Aside from a couple of key no-shows, world leaders are flocking to Delhi this weekend to participate in the G20 summit, a culmination of India’s yearlong presidency of the Group of 20 leading nations.

The theme is “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam,” or “One Earth, One Family, One Future,” chosen by India to highlight its ability to foster international cooperation. And at the head of the table is the Global South.

The current G20 troika – composed of India; its predecessor, Indonesia; and its successor, Brazil – marks the first time that all three countries are from the Global South. (The next troika will be the second time, with Indonesia rotating out and South Africa coming in.)

Historically, the concerns of the Global South have been largely neglected in international platforms, and the G20 – the premier forum for global economic cooperation – is no exception.

As a country with improving ties to the Global North, but that faces issues similar to those of the Global South, India has spent this past year marketing itself as a bridge between the two worlds. Issues such as climate change, inclusive economic growth, sustainable development, and food security have dominated the agenda throughout India’s presidency, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promoted India as a voice for the Global South. 

Experts say the 2023 summit will serve as a victory lap for India, which has made great strides in positioning itself as a global leader and helped advance concerns of non-G20 members. However, some note that the Global South’s growing prominence in the G20 and other international forums predates India’s presidency.

“There is a deeper trend that is at play, which is the enlargement of the international playing field for the Global South,” says Karoline Postel-Vinay, research director at the International Research Center of the National Foundation for Political Science in Paris (Sciences Po). “The G20 is more a reflection than a cause of that trend.”

India in the driver’s seat

Dr. Postel-Vinay, author of the 2013 book “The G20: A New Geopolitical Order,” notes that when the G20 began hosting annual heads-of-state summits in 2008, it was “de facto Western-centric and the very first meeting didn’t have much traction within Global South countries.” She credits leaders such as Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with promoting the needs of emerging economies. In 2022, Indonesia hosted the first G20 summit in the Global South.

“But the Bali Summit took place less than a year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, so the immediate challenge was to save the very principle of multilateralism,” she says via email. “India now has more maneuvering room to focus more on the Global South’s interests.”

Willy Kurniawan/AP/File

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi (left) holds the gavel with Indonesia's President Joko Widodo during the handover ceremony at the G20 summit, in Bali, Indonesia, Nov. 16, 2022. This is the first year that the entire G20 troika – composed of India, Indonesia, and Brazil – hails from the Global South.

Shortly after assuming the G20 presidency this January, India organized the two-day virtual Voice of the Global South Summit. The purpose was to provide a platform for developing countries not represented in the G20 to voice their expectations about economic growth, development agendas, and hopes for India’s presidency. India extended invites to Bangladesh, Nigeria, Egypt, Mauritius, Oman, and others. Leaders from 125 developing countries participated.

Elizabeth Sidiropoulos, chief executive of the Johannesburg-based think tank South African Institute of International Affairs, says India “put development at the center of discussions” and made “real efforts to include African voices, not just from South Africa,” which has historically been the continent’s only voice in the G20.

Indeed, one of the highlights of India’s presidency has been the country’s push for making the 55-member African Union (AU) the 21st member of the G20 – a move Ms. Sidiropoulos says would significantly increase Africa’s influence on multilateral development bank reform, climate justice, and debt sustainability.

She says India’s push for AU membership also reflects the country’s competition with China, which has invested heavily in the Global South, providing loans and infrastructure assistance throughout Africa and Latin America. But amid mounting debt-trap accusations against China and the shifting geopolitical environment following the invasion of Ukraine, India sensed an opportunity to challenge China’s dominance in the race to lead the Global South.

“In that sense, PM Modi’s request that the AU be admitted sends a strong message to Africa about India’s support for its cause,” Ms. Sidiropoulos says.

Yet Swaran Singh, a professor of diplomacy and disarmament at the Delhi-based Jawaharlal Nehru University whose areas of expertise include India and China’s security issues, argues that reducing India’s motives to China competition “would be too simplistic and myopic,” adding that the G20 summit, if nothing else, is India’s “opportunity to showcase its diverse culture, its developmental projects, and its potential to thousands of visitors,” which will inevitably lead to more trade and foreign investment.  

