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These Democrats used to be Republicans — and hope that will help them win midterms
In races across the country, former GOP politicians are leaning into their pasts.
How states’ fight over an ICE agent could open a new political battleground
Minnesota wants Texas to turn over an officer charged with shooting an immigrant. Such extraditions are usually routine, but in this case politics loom large.
This Appalachian memoir author is running as a Democratic contrast to JD Vance
Beth Macy is challenging Rep. Ben Cline in a bright-red Virginia district, hoping her own story and the stories she told about the region will win back rural and working-class White voters.
Measles deaths reported in Pennsylvania spark fight among politicians and health officials
The recent announcement of Pennsylvania’s first measles-related deaths in decades has ignited a public feud among politicians and health officials who disagree over the role of the contagious disease in the fatalities
Rep. Crockett says she’ll be campaigning ‘downballot’ instead of with Talarico
The congresswoman, who lost the primary Senate race to state Rep. James Talarico, did not mention him by name.
Josh Shapiro is battling RFK Jr. over measles, and the politics are getting messy
A feud between the Pennsylvania governor and health secretary sparked by this week's reports of measles-related deaths laid bare the increasingly polarized politics of public health.
Josh Shapiro is battling RFK Jr. over measles, and the politics are getting messy
A feud between the Pennsylvania governor and health secretary sparked by this week's reports of measles-related deaths laid bare the increasingly polarized politics of public health.
Early Cretaceous Footprints Appear To Come From The Largest Mammal Of The Dinosaur Era
At over 1.5 meters, maybe not all our mammalian predecessors were near the bottom of a dinosaur-ruled food chain.
Senate hopeful’s ex-staffer shared KKK and Nazi imagery, adding to concerns about his associates
Rep. Mike Collins (R-Georgia) is challenging Sen. Jon Ossoff. The former staffer posted a swastika and shared an image of himself in what appear to be KKK robes.
Democrats at odds in Michigan over El-Sayed’s ties to controversial streamer
Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed (D) has close political ties to political commentator Hasan Piker, who has been accused of antisemitism. Piker says his comments against Israel have been misunderstood.
Democrats want to draw more safe House seats. It could cost Black lawmakers.
Democrats want to redistrict to expand their number of safe seats in Congress. But that could mean losing some Black lawmakers.
Ohio business sues woman over one-star Google review
The lawsuit claims the woman “knowingly, maliciously, and intentionally” published “false” and “defamatory” allegations against the company.
T.J. Edwards discusses Bears rookies Dillon Thieneman, Malik Muhammad
T.J. Edwards said Chicago Bears rookies Dillon Thieneman and Malik Muhammad have been like sponges during training camp.
In Texas Senate race, Talarico seeks depositions that could damage Paxton
Democrat James Talarico has leaned into Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s past legal scandals to try to win over moderate Republicans.
‘Science fiction’: Five writers share what medical innovation excites them most
New technology is enabling major advances in medicine.
Why the White House and a MAHA influencer are fighting on social media
Influential MAHA activists are channeling their anger over pesticides at Heidi Overton, a top aide the president picked to lead the FDA.
Antisemitic streamer finally makes Dem leader snap with rare rebuke: ‘Malicious’
House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries calls Hasan Piker's claim that Jewish Americans invite violence against themselves dangerous and antisemitic.
‘This is obviously a very, very lucrative business for them’: Somali pirates are back—the Iran war is keeping the US too busy to stop them
Brett Erickson, a managing principal at Obsidian Risk Advisors, says Somali pirates have a lower risk of American retaliation because of resources in the Middle East.
State Dept. to revoke tourist, business visas for those who claimed asylum
The move is expected to apply to those granted B1 and B2 visas between 2016 and 2026 who have since sought asylum.
Secret Service says it is aware of Iranian state media video threatening Barron Trump
The footage, reportedly released by media linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, claimed a $10 million bounty had been placed on the president’s youngest son.
Trump reminds voters that trade wars are also affecting prices
The threat of higher prices for gas, cars, hockey sticks and more gave fresh life to Democratic arguments that the president is destabilizing the economy.
Will data centers be Oregon’s big political issue this fall?
The push to build more of them has brought the subject to the fore, sometimes in unexpected places.
Pepperdine University and Playfly Sports Announce Ticket Sales Partnership Expansion
MALIBU, Calif./NEW YORK, N.Y. — Pepperdine University Athletics and Playfly Sports, the sports industry's leading revenue maximization company, today announc...
