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World Economic Forum’s Nadia Hewitt Talks Supply Chains, COVID-19 and Blockchain

World Economic Forum’s Nadia Hewitt Talks Supply Chains, COVID-19 and Blockchain

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Cointelegraph sits down with the World Economic Forum's project lead for blockchain and digital currency, Nadia Hewett, to discuss how blockchain can change the world economy.

Last week, the World Economic Forum (WEF) published a major new blockchain deployment toolkit designed to help governments, enterprises and organizations worldwide to develop more resilient value chains going forward after the COVID-19 crisis. 

The toolkit’s authors believe that the case for blockchain implementation is stronger than ever in the wake of the pandemic and has major potential to help with the global economic recovery through an innovative digitization of trade.  

Recognizing that “a fair share of puzzlement and anxiety” persists among supply chain actors when it comes to the blockchain, the toolkit tackles not only technology, but also key areas such as governance, interoperability, digital identity, cybersecurity, and regulatory compliance.

Cointelegraph spoke to one of the toolkit’s authors, Nadia Hewett — project lead for blockchain and digital currency at the World Economic Forum — about the core ideas and vision behind the new project.

Marie Huillet: The COVID-19 pandemic has provided the global community with a striking X-ray of the interconnectedness and, in many cases, fragility of global supply chains. 

There has been some discussion of — and pushback against — the notion that the crisis could eventuate in calls for some form of deglobalization, involving the "onshoring" of production for critical goods, especially when it comes to medical supplies and food. 

Many others say that it is implausible that states and enterprises can reverse decades of liberalization and retreat back into autarky. In all scenarios, a focus on improving resilience and diversification would seem to be on the agenda.

MH: How does the World Economic Forum view the role of blockchain in developing the technological and infrastructural support for the evolution of supply chains going forward?

NH: I would say that the WEF’s new toolkit takes both a technical and non-technical approach to the deployment of blockchain. The extent to which any of the benefits of the technology are maximized heavily depends on the quality of governance protocols — and beyond this, upon establishing policies, norms, standards and regulations. Governance protocols need to be stable and predictable enough to foster confidence — not just between states but also between enterprises, scientists, the general public and investors.

So it’s not that we're promoting the technology per se. Blockchain does have qualities that can help build resilience and transparency into supply chains, but the mechanisms we deploy need to allow for policymakers to interact at the cutting edge of technological and scientific research. 

It's for that reason that the WEF Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution is designed to serve as a hub for public-private collaboration. More than ever, we need a global and trusted space where leading companies can forge partnerships to develop those agile policies and norms.

So that’s the reason the toolkit is not just tech-focused. The project actually takes a very holistic approach to what it would take for blockchain to assist with resilience and agility, to bring trusted data to supply chain ecosystems and into value chains. 

For example, many of the modules in the toolkit cover topics such as legal and regulatory compliance, they touch on different laws in various jurisdictions. If we take the issue of data sharing — personal data sharing is not merely a technical matter, it’s also a question of regulations, as with the EU’s GDPR.

MH: Can you talk us through how that holistic approach has played out in how you constructed the WEF’s blockchain toolkit? 

NH: Let’s focus on interoperability. In the context of supply chains, that raises questions of transparency, because trusting the data you see all across the value chain depends on achieving end-to-end interoperability. And if you look at our toolkit module, you’ll see it’s not only focused on the technical aspects, but that we’ve built three further layers into our approach: the top layer — the business model layer, involving governance — commercial models, and the legal framework. 

Interoperability is a good example of where the technology is not the problem, but rather governance. It’s the willingness of governments, companies, of all stakeholders to work together. We need interoperability at all those layers to intervene effectively in supply chains, to solve the issues we’ve seen exposed in recent weeks. 

MH: International cooperation has arguably been compromised by both commercial and geopolitical competing interests during this crisis, and technology — a critical area going forward — has at times been at the center of these conflicts, e.g. with disputes over intellectual property, data privacy and standards setting. 

What degree of inter-state collaboration do you think is needed for realizing the opportunities offered by blockchain and do you anticipate any particular challenges?