“Irrespective of the outcomes of their 2023 summit, the fact that concerns of Global South have become center stage in all deliberations of over 200 meetings involving stakeholders representing multiple sectors ... surely carries an India imprint,” says Dr. Singh.

Challenges remain

Yet India still faces some final tests before it declares its term a success. 

Chief among them, Dr. Postel-Vinay says, is getting the G20 members to sign a joint communiqué. India has failed to get a joint statement signed in any of the key discussion tracks during its presidential term, meaning this would be the only official statement produced by the grouping. If India is unable to create consensus on a joint statement, it would be the first such instance since 2008. But the final communiqué could turn out to be a bone of contention.

France has explicitly stated that it would not sign any G20 communiqué that does not condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Amid rising tensions over India-China border disputes, Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s decision to skip the New Delhi summit and send Premier Li Qiang instead is seen as another major hurdle for building consensus.

And even if India succeeds in producing a communiqué, the continued rise of the Global South’s profile within the G20 is not a given. 

African Union membership alone presents many logistical challenges, experts point out, and the group would need immense support to ensure its member states could fully participate in key discussions and produce an implementable mandate.

And the Global South is not a monolith – even within certain regions, which face many common problems, cooperation can be tough.

Philippe Martini Toriz, a doctoral scholar at Sciences Po, Paris who researches international development with a focus on Latin America, says that conflicting governing styles and economic views of countries like Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico can present roadblocks for consensus-building within the G20, regardless of the president or agenda. 

But it’s still worth trying, and India has spent its year in the driver’s seat doing just that. He describes India’s presidency as a breakthrough for the Global South – though not a massive one. 

“This debate about multilateral institutions being more fair to third world countries and being more equitable in the way they are governed” has been going on for years, he says. “So even though [India’s G20 agenda] could be regarded as progress ... it mirrors the current debate in other institutions.” 

Zinara Rathnayake

Medical laboratory technicians work at Colombo South Teaching Hospital, the country's second-largest public hospital, in Kalubowila, Sri Lanka.

After working at a major hospital in southern Sri Lanka through the height of the pandemic and the country’s worst-ever economic crisis, Rishdha Riza called it quits.

“It came to a point where there was no basic medicine and equipment, and as health care providers, we were expected to work around it,” says the medical officer. “Working in Sri Lanka became extremely taxing. I couldn’t do it anymore.”

Since Dr. Riza moved to the United Kingdom last August, the situation in Sri Lanka hasn’t improved.

Government officials recently sounded the alarm over Sri Lanka’s collapsing medical system, reporting that nearly 1,000 doctors – including 274 specialists – migrated overseas between May 2022 and May 2023. That’s on top of some 2,000 nurses and other health care professionals, including the country’s only pediatric radiologist. Hospitals have had to cancel surgeries or shutter their pediatric wards because of the brain drain.

Before declaring bankruptcy last year, the island nation actually punched above its weight by most health care indicators. The public health system covers half of all medical treatment, 95% of hospitalizations, and 99% of preventive care needs in Sri Lanka. But now doctors and other professionals are leaving the country en masse, as experts and policymakers scramble to find solutions. What’s clear is that if Sri Lanka can’t slow the exodus or replenish its supply of health care workers, the impact will be felt for years to come.

“When we were juniors, we were trained by senior doctors with decades of experience, and they transmitted their skills to us,” says Rajeev Menon, a medical doctor at the National Institute for Nephrology Dialysis and Transplantation. “But when more and more senior doctors and nurses are leaving, who’s going to train young graduates? How are we going to assure continuous care? You can’t make a doctor or nurse overnight.”

Zinara Rathnayake

An ambulance leaves Apeksha Hospital in Sri Lanka. The country's economic crisis led to medical supply shortages, and health care workers' wages did not keep up with inflation.

