As hundreds of Chinese evacuees boarded the Chinese destroyer Nanning at Port Sudan this week, many waved red five-star flags, and some cried with relief upon their escape from the warring factions that have plunged Sudan into chaos.

“Compatriots, no matter where you are, the great motherland will always be your strongest backup!” a naval officer told the 678 passengers, including 10 foreigners. “Please rest assured – we’ve arrived, everyone is safe!” he said through a loudspeaker, inciting cheers from the crowd.

“I was very worried that we wouldn’t be able to get out,” said one Chinese woman, choking back tears, in a state-television interview. “I am so proud to be Chinese.”

China’s rapid evacuation of 1,300 Chinese – the majority of China’s citizens in Sudan – makes good on the country’s promise to protect the growing number of Chinese residing overseas. Other governments’ decisions on whether to undertake risky and dangerous evacuation operations – and how and when they’ve chosen to do so – have varied widely, due to geography, economic interests, and historic relations.

Amid the civil strife in Sudan, countries have opted for a range of strategies, from China’s flexing of new military muscle to evacuate Chinese people, to Gulf nations routing their citizens out even as their diplomats stay put in Sudan. Some have invited early criticism for evacuating embassies while telling their citizens on the ground to “shelter in place,” while others have made no distinction between diplomatic corps and private citizens and have airlifted all their people out – and additional foreign nationals to boot.

Ultimately, crisis is a time when the way nations see themselves – and how they want others to see them – is put on full display.

Reuters

People line up to be evacuated by Chinese navy vessels at Port Sudan, April 26, 2023.

“We have a humanitarian responsibility”

Maximilian Röttger, the director of the Goethe-Institut Sudan in Khartoum, boarded one of the first flights operated by the German Armed Forces on Sunday. “On the one hand I’m relieved to be here,” he said after he arrived in Berlin. “On the other hand, I am of course very depressed and sad about how I had to leave the country and I am very worried. For everyone on-site, the situation remains very tense.”

Throughout this week, the German military operated eight flights out of Sudan to Jordan, involving about 1,000 German personnel, including soldiers, biological and chemical warfare specialists, cyber experts, and bomb-threat experts. It has also airlifted citizens of more than 30 other countries out of Sudan in a display of solidarity and cross-border cooperation.

Typically the first action when a crisis develops abroad is to advise German citizens how to depart of their own will, says a spokesperson from the Bundeswehr Joint Forces Operations Command. The next step would be to organize charter flights. “In the case of Sudan, this wasn’t possible anymore because the fighting was serious,” the spokesperson says. “So the decision was made to use military transportation under the lead of the State Department.”

The obligation to protect German nationals abroad is mandated by German consular law, and European Union legislation stipulates that EU states should help support each other’s nationals, particularly in cases where countries aren’t represented by an embassy in Sudan. “Other than that, we have a humanitarian responsibility,” says a spokesperson from the federal foreign office.

More than 700 people were evacuated in all, including 200 Germans. “Everybody involved is proud; it’s a good feeling to do the job,” says the Bundeswehr spokesperson. “We care about German citizens worldwide, and we’re ready and able to act.”

“It was important to us that, unlike in other countries, an evacuation not only applies to our embassy staff, but to all local Germans and our partners,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told the German parliament this week.

Staff Sgt. Joseph P. LeVeille/USAF/Reuters

Maj. Gen. Jami Shawley greets U.S. Ambassador to Sudan John T. Godfrey at Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, April 23, 2023, amid the U.S. military's successful operation to evacuate government personnel out of Sudan.

“Not a passive actor”

That comment has been used by British media to criticize their own government, which evacuated its embassy staff over the weekend but didn’t begin evacuating its more than 2,000 citizens until Tuesday.

Americans have also come under fire, as the country evacuated its embassy staff in a daring rescue Saturday but told citizens to stay put until it was safe on the ground to rescue them. The United States carried out its first overland evacuation Friday with 300 Americans aboard, according to reports, while many other countries had moved forward days earlier. About 16,000 Americans are registered with the embassy in Khartoum.