NH: A lot of the problems we’re seeing are, of course, not new. One big challenge we face is fragmentation into data silos. That existed already before the COVID-19 pandemic. Many incumbents do not want to share data; they see it as a way to protect their own competitive advantage. Stakeholders artificially create data barriers and silos and there's a difficulty in getting parties to take a different approach. 

What does it look like when we share data with each other? How could you design it in a way that everyone is incentivized to do so, so that the different parties are awarded for sharing data? 

Here blockchain as a technology for supply chains has great potential. You can share data in a privacy-preserving way, which wasn't possible before. With many supply chain stakeholders, both in the public and private sector, you see that there's a perceived loss of control over data. That's a huge barrier and blockchain technology can help to mitigate exactly this perceived loss of control. 

A blockchain system never requires an organization to reveal more data than it is comfortable with. Onchain data can be encrypted so that it's only visible by authorized parties. When supply chain organizations deploy a blockchain solution they have real flexibility to ensure it addresses both data protection and privacy concerns.

MH: Are there any other sticking points you have identified that may be affecting efficient cooperation, both in the public and private sectors?

NH: Of course we have to be aware of the legal and regulatory barriers that continue to exist. To solve this we’ll need international cooperation. A node on the blockchain can be located anywhere in the world, it can cross jurisdictional boundaries. And of course, global value chains themselves cross these boundaries. Today, that poses a number of complex jurisdictional issues for participants in a blockchain network and also for the contractual relationships between them.

In addition to legal frameworks like GDPR, which have cross-territorial effects, blockchain users and nodes all around the world each have local regimes to deal with. So for anyone who is designing an innovative blockchain solution for supply chains, the kinds of solutions they can devise and actually implement remain limited to an extent.

Stakeholders are having to cope with many of these cross-jurisdictional issues while governments continue to work out both international and local rules. To solve it properly, you need to get all the players around the table from day one; that's not an easy thing. 

It’s very intentional that we’ve included topics like auditing and financial reporting, tax implications, and so on, in our modules. These are vast and diverse topics. We are really trying to encourage an approach whereby you have all the stakeholders involved in the process from the get-go, whether they be tech developers or lawyers. This goes for the public and the private sector, and for collaborations between them.

MH: You’ve emphasized the need to have a plurality of stakeholders involved and as wide and inclusive a vision as possible —even just to solve one commercial hurdle or a single policy coordination.

Do you think that this recent shock will spur greater willingness to tackle these complex challenges head on? Are private actors and states now more likely to recognize that developing resilience is necessarily tied to a framework of interdependence and coordination?

Nadia Hewett: Firstly, I would emphasize that the issues we face with supply chains — for example, the persistent lack of willingness to share data — are not unique to international value chains. 

We face a lack of visibility and transparency, difficulties with data integrity, a lack of real-time data, difficulty integrating data from Internet of Things technologies — all these challenges exist both for domestic and international supply chains. 

I would also point out that we’ve seen major international disruptions to supply chains in the past, as for example with E. coli. The United States renegotiated contracts for ports with their labor unions in 2002, 2005 and 2012. There were weeks of disruptions to supply chains at that time. People forget that now. And at that time we saw various firms coming up with proofs-of-concept (PoCs), pandemic insurance PoCs, for example. 

But after a while, people went back to what they used to do, the momentum just wasn’t there. Many of those PoCs, including those involving blockchain, were shelved. Other things became more important. Yet now in the past few weeks we've seen those companies going back to those PoCs, dusting them off and taking a look again. The momentum is significantly greater than what we've seen before. 

Public and private sector actors are looking at what they already knew — and, in some cases, had already tested. Previously they didn’t have a sufficient push or willingness to tackle all the interoperability issues we've discussed, all the complex pieces that are involved. 

MH: Are you seeing any evidence that the pandemic is already encouraging actors to take the kinds of holistic and interlocking approaches you believe to be necessary?  

NH: Now, as you can imagine the momentum is there, a recognition that we need to get this right, and this applies whether we source regionally or internationally. Following the pandemic there will definitely be regional sourcing to some extent, it’s inevitable.

