Category Archives: Resource Based Economy

In this long essay, I look at how India re-connected with Southeast Asia and its regional institutional mechanisms in the post-Cold War context. This 30-year process had its own challenges and is continuing to evolve by adding newer dimensions and layers of engagement.

Year 2022 marks 30 years since India first became a sectoral dialogue partner of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), and it is observed by both sides as the ASEAN-India Friendship Year. Southeast Asia is located in New Delhis extended neighbourhood and lies at the centre of the Indo-Pacific, both geographically and strategically. Today, India and the ten ASEAN member-states together hold about two billion people, which is roughly 30 per cent of the worlds population. During the Cold War years, most of countries in the region were formally or informally part of the Western-led system of alliances, which acted as a constraining factor for non-aligned India to cultivate robust ties with the region, particularly at the multilateral level.

The disintegration of the Soviet Union, a key strategic partner of India hitherto, in 1991 left a huge void in its diplomatic and geostrategic space. This was one of the key driving factors that led New Delhi to formulate its Look East policy in the same year, which was rechristened and reinvigorated as Act East policy in 2014. India was made a full dialogue partner of the ten-nation grouping in 1996, and six years later, in 2002, regular annual leaders summits were initiated, of which the latest in the series was held last year. In the early years since the opening of dialogue relations, the focus was placed on the economic dimension of ties, which diversified into commercial, security and strategic dimensions, in the course of time.

A decade ago, in 2012, India-ASEAN relations were upgraded to the level of strategic partnership. The two sides operationalised a free trade agreement in goods in 2010 and another agreement on services and investment four years later. In 2015, India set up a separate Mission to the bloc and its related forums like the East Asia Summit (EAS) in Jakarta, where the ASEAN is headquartered, to strengthen its engagement with the grouping and the regional processes centred on it. Later in 2018, in a truly historic diplomatic rendezvous, the leaders of all the ten ASEAN countries were welcomed as chief guests for Indias Republic Day celebrations in New Delhi.

Soft power edge

A changing world order, combined with the economic liberalisation of the early 1990s, necessitated New Delhi to look for new friends and new sources of economic capital and investment elsewhere to fill the void left by Moscow. Southeast Asia seemed to be a promising and easy-go destination. However, Indias engagement with the region is not something new, and in fact, it goes centuries back, the background of which is important to get a broad perspective on India-ASEAN ties. India has an immense amount of soft power in the region via its centuries-old Buddhist and Hindu civilizational linkages, which also happen to converge which the Sinic civilizational heritage as well.

Indian epics of Ramayana, the Mahabharata and Buddhist literature such as the Jataka Tales are still popular in many Southeast Asian countries and several tourists arrive in India from the region for religious, business, and leisure reasons. Before 1991, India had three waves of engagement with Southeast Asia since the first century C.E., transitioning through ancient, medieval, colonial, and post-colonial stages. The first wave had cultural, commercial and imperial dimensions when Buddhism reached the region via land from India and a further outreach occurred due to the expansionary policies of Tamil thalassocratic powers like the Chola Empire that extended its influence in maritime Southeast Asia, lasting until the 13th century C.E.

After a brief period of disruption in the late medieval era following the Islamic invasions into the Indian subcontinent, the second period began during the British Raj era, which saw colonial expansion and a new dimension of commercial and imperial ties. The third wave began after Indias independence from the British in 1947, which continued till 1991. As Western powers retreated from Asia following the Second World War, India tried to assert its regional role by building solidarity with the post-colonial states of eastern Asia. This period saw key initiatives under Indian leadership such as the convening of the Asian Relations Conference of 1947 in New Delhi and the Bandung Conference of 1955 in Indonesia.

However, due to the prevailing Cold War geopolitical imperatives, Indias active role in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), and its limitations as an economic and military power constrained New Delhis options to proactively engage with Southeast Asia. The Look East policy of 1991, in fact, constituted a fresh fourth wave of Indias engagement with the region, or re-engagement. Today, the Indian diaspora in Southeast Asia constitutes about 20% of the countrys total diaspora population around the world, numbering 18 million. This fact also plays a significant role in strengthening India-ASEAN relations.

Bridge to Asian regionalism

Since the late 1960s, Southeast Asia has been known for cultivating active mechanisms of regional integration that was brought about by the founding of the ASEAN in 1967 by five countries, namely, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Later, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia too joined the bloc, in order, bringing the total membership to 10 countries. India shares a land and maritime border with Myanmar and an exclusive maritime border with Indonesia via the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Cosying up with ASEAN in the post-Cold War context meant heralding in a new era of engagement with Asias regional institutions, mechanisms and processes.

The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) is a ministerial-level diplomatic platform set up in 1993 soon after the Cold War ended, including all countries that had been engaging with the ASEAN. It is the largest and the oldest of all ASEAN-centred institutions and has 27 members, which includes the ten ASEAN member-states, its ten Dialogue Partners, and seven other countries. India became a member of the ARF in 1996. The forum held its 28th annual meeting last year, wherein India co-chaired a workshop on implementing the UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, 1982). The founding objectives of this forum include the fostering of constructive dialogue and consultation on political and security issues of common interest and concern and to make significant contributions to efforts towards confidence-building and preventive diplomacy in the Asia-Pacific region.

Similarly, the ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting Plus (ADMM-Plus) is yet another platform under the ASEAN framework involving its eight Dialogue Partners, namely, Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Russia and the United States (collectively referred to as the Plus Countries), towards the goals of strengthening security and defence cooperation and ensuring peace and stability in the region. The inaugural ADMM-Plus was convened in Hanoi in 2010. The ADMM-Plus has been meeting annually since 2017 to allow enhanced dialogue and co-operation within the grouping and with the Plus Countries to collectively deal with common security challenges facing the region.

India is one of the founding members of the East Asia Summit (EAS), another ASEAN-centred diplomatic forum formed in 2005. It emerged out of the ASEAN-plus-Six mechanism, including the ten ASEAN member states, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand. Later, Russia and the United States too joined the EAS in 2011, bringing the total membership to 18 countries. The EAS is one of the most crucial components of the ASEAN-led regional framework, primarily because of the contribution it makes in building an environment of strategic trust in the region. Today, the EAS countries represent more than half of the worlds population and accounts for 58% of the global GDP.

India is committed to strengthening the EAS and continues to contribute positively to the forums goals. At the 14th East Asia Summit in Bangkok in 2019, Indias Prime Minister Modi announced a new initiative for regional cooperation, known as the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI), aimed at building new partnerships to create a secure and stable maritime domain in the region. It rests upon seven key pillars, namely, maritime security, maritime ecology, maritime resources, capacity building and resource sharing, disaster risk reduction and management, science, technology and academic cooperation, and trade connectivity and maritime transport.

Since India was not one of the Pacific Rim countries, it couldnt be part of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), formed in 1989, or any other trans-Pacific groupings formed later. Other sub-regional groupings which India engages with selected Southeast Asian countries include the 1997-founded Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) and the 2000-founded Mekong-Ganga Cooperation (MGC) groupings.

Trade and connectivity woes

Beyond diplomacy, diaspora and cultural ties, there is the aspect of trade. India had signed a free trade agreement (FTA) in goods with the ASEAN in 2009, known as the ASEAN-India Free Trade Agreement (AIFTA). It was operationalised the very next year. Later, another agreement on services and investment was signed in 2014 which became effective in the following year. It is now known as the India-ASEAN Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement. However, ever since India entered into these two FTAs, its trade deficit had risen as imports from the region sharply rose in comparison to its exports to the region.

The value of trade between India and the ASEAN region amounts to over $78 billion (in 2021). Amid exports that moved in a narrow scale, Indias trade deficit with the ASEAN has widened from $5 billion in 2010-11 to $23.8 billion in 2019-20, while Indias imports from the region have nearly doubled between 2011-12 and 2018-19. So, Indias terms of trade with the ASEAN have worsened in the last one decade. Due to this scenario, India has been calling for a review and renegotiation of the AIFTA and has been seeking more market access for its domestic products.

There is an impending non-reciprocity in FTA concessions, non-tariff barriers, import restrictions, quotas and export taxes from ASEAN countries. India badly needs to reconfigure its trade equation with the ASEAN in the direction of maintaining a sustainable balance of trade. It is these same realities, combined with the fear of cheap products from abroad dominating Indian markets at the cost of domestic producers and traders that prevented India from joining the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a couple of years ago.

Connecting Indias north-eastern states with ASEAN has always been a key imperative for Indias policy choices. Although India-ASEAN relations has improved steadily since 2014, with the operationalisation of the Act East policy, the implementation of several flagship infrastructure and connectivity projects such as the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Facility, connecting Indias West Bengal and the north-eastern states with Myanmar, and the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway is moving at a snails pace, due to persisting bureaucratic hurdles. Hence, the ties boosted after 2014 did not fetch substantial gains, as expected, in improving inter-regional trade or connectivity via land and sea.

Chinas maritime presence in the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean regions, Indias backyard, such as in Myanmars Kyaupkyu, Bangladeshs Chittagong, and Sri Lankas Hambantota has compelled New Delhi to seek deeper and stronger relations with like-minded countries in Southeast Asia and recently the Quad countries (U.S., Japan, India, and Australia) for maintaining a favourable regional balance of power.

Finding own space amid regional rivalries

Last decade witnessed Southeast Asia turning out to be a major arena of U.S.-China geopolitical rivalry. Both China and the U.S. are trying to lure ASEAN countries to their respective sides by extending their influence, the former with its grand economic prospects and the U.S. through its reassurances on the regions security. The initiation of new economic partnerships and the promise of new investments in infrastructure development such as the Build Back Better World initiative, the Blue Dot Network, the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity and the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness, the last two being unveiled in the recently-held Quad summit.