As the Clancy case highlights postpartum psychosis, a mom stricken by it shares her story of hope
About two weeks after giving birth, Bridget Maria Chesterton was curled up on the bathroom floor, saying things that made little sense
Trump has long wanted to lose 15 pounds. Physicians wish he would.
Doctors say it’s worrying that the president has, according to his statements and those of aides, gained about 20 pounds since his campaign.
Trump has long wanted to lose 15 pounds. Physicians wish he would.
Doctors say it’s worrying that the president has, according to his statements and those of aides, gained about 20 pounds since his campaign.
Klint Kubiak calls out Raiders’ underperforming wide receivers
Malik Benson and the Raiders wide receivers were unable to convert opportunities against the Houston Texans defense.
Analysis: Bees everything Spurs were not
Brentford boss Keith Andrews admitted on the eve of the season that expectations have risen after they finished ninth last season, missing out on a European place on goal difference. The Mali midfielder, signed from Lens, was at the heart of Brentford's best moves, producing two key passes, registering one shot on target and providing the assist for Lewis-Potter. Brentford were everything Spurs were not - well-organised, full of energy and hard-working.
She’s a Trump acolyte. He’s a ‘gringo Sandinista.’ Meet the Harps.
Trump aide Natalie Harp is estranged from her brother, Preston, who has used social media and recent interviews to criticize her and highlight his own left-wing politics.
St. Petersburg resident gives back through junk removal business
“My goal is to partner with local churches, charities and community organizations to help find new homes for items such as furniture, household goods and appliances whenever possible,” Omar Malic said.
Trump, his clout on the line, to stump for Graham in South Carolina
The president’s political clout is on the line as he heads to South Carolina to campaign for Darline Graham. Several of his endorsed candidates have recently lost.
Restaurants inside Freedom 250 race zone say they’re seeing less business
Some D.C. restaurants around the security zone for the Freedom 250 Grand Prix say closures near the race course is hurting their bottom line, while students at a nearby school were forced to learn remotely on Friday.
RayNeo Is Going Both Minimalist And Maximalist With Its Latest AR Smart Glasses
RayNeo's latest AR smart glasses are going for very different audiences: The very discrete, and the very nerdy.
Dolphins Predicted to Add MVP Quarterback in Blockbuster Trade
This offseason, the Miami Dolphins signed Malik Willis to a three-year, $67 million contract to be their new starting quarterback.Despite Willis being a free agent, there was some familiarity for the Dolphins as head coach Jeff Hafley worked with the quarterback over the past two years while he was the Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator. […] The post Dolphins Predicted to Add MVP Quarterback in Blockbuster Trade appeared first on HEAVY.
Michael Cohen, Trump's former fixer-turned-enemy, is hosting the president on his radio show
President Donald Trump is expected to appear on the radio show of his former fixer-turned-foe Michael Cohen
Republicans notch win in Missouri congressional redistricting fight
A judge allowed Republicans to use their new congressional map this fall, but the state Supreme Court may weigh in.
Racism and sexism have become normalised in Britain, says equalities minister
Exclusive: Bridget Phillipson says politicians have helped fuel hatred and that police are not taking violence against women and girls seriously enough
5 science-backed health benefits of tea, from longevity to brain health
Drinking tea has been consistently associated with a longer lifespan.
5 science-backed health benefits of tea, from longevity to brain health
Drinking tea has been consistently associated with a longer lifespan.
Ties to data centers could cost Ohio Sen. John Husted his seat, memo warns
A GOP memo obtained by The Post urges the tech industry to take action to improve the image of the controversial facilities.
Americans have only elected 3 Black governors. This year, 8 major party candidates are on the ballot
Florida Republicans have settled on Byron Donalds, a congressman, as their candidate for governor, and that now makes eight Black major party nominees for governors this year
The bond market is sounding an alarm. Here’s what it means.
Long-term Treasury yields rose to their highest point since 2007, creating another headwind for the economy and lifting borrowing costs for consumers and businesses.
Politics drove antisemitism probes against Ivy League schools, DOJ whistleblower says
A Trump administration task force on antisemitism pressured universities into punitive settlements despite turning up little to no evidence of systemic abuses, a whistleblower says.
What to know about Natalie Harp, the Trump aide whom Ossoff put in the spotlight
The president’s executive assistant was among a small group of people who secretly switched planes with Trump over a potential Iranian threat, as noted by Sen. Jon Ossoff.