The difficulty is that when the media reports on issues with supply chains they tackle the impact at a macro level, but it's impossible to look with a broad brush at supply chains and conclude with any meaningful insights; you need to take a much more granular approach.  

For example, we have commodity markets, or PPE, medical supplies, footwear, textiles, military equipment, and project cargo for infrastructure development. The impact of this crisis will play out very differently depending on which value chains we're talking about, there's a degree of nuance that we need to preserve. 

MH: You’ve spoken about interoperability being a much broader question than just one involving technology. Yet if we set aside for a moment questions of governance, legal and regulatory aspects, all those layers that are connected with blockchain’s implementation for global value chains, is there any particular aspect of blockchain development that you would say needs particular development?

NH: I would say that in the enterprise blockchain sector, there’s still a long way to go with standardization. There's no sign yet of a single platform. Public blockchains such as Bitcoin are much more developed, and we see a number of solutions in the public chain space that are tackling questions of interoperability. 

At the enterprise level, interoperability is still very much at its beginning stage, and the problem here again is one of incentives. How can we spur solution vendors to work more intensively together? 

One thing we’ve been seeing in recent years is a proliferation of blockchain consortiums. Specific industries are forming dedicated blockchain consortiums, working on problems specific to their industry. Say, for example, the Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative, or consortiums for the mining and metal industries. These tend to cooperate on very specific industry problems and I expect these kinds of consortiums will continue for the next couple of years and will help to set data standards and industry-wide solutions. 

But the challenge is to encourage work on interoperability, on infrastructure and platforms, that could cross over into other sectors. For now, any data standardization beyond an industry’s particular use case —which is what we really need — remains secondary. 

MH: Staying a bit longer with the technology, it would be interesting to hear more thoughts on what the WEF’s toolkit defines as the trade-offs between decentralized and centralized components of blockchain systems. 

Can you relate these trade-offs to the kinds of multi-layered public-private sector interactions we’ve been speaking about?

NH: It’s important to recognize that many supply chain processes today use technologies that are designed for siloed centralized systems. So for supply chain companies to really take advantage of blockchain, they need to conduct a review both of the process and the technology. Governments and businesses must recognize that a business process that is inherently centralized, or designed based on centralized trust, might not actually be effective using a blockchain system. 

The way we see it is that decentralization is not an all-or-nothing objective. Unlike for the public blockchain space, when you talk about enterprise systems — about supply chains which have for decades been based on centralized trust controls — you need a balanced objective. This does require tradeoffs, for practical reasons, and a system might well require both centralized and decentralized components. 

That being said, of course, it's very important to remember that the decentralization benefits do degrade, that distributed ledger solutions can very quickly become diluted the more centralized components you have. So that brings you back again to looking at whether you really have a business problem for which blockchain really is the most appropriate technology.

MH: Before you go, are there any particular areas within supply chains which you have identified as likely to benefit from a blockchain solution? 

NH: There are, of course, but I think that in general one could point to the concept of a “shared truth” — the fact that what I see is what you see.

This is particularly important when you need to establish the provenance of a product; to establish traceability, transparency, where it comes from. Is your truth my truth? Wherever it's really important that what I see is what you see, that is where blockchain has so much to offer for supply chains.

Looking at the pandemics we’ve faced in the past, a lot of the issues arose from livestock mishandling or food quality issues, again recalling e.coli. Can I trust where this product comes from? With blockchain, the fact that we have a shared truth here becomes really useful.

This goes for any use case where having a trusted data piece is critically important. When you look at medical supply chains right now amid the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve been seeing issues with counterfeit ventilators. Overnight, you need to be able to verify whether you are dealing with credible suppliers. So blockchain can enable that shared version of truth, which is so vital for securing data integrity and trust.

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Vaccine-skeptical mothers say bad health care experiences made them distrust the medical system

Vaccine skepticism, and the broader medical mistrust and far-reaching anxieties it reflects, is not just a fringe position in the 21st century.

Women's own negative medical experiences influence their vaccine decisions for their kids. AP Photo/Ted S. Warren

Why would a mother reject safe, potentially lifesaving vaccines for her child?

