeld says that recent steps toward accountability – such as the arrest in Texas of the woman who allegedly threatened the federal judge in Mr. Trump’s case – send an important message. 

“People who believe that they can get away with anything under the cover of free speech have realized there are limits,” she says. “You can’t walk into a bank, say ‘Give me your money,’ and then just say, ‘I’m speaking freely.’” 

Brendan McDermid/Reuters

A sheriff vehicle passes by the Lewis R. Slaton Courthouse and Superior Court of Fulton County in Atlanta, Aug. 17.

In the 1970s, threats against juries led judges to allow some jurors at mafia trials to remain faceless. More recently, threats against the judiciary system more generally have spiked. The U.S. Marshals Service, which provides security for the federal judicial process, has seen inappropriate communications and threats against those it protects rise from 1,278 in fiscal year 2008 to 4,511 in fiscal year 2021, according to department documents.   

These threats have sometimes turned into violent acts. In 2020, an attorney known for anti-feminist views dressed up as a delivery driver and shot and killed the son of federal Judge Esther Salas at her home in New Jersey, also wounding her husband. Judge Salas has since pushed for federal legislation that would offer broader protections for U.S. judges.

Last June, retired Wisconsin state court Judge John Roemer was shot and killed in his New Lisbon home by a man he had sentenced in a criminal case 15 years earlier. Police later found what they called the shooter’s “hit list,” which included the names of U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, according to a report from the New York City Bar.    

Seeking a difficult balance

Yet there is also a risk of going too far in protecting juries. Allowing jurors to remain anonymous can throw into question the basic constitutional purpose of a jury of one’s peers, including creating a sense of accountability and legitimacy. Moreover, one survey by the Cornell Law Review found that anonymous juries are 15% more likely to return a guilty verdict than a named jury.

That means the threshold for keeping juries secret should remain extraordinarily high, says Gregg Leslie, executive director of the First Amendment Clinic at Arizona State University in Tempe. 

“To say that today we can identify people more easily, therefore juries need to be secret, sends absolutely the wrong signal about our system of justice, which must remain open and trusted,” he says. “And in those rare cases when it is justified, the court has the obligation to release as much information about jurors as possible so the public will have confidence that this is a jury of peers.”

The upcoming trial in Georgia will again pit the interests of jury safety and transparent government against each other. Like most trials in Georgia – and unlike federal trials – it likely will be televised. Allowing the proceedings to be viewed on television is a bid to assure Americans that Mr. Trump and his co-defendants receive a fair trial.

“There’s an important little-d democratic value in letting people hear the evidence, see the witnesses, and digest the vast body of arguments on both sides and come to a conclusion based on facts and reality – not conjecture and courtroom sketches,” says Anthony Kreis, an assistant professor at Georgia State University’s College of Law in Atlanta.

But after the failure to prepare for the Jan. 6 attack – largely in deference to free speech concerns – law enforcement has been more pro-active in investigating threats to prosecutors, judges, and jurors.

A need to ramp up security 

As threats mount, experts say the United States may have to spend more resources protecting those inside the justice system.

“Ensuring that judges can rule independently and free from harm or intimidation is paramount to the rule of law,” Drew Wade, public affairs chief of the U.S. Marshals Service, said in a statement to Time magazine.

Here in Georgia, Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat said Thursday his office is investigating threats to the grand jurors – and taking steps to safeguard them.

“A lot of these [extremist] movements have begun to realize it’s easier to target a local election employee that no one has heard of than a federal judge,” says Jon Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University who studies extremism and federal responses to anti-government threats. “That creates different responses, including having a really robust plan in place for what to do when they see these threats.”

“If you are only focusing on bad actors when they have a gun and are driving toward the courthouse, you risk missing the forest for the trees.”

Packed in a hurry, the raincoat came in handy after all.

I sat in a boat bouncing on the choppy ocean, a reporting effort to see a donation drop-off up close. The journey just wasn’t splash-proof. 

Through the polka-dot pattern of saltwater drops on my glasses, I made out the black trash bags at our bare feet. Labeled with tape, the sacks were full of food cans, baby formula, and tarps, launched from a boat landing in Kihei, on the southern side of Hawaii’s island of Maui. 

The effort was organized by a local business, Blue Water Rafting, which let me tag along. We headed west up the coast to people affected by the Aug. 8 wildfire that razed much of the town of Lahaina.

