Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Fox News host and debate moderator Bret Baier records a social media post outside the arena in Milwaukee, Aug. 22, 2023, prior to the first debate among Republican U.S. presidential candidates in the 2024 election campaign.

On the Republican presidential debate stage Wednesday night, Ron DeSantis has the most to lose and most to gain.

Just months ago, the Florida governor had the hot hand in GOP politics. He had trounced his Democratic opponent in winning reelection last November. He had earned national attention for his anti-”woke” posture, going after Disney World and drag-queen story hours, while touting Florida’s strong economy. 

Governor DeSantis’ picture-perfect young family was the icing on the cake – a sharp contrast with the image of Donald Trump, the generation-older former president laden with baggage that had led many Republican voters to wish for a new party standard-bearer. 

Among the eight Republican candidates expected onstage in Milwaukee, Mr. DeSantis is the front-runner. But the elephant conspicuously not in the room is Mr. Trump, who leads the second-place Florida governor by a mile – 41 percentage points in polls, on average – for the 2024 nomination. The former president declined to participate in this first GOP presidential debate of the 2024 cycle, hosted by Fox News. He has opted instead for a web interview with fired Fox host Tucker Carlson.

And on Thursday morning, Mr. Trump says he will surrender to authorities in Atlanta, after agreeing to post bond of $200,000 in his latest indictment. He faces 13 felony counts for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election result in Georgia.

In Milwaukee, the debate presents a big opportunity for Mr. DeSantis to turn the page. His campaign narrative of late has been shaped by embarrassment – overspending, leaks, downsizing, the need to bring in new leadership, and most important, struggles by the candidate himself to connect with voters.

“In a way, DeSantis is a victim of expectations,” says Dennis Goldford, a political scientist at Drake University in Iowa, the state whose Jan. 15, 2024, caucuses will kick off the Republican nomination process. “He has to right his own ship, and convince other people that Trump is taking on water.”

Still time to recover?  

In the heat of August, January can feel eons away. And in political terms, the easy answer to Mr. DeSantis’ stumbles is that he has plenty of time to recover. 

Indeed, anecdotal evidence suggests that some Iowa Republicans have yet to focus on their choices. A Washington-based conservative thought leader, speaking on background, says that on a recent trip to Iowa, he asked a group of GOP voters if they were going to watch this week’s debate, and got this response: “What debate?” 

The new Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa Poll of likely Iowa caucusgoers, released Monday, contains both good news and bad news for Mr. DeSantis. The poll shows Mr. Trump dominating the GOP field, with 42% support, and Mr. DeSantis in second place at 19%. 

AP

Republican presidential candidates expected to be in the party's first televised debate of the 2024 campaign are (top row from left) Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and (bottom row from left) former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, former Vice President Mike Pence, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, and former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas.

The other seven candidates expected to participate Wednesday night under Republican National Committee rules – South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson – came in with single digits. At press time it wasn't clear if Governor Burgum would be able to participate, after a basketball injury Tuesday night.

The good news in the Iowa poll for Mr. DeSantis is that many voters, 61%, either support or are open to supporting him – fewer than 3 points behind Mr. Trump’s number. Some 19% say Mr. DeSantis is their first choice, 20% have him as second choice, and 22% are “actively considering” him. For Mr. Trump, it’s 42% first choice, 10% second choice, and 12% actively considering. 

Thus, Mr. DeSantis’ debate performance in Milwaukee could prove crucial. Mr. Trump’s four criminal indictments are obvious fodder for attack, but the Florida governor has to be careful, political analysts say. The former president’s support among Republicans has risen as the indictments have come in – especially amid GOP allegations that President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, has been treated with deference amid his own legal woes. 

And Mr. DeSantis, as the top alternative to Mr. Trump, will be in everyone’s crosshairs – both the former president’s, as he watches from afar, and the others onstage in Milwaukee. 

“DeSantis will be getting it from all sides,” says Susan MacManus, an emerita professor of political science at the University of South Florida. “He’s just one giant punching bag.”

Brian Snyder/Reuters

Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis listens to a question from the audience at a campaign town hall meeting in Newport, New Hampshire, Aug. 19, 2023.

