A22 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 22 , 2021
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
[email protected]
C
HINA HAS a new strategy for
spreading propaganda to the rest
of the world: Get the rest of the
world to do the spreading for it.
A New York Times investigation this
month revealed the way in which Presi-
dent Xi Jinping’s regime outsources its
whitewashing of surveillance, censorship
and cultural genocide to the people it
believes uninformed foreigners will trust
most: social media personalities with
hefty followings — the people many of us
know as “influencers.” On YouTube, Face-
book and Twitter, videos abound featur-
ing enthusiastic creators who travel
around China cheerily promoting the
great food and great fun to be had for
visitors and locals alike. Sometimes, they
counter reports of human rights abuses
explicitly.
“It’s totally normal here,” one says as
he visits cotton fields in Xinjiang follow-
ing allegations of forced labor in the
region. “Maybe it was America first to
infect the world with coronavirus,” sug-
gests another.
The videos look like plenty of other
content from popular creators: filmed
with selfie cameras, or at home on lap-
tops. Yet behind the scenes, the Chinese
government is soliciting the material, or-
ganizing travel and paying participants’
way through it all. This symbiotic rela-
tionship pays dividends: The state
spreads their posts far and wide through a
vast web of accounts with hundreds of
millions of followers around the world;
when those followers watch, the influenc-
ers rake in advertising revenue. Some
creators deny they’ve had support from
the regime at all; others admit they have
but dispute that they’re party puppets.
The strategy is canny because it plays
on people’s willingness to trust those who
look and sound like them. The tweets of an
army of trolls might go ignored by all
except those who already believe them,
but updates from a beloved vlogger have
viral potential built in. Worse, the tactic
takes advantage of frustrating asymmetry
between China and the West. China bars
domestically the same platforms it uses to
sow lies abroad, so that it can sway the rest
of the world, and the rest of the world can
do next to nothing to sway it, or its citizens
— even when swaying just means telling
the truth.
The result is dispiriting. The influenc-
ers are dupes of a regime that tricks them
with carefully curated glimpses into Chi-
nese life, or else they’re willing enablers of
atrocities. The platforms that fail in too
many cases to label state media as state
media, much less to label individual con-
tributors as their employees, are dupes,
too. And the West in general finds itself
flat-footed: its commitment to openness
and free expression making room for ex-
ploitation by a rival that cares for neither.
Doing China’s dirty work
Mr. Xi’s regime is tapping social media ‘influencers’ to spread propaganda.
Watching the live stream of Virginia’s
State Water Control Board vote last week
to grant a stream-crossing permit to
Mountain Valley Pipeline for a second
time felt like watching an old episode of
“The Twilight Zone.”
The multistate MVP has committed
hundreds of violations in Virginia alone.
These violations, predicted by experts
and residents before the board granted
the permit the first time, defied the
terms of that initial stream-crossing
permit and continued this year. The
pipeline has faced obstacles with oth-
er permits, having been accused of
employing inadequate protections for
water quality, endangered species and
the environment. The project is years
behind schedule and has been proved
unnecessary. And the MVP has ultimate-
ly been opposed by those who should
have the biggest say of all: residents
whose homes, water and livelihoods are
directly impacted by the project.
In what world would a permit be
granted for such a project? W e should all
ask ourselves how comfortable we are
with knowing that our State Water
Control Board, at the advice of the
Department of Environmental Quality,
will force forward harmful projects such
as the MVP no matter what happens.
Stacy Lovelace, Bedford, Va.
T he writer is co-founder of
Virginia Pipeline Resisters.
Pipeline violations continue
Lawrence H. Summers continues to
make the case that he should have been
Time magazine’s Person of the Year. He
is, and has been, a voice of reason and
caution about inflation and its danger
throughout 2021.
Since March, when the $1.9 trillion
covid-19 relief bill passed, he was the
Cassandra who said it was unnecessary
and dangerous because the economy
was already on a steady recovery. He
warned it would help fuel the inflation
we are experiencing today.
Now, in his Dec. 17 Friday Opinion
column, “The Fed’s words don’t measure
up to inflation’s challenge,” Mr. Sum-
mers raised a new flag about the Federal
Reserve’s slow response to what was
once “transitory” inflation. Once more,
he sees a response that is timid and
“behind the curve.” In addition, he fears
that the Build Back Better bill, which
would add $1.75 trillion into the already
overheated economy, is ill conceived and
dangerous. He predicted that the fight
against growing inflation will make a
soft economic landing in 2022 unlikely.
He might be considered old school
because he believes the money supply
matters and it is intimately connected to
rising prices. Nevertheless, he is coura-
geous for challenging the political posi-
tions of his own party and for his
economic prescience.