The ASEAN, however, is committed to avoid being caught up in between great power competitions and is too averse in taking sides. They just want to maintain the region as a zone of peace. It is in the direction of achievement of this policy, ASEAN member-states signed the Bangkok Treaty in 1995 and declared Southeast Asia as a Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone (NWFZ), thereby committing themselves to keep the region free of nuclear and all other weapons of mass destruction. It is also known as the Treaty of Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone. Today, Southeast Asia continues to be one of the five NWFZs in the world, even though the region lies in close proximity to nuclear-weapon states to its borders.

Even though India is one of the top-five regional powers in Asia, the United States and China continues to occupy significant space in the regions power equations. It is said that hard power and economics always triumphs over soft power. This is exactly the case for India in its attempts to extend its influence in the ASEAN vis--vis the capabilities of the aforementioned two great powers. While India observes 30 years of establishing dialogue relations with the ASEAN this year, China commemorated it last year, in 2021. Southeast Asia lies in Chinas immediate neighbourhood and it has a looming maritime dispute in the South China Sea with at least five ASEAN member-states. But despite this fact, China continues to be ASEANs largest trading partner since 2009, while India stands the fifth.

The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road is an ambitious Chinese mega-project that is part of the larger Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), in which Southeast Asia is a key link to connect China to the world. It was announced by President Xi Jinping during his maiden visit to Indonesia in 2013 and most of the ASEAN countries are part of this China-led project, despite the maritime dispute. Moreover, several Southeast Asian countries have been taking part in the 2002-initiated Boao Forum for Asia (BFA), held annually in the permanent venue of Boao town in Chinas southern Hainan province, which hosts high-level dialogues of leaders from the government, business and academia from around the world, and is dubbed as the Asian Davos.

In the recent years, ASEAN data show that its member-states have become more and more dependent on China for trade. All member states, except Singapore, have trade deficits with China today. But ASEAN countries are well aware that depending too much on Beijing would mean that they can be susceptible to Chinese bullying in the regions disputed waters. This is where the role of the United States has to be taken into account. Washington has maintained its military presence in the region for decades now. Right from the World War years, the U.S. has maintained its naval forces in Southeast Asia as an extension of its overwhelming presence in the Pacific, but Chinas military is fast-modernising too, to catch up with the U.S. power, not only regionally, but globally as well.

This U.S.-China great power rivalry is most visible in the South China Sea, that lies in between Southeast Asia and Chinas southern coastline, where Washington frequently conducts freedom of navigation operations (FONOPS) to challenge Chinas unlawful claims that pose a serious threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of ASEAN nations. India too has wider stakes in the South China Sea, as nearly 55% of Indias trade with the Indo-Pacific region passes through these waters. New Delhis interest is primarily to keep the regions trade routes safe and secure, thereby upholding regional stability, freedom of the seas, and a rules-based maritime order.

Amid this ongoing scramble for influence in the region, the Indian Navy hosted Exercise Milan, a multilateral naval exercise off the coast of the south Indian port city of Vishakhapatnam, held earlier this year, with more than 40 navies from around the world participating, including the U.S. Navy. Of these, Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia have been participating since the inaugural edition of the exercise in 1995. The Indian Navy is a crucial player in the region and frequently engages in bilateral naval exercises and passage exercises (Passex) with the naval forces from South China Sea littoral states, including Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Lately, ASEAN-member Philippines has entered into a key defence pact with India, signing a $375 million deal to buy India-made BrahMos missiles, chiefly to secure its coastal defence against rising Chinese belligerence. This deal has a consequential bearing on India-China ties, India-ASEAN ties, and Philippines-China ties as well. Indias External Affairs Minister Dr S. Jaishankar paid a visit to the Philippines, in February this year, two weeks after the BrahMos deal was agreed upon. Interestingly, even though Indian and American interests converge in Southeast Asia and the broader Indo-Pacific, the BrahMos is an Indo-Russian joint venture. This has set a precedent for other threatened countries like Vietnam to follow.

At the same time, as Chinas presence continues to grow in Indias backyard, New Delhi is compelled to give reciprocal signals by augmenting its own naval presence in Chinas backyard, as Indian naval vessels regularly call on Southeast Asian ports underlining its operational reach, readiness, and solidarity with friendly states in the region. While Indias Act East policy seemingly struggles in swift and timely implementation of specific projects, there is a convergence of interests with Southeast Asian countries with regard to being subjected to Chinese power projection in the recent years.

ASEAN, as a whole, is a formidable economic force in the world today and has a promising future ahead. People-to-people ties and cultural links with Southeast Asia will always be in Indias favour. But, the real challenge for New Delhi is adapting to an ever-changing and uncertain geopolitical environment and regional power dynamics, how competitive its economy can be, how far it can play the role of a constructive player in the regions security, and how proactively it can deliver on its policy promises, particularly with regard to trade, infrastructure, and connectivity. If these dont go smoothly, I suspect whether soft power edge alone can ensure a favourable strategic space for India in the region, which is faced with increased competition and scramble for influence, particularly when economic dynamism is already a criterion of competition between India and the ASEAN, rather than of co-operation.

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National politics have arrived in the 103rd District

Yesterday, 19 children and two teachers were murdered in their school in Uvalde, Texas. On the same day, in the neighboring Congressional District, representative Henry Cuellar won a Democratic primary to retain his seat by less than 200 votes. Henry Cuellar is the only Democrat in Congress with an A rating from the NRA. Henry Cuellar.

Despite holding back efforts to protect kids from gun violence, national party leaders like Nancy Pelosi and James Clyburn campaigned for Cuellar, recorded robocalls for him and directed aligned super-PACs to spend nearly a million dollars on the race in the last three weeks of the campaign. They did all of this to fight off a challenge from a 29-year-old progressive woman who excited young voters and represents the values of the party. The Democrats hold both houses nationally, but will do nothing on gun violence because of officials like Cuellar.

This same playbook is happening here in the New York State 103rd Assembly District. Climate change represents an existential threat to the lives of our children. Representative Kevin Cahill has represented our area for 20 years, has seen the effects of climate change on our area and yet still cant bring himself to sign onto public infrastructure for renewable energy. He still takes money from privately owned energy companies.

Despite these facts, State Democratic leaders who control all of New York State government will rally to defend Cahill from a challenge by Sarahana Shrestha, another young, progressive woman. They will pour late money into this race and flood us with messages against a candidate with a proven track record of environmental activism and organizing young voters. And when nothing happens to protect our childrens future, you will know why.

Dont let this happen. The answer is not to Vote blue no matter who; it is to vote for a better shade of blue. Vote Sarahana.

Timothy WelshNew Paltz

Landscape of our demise

Non-thought and everyone freaked out. Look out, theres a monster coming.

Something I was thinking about, please share. Forget about the zombie apocalypse that will never come. Ill give you something to cry about! No one ever said why, and then for some reason you just knew say what you will, Worry about the idiot apocalypse that is already upon us!

Stupidity is one of lifes big mysteries. The convergence of many seemingly unrelated elements has produced an explosion of brainlessness and textbook cases of idiots en masse.

So, true: saw them and its scary and unsettling. Instead of brains, they crave Faux Views and reality television. This cancerous far-right monster is an anti-science, anti-academia and anti-truth creeping blob. You can easily tag em as it talks, repeating lines like You laughin at me? and Im burning MAGA mad!

If we are overrun with stupidity, doesnt that portend dire implications for the assumptions surrounding democracy? This is a much bigger fight. They, the marching morons, are moving to the ultra-right at light speed. What theyre showing us is that fascism fuels them, which makes for a really dangerous time. Our democracy is on the line.

If youre depressed about the state of the world, take comfort in the fact that, yes, many are tagged and we must always be on the lookout. We recognize them for what they are. Theyre vulnerable if you fight back with proactivism, fidelity and truth. Can I get an Amen?

Neil JarmelWest Hurley

Hydrogen is the future

Presently, only hydrogen can replace fossil fuels as a total energy source; solar, wind is intermittent and dependent on batteries for storage. Even if battery technology improves significantly, the number of batteries needed to store the electricity required for our energy needs is undoable because of space considerations and limited by our finite resource base used for battery production.

Using electricity derived from solar and wind farms scaled for mass production to produce hydrogen from water, a process called electrolysis, we could produce enough hydrogen to power our homes, transportation and industries. The infrastructure necessary to do this is already in place. Existing gas stations could be modified to dispense hydrogen to fuel our vehicles. Hydrogen fuel vehicles already exist: Toyota sells them on the West Coast and there are now a chain of hydrogen fueling stations operating from California to Washington State that could serve as a model for the transition.

Hydrogen fuel cells can also be used to generate electricity and heating for homes, replacing boilers and furnaces, and hydrogen can be delivered and stored the same as we now store propane and oil in our homes. Power companies could convert to hydrogen fuel cell technology to produce electricity and to deliver hydrogen fuel to their customer base using their already-existing electrical grid and gas pipelines.

Finally, by transitioning from fossil fuels to green hydrogen, we will be moving from a climate-changing combustion-based to a renewable electric-based economy.