Mr. DeSantis' biggest challenge could be in his tone and demeanor. He has long struggled with “likability,” the hard-to-define quality that can make all the difference in the heat of a brutal campaign. As a member of Congress, Mr. DeSantis was known for being aloof, and in his presidential campaign, has engaged awkwardly at times with voters. 

Perhaps the most embarrassing episode of Mr. DeSantis’ campaign came last week, when hundreds of pages of advice and internal polling from a supportive super-political action committee were discovered by reporters online. 

Referring to Governor DeSantis as “GRD,” one memo advised: “1. Attack Joe Biden and the media 3-5 times. 2. State GRD’s positive vision 2-3 times. 3. Hammer Vivek Ramaswamy in a response. 4. Defend Donald Trump in absentia in response to a Chris Christie attack.”

Mr. DeSantis’ campaign has also run into money problems (laying off a significant portion of his staff) and recently replaced his campaign manager. But none of this foreordains his political fate. History shows that some promising candidates flame out early – such as former Wisconsin GOP Gov. Scott Walker in 2016 – while others struggle early, regroup, and go on to win their party’s nomination. Such was the case with the late Republican Sen. John McCain in 2008.

Key challenges facing DeSantis

For Mr. DeSantis, the biggest conundrum may be that he needs to peel support away from Mr. Trump, but attacking the former president could alienate the very voters he is wooing. 

The Florida governor will also have to fend off another competitor with a hot hand – Mr. Ramaswamy, the young, charismatic businessman who’s never held office before, and whose rise in the polls has earned him the podium at center stage next to Mr. DeSantis. 

Reports that frustrated GOP donors are quietly reaching out to other prominent Republicans – Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp – to enter the race speak to dissatisfaction with Mr. DeSantis as the top GOP alternative to Mr. Trump. 

But the good news for those debating Wednesday night may be that this is just the opening event of the 2024 cycle – and merely being onstage means their hopes are still alive.

The Trump factor – both the Carlson interview and the courtroom appearance in Atlanta Thursday – also means that the debate could soon be eclipsed by other political news. 

“Whatever happens in the debate will be super-trumped by Thursday morning,” predicts Ford O’Connell, a Florida-based Republican strategist. 

The scientists were glued to their screens, as were millions of others tuning in at home. All watched anxiously as the spacecraft’s four silver feet touched down.

“India is on the moon,” declared Sreedhara Somanath, the chief of the Indian Space Research Organization, as the control room in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru erupted in cheers.

It was a moment the whole nation had been waiting for. By becoming one of the few countries to land on the moon – and the first to do so near its south pole – India has proved its capacity for technological innovation and cemented itself as a space power.

“This moment is an invocation of India’s rising destiny,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said moments after the landing. “This moment is a victory cry for a new India.”

The United States, China, and the former Soviet Union have landed on the moon before, but not near this critical area for future manned missions. Russia almost beat India to the moon’s south pole, but its Luna 25 spacecraft crashed on August 20.

The landing is not only a triumph for India’s scrappy space program, but also, observers note, a testament to what can be achieved with enough ingenuity and perseverance. India’s quest for the moon reflects the government’s shifting vision for its role in outer space and has captured the public imagination. 

Astrophysicist and Ashoka University Vice Chancellor Somak Raychaudhury says the mission’s success will inspire India’s youth to pursue science. Even when Chandrayaan-3 first launched in July, he says, “there was this huge euphoria, which you only see when India wins a cricket match.”

Space enthusiast Goutham Mehta, who has keenly followed the mission’s progress, is feeling that euphoria, too. India is telling the world, “We have arrived,” he says. “I feel very proud.”

Rajanish Kakade/AP

Schoolchildren stand for photographs with a paper model of Chandrayaan-3 in Mumbai, India, Aug. 23, 2023. Millions watched as the Chandrayaan-3 lander – India’s second attempt at a soft landing on the moon – finally touched down on Wednesday.

A complex feat

Chandrayaan-3 – “Chandrayaan” meaning mooncraft in Sanskrit – is India’s third lunar mission and second attempt at a soft landing on the moon. Chandrayaan-2’s lander crashed four years ago due to a technical glitch during the final leg of its journey. Indian scientists incorporated lessons from past mistakes into the new design, which included an expanded landing area and more fuel. 