Citizens’ reasons for staying in-country, especially dual-nationals, are complex as a security situation deteriorates. Sudan has been at a level-four advisory for years. “The embassy on the ground was making it very clear for more than two years how dangerous and unpredictable the political situation inside the country was,” says Michael McKinley, former senior adviser to the U.S. Secretary of State and ambassador to Brazil, Afghanistan, Colombia, and Peru.

Under the “No Double Standard” law, if the United States has information that its diplomats are threatened in a country, it needs to share that information – even if pared down to protect classification – with U.S. citizens in that country. There is no legal obligation to evacuate citizens, though.

Three former American ambassadors interviewed by the Monitor rejected the premise that America was stranding its citizens in Sudan. Each said the well-being of American citizens abroad is inculcated into State Department officials at every level.

Dennis Jett, former deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Liberia when it was evacuated in 1990 and former ambassador to Mozambique and to Peru, argues that much of the domestic criticism of U.S. caution in Sudan is political. “Republicans are looking for another Benghazi,” he says. “They think they were able to pin that on Hillary Clinton. They’re looking for something to pin on [President Joe] Biden.”

At a time when war plays out live on social media, the public often misunderstands the complexities – and risks – associated with unpredictable evacuations. It is never instantaneous. For example, Mr. Jett notes that Sudan is 10 times the size of Oklahoma, which makes getting U.S. citizens out a logistical nightmare. “It’s 16,000 Americans, many of whom don’t want to leave. You’re going to go look for them?” he says.

As a situation evolves and becomes more permissive, evacuation opportunities increase, says Matthew Tueller, former ambassador to Yemen during the 2015 embassy evacuation. He’s also served as ambassador to Iraq and Kuwait. The State Department draws down around a dozen embassies each year – usually the last option, he says – whether due to conflict or natural disaster. “Sudan is not an unusual circumstance, but it’s one that poses a lot of challenges because things eroded quite quickly,” he says.

Mr. McKinley argues that the most important thing the U.S. can do right now in Sudan is negotiate a lasting cease-fire between the warring parties. He points to its work in the 72-hour negotiated cease-fire, extended late Thursday, as a crucial step to safely conducting evacuations. “The United States is not a passive actor in this at all, of course, and very proactive in responding to the violence and helping negotiate the cease-fire to allow internationals and civilians to leave,” he says.

Saudi Press Agency/Reuters

Saudi navy personnel assist civilians being evacuated from Sudan at Jeddah Sea Port, Saudi Arabia, April 26, 2023.

Brotherly mediators

Many Arab states have presented themselves as the main protagonists in the rescue of global citizens from Sudan.

As of Friday, Saudi Arabia had evacuated 119 Saudi citizens and 2,677 foreign nationals from 78 nations, including dozens of Yemeni and Syrian refugees, providing hotels and meals free of charge. According to Saudi officials, the evacuation and welcoming of foreigners is a policy borne out of its commitment to international cooperation and is a “humanitarian” approach, despite its role in funding both armed factions in Sudan prior to the eruption of conflict.

Jordan, meanwhile, is running several military flights from Port Sudan to Amman carrying its citizens and dozens of foreign nationals, including those from European, Asian, and African countries.

Jordan, like most Arab states, has pledged to keep its diplomats in Sudan until all its citizens are evacuated – even after the killing of the Egyptian assistant administrative attaché on Tuesday, who was gunned down while helping to prepare the evacuation of Egyptian nations. According to an Arab diplomatic source, it is a trade-off between the safety of civilians and peace and regional stability, which Arab states view as part of their wider national security.

“Arab states and the Arab League are the only actors that have the ability to mediate between the two sides in Sudan. Out of the interest of regional stability, the stability of an Arab brotherly nation and global security, several Arab states are keeping their staff in Sudan despite the risk,” says the source, who was not authorized to speak to the press.

The wolf warriors

Risk-taking is also based on capability. Many countries simply don’t have the military power – or have committed to maintaining it – to help rescue citizens in a sudden conflict.