Robert J. RiveraWest Hurley

The myth of plastic recycling

It has been painfully clear for years now that plastic recycling in the US is a myth. The latest reports from Last Beach Cleanup and Beyond Plastics show that the plastic recycling rate of post-consumer plastic waste for 2021 was between five and six percent. This rate of recycling, which has never reached ten percent, has been sliding downwards for years, just as the generation of plastic waste (per capita) has risen by a staggering 263 percent since 1980.

I am deeply concerned that the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries continue to endanger and mislead the public about the efficacy of plastic recycling and the risks of continued plastic production and use. Ninety-four percent of US plastic waste ends up in landfills, incinerators, our landscapes and our oceans: 94 percent, while the majority of plastic that is actually recycled is typically (re)used only once before joining the rest.

If the plastics industry was a country, it would be the fifth-highest emitter of greenhouse gases on earth. Despite this, despite microplastics in our food, in our water, in our bloodstream, despite PFAS in our food packaging, despite the harm of industrial sacrifice zones like Cancer Alley, the plastics industry is charging forward with plans for expansion and growth.

The latest EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility) and Bottle Bills introduced in the New York State Legislature potentially represent an overdue first step in the fight against the rising tide of plastic pollution. It is past time that citizens and legislators hold the plastics industry accountable for criminally endangering human health and natural environments across the globe.

Visit BeyondPlastics.org to learn more about the crisis of plastic pollution.

Oliver FerlandNew Paltz

Disappointed in Cahills comments on abortion

Im disappointed that Kevin Cahill said celebrations of the passage of our abortion rights law were offensive during an interview with the Daily Freeman last year.

The Reproductive Health Act codified Roe v. Wade in New York. Kevin Cahills comments were: There was cheering, and I found that offensive no one was cheering from my corner.

We lit up the Empire State Building in pink to mark the legislations passage. Kevin Cahill equated that with Donald Trumps lie that the passage of [this] legislation that would allow a baby to be ripped from the mothers womb moments before birth. Cahills words were, [Trumps comments were] really inappropriate as inappropriate as lighting up the buildings in pink.

Roe v. Wade might be overturned by the Supreme Court. Now more than ever, we need elected representatives who will be loud and proud in their support for reproductive rights, not criticize us for being happy about that freedom.

Kirstie KimballKingston

Correction to article on absentee landlords

I am writing to submit a correction to an article composed by Terence Ward on 5/25/22. In the article (entitled Absentee landlords accused), he incorrectly refers to a property address/landlord used as an example during a New Paltz Town Board meeting.

The picture that I included in my letter, as well as those displayed during the Town Board meeting, were of 6 Howard Street. They were not 11 Cicero Avenue.

Matt PilekNew Paltz

Shootings merit strong action from school boards

Given the spate of armed attacks on schools, the Onteora School District should hire a full-time school safety officer and an additional mental health professional ASAP. Each new hire can be trained to deescalate conflicts. This proactive step would not eliminate the chances of an attack, but perhaps it would reduce the chances of a tragedy.

David WallisBearsville

From infant formula to wet nurses

In the frenzy to import infant formula from around the world, are we totally forgetting the common sense that nourished me in a New Haven hospital ward dedicated to natural childbirth in 1948, when my mother could not produce enough breastmilk to feed me and her roomie had extra?

How about reestablishing the time-honored system of wet nurses? Quickly, before infants suffer and get malnourished due to the lack of infant formula. Wet nurses could supply pumped milk or actually feed the client baby.

Would there need to be an emergency use authorization like there is for the anti-COVID remedy Paxloovid, or perhaps just a lab analysis of the proposed wet nurses milk? Im guessing that an organization such as La Leche League would be best at establishing guidelines, so that families seeking a wet nurse would have help in establishing criteria to interview a potential provider. This could be a pop-up business that truly benefits all parties, and yet another way to escape foreign control of an essential, undervalued American asset.

Beverly HarrisLake Hill

Memorial Day 2022

On Memorial Day, the best we say in America, Today, we remember those who died in war and those families that lost loved ones. But unfortunately, memorializing war allows us to overlook the generations of moral injury war inoculated into our culture, causing the side effects of suicide, addiction, domestic violence and homelessness.

A few simple observations: Generals are not killed in war. No politicians die in war. Government leadership declares war and soldiers and civilians are killed on our battlefields. Today, wars moral injury steers veterans lives towards self-destruction after returning home. On Memorial Day, the publics job is to take moral responsibility by owning the truth about why their childrens lives were taken. If we choose to continue healing from war, we must also honor the enemys lives weve taken.

On Memorial Day, we make up convoluted and complex answers to why soldiers lives were lost. We repeat the same ideological language, These dead were protecting our freedom, which was used to motivate the now-dead soldiers to join the military and die in unjust wars.

Our soldiers have come home shamed by the American public for fighting in bad wars, starting with Korea, including Vietnam, Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan. However, the side effects on veterans when the country morally stopped supporting what they were doing after firing the first few shots have taken more soldiers lives than in the wars they fought in.

War strategies have not been updated since we dropped the first atomic bomb because we need ground troops to enlist, and if they didnt think their homes and families were actually at risk, they wouldnt join.

The Ukraine war is an example of Putin being stuck in the same antiquated war tactics we are. Putin sends massive numbers of men to their deaths. The moral backlash this act will bring into the Russian culture will be astounding. If the war ends, these soldiers moral injury will become self-destructive. Putin will have to send them to jail and to Siberia for self-protection. When a soldier is forced to kill, and hes aware the majority of the public hes fighting for disagrees, you will soon see the consequences of self-destructive behaviors and rebellion.

Here in America, weve witnessed the side effect of our returning troops finding out their lives are human capital. The suicide rate is the accurate compass of the moral injury created by fighting unjust wars. Our recent insurrection has roots in our troops becoming aware they have gone to war to protect the resources of the wealthy. Add that poor health care, low wages, racism and the dominance of power and capital available to fewer and fewer. These inequities stimulate rage.

Republicans use that rage to create rhetoric their voters believe, many carrying the side effects of the billions spent on those wars. Democrats have been ineffective in navigating the wealthy and lack warrior politicians willing to fight for democracy over losing their jobs. So, on this Memorial Day, reflect closely on why the lives of our loved ones and enemies were taken in wars they themselves did not declare.

Larry WintersNew Paltz

Transparency?

After a discussion took place at a recent Town Board meeting regarding a resolution pertaining to the transfer of 1.2 million dollars in surplus funds, a taxpayer said, Id like to ask that when you do put it in a resolution, that youd be very specific in the resolution to say how many dollars and where the money is going in, so that it appears in the minutes of the meeting.

The citizen made this request because, as he stated, on April 20 of last year, 1.8 million dollars was transferred, and the resolution said transferred per transfer sheet; it wasnt explicit in the resolution and did not appear in the meeting minutes, and the recording of that meeting disappeared, so we have no record of it. The response to the request was, Ill look into that.

Howard HarrisWoodstock

Response to Messrs. Butz & Civile

When I wrote One Mans Abortion: 1963 for last weeks paper, I assumed there would be an angry response from the anti-abortion folks. I was not disappointed. There were two. The first, from John Butz, starts with the statement that Abortion is murder. I would suggest to Mr. Butz that not everyone subscribes to that belief. I certainly dont. He then says, The moral, civil and right decision was staring them right in the face all alongThe humane, moral and ethical decision was to bring the child to term and immediately put the child up for adoption. That is definitely not what Em and I thought was the humane, moral and ethical decision for us, and I would not assume I knew the right decision for everyone, as does Mr. Butz, nor would I try to impose my religious beliefs on anyone else.

He continues: The inconveniences, real or perceived, are only temporary. A month or so of disrupting employment or studies can be quickly resumed. My school, associated with the Methodist Church (which I attended as a youth), would have unceremoniously thrown us both out of school immediately had our condition been known, and it would have been difficult or impossible to enroll in another school with that on our records. We did not consider that an inconvenience.

He also states that these people [Em and I and anyone who has ever had an abortion] never gave a moments thought to the significant heartache suffered by couples who desperately want a family but are unable to have children, and we are people who have nonchalantly murdered unborn children. I assure Mr. Butz we spent more than a moments thought on our decision, and if Mr. Butz wants to point out nonchalantly murdering children, he need only look at this weeks murder of 19 children in Texas and the other 26 school shootings just this year! More children have been killed in schools than police officers have been killed on the job. Pro-life, Mr. Butz? I think not.

Mr. Butz also seems to have a big problem with folks peacefully demonstrating in front of the homes of Supreme Court justices and, he emphatically states, If the attorney general was in his right mind and knew right from wrong, he should have arrested those demonstrators so the justices could resume their normal lives. Mr. Butz, our pro-life champion, doesnt seem to have much of a problem with the over 3,500 students shot and killed every year. Nor does he seem terribly concerned that their parents can never resume their normal lives. Im sure we all wish Justice Thomas and his charming wife Ginny can resume their normal lives immediately and not have to hear the cries of bereft parents.

George Civile, another one of my critics and an almost weekly contributor to this paper of right-wing misinformation, says I never explained why abortions were illegal or were considered wrong or sinful by the major denominations prior to Roe V. Wade. He is correct. I did not explain that, nor did I explain why:

Interracial marriage was once illegal

Why it was illegal to be homosexual

Why women voting was illegal

Why it was illegal for Black citizens to sit anywhere but the back of the bus

Why it was illegal to consume or possess alcohol from 1920-32

Why it was illegal to shop on a Sunday

Why birth control was once illegal

Why pinball, golfing and playing football on Sunday was illegal

Why dancing in a joint without a cabaret license was illegal

Why sexual acts outside procreation were illegal

Why being a communist was illegal

Why swearing in public was illegal.