“It’s rigorous homework, a lot of hard work put in, and perseverance,” says Annapurni Subramaniam at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics.

Landing on the moon is “extremely complicated,” says Professor Subramaniam. Gravity and air work differently, and the terrain is full of craters. The lander must touch down gently on its four feet – too much inclination and it would just tumble over, she explains. And that’s assuming that the spacecraft’s launch and flight go according to plan.

Several countries, including Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Japan, have tried in recent years to land on the moon but failed. 

Chandrayaan-3’s success puts India on the map, says Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan at the Observer Research Foundation, a think tank. It highlights “the sophistication of India’s space capability despite the fact that India operates on a very tiny, small budget,” she says. 

The Chandrayaan-3 mission cost roughly $75 million, less than the price of a Boeing 737 jet and a fraction of the cost of other lunar missions.

Researchers are particularly excited to make contact with the moon’s previously unexplored south pole, where deep craters and high mountains create permanently shaded areas that house water ice deposits. American geologist Paul Spudis calls it “the most valuable piece of real estate in the solar system.”

India’s evolving space program

The ambitious lunar mission is one of several signs that India’s space program is transforming. When India fired up its first rocket in 1963, scientists operated from a small church in the south Indian fishing village of Thumba and parts of the spacecraft were ferried to the launch site on bicycles. 

Rajesh Kumar Singh/AP

People watch the live telecast of the landing of Chandrayaan-3 at the Integrated Command Control Centre in Varanasi, India, Aug. 23, 2023.

The early goals of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) were more practical: “to use space for the common man’s benefits,” says Professor Subramaniam. That meant having satellites looking back to Earth to predict cyclones or to identify potential fishing zones. But over the past couple of decades, she says, India “started looking at innovations and looking away from Earth towards space.”

In 2008, India launched its first lunar space probe, Chandrayaan-1, which successfully orbited the moon and mapped water ice and minerals on its surface. Then came the Mars Orbiter Mission, India’s first interplanetary mission, which successfully entered the red planet’s orbit in 2014 on its first attempt. 

This flurry of purely exploratory missions is “a natural progression for any maturing space program,” says Dr. Rajagopalan of the Observer Research Foundation, but geopolitics is also at play. Moving forward, she expects national security to play a larger role in shaping India’s space priorities, particularly regarding China, which has been building up its own defensive space abilities.

“Outer space is no more immune to the kind of politics that plays out on Earth,” she says.

Indian leaders are working to expand the space-related industry as well.

“Even though India is one of the five top countries doing space, India plays less than 5% role in the global space industry,” says Professor Raychaudhury, the astrophysicist. 

For decades, exploration was restricted to the state-owned ISRO. In 2020, the government opened it up to the private sector, paving the way for dozens of space-tech startups, some of which have already begun to collaborate with ISRO. And earlier this year, the government announced a new policy to “enable, encourage and develop a flourishing commercial presence in space.” 

And the moon is just the beginning. A Venus mission is in the works, and India is planning to send an astronaut to space. But first, India has eyes on the sun; next month, ISRO will launch Aditya-L1, a spacecraft designed to help puzzle out the mysteries of the solar atmosphere.

Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP

Members of the Cal Fire Pilot Rock 6 crew clear mud off the side of the road in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Hilary, Aug. 21, 2023, in Yucaipa, California.

A rare tropical storm moved through California over the weekend, bringing record rainfall, high winds, and mudslides. Despite extreme precipitation and winds of up to 80 mph, catastrophic damage was avoided – in part due to successful preparation efforts honed from years of extreme weather events in the state. 

At least 20 million people – more than half of California’s population – were affected by Tropical Storm Hilary, which dropped a year’s worth of rainfall in one day, and in some areas two years’ worth. Hilary made landfall in Mexico on Aug. 20, swept north through Southern California, and then dissipated in southern Nevada. No deaths were reported in the United States; one person died in Mexico. 

State, county, and local officials in California quickly mobilized residents and resources, issuing evacuation orders, detailing safety reminders, and providing sandbags ahead of the storm. Efforts were guided by high-tech and highly accurate meteorological predictions, and aided by the storm’s natural dissipation. 

“It is a good outcome for a storm of this magnitude,” says Brian Ferguson, deputy director of crisis communications for California’s Office of Emergency Services, who suggests that California’s disaster approach could be modeled elsewhere.