“Appreciate you guys,” says a man, waist-deep in water, helping move the goods to shore. 

As of today, I’ve been reporting in Hawaii for a week, with more coverage of the fire to come. Ten days on, the search for human remains continues. Of at least 111 people dead, six have been identified. 

With the disaster so fresh, the press has been challenged to report on Lahaina without easy access to the heart of the town. Safety and sensitivity issues abound – along with demands, subject to change, from local officials trying to do their own jobs well.

Jae C. Hong/AP

Search and rescue team members work in the area devastated by a wildfire in Lahaina, Hawaii, Aug. 17, 2023.

No amount of inconvenience to journalists compares to the heartbreak of Maui residents, reeling from not one but three major fires – the Lahaina one most destructive. I’m a guest from Colorado, with not just a job, but a responsibility to listen and learn. 

And to respect those who generously decide to talk with me.

Reporting with respect

Some folks on Maui can’t bear to look. Lapis waves still push and pull before the edge of town, once the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom, now charred and stripped of color.

While philanthropic efforts continue, initial federal recovery aid is also underway, including more than $3.8 million in federal assistance to 1,640 households so far, which includes rental assistance. Hundreds of federal workers are on scene and seeking to debunk misinformation about aid. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden are expected to touch down on Maui on Monday.

In response to frustration that Lahaina locals got no official notice of the fast-approaching flames, the former Maui Emergency Management Agency administrator defended the choice to not activate emergency sirens. He had said using the alarms – understood to be for tsunamis or hurricanes – could have caused people to evacuate in the direction of fire. The official, Herman Andaya, resigned yesterday citing health reasons.

A different type of storm, meanwhile, has descended on Maui. Local, national, and international media, including the Monitor, are here to cover the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century. Grief has just begun, but there are also stories of generosity and hope. Some public schools on Maui are beginning to reopen. 

But just as journalists have pushed for access, local authorities have at times pushed back with appeals for respect. At a press conference last weekend, the Maui police chief chastised journalists for stepping on fragile burnt remains. 

Rick Bowmer/AP

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green (center) speaks to reporters during a tour of wildfire damage, Aug. 12, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii.

The Monitor’s mission is to “injure no man, but to bless all mankind.” For safety and sensitivity reasons – especially as a reporting team of one – I have not tried to enter historic downtown Lahaina, close to the ocean, cordoned off for emergency workers. Instead, other journalists and I have pursued stories about the town beyond that area, through other reporting opportunities. 

In Lahaina’s spacious Napili Park, for instance, I found Kaipo Kekona holding two radios in one hand. He directs the arrival of aid shipments at a distribution site he oversees. 

Mr. Kekona is among Native Hawaiians who don’t identify as American. Distrustful of government, he’s promoting mutual aid from community members over U.S. support. 

“We are a strong community,” says Mr. Kekona. “We are all already organized and working with each other.”

As an outsider to a new community I’m covering, one way to try to mitigate harm is to anticipate how I might be wrong. That means seeking local knowledge.  

Various tips for precise news coverage have come from ʻAhahui Haku Moʻolelo, which is the Hawaiian Journalists Association, along with the Hawaiʻi chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association. Like others I’ve spoken with, they stress the basic point that the term “Hawaiians” should be reserved for Indigenous people on the islands, not to describe all residents statewide. 

Sarah Matusek/The Christian Science Monitor

A checkpoint on Lahainaluna Road in Lahaina, Hawaii, stops traffic into a burned area, Aug. 16, 2023. Access has been limited due to continuing searches for missing people and hazardous conditions.

No matter the disaster, journalism ethics calls for a trauma-informed approach that meets each person where they’re at. Some survivors readily offer up their story, wanting to recount each minute of a harrowing evacuation. Many don’t want to talk at all and may wish you weren’t here. That’s fine, too.

Others are somewhere in between, willing but still finding the words, searching for shreds of dignity as their world falls apart. One Lahaina survivor brought her hand to her mouth as she spoke with me, shy that she’d lost her dentures in the fire. 

Patience with people extends to patience with places. Last Friday in Honolulu on the island of Oahu and Saturday in Wailuku on Maui, I was not allowed inside emergency shelters run by the American Red Cross, following some mixed messages I’d received about access.