Both Mr. Butz and Mr. Civile profess to be vehemently pro-life and their only concern is for the lives of the unborn children. I submit that if they were indeed pro-life, they would be out on the streets or writing to this paper protesting automatic weapons that indiscriminately kill our children, not foetuses; weapons in the hands of unbalanced teenagers and right-wing zealots. They would be protesting open-carry laws and meaningless or no gun restrictions that allow 18-year-olds to buy assault weapons and 700 rounds of ammunition, as did the shooter last week, on his 18th birthday!

They would be protesting the 20 percent of New Yorkers living in poverty, 35 percent of minority children suffering food insecurity. If they are pro-life, why do they not protest the substandard nutrition of children, chronic disease and mental health problems of minority children, inadequate child care, lack of access to healthcare for children, unsafe neighborhoods, undersourced schools and shortened life expectancy for children of minorities?

Pro-life, Messrs. Butz and Civile? Thats just so much crap. Youre not pro-life. Youre just anti-abortion.

Eric GlassSaugerties

Mental health care system broken

In light of the most recent events of the past two weeks, we once again find ourselves questioning how such tragic and senseless events as the mass shootings experienced at Tops Supermarket in Buffalo, New York, Laguna Woods Church in California and, most recently, Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, continue to occur in this day and age. Calls for enhanced and stringent gun control laws are louder now than ever before.

I too agree that greater gun control is in order. However, if we truly want to eradicate these senseless murders, we must acknowledge and fully understand that our mental health care system is broken, not just here in New York but throughout our nation, and there lies the root of these mass shootings. Until such time we recognize that our mental health care system is in crisis, and we start reinvesting toward building a robust and responsive mental health care system, then and only then will we have a fighting chance toward eliminating these senseless acts of violence that continue to be perpetrated against our children and our communities.

It is truly the duty of each and every one of us to implore that our elected officials start spending our tax dollars on the real issues affecting our daily lives. Simply taking guns away from people will not deter the illness that causes them to act out so violently against others. If its not a gun, it will be some other deadly instrument that will be used to inflict their reign of terror.

Joseph A. SinagraChief of PoliceSaugerties

Colin Schmitt: our next congressman

Im so thrilled to see the new district lines reflect fairness for once, but nothing surprises me anymore when it comes to Democrats trying to finagle their way into office and power. I am so excited that Colin Schmitt will be our next congressman. He has always had my vote because hes finally a candidate I can put my faith in to fix the nonsense locally and nationally.

Im talking about these ridiculous gas prices and empty shelves everywhere you turn. Hes always been a voice for middle-class families and taken a stance for whats right. I know he will work tirelessly to make improvements and real change. I cant wait to see all that Colin will accomplish when hes elected this fall.

Nina HeinNew Paltz

Concerns about proposed asphalt plant

The proposed hot asphalt mix plant on Route 28 in the Town of Kingston has several concerning aspects. The site would lay beside the busy Route 28 highway in a former quarry, in plain view for everyone to see, smell and hear. It would also be beside several local retail businesses, possibly degrading their operations. Typically, hot asphalt plants are smelly and dirty. In the application, the developers state that the operations will have diesel exhaust and particulate from an open-air process.

Ulster Strong doesnt dispute the applicants contention of a need and opportunity of providing a variety of highway-oriented services and solutions to the area, as well as added jobs and new tax revenues. Its that the location beside Route 28 is clearly at odds with the bigger picture. An asphalt operation such as this would not just be a temporary inconvenience (e.g., such as during its construction), but an ongoing negative distraction and hazard. This is clearly at odds with the long-range vision of Route 28 being a scenic Gateway to the Catskills.

Unless the applicants can clearly show ways to mitigate the noted concerns about visual, smell and particulate pollution and traffic, Ulster Strong thinks this project would find a better location in Ulster.

Martin DunkleyLake Katrine

A few questions

Butz and Civile make the emotional case that a woman who becomes pregnant owes a sacred debt of responsibility to the developing embryo to bring it to term. But this no-nonsense approach to taking responsibility for ones actions and the overarching sanctity of human life begs some important questions: Since Betz and Civile would make abortion illegal, what legal remedy would be required of the fathers, who are at least equally responsible for the new life? If the woman is to be penalized by forfeiting nine months of her life and the emotional trauma of putting a baby up for adoption, what does the father forfeit?

Secondly, how do they deal with the consequences of rape or incest cases in which pregnancy results from a crime inflicted on the woman or girl? Thirdly, if the state requires women to carry all pregnancies to term, will the state take financial responsibility for the babies women are forced to bear against their will?

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Letters to the editor (6/1/22) - Hudson Valley One

Ara Hitoshi is deputy director general for the South Asia Department of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). He is responsible for overseeing cooperation with Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Maldives. JICA has implemented various cooperation projects, especially in the areas of social and economic infrastructure development, disaster resilience and poverty reduction. Ara was on a brief visit to Nepal in May to take stock of the situation here. Prithvi Man Shrestha of The Post caught up with Ara to ask him about JICAs future cooperation in Nepal. Excerpts:

How has JICAs cooperation been in Nepal so far, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic?

Because of Covid-19, JICA was restricted in dispatching survey teams, experts and JICAs missions to Nepal for a while. However, JICA is back. Now we are willing to accelerate our cooperation through face-to-face communication. With this idea, my visit has taken place. Communication is very important to deeply understand things.

JICA recognises that the development of South Asia is quite important and Nepal is one of the core countries. JICA implemented and continued various cooperation projects even during the Covid-19 situation. The year 2022 marks the 120th anniversary since the first Nepali students went to study in Japan. So it is some kind of symbolic year on the issue of human resource development.

JICA is willing to keep working on development with high quality infrastructure and initiate the build-back-better policy for the Covid-hit country. This year, JICA is planning to start new technical cooperation in the areas of climate change and sustainable forest management, flood risk management and a career support programme for migrant workers. We will provide a career support programme to migrant workers. This is quite a new initiative for JICA which pays attention to migrant workers who have experience of living in Japan. There are many Nepali migrants to Japan.

JICA has the country assistance strategy of 2016 for Nepal. Is JICA preparing a new assistance strategy?

The country assistance policy is the policy of our government. I think our government is thinking about introducing a new one. I don't have detailed information about it. As per the Country Assistance Policy 2016, there were four priorities: Post-earthquake recovery, social and economic infrastructure, poverty reduction and governance enhancement.

What is the specific policy for Nepal now?

Under these four core priority areas, there are several sub-areas such as education, health, agriculture, infrastructure, road development and urban infrastructure improvement. All these sectors are important. Now, there is also a huge need for recovery from Covid-19. Still, there are many needs in many areas. Nepal got Covid-19 vaccines from Japan to recover from the pandemic.

Is there any plan of the Japan government to support livelihoods affected by the pandemic?

Our government decided to provide a policy credit of 10 billion yen in January. This support will help the Nepali economy to strengthen. The impact of Covid-19 is very big and wide, and it covers many areas. So, we want to consider what kind of activity is necessary to improve the situation against the impact of Covid-19. We are seeking the possibility to conduct some cooperation in the health sector, and in general, when we think about measures, we think there are some important pointsinfectious disease prevention and other research and development. We are thinking if there are any needs in these sectors in Nepal.

The Covid-19 pandemic has shed light on the need for good health infrastructure. Will Japan increase support in these areas?

Actually, there is a need to improve health infrastructure. Covid-19 is an important issue but there are many needs in Nepal. My understanding is that our government is thinking of conducting an aid project based on the needs of each sector. Obviously, it is important to upgrade the health infrastructure in Nepal.

How can Japan help to modernise Nepals transport network?

Obviously, Nepal is in need of improving its road network. There is a need to improve urban transportation infrastructure as well as the national road networks. So, now we are discussing these issues with the Nepal government. At the same time, there are other development partners such as the Asian Development Bank which are providing some kind of support for improving the national road networks. So, I would like to continue discussions with the Nepal government so that some concrete projects are identified where we can contribute.

China is enrolling countries under its flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Japan itself appears to be prioritising helping to develop infrastructure abroad. The G7 countries introduced the Build-Back-Better initiative. Can we expect more competition among countries to help Nepal in infrastructure development?

In my personal opinion, JICAs support in the infrastructure development of Nepal is for the development of Nepal. We dont engage in competition with other countries. Of course, people say competition is important. But I think it is necessary to think about what is the need of Nepal. An appropriate approach should be adopted to solve Nepals problem, and that should be based on need. We also think that infrastructure is very important, including road infrastructure. I would like to continue discussing the matter with the Nepal government.

Lately, we have been receiving more aid as loans than grants from Japan. Is it Japanese policy to provide more aid as loans?

We are implementing both schemesgrants and loans. We dont stop grant aid. Nepal has been developing and upgrading to the status of a middle income country. It means that Nepal can enjoy aid under loan schemes. With loans, we can implement large projects compared to grant aid projects. For example, we provided Development Policy Credit amounting to 10 billion yen in January. If it was grant aid, it could be around 2-3 billion yen. Of course, there are big projects being implemented with grants too. Utilising loans, we can contribute more. If the GDP per capita is very low for the recipient country, we cannot implement aid in loan projects.

What was the reason behind providing policy credit? Will JICA continue to provide aid in policy credit form?

It is in response to the Nepal governments urgent needs. As you know, the Nepal government was fighting Covid-19 very well. We heard that Nepal needed some kind of financial resources to implement these kinds of activities. The policy credit covers various areas of the health sector. The Nepal government needed to secure more budget to implement activities in the health sector. What I want to say is that there was an urgent need for financial support, and we recognised this and decided to provide this kind of support. Whether policy credit will continue will depend on Nepals needs. We have to discuss it with our government. I personally think there is a need for this kind of financial support to Nepal even in the future.