Kindergarten vaccine exemptions jump to another record high
Coverage among kindergarteners for the major vaccines fell in more than half the states, continuing a years-long trend, as measles cases climb.
U.S. commander calls mental health a priority after he visits USS Lincoln
Days after reports emerged of burnout and poor conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, Adm. Brad Cooper acknowledged that long stretches at sea can be challenging but that some of the concerns raised were 'old news."
'Very weird': 236-million-year-old fossil proves mammals stopped laying eggs earlier than we thought
Our understanding of mammalian reproduction is being reborn.
Republicans won the redistricting competition. Don't tell that to this California congressman
The national redistricting competition between the parties means California’s conservative voters are going through the same thing as Democratic voters in Republican strongholds
We study autism and vaccines. Trump’s executive order rests on flawed science.
The new childhood vaccine schedule and 6G, in readers' eyes.
His family fled socialism. He’s trying to spread it.
A young Cuban American is selling democratic socialism door-to-door across Miami. But he cannot bring himself to discuss it across his family’s kitchen table.
Senate hopeful Talarico touts his faith. Texas Republicans call it blasphemy.
The Democratic nominee is seeking to win over faith-based voters in Texas, the Bible Belt’s largest state, but evangelical Republicans aren’t sold.
Malik Willis turns heads immediately in impressive Dolphins debut
Malik Willis wasted no time making an impression in his Dolphins debut, leading a 93-yard touchdown drive and completing 4 of 5 passes in Miami’s preseason opener.
Democrats abandon deep-red state Senate races, boosting independents
Democratic Senate nominees in Nebraska, Idaho and South Dakota dropped out, clearing the way for independents. But Alani Bankhead in Montana declined to join them.
Malik Willis, De'Von Achane play one series, score TD
Malik Willis made his Miami debut in the team's first preseason game.
Miami Dolphins Announce Malik Willis Decision Before Commanders Preseason Game
On Friday night, the Miami Dolphins will begin their preseason as they take on the Washington Commanders at NorthWest Stadium.The contest will mark Jeff Hafley’s first game as Miami’s head coach.It will also feature the debut of many new Dolphins players, including quarterback Malik Willis, who signed a three-year, $67 million contract with Miami in […] The post Miami Dolphins Announce Malik Willis Decision Before Commanders Preseason Game appeared first on HEAVY.
The hidden politics of time: How clocks, calendars — and now-contentious time zones
Time is a concept that varies across cultures and history
White House says more than 40 nations help China dodge tariffs
A new White House report says that China sends billions of dollars worth of goods to the U.S. via third countries in order to skirt Trump's high tariffs.
Mammal ancestors may have given live birth 90 million years earlier than we thought, rewriting evolutionary timelines
A distinctive growth ring in fossilized bones is revealing how an ancestral species in the mammalian family reproduced.
As Abdul El-Sayed breaks a barrier, anti-Muslim vitriol surges on multiple fronts
Abdul El-Sayed made history this month in Michigan by becoming the first Muslim nominated by the Democratic Party to run for the U.S. Senate
Mission Improbable: A onetime Republican is trying to prove Democrats can win in Florida
David Jolly, a former Republican now running for Florida governor as a Democrat, is trying to revive the state’s political battleground status
Forget left vs. center. Democratic voters are making clear they just want change
Results in Democratic primaries in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Connecticut have reiterated that Democratic voters are hungry for change, even as they remain divided over the party’s ideological future
Analysis | With Crowley atop their ticket, Wisconsin Democrats hope for a 2026 sweep
The party establishment is breathing a sign of relief that democratic socialist Francesca Hong, who led the pre-election polls by double-digits, will not be topping their ticket.
Trump’s vaccine order hands some MAHA voters a win. It also gives Democrats an attack line
President Donald Trump’s executive order to change the childhood vaccine schedule could endear him to some “Make America Healthy Again” voters who want more flexibility on immunization
Galaxy Entertainment Group Q2 & Interim Results 2026
Leading Macau’s Non-Gaming Diversification Through MICE, Entertainment and Sporting Events Gaming and Entertainment Division on a Normalized Basis,Q2 2026 Net Revenue Grew 6%, Adjusted Property EBITDA Grew 9% and Adjusted Property EBITDA Margin Expanded From 30.5% to 31.4% YoY Announced Interim Dividend of $0.90 per Share Continued to Ramp up Capella at Galaxy Macau HONG KONG, Aug. 12, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Galaxy Entertainment Group (“GEG”, “Company” or the “Group”) (HKEx stock code: 27) tod
Trump officials tout Medicaid financing changes ahead of midterms
Republican-sponsored changes in Medicaid will lower hospital prices and Americans’ health insurance premiums, the White House contends in a new report.