Though frustrating, I imagine survivors at a shelter may be seeking a semblance of privacy. Sure enough, ensuring survivors are “safe, comfortable and treated with dignity” is the priority, the American Red Cross wrote to me in response to a follow-up question. 

“In partnership with the county, it was decided that no media would be allowed access into the shelters out of respect to the residents and the traumatic experience they were, and still are, experiencing,” a spokesperson for the nonprofit says in an email. 

Just outside, however, I found sources like Chris Phillips who were open to sharing.  

Besides a wallet, “literally I have a backpack with, like, a couple pairs of boxers, some clothes, shorts, and pants, and tennis shoes,” says the surfer at the Hawaii Convention Center, formerly open for evacuees, where he’d been sleeping in Honolulu. Transitional lodging at hotels on Maui has started to become available. 

Jae C. Hong/AP

Nora Bulosan (right) and Hannah Tomas – Lahaina, Hawaii residents who survived the fire that devastated the town – comfort each other as they gather in hopes of getting access to their home, Aug. 16, 2023.

After waiting several days since the start of the fire, and as officials began to let residents back in despite ongoing health concerns, I found some neighbors uphill from the worst wreckage willing to speak with me. I met with them in my N95 masks without seeing a barrier or checkpoint to pass.  

Their homes are mostly intact, but husks of cars sit on some streets. Downed power lines lie like headless snakes. 

A man outside drags a beige trash can to the curb. It’s unclear who would pick it up – no cars can enter here. He looks across the street to where his neighbor’s house is gone. 

I head a few blocks over to where a source lives, her home a depot for neighborhood aid. I meet a woman who is leaving just as I arrive. I compliment her bright magenta blouse. 

In a dark time, she says, “you have to be bright.” 

She gives me a hug. 

Editor's note: This story has been updated, including to correct the name of the Maui Emergency Management Agency. 

More than 200 Mayan women gathered with back looms and protest banners outside the public prosecutor’s office in Guatemala City last week, demanding the government stop “weaving corruption” ahead of a presidential runoff election.

It was one of many diverse – and earnest – protests that emerged across Guatemala in the lead-up to this Sunday’s vote, part of a chorus of calls for officials to respect the electoral process and democracy here. 

“We are protesting today not to defend any political party, but for democracy, for rule of law,” says Angelina Aspuac, coordinator of the National Movement of Weavers, which organized the demonstration. Across the street, weavers worked on brilliantly colored textiles in a symbolic act of protest. Strips of paper reading “hope” and “democracy” adorned the threads on their looms.

On June 25, Bernardo Arévalo, of the Movimiento Semilla party, unexpectedly secured second place in a first-round presidential election, behind Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza contender and former first lady Sandra Torres. Many in the political and economic elite consider Mr. Arévalo a threat to Guatemala’s status quo.

But Mr. Arévalo, a sociologist and congressman, seems to have captured a wave of citizen frustration. Many are angered by systemic corruption and the government’s weakening of democratic institutions – a discontent that has been further fueled by an ongoing criminal investigation into Mr. Arévalo’s party that is widely considered politically motivated. Guatemalans are heading to the polls this weekend, and for many, regardless of political affiliation, the vote will define the nation’s path – either toward, or further away from, democracy.

Moises Castillo/AP

Bernardo Arévalo, the Movimiento Semilla party presidential candidate, attends a campaign rally in Jutiapa, Guatemala, Aug. 5, 2023. Mr. Arévalo faces former first lady Sandra Torres of the Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza party in the Aug. 20 runoff election.

The future of Guatemala is at stake, says Iduvina Hernández, director of the Association for the Study of Security in Democracy, a Guatemalan nongovernmental organization.

The government’s attempts to undermine the election, and the growing support for an outsider candidate, have “convinced a citizenry that had a lot of apathy ... to start to believe in the possibility of change,” she says.

“No secret”

Rule of law has seen a drastic decline in Guatemala over the past five years. More than two dozen prosecutors and judges working on high-profile cases on corruption and crimes against humanity have fled the country into exile, while others who remain face prosecution and prison.

The recent raids, arrest warrants, and other measures targeting Movimiento Semilla and the electoral tribunal, which certified Mr. Arévalo’s spot in the runoff, triggered alarm both in and outside Guatemala. Prosecutors are still investigating allegedly fraudulent signatures related to the party’s founding.

Governments including the United States, Canada, and the European Union, as well as multilateral institutions, condemned the actions. International observation missions are on the ground to monitor the Aug. 20 vote.