There is a growing possibility of markets for Nepal's hydropower in power-hungry South Asia. What are the prospects of Japanese investment in the hydropower sector?

I am not an expert in this area. I cannot say concretely about this. But I expect many Japanese investors will have interest in this country. The power sector is JICAs important sector for cooperation. Now, JICA is implementing a technical cooperation project on Integrated Power System Development. The project covers Independent Power Producers (IPP) related issues. We are supporting Nepal to supervise and manage the activities of the IPPs. I expect that many Japanese power plant operators and private companies who are interested in the energy market will increase. I also expect that the total investment from Japanese companies will increase in Nepal. I think there is a possibility of attracting Japanese investments in the service sector. For this, Nepalis who studied and worked in Japan can be a big asset for Nepal.

Any further plans of JICA to support civil aviation as Japan has been supporting this area?

As you know, the ADB is playing a big role in developing infrastructure investment. There was a miserable air accident in the 1990s in Nepal, and many JICA experts had lost their lives in that accident. As a JICA staff member like me, we remember this incident. So, how to make air travel safe is a very important issue for JICA. We would like to collaborate with other partners in this sector too to continue our support in this sector in Nepal.

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'We don't engage in competition with other countries' - The Kathmandu Post

By Christophe Bosquillon

This is Part 1 of a review of Space Resources Week 2022, the descriptive part. Part 2 may appear in a subsequent edition with the authors more personal views on several space resource utilization topics in the context of SRW.

We recently attended online the 2022 hybrid 4th edition of Space Resources Week, held in Luxembourg from May 3 to 5. A brief history of this event may remind our readers that, while the 2021 3rd edition was also hybrid, the pre-pandemic 2019 2nd edition managed to produce video material that can still be consulted on the website.

The 1st edition dates back to 2016, when the Spaceresources.lu initiative pioneered Luxembourgs national interest in the space domain: foreign direct investment and regulatory efforts as a jurisdiction focused on leading in space resources utilization. The importance of which is now well acknowledged across not only the whole of European space stakeholders, but sizeable extra-European space actors like US and NASA, or Japan, with JAXA and iSpace European branch. And indeed, while the Space Resources Week (SRW) event itself is strongly anchored in the European ecosystem, its reach is global, with about a hundred international speakers.

As Luxembourgs Minister of the Economy Franz Fayot mentioned during his opening remarks, This event is recognized worldwide and key in bringing the international community together. It underlines the central role of Luxembourg in this field. While space resources offer a means of exploring the Moon and the solar system in a sustainable way, the space resources field can also be a way of stimulating innovation on Earth and finding new ways to address global challenges.

Space Resources Week, an ESRIC-ESA partnership

Organized as a partnership between ESRIC and ESA (the European Space Resources Innovation Centre and the European Space Agency), the Luxembourg part of the SRW equation benefits from involvement by LSA and LIST (the Luxembourg Space Agency and the Luxembourg Institute for Science and Technology).

While the Space Resources Week event itself is strongly anchored in the European ecosystem, its reach is global.

For our readers still not familiar with ESRIC established in Luxembourg in August 2020, and you may verify its mission statement online what wed say ESRIC does, is to help Luxembourg and Europe, and by extension the whole world, to get unstuck from chicken and egg new space business situations, often encountered due to the lack of any real market beyond orbit. So ESRIC understands that the keys are, to not only grow the ecosystem of start-ups, but to help them develop a viable relationship with larger corporate actors and anchor customers, and to do so by developing techno-economic reckoning and funding along entire value chains. What is required to augment deal flows between mainstream industries not yet involved in space market and space industry providers? Is commercial and technical maturity sufficient? But also, for customers to be able to sign on providers, mutual understanding and shared aims at techno-economic and ESG benefits. There again are implications for the role of the public sector governments and space agencies as anchor customers and seed- funders, while working out terms for multi-industry financial instruments to support space value chains.

New ESRIC leadership and a knowledge-sharing platform

While former director Mathias Link took the stage for SRW 2022 closing statements, it turns out the ESRIC directorship baton had passed in April to Dr. Kathryn Hadler, a mineral processing and recovery scientist: her keynote speech revealed the launch of a knowledge-sharing platform for the space resources community, an idea presented last year and now implemented thanks to the LISTs engineers. One of the main expectations of the space resource community is to have access to a centralised and easily exploitable knowledge base. ESRICs knowledge-sharing platform is of great interest to researchers, but it can also highlight business opportunities, said Kathryn Hadler, to which Thomas Kallstenius, CEO of LIST added: Based on technology developed at LIST, this platform is applicable in the field of space resources but could be transposed to other research areas. It is a fantastic tool to link the business vision with the scientific vision.

This years edition focused on the development of a circular economy and a waste recycling system in space, and all the environmental, ethical, and economic sustainability matters related to space mining.

As one could judge through in-presence on-stage questions and the online chat, this message resonated with the over a thousand people attending SRW, whether their interests spanned the business, legal, or tech fields, or all of the above. Especially as these questions intersect with the necessities of functional funding processes as well as the demand for sustainable governance mechanisms. Notwithstanding the fact, this 2022 SRW edition put a direct emphasis on sustainability, circular economy, environmental preservation, and waste treatment in space.

Visibility for 5 start-ups pre-incubated under ESRIC Start-up Support Programme

ESRIC has launched the Start-up Support Programme (SSP) in order to provide early-stage start-ups in the space resources sector with support in 3 key areas: first, to develop their value proposition and a concrete business plan that addresses well-identified real-world customers (rather than a vision plan that addresses abstract and vaguely quantified total addressable markets); second, to effectively engage and make their first deals with their first customers; and third, secure sufficient pre-incubation funding with relevant initial investments.

What is required to augment deal flows between mainstream industries not yet involved in space market and space industry providers?

It cant be emphasized enough that for a start-up founders team with little time, bandwidth, and resources for robust managerial development (before even starting to talk about the cost of acquisition of new customers), the cost of acquisition of initial investors is hardly manageable. In that sense, this initiative by ESRIC is instrumental to enable start-ups to simply exist. In addition to specific challenges encountered in the space resources domain, we would even argue that, not just in space but in (deep) tech at large, the system is somehow broken. In fact a system that can bring together start-ups and investors and also also venture partners developing value propositions and deal flows at the moment doesnt exist, or theres room for improvement. So ESRICs SSP is a move in a right direction, and a proper pathway in order to start small and scale up.

In that context, the Space Resources Week is also an opportunity to showcase the 5 promising start-ups that were selected by ESRICs SSP: Astroport Space Technologies, Anisoprint, Adventus Interstellar, Four Point, and Orbit Recycling were enabled to present on stage, and it is hoped that this visibility will contribute to trigger a virtuous cycle. In addition to this, it should also be mentioned that ESA jointly with ESRIC, has created the ESA-ESRIC Space Resources Challenge, the first European robotics challenge of this nature focused on space resources. Its aim is to help identify prospecting technologies that can be integrated and operationalized in future ESA missions. The grande finale of this challenge will take place in September 2022 at the Rockhal in Belval, so, stay tuned.

An intense program over 3 days

With over 100 speakers, were not going into a detailed review of each of the pitches and fireside chats, however we encourage interested readers who missed the event to watch out for when SRW releases the recordings and materials ontheir website, and to start mining.

Well start our quick review with the 3rd and last day, when everyone is fairly exhausted yet keeps going: the morning scientific session brought a great overview of the ISRU state of the art for the Moon, asteroids, and Mars, and it instilled a fairly strong dose of the kind of realism we need to keep injecting in our techno-economic expectations and manageable TRLs over time. We were quite impressed by the session on analogues and the pivotal technology of simulants to mimic regolith from Moon and Mars. The ESA initiative to develop a self-reliant sourcing of simulants and Sample Analogue Curation Facility sounds propos for strategic autonomy. Next, the Enabling Infrastructures sessions covered critical building blocks from cislunar transportation to energy to metallurgy to vehicles to autonomous systems in mining, etc. In our view the company OHB value proposition as it has evolved is essential to solve the small payload transportation and lunar access problem for all relevant customers. Capability demonstrations were quite convincing, from these amazing Nanoracks to Moon mapping, and many others, from all over the world, including Africa. And the concluding round table discussions covered Pilot plant: the next steps, which is exactly the goal we need to set for ourselves, internationally.

The ESA initiative to develop a self-reliant sourcing of simulants and Sample Analogue Curation Facility sounds propos for strategic autonomy.

Which brings us to the 1st half-day and 2nd full day, during which the concept of there is so much to tackle that we need to cooperate internationally underpin the whole event. While we were honoured to hear NASAs envisioned future priorities plan for ISRU, University of Notre Dame (pronounced differently than in Paris) reminded us that the Moon needs an international lunar resources prospecting campaign (ILRPC). An update on MOXIE, speakers from JAXA and iSpace Europe further made that point. iSpace clarified a resources-to-reserves assessment due process with its LORS framework. OffWorld and Manna demonstrated wise business models built equally on terrestrial and beyond orbit markets. Meanwhile, when favouring autonomous systems as substitutes to biological Earthlings, David Bowie was also present through Space Resources pitch Let all the robots boogie. The Euro2Moon project launched by Airbus, Air Liquide and iSpace Europe, a non-profit European platform to explore future uses of natural lunar resources, demonstrated how well we work between friends and allies outside Europe.