Judge again bars Trump administration from implementing order that sought to limit mail voting
A federal judge has agreed to halt President Donald Trump’s executive order that sought to have the U.S. Postal Service play a central role in deciding who can receive a mail ballot
Human rights groups sue Trump administration over International Criminal Court sanctions
The president signed an executive order in 2025 placing sanctions on the ICC, whose jurisdiction the U.S. does not recognize.
Trump-Netanyahu rift widens as election pressures pull them in opposite directions
While the Israeli leader touts a willingness to defy the U.S. on Gaza, the president needs to show progress in the foreign entanglements weighing on his approval rating.
Connecticut Democrats weigh generational change as US. Rep. John Larson, 78, faces primary fight
Connecticut Democrats face a choice between U.S. Rep. John Larson and younger challengers for the 1st Congressional District
As profanity from politicans becomes normalized, what's allowed in political ads?
Deadline passes for Rep. Max Miller to be replaced on Ohio ballot as he faces domestic abuse claims
Embattled Republican Rep. Max Miller is staying in the race for his Ohio congressional district
Trump Stokes Islamophobia by Calling Democratic Candidates ‘Jihadists’
Along with his comments about Muslim candidates, Mr. Trump spoke disparagingly of Somalis in the United States, saying “they’re not smart.”
Patriot Games open with dodgeball, lots of MAGA caps and even more questions
The youth contest for $250,000 — part of the White House's Freedom 250 festivities — featured over 120 competitors drawn from a murky selection process.
Surprise nominees, candidate scandals scramble the battle for Congress
Unexpected primary results have complicated both parties’ paths to control of the House and Senate.
Solidity Pro VS Code Extensions Steal Crypto Wallets, API Keys, and Credentials
Malicious Solidity Pro VS Code extensions steal crypto wallets, API keys, SSH keys, and developer tokens, then exfiltrate the data via Telegram.
Cowboys Get Bad Injury News for Primetime Week 1 Matchup
The Dallas Cowboys got some bad injury news for Week 1 after Giants WR Malik Nabers appears to be "trending toward" playing after knee injury. The post Cowboys Get Bad Injury News for Primetime Week 1 Matchup appeared first on HEAVY.
Trump announces staff secretary Will Scharf will be his new White House counsel
President Donald Trump says Will Scharf will be the new White House counsel, replacing David Warrington
How hospital monopolies are driving up the cost of your health care
A federal disclosure rule is offering new insight on the effect of health care monopolies on pricing, following a wave of U.S. mergers.
How Texas is courting Wall Street with ‘Y’all Street’
Texas has spent a decade luring the finance industry to Dallas with tax incentives, new laws and a stock exchange of its own. Inside the rise of “Y’all Street.”
Community raises money to help Detroit activist Minister Malik Shabazz with medical bills
Dolphins' Malik Willis Continues to Shine With Strong Leadership
Miami Dolphins quarterback Malik Willis continues to shine with his leadership and command of the team.
Miami Dolphins quarterback Malik Willis talks to team before practice
Malik Willis talks to his offensive teammates at Hard Rock Stadium, asking if they are doing everything they can and doing the right thing.
Darline Graham tests value of a famous name vs. lack of experience in South Carolina primary
Darline Graham, the sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, is running in a crowded Republican Senate primary on Tuesday
John Harbaugh Gives Injury Updates on Cam Skattebo, Malik Nabers
Cam Skattebo and Malik Nabers have been making such great progress, it's easy to forget they are recovering from devastating injuries. Skattebo is, of course, coming off a dislocated ankle, which he sustained against the Eagles last season. Nabers is making progress returning from a torn ACL and meniscus.
Democratic voters who used to back Susan Collins aren’t so sure anymore
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) has counted on split-ticket voters to help her win office in a blue state. Some of those supporters are more reluctant to vote for her again.
New CSS Attacks Can Break Webmail Defenses to Steal Passwords and Tokens
Outlook CSS techniques can spoof Microsoft sign-in and capture passwords, while Gmail image-set() can trigger external requests from malicious email c
California may fine content creators who don't disclose they were paid to post about politics
States are debating whether to crack down on social media influencers making political advertisements without disclosing that they were paid
DSA socialism is Peter Pan politics for sandbox revolutionaries
If everyone with bills to pay is socialism’s priority, what is not socialism?