“We have invested a lot in technology and first responders and being on the front foot in disasters,” says Mr. Ferguson. “And I think those are tools that we’ll take for other disasters here in the state, but could also be replicated elsewhere in the country.”

Tropical storms are rare in California. How did Hilary happen?   

Tropical Storm Hilary was born of an El Niño warming up waters in the Pacific Ocean, and a heat dome covering the Midwest. The warm water and warm, circulating air intensified the storm – which, at one point, was a Category 4 hurricane – and drew it inland from off the coast of Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula.

“Otherwise, she would have done a normal thing, which is to go across the ocean to our west or maybe turn and go into Mexico and fizzle out there,” explains Alex Tardy, senior meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s San Diego station.

California’s last tropical storm, Nora, was in 1997. Before that was “El Cordonazo” in 1939, which was also the last tropical storm to pass over Los Angeles. Dozens of people died in the 1939 storm. 

Bryan Woolston/Reuters

A driver travels on state Highway 111 the morning after Tropical Storm Hilary passed Palm Springs, California, Aug. 21, 2023.

Hilary arrived during what’s normally the driest month in this drought-sensitive state. The storm’s impact ranged from heavy rain in some areas to wind and mudslides that took out major infrastructure.

How did preparation efforts help mitigate damage? 

Californians are used to preparing for disasters. Complex, overlapping events such as drought, fire, rain, snow, and earthquakes are a reality of living here, says Mr. Ferguson. “We even had an earthquake in the middle of this hurricane,” he says. “We don’t have one disaster at a time.” 

Meteorological predictions for Hilary, including the storm’s estimated rainfall and path, were on target, giving residents and officials five days to prepare before the storm reached San Diego. State, county, and local emergency management offices coordinated preemptive measures.

Among the actions taken: First responders were mobilized ahead of the storm, with National Guard and swift-water rescue teams, firefighters, road crews, and utility crews sent to areas expected to be impacted. Residents living near burn scars were asked to evacuate. Unhoused people staying in high-risk areas were relocated. Cities gave out free sandbags so residents could protect their homes. California’s two largest school districts closed for a day. 

Even with the prep and warnings, the storm stranded a number of people and forced rescues throughout Southern California, especially in rural parts of San Bernardino and Riverside counties east of Los Angeles. And as of Tuesday, an older woman whose home was swept away by a mudslide was still missing.

Nearly 50 people were rescued from flooded streets near Palm Springs in Cathedral City, where the Red Cross was called in to help. And farther south, more than a dozen people were rescued from a homeless encampment in the San Diego River basin. 

Experts and officials agree the toll could have been much worse. California’s varied topography results in a steady stream of weather events and related disasters – experiences that “probably made us more prepared to handle an event like this because of the work that’s happened and the public’s understanding of what goes into a disaster and how to keep themselves safe,” Mr. Ferguson says. 

How does Hilary fit with other extreme weather in California? 

California endured record rain, snowpack, and heat in 2023, after three of the driest years on record. Wildfires have burned about 320,000 acres throughout the state this year, which is less area than the five-year average – but large fires are happening more frequently. 

The San Bernardino Mountains, next to the desert resort area of the Coachella Valley, had more snow than ever in late February and early March; July was the hottest month ever recorded in Palm Springs.

During this weekend’s tropical storm, the Coachella Valley, which includes Palm Springs, received the worst storm damage, with rainfall ranging from 3 to 5 inches on the valley floor, and from 8 to 13 inches in the upper mountain headwaters, which drain into the valley. The heavy rain, combined with high winds in the surrounding mountains, caused mudslides that shut down Interstate 10, made rail lines impassable, and damaged homes and other infrastructure.

Hilary may not have a direct link to any one previous extreme weather event, explains meteorologist Mr. Tardy, but collectively, they show a clear trend. “Just the sheer magnitude of these events appears to be hard to argue that it’s not related to the overall warming of the planet,” he says. “We’re taking normal events and making them a little more harsh, a little more extreme, a little more impact.”

On a Monday morning in Ngwenyameni, a village 38 kilometers (24 miles) south of the capital of Mbabane, eight students at Techno Friends Eswatini wait eagerly at their desks.