The 2022 edition of SRW strongly hinted there are plenty of opportunities for cross-pollination between use cases on Earth and in space, and potential avenues for space activities benefit sharing, worldwide. This is because this years edition focused on the development of a circular economy and a waste recycling system in space, and all the environmental, ethical, and economic sustainability matters related to space mining. This made the 2nd days legal and regulatory session even more palatable, because it tackled really concrete issues we can relate to, including the reference to the mining concept of a Social License to Operate.

Furthermore, we particularly appreciated the panel discussion under the umbrella of the ESA Innovation and Ventures Office, which nicely called the audiences attention by naming itself How to make the Moon bankable?. The conversation emphasized developing sustainable value chains that speak to investors, while optimizing the role of government and space agencies as anchor customers, to establish financial trust among stakeholders (other than that, we do need a bigger ESA budget, please).

Well be looking forward to the 2023 edition of SRW

This concludes Part 1 of a review of Space Resources Week 2022 (SRW), the descriptive part. Part 2 may appear in a subsequent edition with the authors more personal views on several space resource utilization topics in the context of SRW. In particular, as they resonate from a terrestrial mining industry standpoint. Also taking into account the cost of shipping material in space along the full value chain from mine to transformation to utilization. A cost that will impact the competitiveness of space-faring nations based on their space shipping capabilities and cargo/propellant ratio. A cost that will either make or break the commercial and financial viability of supply chains for a number of resources extracted for example from the Moon. Further considering that, for any space activity, in orbit, in cislunar space, near and or the Moon, and beyond, toward asteroids and Mars, data has a value chain of its own. And that security of SRU assets in orbit and beyond does matter. All being considered, well be looking forward to the 2023 edition of SRW.

Currently based in Europe, Christophe Bosquillon operated globally out of the Indo-Pacific for the best part of the past decades. With a techno-economic background in non-space industries, as well as international affairs and foreign direct investment, Chris maintains a long-standing interest in old and new space, also from a security and policy standpoint. A decade ago, he developed a Legal Hacker interest in the digital transformation governance field, data rights, computational law, and composable governance. Founder of Autonomous Space Futures Ltd., Chris, an experienced corporate boss and business owner, focuses on solutions to develop business cases in and beyond orbit: value propositions TRL-realistic over time, commercially credible, financially sustainable, legally implementable ; optimizing open data and registration in a context of adaptive governance for peaceful and sustainable space activities. While fixing the investee-investors relationship, value creation, and funding processes, Chris currently works out on the steep learning curve of space law, governance, and diplomacy, with the help of diverse friends from all over our precious blue planet.

With several masters but too busy for a PhD, Chris did evolve, lately: being surrounded by doctors and candidates with collaborative pursuits in digital and space law, governance, and policy, does help to collectively re-imagine a future as responsible stakeholders, and design sustainability solutions. Chris likes to bring down siloed mentalities and bridge practitioners and academia, across transdisciplinary teams that produce useful, usable, and used outputs.

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#SpaceWatchGL Opinion: Review of Space Resources Week 2022 - Part 1 - SpaceWatch.Global

As recreation surges, a Colorado State Land Board pilot program for designated public campsites in Chaffee County

The Colorado State Land Board has designated 14 new campsites on its 3,400-acre parcel in the Fourmile Recreation Management Area in Chaffee County. The need for more sites became apparent when the COVID-19 pandemic-driven surge in outdoor recreation resulted in resource damage.

A campsite in the Chubb Park area of Fourmile Recreation Area displays the site destruction and an unsafe fire pit. courtesy photo.

We are dealing with a new form of recreation, said Abe Medina, Recreation Manager for the State Land Board. He explains that campers previously used to pitch a few tents during the hunting season. But now [they] arrive all summer long with big RVs, multiple vehicles, toy haulers, four-wheelers and side-by-sides.

As the Chaffee Recreation Adopters group began to monitor campsites across the county last year, they documented mounting damage. Dozens of self-made, non-designated campsites and associated spur roads destroyed acres of vegetation. The State Land Board has noted that visitors made dangerous bonfires in the middle of grassy meadows, and they have built racetracks and jumps for riding play. Its much more intensive use. It grew to the point that we had to do something, said Medina.

The State Land Board is the second-largest landowner in the state. Trust land parcels commonly known as school sections, total nearly three million acres, all managed by the State Land Board. These are located throughout the state, including 16,600 acres in Chaffee County. The sections were granted by the federal government at statehood to produce revenue for public institutions.

More than $2 billion has been raised in the past 15 years, mainly to fund Colorados BEST (Building Excellent Schools Today) program. Other public institutions, such as the state penitentiary system, are also beneficiaries.

The State Land Board is responsible for profitable land management, which is commonly achieved through leasing lands to agricultural operators and others. Ranchers use these grazing leases for summer pasture for herds.

Medina said that grazing in Chubb Park has become more difficult as the long-time lessee, a Chaffee County rancher, has a hard time driving cows onto the property. Understandably, cattle wont drink from water tanks that are surrounded by campers. Some campers have chased calves with off-road vehicles and damaged the agriculture irrigation system.

Crews have worked to remove the illegal rock fire pits and are installing new metal fire grates in the new campsites in Chubb Park. Courtesy photo.

According to Medina, the solution for compatible, mixed-use land management at this site is to offer camping in 14 designated sites, each with a numbered site post and metal fire ring. Posted signs convey the rules.

We considered closing the area to camping but recognize that will just push people onto surrounding lands that are also under pressure, so we decided to try to enable camping to continue with new rules and signage, said Medina.

The trust land parcel in Chubb Park is surrounded by National Forest in the 100,000-acre Fourmile Recreation Area, which includes Bureau of Land Management property near the towns of Buena Vista and Salida.

Medina collaborated with other land managers through a local process facilitated by Envision Chaffee County, to implement the All Lands Camping strategy that is outlined in the Chaffee County Outdoor Recreation Management Plan. The goal is to provide high-quality, low-impact camping opportunities in response to residents concerns about camping growth without sufficient management such as trash, human waste, declining experience quality and the potential for human-caused wildfire sparking from user-created campfire rings.

The county plan endorses solutions, such as the project in Chubb Park by the State Land Board, to retain the quality of outdoor experiences, protect resources such as clean water, and ensure the recreation-based economy is sustainable. New signs and campsites were paid for by the State Land Board, with support from the Chaffee County Visitors Bureau, the National Forest Foundation and a mini-grant from Chaffee Common Ground.

Camping remains free and first-come, first-served at Chubb Park this year. Medina said a fee is likely in the future and that, if the Chubb Park model is successful, designated camping could be used on additional school parcels such as Waunita Reservoir near Tomichi Dome. We want to be part of the regional conversation as a lot of communities need help offering more sustainable camping, he said.

The Colorado State Board of Land Commissioners is a constitutionally created agency that manages a $4 billion endowment of assets for the intergenerational benefit of Colorados K-12 schoolchildren and public institutions. The agency is the second-largest landowner in Colorado and generates revenue on behalf of beneficiaries by leasing nearly three million surface acres and four million mineral acres for agriculture, grazing, recreation, commercial real estate, rights-of-way, renewable energy, oil, gas, and mining. Unlike public lands, trust lands are not open to the public unless a property has been leased for public access.

The agency is entirely self-funded and receives no tax dollars. The agency has generated more than $2 billion for public schools in the past 15 years.

Featured image: Chubb Park in the Fourmile Recreation Area has 14 new dispersed camping sites. Photo courtesy of Envision Chaffee County.

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New designated campsites open at Chubb Park in Fourmile Recreation Area - by Ark Valley Voice Staff - The Ark Valley Voice

Photo: Northeast Auto Imports

If theres one area where vintage rigs beat modern RVs every time, it has to be style. In the past, you could get an epic little Toyota pickup-based camper dripping with character. I found what has to be the coolest Toyota pickup camper to grace this planet. This 1989 Toyota Hilux is a JDM diesel 4x4 camper with a dually rear axle and a ritzy interior.

Japans classic RVs offer a quirky alternative for those who want to camp a bit differently. Ive featured a number of glorious JDM campers here, from a Mitsubishi Delica turned Class C RV to a bus made into a rolling hotel room. A lot of Japans campers are pickup trucks with a fiberglass shell over the back. Thats what youre getting with the Toyota Hilux Galaxy well examine today, but this one is even better than usual.

Photo: Northeast Auto Imports

This camper started life as a fifth-generation Toyota Hilux LN106. These trucks are known for being extremely durable. BBC Top Gear once subjected a Hilux from this generation to fire, a wrecking ball, a dunk in the sea, and a building collapse and it still ran and drove. These are classic trucks with cockroach-level durability. A perfect platform for a camper.

The best resource I could find for information on the Galaxy camper were viewing here is Ottoex Adventure Vehicles, a U.S. importer of JDM vehicles with a knack for camper vans. Ottoex explains that the Galaxy shell is 100 percent fiberglass and doesnt have a wooden subfloor like youd find in many campers.

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Photo: Northeast Auto Imports

Youre probably wondering about those dorky protrusions coming off of the trucks doors. The base truck doesnt have them, so why are they here? Ottoex says they improve aerodynamics. And this little barn probably needs all the help it can get.

Information on these campers is surprisingly scant. Some sourceslike Bring a Trailerstate that around 80 of these things were built in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Normally, these campers have a standard, boring RV interior. But thats where this one strays from the rest. Check this out:

Photo: Northeast Auto Imports

I spoke with the seller, Derek, at Northeast Auto Imports, the New Hampshire dealership where this camper is currently listed for sale. He says the interior was refurbished using reclaimed wood from a barn that was over a century old. I was blown away by the sight of this interior.