The Sudan operation marks the third time in just over a decade that China has dispatched its navy for an overseas evacuation, following missions in Libya in 2011 and Yemen in 2015. As recently as the 1990s, China’s navy lacked the capability to carry out such operations. When the Chinese embassy evacuated its personnel from Somalia during the civil war in 1991, for example, it had to request help from a state-owned shipping company.

Now, China is helping other countries evacuate citizens from Sudan. So far, China has transported citizens from five other countries on its warships, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a press conference on Thursday. “China will continue to do what we can for other countries that have asked China’s help for evacuation,” she said.

“China has always placed importance on the safety and interests of Chinese citizens abroad,” says Li Wei, an Africa expert in Beijing and former researcher at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations.

This approach reflects China’s deeply rooted state paternalism, also evident in its “zero-COVID” policy, under which Beijing imposed draconian controls that it said were aimed at “putting the people and life first.”

This governing ethos depicts Chinese authorities as “father-mother officials” – or fumuguan – who are responsible for the welfare of their citizens. China’s top leader Xi Jinping was once referred to as “Xi Dada” or “Papa Xi” by the state media and some ordinary people – although today that term is censored.

It’s a theme popularized by nationalistic Chinese films such as the 2017 blockbuster hit “Wolf Warrior 2” – the second-highest-grossing movie ever in China – in which the Chinese fleet rescues Chinese citizens caught up in a civil war in an African country.

“There is a kind of security – it’s called the motherland takes you home,” Wu Xi, director of the Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said on state television this week. “You can forever trust it.”

Noah Robertson contributed reporting from Washington, and Taylor Luck contributed from Amman, Jordan.

For years, fishing in the South China Sea has been both dangerous and difficult for Filipinos due to the increasing number of Chinese vessels encroaching on the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone – but recent military drills off the country’s western coast are giving some fisherfolk hope. 

Leonildo Moralde, a commercial fisherman in Subic, Philippines, says access to the resource-rich lagoons and islets became harder under former President Rodrigo Duterte, who maintained a China-friendly posture throughout his term. 

“We are hopeful that everything will improve because President [Ferdinand] ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. is trying to balance the situation,” says Mr. Moralde. “Especially now that the government is more active in its engagement with the U.S.”

Subic, a former United States naval base, hosts the annual Balikatan (“shoulder-to-shoulder” in Tagalog​) military exercises between the U.S. military and the Armed Forces of the Philippines. This year’s Balikatan, which began on April 11, is the largest ever, involving more than 17,600 members of the two militaries. As the 18-day drills draw to a close, public opinion on U.S. military cooperation is somewhat divided. Although most Filipinos are in favor of working with the U.S. to balance China’s influence in the region, some say Uncle Sam’s presence is equally disruptive, and could even escalate conflict with China. Manuel Mamba, governor of Cagayan province on the northern coast, worries that the increasing presence of U.S. forces may “put the country in a dangerous position.” 

“We cannot harbor the enemy of our neighbor,” says Mr. Mamba, referring to China.

Mark Saludes

Leonildo Moralde explains the difficulties that Filipino fisherfolk experience in the South China Sea on April 23 in Subic, Philippines. The fisherman and his crew were driven away by three Chinese vessels in Scarborough Shoal in November 2022.

Trouble in Subic’s seas

In November last year, Mr. Moralde and his crew were driven away by three Chinese vessels in Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. “One of them was a Chinese Coast Guard ship,” Mr. Moralde claims, adding that the incident could have been “avoided if we had a military presence in the area.” 

Jun Buenaventura, a businessman in Subic, hopes that U.S. forces visiting the country “will deter the Chinese from exploiting and abusing our natural resources.”

“It will make a difference if the American forces are present in our seas,” he says. “There is a balance of power if the U.S. is here, because the Philippine Coast Guard alone cannot protect our territory.”

According to the fisherfolk group Pamalakaya, many Filipinos have lost their livelihood because of China’s growing aggressiveness in the South China Sea in the past 10 years. Yet the group says the U.S. has also disrupted the livelihood of Filipino fishers by implementing a “no-sail zone” during the military exercises. 