Outside, cattle graze across the rolling hills and the voices of herdsmen are a distant soundtrack. The classroom building, a hut-shaped structure made out recycled materials and straw, blends seamlessly into the village idyll. But inside, the learners are far removed from their rural surroundings. 

Standing in front of a big screen displaying a live feed, teacher Bongekile Shiba addresses her students, some of whom nervously press the keyboards on their donated laptops. “Today, we’re going to learn about computer coding. Have any of you heard of it before?”

Almost all of them shake their heads. 

“Computer coding is a way of giving instructions to a computer, so it can perform specific tasks. It’s like giving a recipe to a chef, so they know how to make a dish,” Ms. Shiba explains, typing on the keyboard so lines of code appear on the projector screen.

A sense of aspiration

So begins a typical session as Ms. Shiba brings critical modern skills – and a sense of aspiration – to a community where poverty and cultural attitudes drive many girls out of education long before they reach college.

In Eswatini, a tiny landlocked country in southern Africa formerly known as Swaziland, around 80% of girls enroll in primary school. But that number plummets to just 1 in 2 when it comes to university. At the University of Eswatini, one of the country’s top tertiary education institutions, twice as many men are enrolled in sciences as women. 

Karen Norris/Staff

In rural areas, the odds are stacked even further against girls. Because the country has the world’s highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS, money that could go to a child’s schooling often has to go toward treating family members battling the illness. Girls are almost always the first to be pulled out of education in such cases. And around 1 in 6 women in Eswatini are married before they turn 18.  

That means for students like Tiyandza Msibi, enrolling into the tech school carries added significance.

“I have learnt how to use loops, functions, and soon I will be creating a phone app. I’ve managed to make educational projects about the world,” the sixth grader says proudly, adding that she sees herself becoming an entrepreneur when she grows up.

More inclusion

A high school history teacher and career counselor for over a decade, Ms. Shiba also taught herself coding using online lessons. When the pandemic swept through Eswatini in 2020, she saw a silver lining. In January of that year, she began giving free coding and programming lessons to a small group of students via Zoom. Word-of-mouth meant that within weeks, hundreds were logging on to her sessions.

Nokukhanya Musi - Aimienoho

Bongekile Shiba, who launched the project to teach rural girls computer coding skills, explains its aspirations.

Techno Friends was born, nurtured by a belief that the earlier girls start honing a skill, the better. Children as young as first grade now take part in the classes.

“Successful swimmers, athletes, soccer stars, and programmers started working on their crafts early in life,” says Ms. Shiba, who also holds a postgraduate certificate in education from neighboring South Africa’s prestigious Rhodes University. 

Spending time in Africa’s most developed economy spurred Ms. Shiba in other ways. She realized that her own country’s education system wasn’t adequately equipping children with digital skills for today’s world. 

And the pandemic, when schools in the country shuttered, brought home this view. She put out a poster advertising free coding classes on social media, and the rest was history. Today, Ms. Shiba and three other teachers continue to run Techno Friends’ online lessons. Children attend from all over Eswatini – as do two learners based in Canada. 

But it is in Ngwenyameni, where Ms. Shiba herself grew up, that several dozen girls gather for the after-school club held in the modest hut. There, Ms. Shiba introduces learners to and guides them through digital platforms so they learn to program, and create interactive stories, video games, animation, and digital art. Students also learn to build prototype machines and write code instructions. 

“By increasing the representation of girls in AI, we can create a more diverse and inclusive field that better reflects the needs and perspectives of the entire population. This can lead to more effective and equitable solutions that benefit everyone,” Ms. Shiba says.

Big ambitions

One recent afternoon, grade three pupil Aviwe Shabalala sat in a class and worked on creating an app. Her dream, she says, is to become a software engineer “so I can help people get rid of bugs in their apps.”

Nokukhanya Musi - Aimienoho

Teacher Nqobile welcomes parents of girls who are learning computer software coding skills in a village in Eswatini.

Statistics on gender disparity in science and technology in Eswatini barely exist – itself highlighting the problem, says Nicky Ndwandwe, an education and science officer at UNESCO. But the United Nations agency plans to publish an updated study that will address this gap, making it easier to know where to focus resources.