Francesca Hong faces scrutiny over ‘cancel Thanksgiving’ post
Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist running for Wisconsin governor, is getting attention for social media posts calling for canceling Thanksgiving and abolishing police.
Sen. McConnell discharged from rehab center, continuing recovery at home
The Kentucky Republican has been absent from the Senate since he was hospitalized June 14 following a fall at home.
Most Division I colleges lose money on sports
Over 90 percent of these athletic programs spend more money than they generate, according to the Government Accountability Office.
HHS proposes cutting many federal education and health guidelines for Head Start
A year after withholding funding from the antipoverty preschool program, the agency run by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. now says deregulation will allow the program to serve more children.
The Latest: Senate committee votes to hold Fauci in contempt over refusal to answer questions
A Senate committee has voted to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress and refer him to the Justice Department for potential prosecution over his refusal to answer questions at a hearing last week on his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic
Leader of Myanmar's military-backed government arrives in Thailand seeking political legitimacy
The leader of Myanmar’s military-backed government has arrived in Thailand on an official visit
Lawsuit over Missouri’s congressional map could throw a wrench into midterms
If the court approves the request for a referendum, it could raise questions about whether Tuesday’s primary winners under the new map are the official nominees.
Tennessee’s Republican governor endorses challenge to sitting GOP congressman
Gov. Bill Lee just endorsed against Trump-backed Rep. Andy Ogles, a fellow Republican, ahead of the Thursday election.
Chartbook 464 The"China squeeze" - the politics of development counterfactuals.
There are three types of China shock discourse. Each has a distinct temporal register. China shock 1.0 was a phrase coined by US academics in the 2010s to retrospectively summarize the impact on particular US labour markets, which they identified through painstaking empirical investigation. China shock 2.0 on everyone’s lips in Europe in the mid 2020s is an alarm raised by trans-Atlantic policy thinkers warning of a coming disaster which they project onto Europe’s ailing car industry. The third type of China shock discourse - commonly known as the “China squeeze” launched most recently by Indian economists Shoumitro Chatterjee and Arvind Subramanian in the pages of Foreign Affairs - mobilizes a different, more speculative temporal register: the counterfactual realm of alternate history. The China squeeze argument asks not what has happened, or what is going to happen, but what might have been. Specifically, what options for economic development might have been open to Global South economies like India or the economies of sub-Saharan Africa, had it not been for China’s spectacular industrialization since the late 1990s and the persistent competitiveness of China’s manufacture in low-skilled segments. Chatterjee and Subramanian’s argument is that whilst China has built a powerful position in electrical machinery and other high-skill manufacturing, which is now delivering China Shock 2.0, it also continues to run a trade surplus in low-skill, labour-intensive manufacturing. This surplus is large and has remained largely unchanged in fifteen years. Indeed, in the 2010s, in trade with low-income countries, China’s surplus rapidly increased. On their reading, this squeezes low-income producers in low-skill sectors in which they “should” be able to compete. Source: “China’s Mercantilist Squeeze on Developing Countries” Shoumitro Chatterjee and Arvind Subramanian. Peterson Institute for International Economics 26-7 May 2026 Chatterjee and Subramanian’s wording is telling: (emphasis mine) The canonical trajectory of economic development in the post-World War II period is for countries to transition from agriculture to manufacturing, first in low-skilled manufacturing and then later on to high-skill manufacturing (Herrendorf, Rogerson, and Valentinyi 2013). At the global level, this implies that high-income countries (HICs) that once specialized in low-skilled activities cede manufacturing export space to poorer countries that come along to occupy that space. In 1965, advanced economies accounted for about 60 percent of global value-added exports in four key low-skilled manufacturing sectors, i.e., apparel, leather, textiles, and footwear. Over time this share declined and began to be occupied first by the East Asian tigers and, beginning in the late 1990s, by China. Today China accounts for about 50 percent of the global market. The question is whether China, with its rising prosperity, is continuing to behave like its richer counterparts and ceding export space to poorer followers or to behave unlike them and continuing to occupy space. In terms of the conceptual maneuvers it performs, of the three China shock discourses, the “China squeeze” argument is by far the most ambitious. After all, it bases its critique of China on a counterfactual imagining of the world. Like any counterfactual argument, to construct this alternative reality it must rely on a heuristic model. To make their argument Chatterjee and Subramanian mobilize two key claims. The first reference point is the actual history of rich-country industrialization, what they refer to as the “canonical path”. The idea is that countries transition from agriculture to light industry and low-skilled manufacturing and from there up the value