“Placing their fishing grounds under a no-sail zone just in time of the peak fishing season is highly unacceptable and detestable,” says Bobby Roldan, a fisherman in Masinloc and vice chairperson of Pamalakaya. The no-sail zone covers the coastal towns of San Antonio, San Narciso, San Felipe, Cabangan, and Botolan in Zambales province.

Mark Saludes

Subic, a town in the northern Philippine province of Zambales, hosts the annual Balikatan military exercises between the U.S. and the Philippines. Many local fisherfolk are hopeful that the growing U.S. military presence will temper China's aggressiveness in the region, although the joint drills also brought their own set of risks and disruptions.

Renewed alliance

Thousands of U.S. and Filipino soldiers flocked to Subic Bay to participate in live-fire exercises – including, for the first time since the exercises started in 1999, sinking an actual ship. Mr. Marcos was also present, marking the first time in 12 years that the president has sat in on the joint military drills and signaling a commitment to deepening the U.S.-Philippines alliance. 

Indeed, a few weeks before the conduct of the joint exercises, the Marcos administration granted the U.S. forces access to four additional military bases, in addition to five existing sites, under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). The U.S. defense department says the expanded defense agreement will allow the “seamless” response of the two militaries to the challenges in the region. Mr. Marcos is also set to meet U.S. President Joe Biden on May 1 at the White House to discuss economic and defense cooperation.

Rommel Ong, former vice commander of the Philippine Navy and a professor at the Ateneo School of Government, says EDCA sites are not U.S. bases like the Subic Bay naval base, which closed in 1992, but facilities for U.S. troops to immediately respond if the countries’ 72-year-old Mutual Defense Treaty is invoked.

Mr. Ong says that while military drills and defense cooperation with the U.S. help the Philippines “assess the state of its current capabilities and determine the gaps that need to be addressed,” Manila must unilaterally strengthen its armed troops and naval forces “to provide a holistic, whole-of-nation approach to archipelagic defense.”

Others point out that U.S. cooperation comes with risks. On April 14, Chinese Ambassador to Manila Huang Xilian accused the U.S. of taking advantage of the new EDCA sites “to interfere in the situation across the Taiwan Strait to serve its geopolitical goals and advance its anti-China agenda at the expense of peace and development of the Philippines.”

Mr. Mamba, the governor, believes the Philippines should scrap the expanded defense agreement. Cagayan province, which is only about 300 miles away from Taiwan and home to two new EDCA sites, “does not need to be involved in the quarrel of the superpowers,” he says. “What we need here are not foreign military troops, but foreign tourists and investors to bring economic growth in Cagayan.” 

Mark Saludes

Philippine President Ferdinand "Bong-bong" Marcos Jr. (front left) visits the main event of the Balikatan military exercises in San Antonio, Philippines on April 26. For the first time in 12 years, a president was present during the annual drills, signaling closer cooperation with the country's long-time ally.

American inclinations

Despite fears of Chinese retaliation, many in the Philippines still welcome the U.S. presence. A Pulse Asia survey released in January indicated that 84% of Filipinos believe that the Marcos government should partner with the U.S. and Japan to defend the country’s sovereignty in the South China Sea. 

Edison Palattao, a resident of Aparri in Cagayan, is one of those Filipinos. He says he’d rather see American soldiers based in the province “than Chinese vessels with Chinese crew dredging our rivers and sea.” In 2021, a Chinese vessel involved in alleged black sand mining destroyed Mr. Palattao’s fishing net. 

This bias towards Americans is partly related to the country’s decadeslong history as an American colony. Compared to other Southeast Asians, it is easier for Filipinos to relate with the Americans “because we’ve been with them for over 100 years,” says Manuel Catral, a Catholic priest and a political analyst.

“We are greatly influenced by the U.S. from the songs we sing to how Filipinos run the government and the military,” he says. “But the most important matter is not how the country balances its relations with the U.S. and China, but how its foreign policies benefit or affect the Filipino people.”

Voters heading to the polls in Paraguay Sunday could determine whether it breaks historical ties with one of its closest friends, with whom it has a lucrative relationship: Taiwan.