Popular writing on vaccine skepticism often denigrates white and middle-class mothers who reject some or all recommended vaccines as hysterical, misinformed, zealous or ignorant. Mainstream media and medical providers increasingly dismiss vaccine refusal as a hallmark of American fringe ideology, far-right radicalization or anti-intellectualism.

But vaccine skepticism, and the broader medical mistrust and far-reaching anxieties it reflects, is not just a fringe position.

Pediatric vaccination rates had already fallen sharply before the COVID-19 pandemic, ushering in the return of measles, mumps and chickenpox to the U.S. in 2019. Four years after the pandemic’s onset, a growing number of Americans doubt the safety, efficacy and necessity of routine vaccines. Childhood vaccination rates have declined substantially across the U.S., which public health officials attribute to a “spillover” effect from pandemic-related vaccine skepticism and blame for the recent measles outbreak. Almost half of American mothers rated the risk of side effects from the MMR vaccine as medium or high in a 2023 survey by Pew Research.

Recommended vaccines go through rigorous testing and evaluation, and the most infamous charges of vaccine-induced injury have been thoroughly debunked. How do so many mothers – primary caregivers and health care decision-makers for their families – become wary of U.S. health care and one of its most proven preventive technologies?

I’m a cultural anthropologist who studies the ways feelings and beliefs circulate in American society. To investigate what’s behind mothers’ vaccine skepticism, I interviewed vaccine-skeptical mothers about their perceptions of existing and novel vaccines. What they told me complicates sweeping and overly simplified portrayals of their misgivings by pointing to the U.S. health care system itself. The medical system’s failures and harms against women gave rise to their pervasive vaccine skepticism and generalized medical mistrust.

The seeds of women’s skepticism

I conducted this ethnographic research in Oregon from 2020 to 2021 with predominantly white mothers between the ages of 25 and 60. My findings reveal new insights about the origins of vaccine skepticism among this demographic. These women traced their distrust of vaccines, and of U.S. health care more generally, to ongoing and repeated instances of medical harm they experienced from childhood through childbirth.

girl sitting on exam table faces a doctor viewer can see from behind
A woman’s own childhood mistreatment by a doctor can shape her health care decisions for the next generation. FatCamera/E+ via Getty Images

As young girls in medical offices, they were touched without consent, yelled at, disbelieved or threatened. One mother, Susan, recalled her pediatrician abruptly lying her down and performing a rectal exam without her consent at the age of 12. Another mother, Luna, shared how a pediatrician once threatened to have her institutionalized when she voiced anxiety at a routine physical.

As women giving birth, they often felt managed, pressured or discounted. One mother, Meryl, told me, “I felt like I was coerced under distress into Pitocin and induction” during labor. Another mother, Hallie, shared, “I really battled with my provider” throughout the childbirth experience.

Together with the convoluted bureaucracy of for-profit health care, experiences of medical harm contributed to “one million little touch points of information,” in one mother’s phrase, that underscored the untrustworthiness and harmful effects of U.S. health care writ large.

A system that doesn’t serve them

Many mothers I interviewed rejected the premise that public health entities such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration had their children’s best interests at heart. Instead, they tied childhood vaccination and the more recent development of COVID-19 vaccines to a bloated pharmaceutical industry and for-profit health care model. As one mother explained, “The FDA is not looking out for our health. They’re looking out for their wealth.”

After ongoing negative medical encounters, the women I interviewed lost trust not only in providers but the medical system. Frustrating experiences prompted them to “do their own research” in the name of bodily autonomy. Such research often included books, articles and podcasts deeply critical of vaccines, public health care and drug companies.

These materials, which have proliferated since 2020, cast light on past vaccine trials gone awry, broader histories of medical harm and abuse, the rapid growth of the recommended vaccine schedule in the late 20th century and the massive profits reaped from drug development and for-profit health care. They confirmed and hardened women’s suspicions about U.S. health care.

hands point to a handwritten vaccination record
The number of recommended childhood vaccines has increased over time. Mike Adaskaveg/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images

The stories these women told me add nuance to existing academic research into vaccine skepticism. Most studies have considered vaccine skepticism among primarily white and middle-class parents to be an outgrowth of today’s neoliberal parenting and intensive mothering. Researchers have theorized vaccine skepticism among white and well-off mothers to be an outcome of consumer health care and its emphasis on individual choice and risk reduction. Other researchers highlight vaccine skepticism as a collective identity that can provide mothers with a sense of belonging.