chain. To make this useful as a standard of comparison and a means to construct a normative standard, they adjust sectoral export shares for two factors: 1. the underlying level of economic development of the exporting country, as measured by national income and 2. the degree to which the sector in question is internationalized. The idea being that for a high income country to have a high export share in low-skill sectors is anomalous and even more so if that particular product is highly internationalized and thus suitable for being “conceded” to lower-income competitors. Where should this process end? Here Chatterjee and Subramanian introduce their second benchmark. Their normative idea of a global development path is one in which, in due course, low-skill manufacturing exports are distributed in proportion to a country’s share in the global labour force. They imagine, in other words, a world of proportional, polycentric global development without much national specialization in low-skill manufacturing. A useful benchmark is that, in labor-intensive manufacturing sectors, a country’s share of world exports should be broadly commensurate with its share of the world’s low-skilled labor endowment. … In the Heckscher-Ohlin model, this would be true if value added per worker and export propensities, i.e., fraction of output that is exported, are the same across countries. It is this pleasant liberal vista of orderly global development, progressing towards a general distribution of low-skilled manufacturing against which they judge reality and conclude that the low-income countries are suffering a “China squeeze”. China is not exiting low-skill sectors fast enough Allowing for its gdp level and the degree of globalization, China’s share of low-skill manufacturing exports is far higher than it “should” be. Relative to population, its low-skill share of exports is far too high. That in turn yields the conclusion that huge numbers of jobs - the authors suggest tens of millions - are being hoarded by China. For the four sectors captured in figure 4, this excess in value-added exports is $110 billion in 2022. For all low-skilled sectors overall captured in appendix figure D.1, excess value-added exports amount to $365 billion. The crowding out of LMIC exports by China is therefore substantial. Both these claims have in common that they are strong structuralisms. The first is that development paths ought to resemble each other. The second is that broadly speaking as far as low-skilled manufacturing is concerned, all countries are alike. If the world currently diverges from the distribution of trade implied by these assumptions, if China is not following the advanced economy path and has huge exports, this must be the result of “policy”, which the authors then put in question as illegitimate or unfair. Thus the naturalistic construction of a canonical path leading to a “level” distribution of low-skilled manufacturing reveals itself to be a polemical tool. From the point of view of China shock polemics, this discourse is no doubt welcome. But as an account of economic history, it must surely be regarded as nothing short of bamboozling. Development paths do not follow a regular, natural sequence. As David Fishman put it aptly, “development is not a queue”. They are always and everywhere, through and through political. Development is not so much a process, as a project. Each such project is more or less well adjusted to its context. As Gerschenkron taught uneven and combined development implies differentiation rather than simple imitation on a single parth. It may be true that Europe and the US exited relatively early from low-skill work. But clearly technology has changed. As C&S themselves point out, China no longer enjoys a low wage environment. Do they really believe that such huge differences can be accounted for either by industrial policy, which as they admit does not operate powerfully in low-skill sectors, or by exchange rate manipulation? What is overwhelmingly dominant in explaining the persistence of “low-skill” manufacturing in China are surely the network effects of complex supply chains. Indeed the label of “low-skill” may miss the point. The degree of globalization which Chatterjee and Subramanian decide to conjure away in their model of the development path - to allow for the fact that Europe and American textiles exporters did not enjoy just-in-time logistics in the 1950s - obscures the point that the networks through which Chinese factories supply the world are themselves key parts of the low-skill industrialization project. China isn’t knocking out 1970s style “cheap”. It has redefined the entire product cycle. C&S’s casual reference to “T-shirts” is telling. In today’s “fast fashion”, there is weight on both terms. Fashion and fast. China’s success in delivering on both at unprecedentedly high speed and at unprecedentedly low cost, isn’t a low-skill operation at all. If we see development trajectories not as the serial repetition of the same, but as distinctive, crafted projects that cumulate in complex agglomerations of skill, technology and labor, then this explains why the assumption that low-skilled manufacturing should follow the distribution of population flies in the face of all experience. As countless cases attest, low-wage, low-income developed economies are not by themselves the makings of a competitive production base. As Leon Liao puts it quite fairly: “International trade has never been allocated according to population. A country’s population gives it no natural claim to an equivalent share of global exports." And the remarkable fact is that Subramanian alone and with co-authors has long been making this point, not to pillory