Paraguay’s conservative candidate Santiago Peña has pledged to maintain ties to Taiwan. The leading opposition candidate, Efraín Alegre, has signaled support for forging a new path with China that could bring economic benefits Taiwan can’t match.

Paraguay would become the final South American nation to cut diplomatic ties with the self-ruled island democracy, further solidifying China’s influence in the region as an even more profitable ally. Shifting away from Taiwan would imply a symbolic loss for the United States, which is wary of growing Chinese sway in Latin America.

Whatever route they take, Paraguayan officials will be navigating the need for multilateral economic cooperation, ideally without being restricted by geopolitical competition. 

“Paraguay, among other countries in the region, has seen a strategic opportunity to utilize the competitive dynamics among the U.S., China, and Taiwan to strike the best economic deal to advance their national interest,” says Pepe Zhang, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington.

Cold War conditions brought Paraguay and Taiwan together in 1957, when both countries were ruled by anti-communist dictatorships. Taiwan’s government has been separate from China since the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949. China refuses ties with any country that recognizes Taiwan, and in turn, Taiwan has invested heavily in its remaining allies in areas like technology, transportation, and health care.

Jorge Saenz/AP

Santiago Peña, presidential candidate of the Colorado Party (right), and his running mate, Pedro Alliana, wave during a political rally in Asunción, Paraguay, April 18, 2023. Paraguay's general elections are scheduled for April 30.

The “Taiwan cost”?

Taiwan invested an average of $4 million in development projects in Paraguay and $14.8 million in aid each year between 2005 and 2014, according to estimates by researchers Tom Long and Francisco Urdinez. The capital, Asunción, is home to an engineering university established by Taiwan, and Paraguayan students receive generous scholarships to study abroad in Taiwan.

Yet those benefits pale in comparison to what Paraguay’s neighbors have received from China in the form of direct investment and access to South America’s top export market. Most Paraguayan neighbors, apart from Brazil, participate in Beijing’s infrastructure-oriented “Belt and Road” initiative. On the whole, China invested some $130 billion in Latin America between 2005 and 2020.

These missed financial opportunities constitute the “Taiwan cost,” says Mr. Long, an associate professor of international relations at the University of Warwick. Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama, and the Dominican Republic have all shifted ties to China since 2017, with Honduras following suit in March.

The trend doesn’t mean Taiwan can’t retain its cultural influence around the world in other ways, says Leland Lazarus, the associate director of National Security at the Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy at Florida International University.

“Taiwan has a great story to tell. It’s a flourishing democracy. It’s so important to the global economy,” says Mr. Lazarus. “They can really do a better job at telling it.”

The current president of Paraguay, Mario Abdo Benítez, told the Financial Times last fall that his country would need $1 billion from Taiwan to make a continued alliance worthwhile. Paraguay’s foreign ministry immediately rolled back the idea that there is a price tag on the nation’s loyalty. 

The dilemma has attracted more attention abroad than within Paraguay, where voters in the upcoming elections are primarily concerned about bread-and-butter issues of poverty, the spread of organized crime, and recent corruption scandals within the Colorado Party, says Diego Abente Brun, program director for Latin American and Hemispheric Studies at George Washington University. But certain sectors, and especially beef and soy exporters, are frustrated.

Jorge Saenz/AP

Efraín Alegre, presidential candidate for the Concertación coalition, and running mate Soledad Núñez, attend a press conference in Asunción, Paraguay, April 25, 2023.

“We’re a food-producing nation that is not selling to the world’s biggest buyer of food,” Pedro Galli, president of the Rural Association of Paraguay, told Reuters. Because of Paraguay’s relationship with Taiwan, the South American nation can only do business with China indirectly through third-party countries. “We’re watching the party from the balcony.”  

When considering the cost-benefit analysis of an alliance with China versus Taiwan, “the decision is pretty clear,” says Mr. Zhang from the Atlantic Council. “China will provide greater benefits.” 

For other Paraguayans, the long-standing relationship with Taiwan transcends a narrow economic viewpoint. Ara Gonzalez, who is beginning a career in international relations, says the allegiance is a question of “democracies supporting democracies.” 