“It is no secret that we are very concerned,” Luis Almagro, secretary-general of the Organization of American States, noted last week in a report on his visit to the country this month. “It is a worrying situation in terms of the electoral process and in terms of the institutions of a democratic state.”

Outgoing President Alejandro Giammattei assured Mr. Almagro that the government will respect the run-off results, promising to hand over power to the winner on Jan. 14. Should Mr. Arévalo win – which recent polls show is likely – his party is expected to face further legal challenges.

Sandra Cuffe

Ahead of Guatemala’s presidential runoff election, members of the newly founded Evangelical Roundtable for Democracy take part in an Aug. 13, 2023, march for democracy in Guatemala City.

Unlikely organizers

Whether the run-off would even happen was up in the air a few weeks ago. That’s when Israel Ortiz and other members of evangelical Christian churches began meeting over Zoom to organize expressions of support for democracy across congregations and counter the public dominance of conservative evangelical voices aligned with the ruling party.

Within two weeks the grassroots initiative included members and leaders from Baptist, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, and Mennonite congregations, along with non-denominational Christians. Dubbed the Evangelical Roundtable for Democracy, the group has made calls for broader public political participation, launched social media accounts, and took part in a roughly 250-person march last weekend in Guatemala City.

In Guatemala, “the influence and power of religion are used to push narratives that are ultimately intended to demobilize people,” and keep them from participating in political change, says Mr. Ortiz. “In contrast, we are people of faith, and faith mobilizes us,” he says, referring to the roundtable’s political activism. Many roundtable members individually support Mr. Arévalo’s party, but their group is non-partisan, focused on support for democracy.

Disinformation has figured prominently in the run-off. Signs and brochures purporting to be from Mr. Arévalo’s campaign have broadcast false claims that he plans to legalize abortion and marriage equality. Those allegations have also been stoked by pastors, far-right groups, and by Ms. Torres, Mr. Arévalo’s conservative rival.

“The final element of democracy that remains is the popular vote,” Mr. Ortiz says. We are here “to defend that last bastion of democracy, because if we do not do it now, we may not have another opportunity for decades,” he says in Guatemala City’s expansive central plaza at the end of an Aug. 13 march.

Moises Castillo/AP

Guatemalans welcome Sandra Torres, presidential candidate of the Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza party, prior to a campaign rally in San Juan Sacatepequez, Aug. 6, 2023. Ms. Torres will face Bernardo Arévalo in an Aug. 20 runoff election.

Continuity vs. change

Mr. Arévalo and Ms. Torres each held a series of rallies this week, before the mandatory suspension of all campaigning at noon Friday. Two recent polls on voter intentions found Mr. Arévalo holding a lead over Ms. Torres of between 22 and 29 points, with more than 60% of voter support. But a climate of uncertainty and tension remains.

The political turmoil over the past several weeks – and in the leadup to the June general election, when several prominent candidates were disqualified from running – has confused and deterred some potential voters. But the legal actions against Mr. Arévalo’s party and the electoral tribunal significantly raised his profile and strengthened the perception that the run-off is between contenders representing continuity vs. change.

The burgeoning support for Mr. Arévalo against all expectations “is the most clear expression of people being fed up with what has been happening and exercising their vote as a mechanism of rejection,” says Ms. Hernández, the NGO director.

Political parties have historically shown up in Indigenous communities during campaign periods, giving gifts or making promises, and then ignoring and excluding these populations once in power, says Salvador Quiacain, a Maya Tz’utujil elder and community leader from San Pedro la Laguna. Although “Arévalo may not be perfect,” Mr. Quiacain is hopeful his government would be more inclusive and open to dialogue.

Standing outside the prosecutor’s office, where he came to support the weavers’ protests, Mr. Quiacain says, “Fortunately we have an option.”

When it got out that a new Russian think tank focused on understanding the fast-growing Moscow-Beijing axis might be called the “Xi Jinping Thought Laboratory,” eyebrows were raised in the Russian media.

Later, the new center was given the more inclusive title of the Laboratory of Modern Ideology of China. 

But Kirill Babaev, director of the Institute of China and Contemporary Asia, which hosts the new center, says that the galloping ideological convergence between Russia and China requires close attention since it drives the rapid growth of relations in what may be the most important emerging bloc on earth. At least the Chinese side of it, he says, largely boils down to the speeches and ideas of Mr. Xi, who seems likely to remain at the helm in Beijing for a long time to come.