China, as is the case of the tendentious _Foreign Affair_s and Peterson pieces, but to highlight the great counterpart to China’s industrial success, namely India’s relative failure. The much-quoted Foreign Affairs piece showed low-skill export shares only for China, not for India. If you put both countries in the picture as Chaterjee and Subramanian have done on other occasions, the picture looks like this. China is far above the line, but India, almost as large in terms of population, is no less anomalous, just in the opposite direction. As far as global populations are concerned, and the imagining of tens of millions of “squeezed” jobs, it is this Sino-Indian pair that account for a huge share of the action. What this graph reveals is not China’s cheating, but India’s “greatest development failure”, at least this is the argument made Arvind Subramanian, this time in co-authorship with Devesh Kapur, in their major book, A Sixth of Humanity. Independent India’s Development Odyssey which appeared with Oxford University Press earlier this year. In this highly critical work on India’s development, China is repeatedly evoked, not to criticize but as a benchmark against which to illuminate what India’s political economy has not delivered i.e. large-scale formal employment for hundreds of millions of citizens. Kapur and Subramanian leave no doubt, if you want to understand why China, not India was the main driver of manufacturing globalization from the 1980s, don’t look to slots opening up in the division of labour thanks to the liberal mindedness of advanced economies, look to the contrasting political economy of the Maoist PRC and India’s post-independence political economy. As Kapur and Subramian note: The great divergence between China and India did not begin in 1978 with the Deng reforms—it was well underway by then. In one of the great ironies of modern history, the conditions created by Maoism turned out to be a great launching pad for industrial globalization. As the comparison of India and China in 1980 makes clear, to imagine manufacturing would be equally distributed when populations are so differently endowed in terms of educational and nutritional is fanciful. Here is the data from Kapur and Subramanian, data which I explored back at the very beginning of Chartbook. As Kapur and Subramanian insist, the striking fact is that even as India’s growth accelerated from the 1980s, structural change has not. Formal employment in India lags woefully behind. Why? As Kapur and Subramanian note, the path-dependent impact of India’s poor early start was devastating. The list of factors they mention is long and weighty: We argue for a new five-fold explanation applicable at different stages of Indian history: in the initial stages, the legacy of two key pre-1980s policies, the neglect of agriculture and the strangling of the domestic private sector, were critical. The failure of broad-based agricultural growth militated against rural industrialization, which would have been devoted to satisfying local needs that would have necessarily been labour intensive. Then, when the boom came after 1980, the thicket of regulation and broader labour protections that were legislated prematurely in a nascent democracy, underpinned by a deep ideological aversion to private capital in general and big capital specifically, became a barrier to attaining the size that would be necessary to compete globally. Similarly, the reforms after 1991, while wide-ranging, did not quite encompass non-tradeable inputs critical to manufacturing, namely, land, logistics infrastructure and power. A combination of low investment (logistics infrastructure), regulation (land) and the continued monopoly supply by state governments (power), combined with residual socialism, kept costs at 75–100 per cent above efficient supply. These factors were compounded on the supply side by the government, which dominated the formal labour market and established exorbitantly high wages at the lower end of the skill spectrum. This made their employment in the labour-intensive sector by the private sector less attractive. Finally, when the services sector and its exports boomed, wages soared even further via a Dutch Disease effect: one successful tradeable sector killed and cannibalized another less-skilled tradable sector, namely, manufacturing. Thus, scarcity-inducing policies of the planning era, precocious democracy and a Gandhian aversion to size; inefficient, monopolistic supply of critical non-tradable inputs; the behemoth of government; and super-successful skill-intensive services successively undermined India’s unskilled labour employment opportunities. The employment failure seems to have been over-determined. … Less quantifiable but no less important are some of the sociological factors that have undermined manufacturing and factory jobs. Take the impact of the success of the IT sector—located in urban areas with better working conditions, such as air-conditioned offices, good schools for children and attractive entertainment options. It became a more attractive place for engineering and management graduates to flock to. … Consider manufacturing and female employment. Indian society makes it difficult for women to work, reflected in India’s unusually low female labour force participation (elaborated in Chapter XIII). Indian society, in particular the routine harassment of women in public spaces, makes it even more difficult for them to travel long distances to take up work.37 Combined with onerous regulations on creating hostels and dormitories for women—which, in turn, prevents multiple shifts of operation—factories need to be located in areas with a large female labour pool. While firms can take