Photo: Northeast Auto Imports

The camper was imported from Japan in 2020 and Derek got right to work overhauling it. He told me the man responsible for the interior work was given a pass to do whatever he wanted. The result is seriously impressive.

Just for reference, heres what the interior of a stock Hilux Galaxy looks like. Cozy, efficient but a world apart from the truck Northeast Imports is selling.

The interior overhaul includes reupholstered door cards and seats. Out back, the living area includes a new stovetop, sink and composting toilet. Additional amenities come in the form of solar panels and an awning. And yep, the bed is brand new too.

This camper has another trick feature: The front portion pops up, providing extra room and ventilation in the sleeping deck.

Photo: Northeast Auto Imports

Backing it all up is a Toyota 3L 2.8-liter diesel four-cylinder powering all four wheels through a manual transmission and a two-speed transfer case. These engines are rated at 90 hp and 138 lb-ft torque in factory form, but this one is far from stock. The list of mods includes a Garrett GBC20 turbocharger, Snow Performance methanol injection, a water-to-air intercooler, an aluminum radiator and ARP head studs.

Photo: Northeast Auto Imports

This thoroughly hot-rodded engine now puts out 111 horses and 231 lb-ft torque at the wheels. This 6,300-lb RV isnt fast, but the seller says it will happily cruise American highways at 75 mph without any drama. All that extra power hasnt hurt the fuel economy: it still averages around 20 mpg, roughly what a stocker would do.

Photo: Northeast Auto Imports

So, what will something like this cost you? It failed to sell on Bring a Trailer when it was bid up to $27,010 earlier this month. Now Derek has decided to offer it at his import dealership for $67,500. Ottoex sold theirs for $49,995 while a newer one crossed Bring a Trailer for $36,500. Given the wonderful interior on Dereks truck, I think its worth it!

Ive reached out to Toyota in hopes of getting more history on these campers, and especially those external door attachments. I will update if I hear back.

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This Might Be the Nicest Toyota-Based Camper on Earth - Jalopnik

Jakarta, Indonesia East Timors president-elect won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 for his efforts to liberate his country, but Jose Ramos-Horta may find charting a sustainable path for one of the worlds most oil-dependent nations to be his toughest challenge yet.

Ramos-Horta, who will be inaugurated on Friday, beat the incumbent Francisco Guterres popularly known as Lu-Olo in a second-round runoff last month, claiming 62.1 percent of the vote.Ramos-Horta, a former president and prime minister, had the backing of the Congresso Nacional de Reconstrucao de Timor (CNRT) party because he would not oppose the partys plan to develop the Greater Sunrise oil and gas fields.

The government of East Timor, also known asTimor-Leste, owns a controlling stake in the untapped fields, which lie in the Timor Sea between the Southeast Asian nation and Australia, but insists any resources must cross a deep seabed trench to be processed on Timorese soil, which has stalled development.

Neighbouring fields in the Timor Sea, known as Bayu-Undan, contribute the vast majority of the wealth in East Timors $19bn sovereign petroleum fund, which finances about 85 percent of government spending.

The large proportion of state spending drawn from petroleum revenues makes East Timor one of the worlds most oil-dependent nations. The Southeast Asian country,which voted to leave Indonesia in 1999 and became an independent nation in 2002 after a United Nations transitional administration, also ranks among the regions poorest countries, with a gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of less than $1,500.

Experts believe the nearly-depleted Bayu-Undan fields have already contributed 99 percent of the revenue East Timor can expect to receive and will run dry within 10 to 15 years.

Guteriano Neves, an independent policy analyst based in the Timorese capital Dili,said the over reliance on oil and gas revenues has hindered the development of non-oil sectors and made the country vulnerable to economic shocks.

The path that Timor-Leste is taking is a very dangerous and unsustainable path, yet it is very challenging to change the direction, Neves told Al Jazeera.

The economy that highly depends on petroleum does not trigger domestic demand; it does not help the domestic economy to grow. It is unsustainable to develop on a single sector, particularly to depend on a non-renewable resource like petroleum.

While the highly profitable Bayu-Undan fields have helped the petroleum fund earn $32bn in revenues and investment returns since 2005, East Timor produces far fewer resources than other exporters in the region: neighbouring Indonesia had more than 300 times as much oil and gas reserves at hand in late 2019.

Neves said the country is following the tendency of the resource curse.

This manifests in unsustainable spending, misguided policy driven by satisfying immediate needs over long-term development, poor quality of public service, various forms of inequality and low productivity of [the] non-oil sector, he said. Timorese are aware of these and [have tried] to mitigate through various policy measures but as we say, the temptation is bigger than the intention.

Ramos-Horta ran in last months election as an independent candidate with the backing of CNRT, which has long supported the Greater Sunrise development and expects Ramos-Horta as president to endorse the legislation required to enable onshore processing.

The viability of processing the fields resources inEast Timor is widely considered uncertain, and financing onshore development would cost almost the entire petroleum fund.

Yet Ramos-Horta and his backers have expressed interest in developing Greater Sunrise against the wishes of the outgoing government, which in East Timors semi-presidential system carries greater decision-making power than the president. Ramos-Hortas office was not available for comment in time for publication.

East Timor politics expert Michael Leach said that while the presidents policy powers are limited, the ability to veto legislation which in some cases can only be overturned by gaining a difficult two-thirds majority vote in parliament is significant.

The presidential veto is quite a substantial power, Leach told Al Jazeera.

If a president was against Greater Sunrise they could certainly veto a budget financing its development. These vetoes can be reversed by parliament, but some reversals require a two-thirds majority, which isnt easy to mobilise.

CNRT withdrew from the governing coalition in 2020 following a long-running dispute over ministerial appointments and has described the current Fretilin party-led government as illegitimate.

The partys support of Ramos-Hortas presidential campaign hinged on its controversial request for the candidate to dissolve parliament and call an early election which CNRT believes it would win or use his victory as evidence of no confidence in the current government and a mandate for the president to reconfigure the governing alliance in the current parliament to favour the party.

Leach warned against conflating CNRTs support of Ramos-Horta with the president-elects own agenda.

If people think Ramos-Horta is going to be a simple puppet of CNRT, theyll be disappointed, he said.

Of course, CNRT was his chief backer and hell be mindful of that, but hes formally an independent, and hes a senior Timorese leader of great standing, and the presidents role is to govern for all Timorese. He also has to bring the whole country together, which calls for consultation with all parties.

Joao da Cruz Cardoso, a Dili-based independent analyst who focuses on sustainable development in East Timor, said the government should prioritise investment in non-oil sectors, including education, tourism, agriculture and manufacturing, but a lack of political will has made change difficult.

[There is] a lack of political incentive, at least in the short term, to develop the non-oil sectors of the economy, Cardoso told Al Jazeera.

Cardoso said the global shift away from fossil fuels provided East Timor with a window of opportunity to maximise gains from its resources and develop its non-oil economy before time runs out.

Timor-Leste understands the importance of diversifying its economy, but recognises that it is very difficult thing to do, he said.

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In East Timor, president-elect confronts thorny addiction to oil - Al Jazeera English

As the second-largest economy in the world in 2022, China faces at once the challenges and the opportunities brought about by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. It presents a case where the demographic challenges of an aging population and gender disparity may be fruitfully solved by the measured use of digital technology as the country continues its transition to a greener, data-driven new economy. Healthcare, labour reskilling and gender parity are three areas of focus for domestic policy.

To address the set of interlocked challenges that China faces, a vision of inclusive and sustainable growth that pays particular attention to the elderly and women should be set forth.

China is a rapidly graying country with those aged 60 or above reaching 267 million, or 18.9% of the total population, which may reach one-third before 2050. With a falling fertility rate and an early retirement age, existing welfare infrastructure will be increasingly under duress. Revamping the welfare system is critical for China to maintain its competitiveness and the wellbeing of its citizens. A solution to China's aging population is the upgrading of healthcare services to become better integrated, age-friendly and wellness-oriented. Importantly, welfare reform must work in tandem with social policy so as to make active aging an integral part of economic growth, linking health to wealth and common prosperity.

Closely related, labour reskilling must be a priority for the senior workforce and for those facing employment risk due to automation. Elderly workers in China face persistent barriers to employment, especially in the information technology industries. Reskilling not only enhances the employability of the senior workforce. It also improves the quality of labour force as a whole, which will better serve Chinas economic restructuring and its continued move up the global value chain.

The challenge of China's aging population cannot be addressed without improving the wellbeing of women. Fertility rate must never be merely a target number, even as Chinas birth rate reached a record low in 2021. Rather, it must reflect womens willingness and ability to start families based on their free and informed choices. Attendant social policy and legal institutions must be implemented. Equal pay, fair entry and reentry into the workforce, freedom from harassment and access to legal recourse are among the essential components of that picture.

To achieve the vision outlined above, here are three courses of action that should be taken:

Upgrading the healthcare system involves two steps. First, healthcare should extend beyond treating physical sickness to include mental health, occupational health, full-cycle care and wellness. Consistent with Chinas national strategy on active aging, healthcare services should incorporate key elements such as preventive care and the scientific use of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). The pandemic notwithstanding, appropriate resources must also be allocated to research and treatment for non-communicable chronic diseases.