Pushed to the brink

After inflation rose to an all-time high of 73.7% last September, the Sri Lankan government introduced intense austerity measures to secure a $3 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund. The crisis hit the health care sector hard. Supply shortages made it nearly impossible to provide a consistent standard of care, and wages did not keep up with inflation. After working day and night, says Dr. Menon, “when you look at your paycheck at the end of the month, you worry how you are going to live with that money.”

But that’s not the sole factor, says Chandima Arambepola, a migration researcher at the University of Sheffield.

“Today, most health care workers feel that their ability to contribute and support their families has been curtailed,” she says. “Children’s future, their education and aspirations are primary concerns for health care workers to migrate, not just their wages.”

Leaving Sri Lanka is not an easy decision. Many workers feel a deep obligation to see their country through its compounding crisis, especially since a vast majority received their education free at public universities.

“I couldn’t bring myself to leave because there were only two of us [doctors] at the hospital,” says a medical officer from eastern Sri Lanka who didn’t want to reveal his name out of fear of backlash. “My colleague would have had twice the workload, and the hospital might not have been able to care for all the patients. But then I looked at my children. I realized my salary is no longer enough, and I can’t build a comfortable future for them.”

He left his small public hospital – and family – to find temporary work in the Middle East.

Some Sri Lankans who travel overseas for professional training and postgraduate education are simply choosing not to return home, worried about the country’s instability. Less than half of the doctors who left for foreign training last year didn’t come back. Others are recruited to work in wealthy nations that face their own dearth of health care workers. Sri Lankan anesthesia, intensive care, and emergency medicine specialists are in particularly high demand. Only seven emergency services doctors remain in Sri Lanka today, down from 30 in early 2022.

Unless Sri Lanka reverses this trend, experts say it will be hospitals in the country’s small towns and rural areas – where staffing was already a challenge – that will suffer most.

As health care staff declines, “the compromise will happen in already marginalized areas,” says Dr. Menon. “This needs to be addressed immediately because once the problem arises – and by the time the political hierarchy realizes it – it’s going to be too late.”

Zinara Rathnayake

Patients wait for treatment at a hospital radiology unit. Thousands of health care workers have left Sri Lanka for economic reasons, and hospitals have had to cancel surgeries or shutter wards.

Seeking compensation and respect 

Speaking with health ministry officials last month, Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe said that he believes Sri Lanka should be compensated for the health care talent the nation is involuntarily exporting to other countries.

He proposed a system similar to the Loss and Damage Fund established at the 2022 United Nations climate conference, demanding that countries that recruit Sri Lankan doctors to prop up their own health care system, such as the U.K., should pay for that.

“Your people are leaving. That’s not our fault,” he said. “Either change your system and keep your doctors, or otherwise compensate us.”

The president also urged health officials to train students from art and commerce disciplines as nurses, and the Ministry of Health has asked to amend recruitment qualifications.

Ms. Arambepola, the migration researcher, agrees that authorities also need to study migration rates and adjust the intake of medical graduates, but she also expects the trend to shift with time.

During the height of the crisis last year, “there was a hysteria to get out of the country because everyone felt so helpless,” says Ms. Arambepola. As Sri Lanka acclimates to its new normal, migration may naturally slow down.

“People may start to assess, and think, ‘We went through a tough period, what can I do now? Should I still go if I overcame this?’” she says. “These are not only individual decisions but family decisions as well.”

Other leaders have proposed tightening migration rules – something Dr. Menon believes will only lead doctors to resign. Instead, he says, the government should ensure that medical professionals are properly compensated, introduce incentives like transport allowances to match today’s economy, and encourage health care workers to stay in rural hospitals by providing better accommodation and facilities. 

Respect and recognition can be incentives, too. Ms. Arambepola says that Sri Lanka’s medical sector is extremely doctor-centric, at the expense of nurses, physiotherapists, and other technicians. “There are no administrators from a nursing background. Nurses have no voice. It’s doctors making decisions on what nurses should do,” she says. “You can control the migration in some way if authorities change this structure.”

Isabel Hernández Díaz is used to looking out the window of her stone house in La Florida and seeing a panoply of avocado and chestnut trees, flowering laurel, and dense pine forest.