“Paraguay will be better off [on] the side of Taiwan,” says Ms. Gonzalez, who is in her late 20s and studied in the U.S. before returning home to Capiatá, a city outside Asunción. She says she appreciates Taiwan’s educational grants, donations to Paraguayan nonprofits and foundations, and economic support for developing nations more broadly, adding that Paraguay doesn’t need China to thrive. 

U.S. perspective

If Paraguay decides to open its arms to China for commercial reasons, that doesn’t mean the historically conservative country will position itself against the U.S., says Fernando Masi, director of CADEP, an economic research center in Asunción. 

Tensions between the U.S. and China have heated in recent months at the same time as China ramps up military activity near Taiwan.

Cesar Olmedo/Reuters

The national flags of Paraguay and Taiwan are pictured outside the building housing Taiwan's embassy, in Asunción, Paraguay, April 19, 2023.

“As much as there have been moments of authoritarianism in Latin America, the values of democracy and human rights make the U.S. a stronger ally,” Mr. Masi says.

However they feel about Taiwan, the U.S., or China, most Paraguayans are not interested in having to choose sides, a sentiment that has been growing around the world.

This month French President Emmanuel Macron spoke of the need for European “strategic autonomy” to avoid overdependence on the U.S., while Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called for a common currency among BRICS countries, a block of emerging economies, that could compete with the dollar – both during diplomatic visits to China. 

“From the perspective of a lot of Latin American and Caribbean countries, economic security is national security,” something the U.S. doesn’t always seem to get, says Mr. Lazarus. “Politicians need to balance lofty democratic ideals with the very real needs of their people.” 

“There is no need and not much benefit to thinking of U.S.-China relations as a return to the Cold War,” says Mr. Long.

What all countries want, he adds, is “to be able to pursue their interests with multiple partners.” 

In early spring, gardeners stand with their hands on their hips and survey their domains, their eyes loosely focused, and imagine that this is the year everything will be perfect. 

Loopy cheer is one of the more charming things about people who garden. They are optimistic beyond all reason; they are willing to indulge in the fantasy that this time, despite decades of evidence to the contrary, everything will flourish and bloom, nary a leaf will be out of place, and weeds will excuse themselves out of sheer embarrassment.

What constitutes perfection, of course, depends on whom you ask. One of my neighbors strives for his version by keeping his yard spanking clean. It is a sterile parkland subdued by chemicals and disciplined by an army of power tools. 

Mine, on the other hand, particularly as it heads into winter, is a rumpled tableau of botanical chaos, all brown sticks and seedpods and buried treasure. A large contingent of birds think it’s just perfect. They won’t even deign to enter my neighbor’s airspace. He doesn’t know what he’s missing. He really doesn’t.

Over here, mere feet away, every dead leaf is in its place: wherever it landed last fall. For a scufflement of juncos and sparrows, my garden is their personal buffet table. There’s a rumbling intelligence below the soil, and it’s clear to me, midwinter, that perfection is a dance that insects and birds and fungi perform together. It’s just a matter of training your eyes to see it.

And yet: By spring, when a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love, something similar comes over me; and there I stand, hands on hips, entertaining my own gauzy dream of impeccable flowerbeds dressed in ­cocoa-brown soil. I will cart my homemade compost around until I run out of it, and then, besotted, I will pay for reinforcements to be dumped in a steaming heap at the curb. Then comes the assault. It’s a clear-and-hold campaign: Sections are finally stripped of dead foliage, unauthorized sprouts are evicted, and mulch is put down and admired. By the time the last bed has been weeded and dressed, the first bed is starting to look like a Chia Pet, and it starts all over again.

For me, the weed-free version of garden perfection lasts for a month or so, then retreats to a sensible compromise reflecting my shaky commitment to the enterprise. By May, my birds have scouted out enough hidden nest sites that I’m leery of disturbing anything. I’ve learned to leave well enough alone. And to know that it is well enough.