Michael Henry, College Park
Mr. Summers’s courage
I agree with Eugene Robinson’s
Dec. 17 op-ed, “A better pick for Time’s
Person of the Year,” in which he suggest-
ed that U .S. Capitol Police officer Eu-
gene Goodman should have been the
Time magazine Person of the Year. Our
nation has a long history of people who
do extraordinary things during chal-
lenging times. Officer Goodman not
only possibly saved lives on Jan. 6, but
his composure during the most difficult
of times helped the situation from
becoming far worse. Officer Goodman is
an American hero, and there is consid-
erable merit to naming him Person of
the Year.
Steven M. Clayton, Ocean, N.J.
Mr. G oodman: A true hero
In his Dec. 17 op-ed on Iran’s nuclear
program, “The right ‘Plan B’ for the Iran
nuclear deal,” veteran foreign affairs
writer David Ignatius was right to focus
on diplomacy as the correct remedy for
Iran’s advancing nuclear program. To
have a greater chance of success, howev-
er, it is necessary to put more effort into
achieving “Plan A” before pivoting to any
sort of “Plan B.”
The International Atomic Energy
Agency is a vital part of restoring the
original 2015 nuclear deal because of its
monitoring role. Thankfully, Iran agreed
to allow the IAEA to replace cameras at a
centrifuge factory that had been dam-
aged, reportedly by Israeli sabotage. To
get the slow-moving Vienna talks to
show real progress, however, the Biden
administration should go beyond
threats of censure by the IAEA Board of
Governors and offer Iran concrete in-
centives, including unfreezing a portion
of Iranian oil revenue in countries such
as South Korea and letting them be used
to purchase vaccines and other humani-
tarian goods.
Iran has suffered grievously from
U.S. sanctions imposed by a cruel and
capricious Trump administration. The
Biden administration should show the
Iranian people that it cares about their
plight even as it seeks a way back from
the nuclear brink with Tehran.
Barbara Slavin, Washington
The writer is director of
the Future of Iran Initiative
at the Atlantic Council.
Work on ‘Plan A’ with Iran
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EDITORIALS
H
OUSE SPEAKER Nancy Pelosi
stunned a lot of Americans this
past week when she ardently
defended the right of lawmak-
ers — and their spouses — to buy and sell
stocks while they serve in Congress.
“We’re a free-market economy. They
should be able to participate in that,”
Ms. Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters.
She should have advocated for tighter
scrutiny on congressional trading. Even
better would be a full ban on individual
stock trades for members of Congress.
There’s a big catch to Ms. Pelosi’s
“free-market economy” claim: U.S. rep-
resentatives and senators have access to
a lot of confidential, nonpublic informa-
tion. That gives them an unfair advan-
tage in trading.
Walter Shaub, former director of the
U.S. Office of Government Ethics, put it
this way in a tweet: “It’s a ridiculous
comment! She might as well have said
‘let them eat cake.’ Sure, it’s a free-mar-
ket economy. But your average schmuck
doesn’t get confidential briefings from
government experts chock full of non-
public information directly related to
the price of stocks.”
When members of the general public
trade on nonpublic information, they go
to jail for it (just ask Martha Stewart).
It’s theoretically possible to go after
members of Congress for trading on
insider information as well, but that has
proved extremely difficult.
In 2012, lawmakers passed the Stop
Trading on Congressional Knowledge
Act, or “Stock Act.” It forbids members of
Congress and staffers from trading on
confidential information they learn on
the job. It also requires them to report all
trades within 45 days. The hope was that
shining light on trades would be enough
to prevent questionable — or outright
wrong — trading. So far, the track record
is thin.
Lawmakers from both parties made
hundreds of stock trades in the early
months of 2020 as they were receiving
closed-door briefings about the corona-
virus. While most of these lawmakers
were not accused of doing anything
wrong, it certainly gives a poor impres-
sion of where their priorities were
during a massive crisis.
Furthermore, an investigation by In-
sider found that at least 49 members of
Congress and 182 staff members were
late in filing their stock trade reports in
the past two years. Both Democrats and
Republicans are on the naughty list.
There is no public record of whether
they paid fines for filing late.
It’s clear that transparency isn’t
enough.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers has
introduced the Ban Conflicted Trading
Act, which would prohibit buying or
selling individual stocks and s erving on
corporate boards while in office. This is
a common-sense reform that would go a
long way toward restoring trust in
Congress. It would still allow lawmakers
to invest in mutual funds and similar
investments that are the most common-
ly used among everyday i nvestors.
Being a member of Congress should
be about putting the American people
first, not a lawmaker’s stock portfolio.
An unfair advantage
Ms. Pelosi’s defense of lawmakers’ right to buy and sell stocks missed the obvious.