For now, Techno Friends is mostly self-funded, with students paying only a token fee toward running costs. But Ms. Shiba has big plans on the horizon – an attitude she hopes will also serve as a model for her own students.

Eventually, she says, her goal is to build a technology park with a robotics laboratory, the first in the country. And she’s partnered with the Forum for African Women Educationalists Eswatini, a nongovernmental organization that’s helping to arrange job shadowing and internships both within and outside the tech world – providing opportunities that are far from guaranteed in a country with an unemployment rate that hovers around 24%.

“It is essential that every child in Africa learns how to think, identify current problems, and write programs for machines to solve those problems in a way that is inclusive to everyone in their own communities,” Ms. Shiba says.

Dan Chung/Norton

Tania Branigan is the author of "Red Memory: The Afterlives of China's Cultural Revolution."

In “Red Memory: The Afterlives of China’s Cultural Revolution,” British journalist Tania Branigan reveals the profound yet often hidden present-day reverberations of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution. During the fanatical campaign unleashed by Mao Zedong, Red Guards persecuted and killed millions of people across China. Betrayal and mistrust divided students and teachers, neighbors, and even families.

Then, in a jarring shift, China’s post-Mao leaders denounced the Cultural Revolution as a “catastrophe” as they redirected the country’s energies away from the pursuit of a communist Utopia and toward market-oriented economic growth. Ordinary Chinese people were allowed to speak about the ordeal, for a time. But Beijing, eager to control the historical narrative and mute criticism of Mr. Mao, gradually began to suppress all but brief mentions of the disastrous campaign.

Enter Ms. Branigan, who began meeting with individuals and capturing their stories while covering China for The Guardian from 2008 to 2015. 

You studied politics and sociology, and were drawn to reporting as a teenager. What led you to become a China correspondent?

China is the story of our time, and it seemed to me an unmissable one. I was working as a national reporter at The Guardian, and I kept badgering my editors saying I wanted to go to China. In 2008, the Olympics year, they agreed to send me out, and I stayed for seven years. I was incredibly privileged to be there then. It was a transition time from a point where there still seemed to be a real sense of possibility, with a lively civil society, and then from 2011, ultimately a turn toward a much more repressive and closed environment.

You write that it is impossible to make sense of China today without understanding the Cultural Revolution. What are the key insights from that tumultuous decade?

The most obvious impact is in the field of politics. The message from the Communist Party to ordinary Chinese is: “Accept party rule, because if you don’t, there will be chaos and turmoil, and we’ve seen how bad it can get if we’re not running things and we don’t have a firm hand.”

In very personal terms, family relationships have been deeply shaped by the Cultural Revolution, whether it’s people who never really got to know their parents because they were sent away to labor camps ... or parents so traumatized by their experiences that they are teaching their children that it’s impossible to trust anyone. 

How have memories resurfaced recently, such as during the pandemic?

People drew parallels with the very draconian “zero-COVID” policies and the experience of people barging into your house and dragging you out. We’ve also seen it on the streets, when there was a protest against “zero-COVID” and you saw people with a sign saying, “We want reform, not the Cultural Revolution.”

Why is China’s current leadership so determined to suppress public commentary about that formative period in the country’s recent past? You describe a kind of collective “amnesia” that authorities are working hard to maintain.

They don’t like talk about anything that reflects badly on the Communist Party. And while they have not walked away from the official verdict that it was a catastrophe, they don’t want people to dwell on it. They want to unite people and move on. ... If you criticize Mao himself, then you’re really attacking the very roots of communist rule. Finally, if you acknowledge that people have a right to criticize former leaders, why shouldn’t they be criticizing current leaders? It’s just not a precedent that the party wants to set. They don’t want to grant people that space. If people can judge history, they can judge the present as well.

Yet, as you note, memories are persistent. When painful memories are not allowed to be aired or recognized by society, what happens to the psychological trauma?

It takes an immense toll. ... We see this transgenerational trauma, when you see the trauma handed down and experienced through the generations. It plays out in these family relationships and in the way people view the world.