Higher up on the hill, toward the Teide volcano, she and her husband harvested honey in stacks of 30-odd wooden bee blocks.

Now, it’s all turned to dust, after 10 days of wildfires tore through the hillsides of Tenerife, in what were the worst to ever strike the Spanish Canary Islands.

“All this nature that was destroyed ... it’s awful,” says Ms. Hernández Díaz, wiping tears off her cheeks. She flips on her phone through photos she took before she and her family were evacuated to her sister’s and mother’s homes for a week. “But luckily, we’re OK, and we’ve been able to go back home. We’re fortunate to have had family to help us out. Everyone helped one another.”

After almost two weeks of continuous burning, Tenerife lost nearly 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) of land, representing 30% of its forest area, according to government figures. But unlike recent forest fires in Hawaii, Canada, and Greece, the wildfires in Tenerife spared both citizens and homes: Not a single life was lost; not a single house was destroyed.

Some have called it a miracle. But it was, more than anything, a success story that resulted from local coordination, citizen engagement, and the application of lessons learned.

Now, as firefighters move into the process of cooling the ground cover – and as regions around the globe anticipate an increase in climate-related forest fire events – it’s a moment for reflection on what worked, what didn’t, and how to carry solutions forward.

“Forest fires are not necessarily inherently bad. Indeed, they can have ecological benefits, enabling forests’ long-term vitality,” says Julia Bognar, head of program on land use and climate at the Institute for European Environmental Policy in Brussels. “However, there is a high level of concern among environmentalists regarding the number and intensity of wildfires.

“The current EU focus is on response,” she adds, “but there will need to be an increasing focus on preparedness and prevention.”

Colette Davidson

Isabel Hernández Díaz (right) shows her sister Maria Luisa Hernández Díaz photos she took of the wildfires from her house in La Florida, Tenerife, before she and her family were evacuated. “We’re OK, and we’ve been able to go back home,” Isabel says. “We’re fortunate to have had family to help us out.”

“We learned from the volcano”

Tenerife’s forest fires were the result of “a perfect storm,” says Fernando Clavijo, president of the Canary Islands regional government. The island had seen a combination of unusually high temperatures and drought conditions, pine forest untouched by fire in decades, and disorganized land-use planning. Unlike previous fires, this fast-burning one was erratic and unpredictable.

But Tenerife and the Canary Islands more broadly are no strangers to natural disasters. In September 2021, the Cumbre Vieja volcano erupted on the neighboring island of La Palma, spewing ash and lava for nearly three months, displacing thousands, and causing over €840 million ($899 million) in damage.

It is thanks to such disasters that local authorities have been able to create effective responses in the case of emergencies. The message during the wildfires in Tenerife, from Spain’s ecology minister to President Pedro Sánchez, was clear: Save people and their belongings first, and the forest area second.

Tenerife’s emergency services kept a steady flow of information on social media and sent individual phone alerts about which towns were under evacuation orders. Police officers and firefighters went knocking door to door, to make sure every person who needed to leave their home could do so safely. Around 13,000 people were evacuated, as well as more than 2,000 animals.

“It wasn’t easy for people, especially those who live in the hillsides and dedicate their life to the land or have animals,” says José Reyes Remedios, a technician with the Red Cross Tenerife emergency unit who coordinated with authorities on evacuation efforts. “We learned from the volcano in La Palma to set up emergency shelters for animals too, from dogs and cats to horses and sheep.”

Part of the coordination strategy was deciding when to evacuate communities and when to use lockdowns instead, in order to leave the roads clear for firefighters and emergency services to access burning areas.

That measured response also carried over into how the fires were put out. Nearly two dozen planes and helicopters from Tenerife, neighboring islands, and mainland Spain helped drop water on difficult-to-reach areas, and firefighters concentrated on putting out fires in specific zones instead of spreading themselves too thin.

“Sometimes if there were small fires in one isolated area, we just let them burn so we could concentrate on bigger ones near local communities,” says Jesús Izquierdo, a firefighter who knocked on doors to evacuate locals and spent one week fighting the fires. “The whole thing could have been very chaotic, but it wasn’t. We did things calmly but systematically.”