JABIN BOTSFORD/THE WASHINGTON POST
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) o n Capitol Hill on Dec. 15.
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vortex can also be noted in summer heat
waves.
Readers need to be aware of the effects
on the weather because of the changes in
the polar jet stream resulting from cli-
mate change.
Michael W. Dominick, Arlington
Regarding the Dec. 18 news article “Ex-
treme weather is bound to grow even
worse, studies warn”:
Although most scientists believe the
attribution of tornadoes to climate
change is very complex and cannot be
definitive, readers are being left with an
inadequate impression of the full impact
of climate change and with doubt about
the true costs.
Tornadoes are born of severe thunder-
storms when warm humid surface air is
overlain by cooler, drier air aloft, produc-
ing what meteorologists call a “condi-
tionally unstable atmosphere.” When a
strong vertical wind shear exists (which
is usually provided by the polar jet
stream emanating in the stratosphere)
and the warm surface air is forced up-
ward, large thunderstorms that spawn
tornadoes are formed.
Jennifer A. Francis, a senior scientist at
Woodwell Climate Research Center, has
been studying the changing effects of the
polar jet stream (also referred to as the
polar vortex) and has noted the effects of
the ongoing changes in the jet stream
induced by climate change. Most people
are familiar with these changes in the
winter season when they experience
deep freezes that move slowly across a
region of the country, such as the one
experienced in the past winter by the
state of Texas. The effect of the polar
Climate change’s full impact
DRAWING BOARD ED HALL
B Y ED HALL/ARTIZANS.COM
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telephone numbers.
D
ESPITE ITS small population
(19 million) and remote location,
Chile has played an outsize role
in the modern world’s political
dramas. Long a moderate, democratic
exception to South America’s violent,
authoritarian norms, Chile swung be-
tween 1970 and 1973 from the turbulent
rule of an elected Marxist to a horrific
military coup. The dictatorship of
Gen. Augusto Pinochet lasted 16 years,
until a peaceful return to elected civilian
leadership, which exhilarated democrats
almost as much as Pinochet’s takeover
had appalled them. For the next 30 years,
Chile developed as a model of economic
prosperity and moderate governance —
until a sudden outburst of violent popu-
lar unrest in 2019 brought previously
neglected issues of inequality and gov-
ernmental responsiveness to the fore.
Fairly or unfairly, then, high political
expectations have been imposed on the
Chilean people. On Sunday, they met
them. We say this not because of who won
the presidential run-off election: 35-year-
old Gabriel Boric, the left-wing candi-
date, a member of Chile’s Congress and a
former organizer of student protests.
Rather, what we applaud is the manner
in which Chile conducted itself political-
ly. The country carried out the election
freely and transparently, after which the
loser — right-wing populist José Antonio
Kast — immediately conceded defeat and
tweeted that Mr. Boric “is the elected
President of Chile and deserves all our
respect and constructive collaboration.”
This was in admirable contrast to
recent events in other Latin American
countries, such as Nicaragua, where dic-
tator Daniel Ortega declared victory in a
sham election, having earlier jailed oppo-
sition candidates. Chile also performed
better than its neighbor Peru, where a
presidential election this year gave way
to an extended period of tension — albeit
ultimately resolved — over the loser’s
cries of fraud. No doubt Mr. Kast’s con-
cession was accelerated by the undeni-
able magnitude of his defeat; Mr. Boric
got 56 percent of the vote, to 44 percent
for Mr. Kast. Still, at a time when the loser
of the United States’ 2020 presidential
election is claiming, falsely, that he was
robbed, this is a good sign. The oft-made
comparison between Mr. Kast and Don-
ald Trump, based on their similar ideol-
ogies, might need revision.
Mr. Boric’s victory occurs while Chile is
still in the throes of a potential rewrite of
its constitution and reeling from one of
the world’s highest per capita covid- 19
death tolls. The young president-elect’s
win is part of a regional progressive wave
that has already brought leftists to power
in Mexico and Peru. In addition to ad-
dressing economic issues, Mr. Boric, who
takes office in March, has promised to
steer Chile in a more environmentally
conscious direction, with greater rights
for women and LGBTQ people.
His challenge is to preserve what
worked about Chile’s post-Pinochet polit-
ical and economic model, while reform-
ing its shortcomings. Venezuela and
Cuba stand as stark examples of what not
to do. The center and right retain clout in
Chile’s Congress, as a potential check. An
often acrimonious campaign’s peaceful
conclusion provides reason to hope the
country can avoid further polarization;
as always with Chile, the world will be
watching.
A victory for democracy
Chile’s handling of its presidential election should be a model for other Latin countries.
RODRIGO GARRIDO/REUTERS
Chile’s president-elect, Gabriel Boric,
in Santiago on Dec. 20.