I talk about a young student at university who seemed tremendously well behaved and obedient. Suddenly, he posted this very graphic account ... of attacking and killing one of his lecturers. When he’s eventually seen by a mental health professional, and his parents come in to discuss it, it suddenly emerges that his grandfather was murdered by Red Guards in front of his father, and his father over all these years has never spoken a word of this to his son. He was trying to protect his son. But he had brought up his son with this sense that strong emotions are something that have to be repressed at all costs. You could not show any anger, any frustration. 

Tell me about the person you met while writing this book who stays with you the most.

They all stay with me in one way or another. ... I think of Wang Xilin, the composer who almost died in the Cultural Revolution. He ... said, “If somebody calls my name out on the street, my blood runs cold.” That took him back to the struggle sessions [public rallies where so-called class enemies were accused and attacked] and waiting for the moment that somebody would call his name and he would be beaten. All these decades later, he retained that sense of vigilance, that sense of living with perpetual uncertainty. Yet in spite or because of his experiences, he has such an extraordinary thirst and passion for life. People have not only survived but even managed to thrive. They have gone on to live their lives, and in the case of Wang Xilin, really to embrace life. The Cultural Revolution shows how terrible human beings can be, but humans are also remarkable.

What lessons can we learn from your book about dealing with collective memories?

It wasn’t a book just about Chinese people but about all people. It’s a really important reminder to us, that we have to be honest about our pasts.

AP

Followers of Javier Milei, the presidential candidate in the Aug. 13 primary elections, wait for results in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Sharp economic downturns, such as the one unfolding in Argentina, can sometimes create openings, especially in politics when an outsider promises disruption.

That helps explain the upset victory of Javier Milei, a first-term legislator from a fringe, far-right political coalition, in a presidential primary last week in Latin America’s third-largest economy. Many voters are fed up with a political elite that reigns over 113% inflation, a collapsed peso, and mass poverty. Mr. Milei pledges to cut government spending, dismantle the central bank, and eliminate half of the federal agencies, including education and health, if elected in October.

His policies may have limited appeal, pollsters say. The reason could lie in how ordinary Argentines have responded to decades of economic mismanagement and corruption. They have formed bonds of community. “We’re all trying to float,” Marina Furlanetto, a gallery owner in Buenos Aires, told Here Magazine. “It’s not a competitive struggle.”

The cohesive strength of local communities resides in the cultivation of mental defenses against despair and cynicism – such as trust, creativity, and the shared good of self-reliance. Those qualities characterize a culture of entrepreneurship that has endured despite the downward economic trends.

In Buenos Aires, for example, a business incubator supports nearly 300 startups, anchoring Argentina as a fast-growing global hub for financial technology services. One of those companies, Ualá, reached a value in excess of $1 billion before listing publicly. Some 20% of such “unicorns” in Latin America are from Argentina.

During a 12-month period from mid-2020 to 2021, while the country defaulted on its international loans and the economy shrank, investment in startups grew more than fivefold. Overall, the value of Argentina’s entrepreneurial activity jumped by 164% from 2020 to 2022 compared with the previous two-year interval.

Changes in tax law helped support that growth. But investment bankers and business developers say the real source of resilience is individual and shared persistence. “A distinctive feature of entrepreneurs in Argentina is adapting to change,” Julián Gurfinkiel, founder of a flight comparison website, told the investment bank BBVA Spark. “The country’s rules and economic climate train entrepreneurs to act more quickly in the face of adversity.”

Lately, an emerging class of Generation Z business creators is adding its own sense of shepherding the common good by starting companies and changing consumer patterns. Their moves reflect frugality, social and environmental transparency, and a strong defense of intellectual property rights.

One such entrepreneur is Tomás Machuca. Raised in a poor neighborhood in the city of Rosario, he made a pair of shinguards for himself out of plastic bottle caps as a teenager – and then built a company. He now supplies hundreds of neighborhood and professional clubs and gives away one pair of shinguards for every one he sells.

Mr. Machuca’s ideas on business capture something larger about Argentina’s economic resilience. “We can allow ourselves to dream big no matter where we come from and how we are pointed out from the outside, regardless of social class and economic level one has,” he told the Endeavor network, an Argentinian incubator. “Don’t look for the best answers, but find the best questions.”

The secret to Argentina’s renewal resides in a disposition among its citizens to build things up rather than tear things down. A disrupter in politics may merely reflect the creative disruption by people reinventing their economy.