“Interest toward our eastern partner is really great and growing,” he says. “More and more people want to study Chinese, are interested in Chinese movies or literature, are keen to visit China as tourists, or start up a business with Chinese partners. ... The more we know about our partners, the more objective and correct this knowledge will be, the better it is for the development of friendly and mutually beneficial relations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Mr. Xi have met over 40 times in the past decade, and experts say that they tend to agree on most things, especially the joint urge to curb U.S. hegemony and establish a multipolar world order in its place.

“Both countries feel alienated by the outside world,” says Alexei Maslov, a China expert with Moscow State University. “Russia and China feel that the present world order is not fair toward them, and both want to play a greater role in global affairs. ... Though they are very different historically and culturally, both countries are based on the same foundation of a strong state and personal leadership. Hence we see an affinity not just between Putin and Xi, but all the way down the chain of officials and business leaders.”

Dmitry Astakhov/Sputnik/AP

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin (third from left) visits Tsinghua University in Beijing, May 24, 2023. “More and more people want to study Chinese, are interested in Chinese movies or literature, are keen to visit China as tourists, or start up a business with Chinese partners,” says Kirill Babaev, director of the Institute of China and Contemporary Asia in Moscow.

A common vision for the future?

The evolving relationship between Moscow and Beijing has invited skepticism, in part because the record of Russia-China friendship is dismal.

There is a long history of animosity between the two countries, mutual suspicion continues to run deep, and previous attempts to establish an alliance have ended very badly. Critics point to continued competition between the two in areas like Africa and Central Asia, and the fact that relations with the West remain more important for both, especially China, than relations with one another.

Optimists point to the potential synergies between a vast but largely empty Russia, with a cornucopia of raw materials and immense tracts of unused agricultural land, and the teeming workshop of China next door, still in the throes of urbanization.

A survey conducted by the state-funded Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) earlier this year found that 77% of Russians regard China as a “friendly” power, and 78% think cooperation between the two countries will bring “more good than harm.” Another poll, carried out in March by the state-funded VTsIOM agency, found that 56% of Russians consider China a “strategic and economic partner” and that 53% think this is the right direction to go.

The last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, began the long process of rapprochement with China with a visit to Beijing in 1989 after decades of hostility between the two communist powers. But subsequent Russian leaders, primarily Mr. Putin, made substantive progress by resolving outstanding territorial disputes along their common 2,500 mile frontier, signing major trade deals, and forging what increasingly looks like a powerful new geopolitical compact.

Mark Avery/AP/File

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa, pose during a tour of the Great Wall in Beijing, May 17, 1989. Mr. Gorbachev began the long process of rapprochement with China after decades of hostility between the two communist powers.

“Russia and China share a common vision on the future of international relations, which includes fair treatment for all, respect for all types of government and social structures, no hegemony, and no imposing of anyone’s political principles,” says Mr. Babaev. “This is an ideological alliance, which is much stronger than any military one.”

Potential, but not boundless

Russia’s turn toward Asia, and China in particular, has been greatly accelerated by souring relations with the West since the annexation of Crimea in 2014. The barrage of Western sanctions since Russia invaded Ukraine last year has made it a matter of urgent necessity for Moscow. China’s own disputes and tariff wars, especially with the U.S., have boosted the tendency for the two Asian giants to seek common ground and joint solutions.

At least on paper, the results are impressive. In the first half of this year alone, trade turnover increased by almost 40% with Russia redirecting to Asia energy exports that formerly went to Europe, and buying much more from China, including consumer goods such as household appliances, automobiles, and textiles.

The list of long-term joint ventures, largely an outgrowth of agreements at the highest level, looks substantial, including space, aviation, energy infrastructure, and nuclear engineering.

But, beneath the hype, some of those deals are reportedly troubled. A $50 billion venture to build a new passenger jet to compete in global markets has run into hot water over Chinese insistence on bringing in Western aviation companies according to media reports. Likewise the much discussed Power of Siberia II gas pipeline project, which Russia hopes would replace the now-defunct Nordstream pipelines to Europe, remains mired in red tape and a Chinese reluctance to commit.

“Even if China grants permission [for the new pipeline], it will take up to 15 years to put the necessary infrastructure into place,” says Mikhail Krutikhin, an independent energy consultant. “It’s not going to be possible for Russia to replace its former European gas markets for many years to come.”