Arturo Rodriguez/AP

Residents try to reach their houses in Benijos village as a wildfire advances in La Orotava, Aug. 19, 2023. Part of the local coordination strategy while fighting the blazes was deciding when to evacuate communities and when to use lockdowns instead, in order to leave the roads clear for firefighters and emergency services to access burning areas.

Looking ahead

Effective coordination in Tenerife is good news going forward, especially for Spain, which has registered the most wildfires of any EU country this year and represented almost 40% of the nearly 800,000 hectares that burned across the European Union in 2022, according to the European Forest Fire Information System.

That joins a wider trend of an increase in forest fires around the globe. According to recent data from the World Resources Institute, forest fires are burning almost double the amount of tree cover compared with two decades ago. Experts say climate change, and the extreme heat waves that have come with it, is one of the major drivers of that increase.

More focus needs to be put on fire prevention, some experts say, which could explain what went wrong in Maui’s recent forest fires, one of the worst disasters in Hawaii’s history.

“Forest fires are not capricious. We know when fire conditions are adequate and when it’s going to be out of our capacity to control it,” says Jose Ramón Arévalo, an ecology professor at the Universidad de La Laguna in Tenerife. “If it’s a big enough fire, even if you have 100 aircraft, it won’t work. What we need is better fire prevention during the winter months.”

Winter management, he says, must involve significantly reducing forest biomass – which releases carbon emissions and is more prone to catch fire – by clearing tree shrubs and stumps. Across the EU, says Ms. Bognar of the Institute for European Environmental Policy, there must be short-term preventative strategies in place, like reducing vegetation, thinning trees, and monitoring pests. And there must be long-term ones as well: increasing species diversity so trees are less susceptible to wildfires and diversifying tree age to hinder fire growth.

In the case of Tenerife, its economy has changed significantly since the 1970s, when it was primarily based on agriculture and trade. Today, industry represents just 7% or 8% of the gross domestic product, with tourism accounting for about 60%. That has increased population density and changed the way the land is used.

“As fewer people live in forest areas, they’re becoming abandoned and more susceptible to forest fires,” says Káhina Santana, a sociologist who studies environmental public participation. “In recent years, we’ve noticed the public wants to get involved. People are in favor of creating different zones for agriculture, another for animal grazing, and then a protected forest area. That’s a future vision for the island.”

Now, pine trees and shrub life have become prevalent on the island and have adapted to their new ecosystem – burning more easily but regrowing quickly. Authorities expect Tenerife’s pine tree population to begin sprouting again in the next six months.

As for residents, the recent fires have gotten some people thinking about how they might make changes to their current lifestyle. Already, the public has been on water use restrictions during and since the fires.

Ms. Hernández Díaz, in La Florida, says she’s grateful her home is made of stone and not wood. But her sister Maria Luisa Hernández Díaz, who lives down the hill in Santa Ursula, is now rethinking the extraneous, flammable things she puts on her outdoor terrace, like artificial grass or plastic plant holders.

“These are all the things we need to think about now. One drop of fire on those items, and your house is gone,” says Maria Luisa. “I think we need to get used to forest fires. It’s something that’s going to be happening more and more. It’s more a question of, ‘How can we adapt?’”

Ever since four friends grabbed a Great Dane and a box of Scooby Snacks, and took off in a green van, part of the fun of mysteries has been solving them together.

No one says “Jinkies!” or wears an ascot, but the Thursday Murder Club did adopt a dog named Alan. The club of retirees – “a former nurse, a former spy, a former trades union official and an occasionally still-practising psychiatrist” – has totally charmed readers over four books now. When an officer scoffs that real policing is not like Netflix, Elizabeth, the former spy, replies, “Oh, I’ve lived a life that would make Netflix blush.”

In “The Last Devil To Die,” Richard Osman’s fourth in the “Thursday Murder Club” series, it is just after Christmas. (The retired nurse, Joyce, received the gift of a flask from her daughter, engraved with the words, “Merry Christmas, Mum! Here’s to no murders next year.”) Alas, the antiques dealer who helped them with their last case has been shot, and a box with heroin worth $100,000 is missing. 