Seeing medical care as a threat to health

The perceptions mothers shared are far from isolated or fringe, and they are not unreasonable. Rather, they represent a growing population of Americans who hold the pervasive belief that U.S. health care harms more than it helps.

Data suggests that the number of Americans harmed in the course of treatment remains high, with incidents of medical error in the U.S. outnumbering those in peer countries, despite more money being spent per capita on health care. One 2023 study found that diagnostic error, one kind of medical error, accounted for 371,000 deaths and 424,000 permanent disabilities among Americans every year.

Studies reveal particularly high rates of medical error in the treatment of vulnerable communities, including women, people of color, disabled, poor, LGBTQ+ and gender-nonconforming individuals and the elderly. The number of U.S. women who have died because of pregnancy-related causes has increased substantially in recent years, with maternal death rates doubling between 1999 and 2019.

The prevalence of medical harm points to the relevance of philosopher Ivan Illich’s manifesto against the “disease of medical progress.” In his 1982 book “Medical Nemesis,” he insisted that rather than being incidental, harm flows inevitably from the structure of institutionalized and for-profit health care itself. Illich wrote, “The medical establishment has become a major threat to health,” and has created its own “epidemic” of iatrogenic illness – that is, illness caused by a physician or the health care system itself.

Four decades later, medical mistrust among Americans remains alarmingly high. Only 23% of Americans express high confidence in the medical system. The United States ranks 24th out of 29 peer high-income countries for the level of public trust in medical providers.

For people like the mothers I interviewed, who have experienced real or perceived harm at the hands of medical providers; have felt belittled, dismissed or disbelieved in a doctor’s office; or spent countless hours fighting to pay for, understand or use health benefits, skepticism and distrust are rational responses to lived experience. These attitudes do not emerge solely from ignorance, conspiracy thinking, far-right extremism or hysteria, but rather the historical and ongoing harms endemic to the U.S. health care system itself.

Johanna Richlin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Government

Is the National Guard a solution to school violence?

School board members in one Massachusetts district have called for the National Guard to address student misbehavior. Does their request have merit? A…

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Every now and then, an elected official will suggest bringing in the National Guard to deal with violence that seems out of control.

A city council member in Washington suggested doing so in 2023 to combat the city’s rising violence. So did a Pennsylvania representative concerned about violence in Philadelphia in 2022.

In February 2024, officials in Massachusetts requested the National Guard be deployed to a more unexpected location – to a high school.

Brockton High School has been struggling with student fights, drug use and disrespect toward staff. One school staffer said she was trampled by a crowd rushing to see a fight. Many teachers call in sick to work each day, leaving the school understaffed.

As a researcher who studies school discipline, I know Brockton’s situation is part of a national trend of principals and teachers who have been struggling to deal with perceived increases in student misbehavior since the pandemic.

A review of how the National Guard has been deployed to schools in the past shows the guard can provide service to schools in cases of exceptional need. Yet, doing so does not always end well.

How have schools used the National Guard before?

In 1957, the National Guard blocked nine Black students’ attempts to desegregate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. While the governor claimed this was for safety, the National Guard effectively delayed desegregation of the school – as did the mobs of white individuals outside. Ironically, weeks later, the National Guard and the U.S. Army would enforce integration and the safety of the “Little Rock Nine” on orders from President Dwight Eisenhower.

Three men from the mob around Little Rock’s Central High School are driven from the area at bayonet-point by soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division on Sept. 25, 1957. The presence of the troops permitted the nine Black students to enter the school with only minor background incidents. Bettmann via Getty Images

One of the most tragic cases of the National Guard in an educational setting came in 1970 at Kent State University. The National Guard was brought to campus to respond to protests over American involvement in the Vietnam War. The guardsmen fatally shot four students.