There is one area that has looked perfect, by my neighbor’s standards, all winter. This is where, last fall, I smothered a weedy patch with cardboard topped with a massive layer of compost, and I plan to reseed it with a mixture called an “ecolawn.” I can see it already: grass, clover, tiny daisies, yarrow, sweet alyssum, and, ultimately, baby bunnies in flowered frocks and sun hats. 

But for the moment it is still urban-perfect, a 6-inch blanket of dark, weed-free soil. The birds are unimpressed. Scrub jays have diligently drilled the area with my proffered peanuts for months, but that’s the extent of it. Jays are said to cache a kabillion nuts, give or take, every winter, and unerringly remember the location of each one. Sure they do! 

I would find it daunting to follow a jay around every minute for six months, jotting down nut coordinates and retrieval rates, but maybe someone did. Ornithology is not for the faint of heart. 

Why do so many of us strive for order in our gardens? Do our hearts feel too cluttered, our selves too far from perfect? And yet our gardens teach us every year that there’s only so much we can control. Maybe we are not our own best judges. Maybe our birds think we’re perfect – as long as we leave well enough alone. 

I’m willing to consider it. So I’m going to fling seeds into my new bed and stand back and watch it turn into a little prairie.

Or possibly a peanut farm. Either way, it’s all good.

Reuters

People line up to enter the Lama Temple, in Beijing, China, April 22.

Since the end of COVID-19 restrictions last year, visits by China’s younger citizens to their country’s temples – Buddhist or Taoist – have shot up, according to online travel platforms. As the Sixth Tone news site put it, “Now, many young Chinese have found a new way to unwind from the daily grind: religious sites.”

One commentator, Song Yuqian, says the rush to worship “can satisfy young people’s desire for certainty and give people the possibility to heal ‘spiritual internal friction.’” The article quotes one temple visitor, Yang Jiang, as saying: “We have longed for the waves of fate so much, only to find in the end that the most beautiful scenery in life is calmness – calmness of the heart.”

Dozens of Buddhist temples have seen another kind of surge: elderly people choosing to live out their final years under the care of monks, nuns, and fellow residents – a phenomenon allowed by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) only over the past decade. Temple leaders encourage the elderly residents to take care of others as well as themselves. Such practices ensure “seniors feel like they are neither fragile nor a burden,” writes Qi Tengfei, a professor of sociology at Shenzhen University, in Sixth Tone.

“During one of my research visits to Bohai Shuangyuan Nursing Home,” he states, “I heard a message broadcast over the loudspeaker calling seniors to attend to a resident who was in hospice. The response shocked me: The seniors appeared in high spirits as if they were going on holiday rather than a deathbed. The ward quickly filled with chanters – an unthinkable occurrence at other nursing homes.”

These stories of spontaneous and grassroots revival in religion run counter to the ruling party’s attempts to define the ideals of the Chinese people. Under party leader Xi Jinping, all religions must be guided by the government, have “Chinese characteristics,” and adhere to socialism and Marxist materialism. For the religions of ethnic minorities – Tibet’s Buddhists and Xinjiang’s Muslim Uyghurs – the crackdown on traditional practices has been particularly harsh.

In March, Mr. Xi began a global promotion of the notion that China has a unique civilization with values distinct from other parts of the world, especially the West. “Countries need to keep an open mind in appreciating the perceptions of values by different civilizations,” he said, “and refrain from imposing their own values or models on others and from stoking ideological confrontation.”

Yet Mr. Xi claims his ideas define the values that the Chinese people should follow. The state-run Global Times even launched a series of articles in April describing “Xivilization,” a play on his family name (pronounced “shee”) and the word civilization.

James Palmer, a deputy editor at Foreign Policy, says China’s traditional religions have genuine global appeal. “But any promotion of traditional Chinese culture under the CCP is stripped of the beliefs once at its core.”

The new wave of templegoers in China is offering an alternate vision to the official version of national ideals – one of inward reflection and outward compassion freely chosen. Such values and practices, found in many faiths, cut across all civilizations. As the commentator Song Yuqian notes, “Paying a visit to a temple opens a new window for people to ... heal from mental exhaustion.”