“First rule of the antiques game,” a professor tells them. “Never fall in love with things.”

“Sound advice for life,” says Ibrahim, the psychiatrist.

The officer in charge appears far more concerned about the missing heroin than about their murdered friend, and so Joyce, Elizabeth, Ron, and Ibrahim are on the case to ensure that justice will be done. The cause of justice also requires saving another resident of Cooper’s Chase retirement community from an online romance fraud, even though the gentleman in question very much does not wish to be saved. 

While crimes can be solved, some life situations are beyond easy resolution. Elizabeth and her husband, who’s been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, are traveling the path of his diminished memories side by side. I cannot think of another series with a more moving exploration of love after a lifetime together, and “The Last Devil To Die” reduced me to tears at more than one point. “Our memories are no less real than whatever moment in which we happen to be living,” one character observes.

Two other series that also keep getting stronger with every book are the Perveen Mistry series by Sujata Massey and the Sparks & Bainbridge mysteries by Allison Montclair. Both authors delve into women’s rights in two different eras: India in the 1920s and Britain after World War II.

Oxford-educated Perveen Mistry is based on India’s first female solicitor. As a woman, she cannot legally appear before a judge in court. However, she has built a career helping other women whose faith or circumstances keep them in isolation. In “The Mistress of Bhatia House,” Perveen finds herself championing two women: a nanny, who has been jailed for drinking tea someone claims is an abortifacient, and India’s first female obstetrician-gynecologist, both of whom find themselves suspected of poisoning a rich man. Perveen’s parents have been her stalwart support, but as she grows in independence, she finds herself at odds with her beloved father and sister-in-law. While the book is rich in historical detail, it also has immense resonance in a post-Dobbs United States. 

Gwen Bainbridge, meanwhile, has traveled a lonely road since her husband was killed in World War II and her upper-class in-laws had the grieving widow declared insane. She and Iris Sparks, a former spy grappling with her wartime role, have worked to build their matchmaking service. “We’re all a little bit lost,” Gwen tells someone. “We help people find each other again.” 

When “The Lady From Burma“ opens, Gwen’s case before the Court of Lunacy is a week away – the one that will allow her to regain control of her finances and custody of her cherished son. Her lawyer, meanwhile, is acting peculiarly, and the duo’s sideline in solving murders appears to harm Gwen’s sanity in the eyes of the Master of Lunacy. “Who could be afraid of me? Other than me?” Gwen thinks when a legal secretary eyes her in horror and leaves. 

“The Lady From Burma” is so tied to Gwen’s fate and events from previous books that I would not recommend starting the series here. However, that gives readers the pleasure of several books’ worth of witty banter between two stalwart women working to repair their lives after war took so much from them.

Appealing crime-solvers come in all shapes and guises. Author Ann Cleeves already created two indelible detectives with Vera Stanhope and Jimmy Perez, and two unforgettable settings in Northumberland and the Shetland Islands. To that, she adds a third, Matthew Venn and the North Devon coast. The prematurely gray and usually besuited Matthew notes that “one of his annual appraisals had said he lacked charisma. He’d seen that as a compliment, almost a badge of honor. ... He thought that policing was about intellectual rigour and honesty, not personality.” 

Jeremy Rosco, on the other hand, made a point of charming everyone – until he ended up stabbed in the bottom of a boat. “He was a hero. Well, almost,” Matthew says of the dead sailor and adventurer in “The Raging Storm.” As with “The Long Call,” the detective’s first outing, the case brings Matthew back in contact with the religious sect that cast him out, and the mother who repudiated him for being gay.

Gary Thorn in “The Clementine Complex,” by Bob Mortimer, is also aware that he is not the life of the party. “I often think it must be nice to believe that your company entrances people. Must be a great confidence builder,” the shy legal assistant tells readers. Gary, whose closest friend is Grace, a retiree who is even lonelier than he is, avoids social media. “I don’t see the point of it; I’ve got enough strangers in my life as it is.” 