In 2012, then-Sen. Barbara Boxer, a Democrat from California, proposed funding to use the National Guard to provide school security in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting. The bill was not passed.

More recently, the National Guard filled teacher shortages in New Mexico’s K-12 schools during the quarantines and sickness of the pandemic. While the idea did not catch on nationally, teachers and school personnel in New Mexico generally reported positive experiences.

Can the National Guard address school discipline?

The National Guard’s mission includes responding to domestic emergencies. Members of the guard are part-time service members who maintain civilian lives. Some are students themselves in colleges and universities. Does this mission and training position the National Guard to respond to incidents of student misbehavior and school violence?

On the one hand, New Mexico’s pandemic experience shows the National Guard could be a stopgap to staffing shortages in unusual circumstances. Similarly, the guards’ eventual role in ensuring student safety during school desegregation in Arkansas demonstrates their potential to address exceptional cases in schools, such as racially motivated mob violence. And, of course, many schools have had military personnel teaching and mentoring through Junior ROTC programs for years.

Those seeking to bring the National Guard to Brockton High School have made similar arguments. They note that staffing shortages have contributed to behavior problems.

One school board member stated: “I know that the first thought that comes to mind when you hear ‘National Guard’ is uniform and arms, and that’s not the case. They’re people like us. They’re educated. They’re trained, and we just need their assistance right now. … We need more staff to support our staff and help the students learn (and) have a safe environment.”

Yet, there are reasons to question whether calls for the National Guard are the best way to address school misconduct and behavior. First, the National Guard is a temporary measure that does little to address the underlying causes of student misbehavior and school violence.

Research has shown that students benefit from effective teaching, meaningful and sustained relationships with school personnel and positive school environments. Such educative and supportive environments have been linked to safer schools. National Guard members are not trained as educators or counselors and, as a temporary measure, would not remain in the school to establish durable relationships with students.

What is more, a military presence – particularly if uniformed or armed – may make students feel less welcome at school or escalate situations.

Schools have already seen an increase in militarization. For example, school police departments have gone so far as to acquire grenade launchers and mine-resistant armored vehicles.

Research has found that school police make students more likely to be suspended and to be arrested. Similarly, while a National Guard presence may address misbehavior temporarily, their presence could similarly result in students experiencing punitive or exclusionary responses to behavior.

Students deserve a solution other than the guard

School violence and disruptions are serious problems that can harm students. Unfortunately, schools and educators have increasingly viewed student misbehavior as a problem to be dealt with through suspensions and police involvement.

A number of people – from the NAACP to the local mayor and other members of the school board – have criticized Brockton’s request for the National Guard. Governor Maura Healey has said she will not deploy the guard to the school.

However, the case of Brockton High School points to real needs. Educators there, like in other schools nationally, are facing a tough situation and perceive a lack of support and resources.

Many schools need more teachers and staff. Students need access to mentors and counselors. With these resources, schools can better ensure educators are able to do their jobs without military intervention.

F. Chris Curran has received funding from the US Department of Justice, the Bureau of Justice Assistance, and the American Civil Liberties Union for work on school safety and discipline.

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Spread & Containment

Chinese migration to US is nothing new – but the reasons for recent surge at Southern border are

A gloomier economic outlook in China and tightening state control have combined with the influence of social media in encouraging migration.

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Chinese migrants wait for a boat after having walked across the Darien Gap from Colombia to Panama. AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko

The brief closure of the Darien Gap – a perilous 66-mile jungle journey linking South American and Central America – in February 2024 temporarily halted one of the Western Hemisphere’s busiest migration routes. It also highlighted its importance to a small but growing group of people that depend on that pass to make it to the U.S.: Chinese migrants.

While a record 2.5 million migrants were detained at the United States’ southwestern land border in 2023, only about 37,000 were from China.

I’m a scholar of migration and China. What I find most remarkable in these figures is the speed with which the number of Chinese migrants is growing. Nearly 10 times as many Chinese migrants crossed the southern border in 2023 as in 2022. In December 2023 alone, U.S. Border Patrol officials reported encounters with about 6,000 Chinese migrants, in contrast to the 900 they reported a year earlier in December 2022.