Experts also point out that the impressive influx of Chinese consumer products into the Russian market, replacing the exodus of Western companies in the wake of the Ukraine war, comes at a price. For example, Chinese automobile sales in Russia have tripled, but it mostly involves finished products from China that take the market share of Western brands that were formerly assembled in Russia.

“Russian authorities used to insist on the localization of production, but now they are in no position to make the rules,” says Natalia Zubarevich, an expert with Moscow State University. “Russian industry has refocused on supplies from China, which is critical to survival. But it comes at the expense of diversified markets and supply chains, which is always better than dependence on one partner.”

One overriding question concerns China’s support for Russia’s war effort in Ukraine. A Chinese peace plan floated earlier this year seems to have fizzled. There are also conflicting reports about the firmness of Chinese backing and whether it is prepared to help Russia with lethal military aid.

That’s one of the questions that Mr. Babaev, of the China Institute, hears frequently.

“While China definitely wants peace in Europe as soon as possible, it will never allow Russia to lose,” he says. “Russia does not seem to need much help today, but in case Russia needs something tomorrow I am pretty sure China will help.”

AP

The Little League team from Cuba rides in an Aug. 14 parade in Williamsport, Pa., at the start of the league's World Series baseball tournament, featuring 20 teams from around the world.

For the first time in a tournament dating back to 1947, Cubans are playing in the Little League World Series in the United States. Their participation marks a triumph of the persistent human desire to forge healing connections across geopolitical divides.

“Sports and the arts can offer an alternative, a better example of relations between two countries,” said Daniel Montero, a Cuban filmmaker and co-director of a short documentary on the young players. After decades of enmity between Washington and Havana and more recent seesaw attempts at reconciliation, he told the journalism website Latino Rebels, “it just feels good to see an alternative to that.”

Like science or music, sports can coax gestures of friendship and trust from hardened foes. Grassroots soccer programs nurtured new bonds of community in war-torn countries like Liberia and the republics of the former Yugoslavia. After apartheid, South Africa found a new basis for racial harmony in a shared national passion for rugby. Cricket offers one of the few consistent avenues for diplomacy between India and Pakistan.

Baseball has a long history of bridge-building dating back to the U.S. Civil War, when Union and Confederate soldiers found warmer ways to work out their differences – sometimes on fields measured out within prisoner-of-war camps. Nearly a century later, the game helped dismantle racial segregation.

Studies of so-called adversarial collaborations show their ability to tap reservoirs of qualities like humility and compassion, hidden by conflict. In 2016, then-President Barack Obama joined his counterpart Raúl Castro for a game in Havana between the Cuban national team and the visiting Tampa Bay Rays. The two leaders had spent the previous three days butting their diplomatic heads.

“If we look at sport and art ... as being about creativity, imagination and personal expression,” wrote Roald Bradstock, a former British Olympic athlete and youth sports ambassador, we discover “an ideal platform for interaction, engagement and discussion of ideas and thoughts ... a stronger foundation for a more peaceful world.”

Washington’s long isolation of Cuba’s authoritarian regimes, from the Castros to current President Miguel Díaz-Canel, kept the country’s youth out of the World Series, which has always been held in the U.S. When the Obama administration began seeking a thaw, Little League Baseball and Softball saw an opening. It has gradually expanded its reach to help grow the baseball programs in 180 municipalities across the island nation. In 2019, it added Cuba to the community of nations that compete for a spot in the tournament. Cuba’s first appearance in the tournament is sowing goodwill in a country where baseball excellence is the noblest of abilities.

The World Series includes 20 teams from around the world. Each international team bunks with a team from the U.S. During two weeks of competition, lasting friendships will undoubtedly grow. In downtown Williamsport, the town of 28,000 in central Pennsylvania hosting the tournament, the divisions of nations are nowhere evident. As the Cuban team, Los Bayamitos, and the 19 other teams rode floats down Susquehanna Street on Monday in an opening parade, townsfolk lining the route tossed rubber balls to the young Cubans to sign.

“In each signature,” wrote Osviel Castro Medel, a traveling reporter for the Cuban newspaper Juventud Rebelde, “there was, surely, a world of simplicity, of love, of joy.”

On the fields of Little League dreams, innocence and affection are rounding the bases.