He also doesn’t see the point of books – although he makes an exception for the novel left behind in a pub by a young woman with impressive bangs. The book’s title is “The Clementine Complex,” and it features a squirrel riding a bike with tangerine segments for wheels. Squirrels and ducks are occasional motifs in the comedic noir in which Gary is trapped. While the animals don’t talk, Gary does occasionally give himself sage advice – “I would think around that decision a bit deeper than you obviously have” – through a squirrel living near his apartment. Clever, if occasionally self-consciously so, “The Clementine Complex” allows Gary’s good heart to win us over.

The heist novel may be almost as difficult to plot successfully as to pull off in real life. “The Housekeepers,” by Alex Hay, gives the genre a delicious twist: In 1905, a fired housekeeper and her female confederates plan to rob the richest house in Mayfair in the middle of a costume ball. “Imagine it, ladies: the grandest house in London, licked clean on the biggest night of the season.” Among the rules: Everyone will be equals, and there will be no violence.

The women have their own reasons for seeking revenge on the estate of Wilhelm DeVries, and as the story unspools, those reasons get ever more heartbreaking. “Ladies,” Mrs. Dinah King said. “It’s time for us to get what we deserve.”

The heist itself involves royalty, camels, trapeze artists, fabulous gowns, and an organized crime boss going undercover as a charwoman. I personally find it impossible to resist a character whose battle cry is, “You, put your apron on. We’ve got housekeeping to do.”

Reuters

Morning rush hour in Hanoi, Vietnam.

For 23 years, ever since Bill Clinton became the first U.S. president to visit Hanoi, it has been a rite of passage for every American commander in chief to visit the capital of Vietnam, a former enemy. President Joe Biden takes his turn Sept. 10. His state visit will build on one of history’s best examples of how once bitter and estranged foes can work toward reconciliation.

While the visit is aimed mainly at drawing Vietnam into a close strategic alliance, Mr. Biden is expected to offer a new type of aid, this one designed to help find the remains of Vietnamese who went missing during the war. Ongoing U.S. aid is already targeted at finding Americans missing in action, removing land mines, and coping with the effects of the wartime defoliant Agent Orange.

Such work of healing the wounds of a conflict that ended 48 years ago has been so successful – although unfinished – that officials in Hanoi often speak of a desire to advise countries coming out of mass violence on how to achieve trust, forgiveness, and even friendship with previous antagonists. One bit of advice: Let the healing begin with individuals, working heart to heart.

Much of the groundwork for U.S. normalization of ties with Vietnam in 1995 – two decades after the war’s end – was led by American veterans and church groups going to the country to make amends for the effects of violence on all sides. Their expressions of penance opened a door to trust at an official level.

“It’s been driven by ordinary citizens,” says Andrew Wells-Dang, head of the Vietnam War Legacies and Reconciliation Initiative at the United States Institute of Peace. “The role of Vietnamese Americans is especially important ... because they have links to both countries.”

Reconciliation, he says, relies on “people in both countries understanding and accepting the past, developing relationships with each other, and then having a shared vision of the future.” Families who suffered during the war have “become a pillar of connection between the two countries.”

One American veteran, the late U.S. Sen. Max Cleland, said he needed to help Vietnam in order to heal the “hole in the soul” caused by the war’s effect on him. The late Sen. John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Hanoi, said he needed to let go of anger toward his captors. He led much of the reconciliation process.

U.S.-Vietnam ties have “had a remarkable trajectory over the last couple of decades,” says U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Now with Vietnam as strong destination for American investment and China seen as a rising threat in Asia, “this is ... one of the most important relationships we’ve had,” Mr. Blinken said.

The visit to Vietnam by the latest American president – Mr. Biden’s first despite his decades of foreign policy experience – will mark yet a new chapter for official bilateral ties. Yet “ordinary” Vietnamese and Americans have already learned how to reconcile – by reconciling themselves to a calling for love and forgiveness that can supplant the wounds of war.