Second, the COVID-19 experience in China has demonstrated the power of digital technology in rapidly improving the quality and efficiency of healthcare. The same should be leveraged for healthcare, in general, to achieve the integration of medical data and services both vertically and horizontally across institutions of all tiers. Steps should also be taken toward achieving parity in medical resource distribution across regions.

Concurrent to healthcare upgrading, legal and institutional measures should be implemented to eliminate ageist discrimination in the workplace and to promote flexible, age-friendly work arrangements. Short-term reskilling programs, including those tailored for the digital economy, should be made more accessible to all including the senior workforce. Digital literacy should be as important for young adults as it is for senior citizens. Awareness campaigns and training modules on anti-ageism are also desirable for employers. As the silver economy accounts for a large and growing share, these measures will enhance the overall digital preparedness of the Chinese economy.

No population growth can be sustainably attained without ensuring affordable access to healthcare, childcare, education and employment opportunities for women. Closing the gender gap in China must be pursued from multiple directions, from medical infrastructure, to social and welfare policy, to employment law, to cultural norms.

Free or affordable childcare must be made accessible to all working women in China, for both public and private employers. Public awareness campaigns should advocate for a fair share of childcare and housework for male spouses and partners. In addition, fertility technology remains a vastly under-tapped industry in China due in large part to lagging legal provisions. It should be a top priority for lawmakers and policymakers to ensure that Chinese women have easy access to artificial reproductive therapies (ART) including egg-freezing services. Doing so will address a dire need among millions in China as it will spur a slew of business opportunities. Lessons from advanced economies where some employers provide ART subsidies for employees would be illuminating.

Members of the Global Future Council on China who contributed to the article:

Yuan Jiakai, Vice-President and Chief Representative, China, United Way Worldwide

Edward Tse, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Gao Feng Advisory Company

Li Xin, Managing Director of Caixin Global, Caixin Media

Liu Qian, Managing Director, Greater China, The Economist Group

Kishore Mahbubani, Distinguished Fellow, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

Xue Lan, Dean, Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University

Written by

Han Jian, Associate Professor of Management and Co-director, Centre on Digital Economy and Smart Enterprise and Centre on China Innovation, China Europe International Business School (CEIBS)

Sarah Kemp, VP International Government Affairs, Intel

Ninie Wang , Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Pinetree Care Group

Meicen Sun, Alumni, Global Shapers Community,

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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How to make active aging an integral part of economic growth in China - World Economic Forum

The 50 Minerals Critical to U.S. Security

This was originally posted on Elements. Sign up to the free mailing list to get beautiful visualizations on natural resource megatrends in your email every week.

The U.S. aims to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 as part of its commitment to tackling climate change, but might be lacking the critical minerals needed to achieve its goals.

The American green economy will rely on renewable sources of energy like wind and solar, along with the electrification of transportation. However, local production of the raw materials necessary to produce these technologies, including solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles, is lacking. Understandably, this has raised concerns in Washington.

In this graphic, based on data from the U.S. Geological Survey, we list all of the minerals that the government has deemed critical to both the economic and national security of the United States.

A critical mineral is defined as a non-fuel material considered vital for the economic well-being of the worlds major and emerging economies, whose supply may be at risk. This can be due to geological scarcity, geopolitical issues, trade policy, or other factors.

In 2018, the U.S. Department of the Interior released a list of35 critical minerals. The new list, released in February 2022, contains 15 more commodities.

Much of the increase in the new list is the result of splitting the rare earth elements and platinum group elements into individual entries rather than including them as mineral groups. In addition, the 2022 list of critical minerals adds nickel and zinc to the list while removing helium, potash, rhenium, and strontium.

The challenge for the U.S. is that the local production of these raw materials is extremely limited.

For instance, in 2021 there was only one operating nickel mine in the country, the Eagle mine in Michigan. The facility ships its concentrates abroad for refining and is scheduled to close in 2025. Likewise, the country only hosted one lithium mine, the Silver Peak Mine in Nevada.

At the same time, most of the countrys supply of critical minerals depends on countries that have historically competed with America.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, China is the single largest supply source of mineral commodities for the United States.

Cesium, a critical metal used in a wide range of manufacturing, is one example. There are only three pegmatite mines in the world that can produce cesium, and all were controlled by Chinese companies in 2021.

Furthermore, China refines nearly 90% of the worlds rare earths. Despite the name, these elements are abundant on the Earths crust and make up the majority of listed critical minerals. They are essential for a variety of products like EVs, advanced ceramics, computers, smartphones, wind turbines, monitors, and fiber optics.

After China, the next largest source of mineral commodities to the United States has been Canada, which provided the United States with 16 different elements in 2021.

As the worlds clean energy transitions gather pace, demand for critical minerals is expected to grow quickly.

According to the International Energy Association, the rise of low-carbon power generation is projected to triple mineral demand from this sector by 2040.

The shift to a sustainable economy is important, and consequently, securing the critical minerals necessary for it is just as vital.

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Mapped: The 10 Largest Gold Mines in the World, by Production - Visual Capitalist

The demise of globalizationif truecould not come at a less propitious time for U.S. businesses. Illustration by Rob Dobi

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About the author: Joseph Quinlan is head of CIO market strategy in the Chief Investment Office for Merrill and Bank of America Private Bank.

Nothing is more fashionable these days than writing the obituary for globalization. The ensuing tragedy would leave lasting scars on the U.S. But missing from the debate about deglobalization is this: If the world of unfettered, cross-border flows of goods, services, people, capital, and data is really a thing of the past, then one of U.S. businesses biggest bets of the postwar era is about to go bust.

No entity in the world has wagered more resources on globalization over the past four decades than U.S. multinationals. Americas stock of outward foreign direct investment rose from $215 billion in 1980 to $8.1 trillion in 2020, according to figures from the United Nations. The Netherlands, with some $3.8 trillion in FDI stock in 2020, was a distant second, underscoring the fact that no one has a larger global footprint than U.S. firms.

Going global became the mantra of many U.S. companies as the world of the late 20th century was unlocked by falling trade barriers, investment reforms, industry liberalization, falling communications and transportation costs, and the proliferation of regional trading blocs. These structural dynamics were complemented by seminal, one-off events such as the opening of China, economic reforms in India, the enlargement of the European Union, and the collapse of communism.

U.S. foreign affiliates have led the charge overseas. The global foot soldiers of U.S. businesses, these foreign affiliates can now be found in virtually every country in the world, and numbered nearly 39,000 in 2019, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Americas army of affiliates are an economic powerhouse unto themselves, producing nearly $1.5 trillion in output in 2019. Thats equivalent to the total output of Brazil or Spain. They employ nearly 15 million workers, with sales of U.S. foreign affiliates totaling $6.8 trillion in 2019, a figure some 2.5 times greater than U.S. exports of goods and services. The difference underscores how U.S. companies primarily deliver their goods and services to foreign customersvia investment and affiliate sales, not through arms-length trade (exports).

The bulk of these affiliatesroughly 60%are situated in the developed nations, notably the European Union. When it comes to venturing overseas, companies are more interested in gaining access to wealthy consumers and skilled workers, as opposed to chasing low-cost labor. Accordingly, roughly 90% of U.S. affiliate sales are to the local marketrather than for export back to the U.S. Affiliates arent standalone entities but integrated with U.S. parent entities via global supply chains. These linkages promote cross-border trade in goods and services, which in turn supports U.S. exports and attendant investment and employment activities in the U.S.

Given all of the above, the demise of globalizationif truecould not come at a less propitious time for U.S. businesses. Confronting one of the tightest labor markets in decades, the last thing U.S. companies need is less access to foreign talent. Short of critical raw materials, U.S. companies cant afford to be locked out of certain resource-producing markets. And with Americas share of global personal consumption in a structural decline, the future earnings growth of many multinationals hinges on access to consumers in both the developed and developing nations. In the end, globalization has been hugely bullish for U.S. businessesand very beneficial to the U.S. economy in general.

While globalization has motivated U.S. firms to venture abroad, it has also encouraged firms to come to America. No countryincluding Chinahas attracted more foreign investment capital than the U.S. since 1980. Portfolio foreign inflows have been just as robust over the decades, helping to finance Americas perennial budget deficits. At the end of 2020, inward FDI stock in the U.S. totaled a staggering $10.8 trillion, or 26.1% of the global total.

And based on recently released figures from the BEA, both U.S. FDI inflows and outflows rebounded strongly in 2021. The former hit $368 billion, the strongest level since 2016, while the latter topped a record annual level of $403 billion. Thats another way of saying that if globalization is dead, someone forgot to tell the worlds top multinationals. If globalization were truly deceased, the S&P 500 index would be down a lot more than the 18% decline from the peak set in January 2022. The good news is that the markets have not bought into all the hype about deglobalization.

That said, multinationals confront a much more challenging environment than in the past, given rising nationalist calls for reshoring, economic self-sufficiency, and the promotion of national champions, among other policy pressure points. Companies are not deaf or blind to these tensions. Neither are the markets.

Companies are focused on building more resiliency into their supply chains, but in many cases, that means relying more on foreign labor, overseas markets, and non-U.S. resources. To paraphrase Mark Twain, the death of globalization has been greatly exaggerated. For now, that is bullish for U.S. equities, since a sharp turn toward deglobalization would come at a steep cost to the U.S.

Guest commentaries like this one are written by authors outside the Barrons and MarketWatch newsroom. They reflect the perspective and opinions of the authors. Submit commentary proposals and other feedback toideas@barrons.com.

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Deglobalization Would Be Bad for Equities. But Its Not Here Yet. - Barron's