2018
November
29
Thursday

Monitor Daily Podcast

November 29, 2018
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Noelle Swan
Weekly Editor

When was the last time you sat alone in silence?

From smartphones to 24-hour news cycles, we are more connected than ever. But around the globe, people are seeking new ways to reconnect with themselves.

In South Korea, some overworked residents are trading in their cellphones for a chance to spend a day or two in a 54-square-foot prison cell, with nothing but with a tea set, a yoga mat, a notebook, and the promise of silence.

It may seem odd to not only consent to being locked in prison but to pay for it. But the lure of solitude isn’t unique to those in South Korea. In the United States, a cottage industry of tiny homes in the wilderness is thriving, as overstimulated Americans seek a chance to disconnect. In Japan, “forest bathers” have sought sensory vacations since the 1980s.

These seekers of solitude are in good company. Silicon Valley consultant Julia Lipton celebrated her 29th birthday with 10 days of silent meditation in a Buddhist monastery. Novelist Cheryl Strayed’s personal and physical journey through 1,100 miles of solitude along the Pacific Crest Trail formed the basis of the bestselling memoir and film “Wild.”

Extreme pursuits of silence and solitude can indeed be transformative. But so can smaller acts of reflection, whether you call it mindfulness, meditation, or prayer. All it takes is a few moments to value yourself.

Now on to our five stories for today, which include three distinct examinations of leadership – in global politics, in the US Congress, and in British Parliament.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Thomas White/Reuters

The multilateral international order the United States built gave birth to the Group of 20 industrialized countries. But the G20 summit this weekend must contend with President Trump’s bilateral preferences.

Leadership is often steeped in lengthy experience. That is certainly the case for the three lawmakers selected to lead House Democrats. But amid growing demand for generational change, they also elevated some new faces.

Henry Nicholls/Reuters
Demonstrators gathered outside a September meeting of the National Executive of Britain's Labour Party in London. The party’s definition of anti-Semitism was being discussed.

As a no-deal Brexit looks increasingly possible, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn sets sights on the prime minister's office. Britain's Jews wonder where they fit in Mr. Corbyn's idea of the British identity.

On Monday we explored an EU experiment to help deter Gambians from seeking a dangerous “back way” to Europe. In this next story, we meet Gambians searching for a legal path, hoping they can cross the world “by love or luck or sheer ambition,” Ryan Lenora Brown writes. 

Jacob Turcotte/Staff

Difference-maker

Our next story focuses on the other end of the refugee pipeline, where one political asylee from Uganda is helping to pave the way to opportunity for others.


The Monitor's View

One of the critical choices that will shape the 21st century is how the United States responds to a more assertive China. Bilateral trade between the two giants now surpasses that between any other pair of countries. More than 430,000 Chinese now study in the US. And their two militaries often face off in Asian hot spots.

Should the US, for example, respond harshly to China’s technology theft? Should it ban the country’s Confucius Institutes and China-tied student groups on US campuses if they impinge on academic freedom? Should it restrict Chinese investments in US firms if they disable America’s commercial and military advantages?

Sensible answers to such questions can be found in a new report from some two dozen China specialists in the US who had long advocated for constructive engagement with Beijing. They admit a “mood shift” in attitudes toward China among Americans.

Alarmed at the “sharp power” wielded by Communist Party leader Xi Jinping since 2012, these scholars now advocate “constructive vigilance” of China – but not necessarily by pursuing narrow self-interests or relying on fearful demonization of the Chinese.

The report, organized by the Hoover Institution and the Asia Society, insists the US and its allies stick to universal principles, in part because China often rejects them. “There is ... a growing body of evidence that the Chinese Communist Party views the American ideals of freedom of speech, press, assembly, religion, and association as direct challenges to its defense of its own form of one-party rule,” the report states.

The scholars suggest three principles as the best defense to covert or aggressive Chinese behavior: transparency, integrity, and reciprocity.

Transparency is the best protection against China’s attempted manipulation of media, think tanks, college faculty, and government officials. Maintaining the integrity of US institutions, such as schools not compromising in exchanges with Chinese counterparts, is essential.

And with Beijing denying foreign access to China in so many spheres from business to scholarship, the US must insist on a level playing field, or reciprocity. China must not force foreign firms to hand over their technological secrets, for example, and should improve its respect for protection of intellectual property. Treating each other equally will help ensure the US-China relationship is “more stable and thus durable,” the report states.

Big powers often need buffers when they pursue their particular interests. The best buffers are not always defensive weapons, trade tariffs, bans on people exchanges, or regulatory walls. The best vigilance toward China right now may be the US sticking to its ideals.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

As we head into December, today’s contributor shares how an advent calendar prompted him to gain a clearer sense of the ever-present Christ, and how that same understanding healed a friend of cancer.


A message of love

Mohamed al-Sayaghi/Reuters
Children displaced from the Red Sea port city of Al Hudaydah were served a meal at a shelter in Sanaa, Yemen, earlier this month. The US Senate on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly – and in bipartisan fashion – to advance a resolution to end American involvement in the Saudi-led war in Yemen. That move was seen as a rebuke to President Trump’s Saudi policy. Next week, United Nations-led peace talks on Yemen begin in Sweden.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris and Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us today. Come back tomorrow when we'll have new insight into a 30,000-year-old tale of human resilience and adaptation from the Tibetan Plateau.

More issues

2018
November
29
Thursday
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