apparel plants to female labour or bring them to the plants by building large-scale dormitories, this raises costs. If there was a case for subsidies to encourage labour-intensive manufacturing, housing subsidies to build dormitories for women workers would be a good place to start. All of this meant, that when opportunities did open up, in part thanks to adjustments in China, India was in no position to take advantage. Here is the account of the 2020s from Kapur and Subramanian. It stands in dizzying contrast to the one-sided, “China squeeze” argument delivered in the Peterson and Foreign Affairs pieces: In 2022, for example, India’s share of global exports in clothing (the canonical labour-intensive sector) was 3.1 per cent compared to 32 per cent for China. This is extremely disappointing because China started vacating export space in this sector after the Global Financial Crisis as its wages started rising; it then vacated further space in the aftermath of geopolitical developments that led investors to seek alternative investment locations. Between its peak and today, China lost about 7.5 percentage points of global export share (worth about $43 billion in 2022); over this period, India’s export share remained stagnant at 3 per cent, while that of Vietnam and Bangladesh rose by 3.5 to 4 percentage points. China’s loss did not translate into any gain for India in terms of low-skill exports and employment. Put differently, when the conditions for dynamism and prosperity were established after 1991, and even more tantalizingly when the global export opportunities opened up, it was as if India was a high-wage economy and only skilled labour could benefit from the dynamism. It had converted its physically abundant unskilled workforce into an economically expensive resource, penalizing its use. It is not my mission here to argue for or against Kapur and Subramanian’s interpretation of India’s development trajectory. The point in this context is simply that the “China squeeze” such as it is can only be understood, in relation to the heavy burden of domestic constraints that Kapur and Subramanian so unsparingly enumerate. I am concentrating here on India because it is the great counterpart to China and the unspoken reference point of the “China squeeze” discourse. But the point is more general. Can anyone with a straight face suggest that the main problems afflicting the development of South Africa or Nigeria, the great centers of mass underemployment in sub-saharan Africa, are cheap competition from China driven by Beijing’s industrial policy and an undervalued RMB? Likewise, is the main problem of the American working-class the threat of Chinese competition or the manifest crisis of social reproduction in the United States itself? The point here, as in the discourse around China shock 2.0 in Europe, is to insist that we should not normalize the world and pathologize China, without actually investigating what is going on in America’s industrial wastelands, the German car industry, or India’s lopsided labour market. One-sided pathologization should be understood for what it is, a polemical gesture. Concepts like China shock and China squeeze are, what Reinhart Koselleck, following Carl Schmitt, would have described as “asymmetrische Kampfbegriffe”, or “asymmetrical counter-concepts” or “asymmetrical combat concepts”. If the function of arguments like the “China squeeze” is to alert elites in the rest of the world of the need to rejuvenate and energize their development projects, so be it. But let us see the resulting discourses as the mobilizing interventions that they are. Interestingly, a significant slice of China’s public sphere - the so-called industrial party - have been obsessed for the last twenty years with precisely these questions of counterfactual economic history. Since the mid 2000s, a massive online discourse developed around an alternative history in which Chinese techno-patriots were asked to imagine how they would proceed if they had the possibility of traveling back in time to transport modern technology into the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) thus averting the “great divergence” of the 18th and 19th centuries. It is a fantasy of course, but also a goad. The point was not directed at Westerners. The alternate history is dramatically nationalist, but few n the West had even heard of it until recently. The adherents of the industrial party are not liberal moralists. They don’t project natural ladders of international development and ask why others don’t cede space. They take the Realpolitik of global economic development for granted. Their pointe was directed against fellow Chinese. The rallying cry of the alternative narrative was this: Now that we are beginning to gain steam and push forward on our national development path, now that we are breaking out of the inferior position assigned to us even in the early years following WTO accession, do not lose yourself in humanistic imaginings about better futures. In the spirit of Deng, they called on China to embrace the hard truth of development. Perhaps one might of the Industrial Party as a cultural trend born out of desire for symbolic revenge against those who had inflicted the century of humiliation. In terms of the various temporalities of the “China shock” - retrospective, prospective and counterfactual - one might think of the Industrial Policy discourse as truly speculative, conjuring up the China shock that never was. Or perhaps one might better think of it as imagining a world in which a powerful China was no shock at all, but simply a defining fact of modern history. I love putting out Chartbook. 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