The dramatic uptick is the result of a confluence of factors that range from a slowing Chinese economy and tightening political control by President Xi Jinping to the easy access to online information on Chinese social media about how to make the trip.

Middle-class migrants

Journalists reporting from the border have generalized that Chinese migrants come largely from the self-employed middle class. They are not rich enough to use education or work opportunities as a means of entry, but they can afford to fly across the world.

According to a report from Reuters, in many cases those attempting to make the crossing are small-business owners who saw irreparable damage to their primary or sole source of income due to China’s “zero COVID” policies. The migrants are women, men and, in some cases, children accompanying parents from all over China.

Chinese nationals have long made the journey to the United States seeking economic opportunity or political freedom. Based on recent media interviews with migrants coming by way of South America and the U.S.’s southern border, the increase in numbers seems driven by two factors.

First, the most common path for immigration for Chinese nationals is through a student visa or H1-B visa for skilled workers. But travel restrictions during the early months of the pandemic temporarily stalled migration from China. Immigrant visas are out of reach for many Chinese nationals without family or vocation-based preferences, and tourist visas require a personal interview with a U.S. consulate to gauge the likelihood of the traveler returning to China.

Social media tutorials

Second, with the legal routes for immigration difficult to follow, social media accounts have outlined alternatives for Chinese who feel an urgent need to emigrate. Accounts on Douyin, the TikTok clone available in mainland China, document locations open for visa-free travel by Chinese passport holders. On TikTok itself, migrants could find information on where to cross the border, as well as information about transportation and smugglers, commonly known as “snakeheads,” who are experienced with bringing migrants on the journey north.

With virtual private networks, immigrants can also gather information from U.S. apps such as X, YouTube, Facebook and other sites that are otherwise blocked by Chinese censors.

Inspired by social media posts that both offer practical guides and celebrate the journey, thousands of Chinese migrants have been flying to Ecuador, which allows visa-free travel for Chinese citizens, and then making their way over land to the U.S.-Mexican border.

This journey involves trekking through the Darien Gap, which despite its notoriety as a dangerous crossing has become an increasingly common route for migrants from Venezuela, Colombia and all over the world.

In addition to information about crossing the Darien Gap, these social media posts highlight the best places to cross the border. This has led to a large share of Chinese asylum seekers following the same path to Mexico’s Baja California to cross the border near San Diego.

Chinese migration to US is nothing new

The rapid increase in numbers and the ease of accessing information via social media on their smartphones are new innovations. But there is a longer history of Chinese migration to the U.S. over the southern border – and at the hands of smugglers.

From 1882 to 1943, the United States banned all immigration by male Chinese laborers and most Chinese women. A combination of economic competition and racist concerns about Chinese culture and assimilability ensured that the Chinese would be the first ethnic group to enter the United States illegally.

With legal options for arrival eliminated, some Chinese migrants took advantage of the relative ease of movement between the U.S. and Mexico during those years. While some migrants adopted Mexican names and spoke enough Spanish to pass as migrant workers, others used borrowed identities or paperwork from Chinese people with a right of entry, like U.S.-born citizens. Similarly to what we are seeing today, it was middle- and working-class Chinese who more frequently turned to illegal means. Those with money and education were able to circumvent the law by arriving as students or members of the merchant class, both exceptions to the exclusion law.

Though these Chinese exclusion laws officially ended in 1943, restrictions on migration from Asia continued until Congress revised U.S. immigration law in the Hart-Celler Act in 1965. New priorities for immigrant visas that stressed vocational skills as well as family reunification, alongside then Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s policies of “reform and opening,” helped many Chinese migrants make their way legally to the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s.

Even after the restrictive immigration laws ended, Chinese migrants without the education or family connections often needed for U.S. visas continued to take dangerous routes with the help of “snakeheads.”

One notorious incident occurred in 1993, when a ship called the Golden Venture ran aground near New York, resulting in the drowning deaths of 10 Chinese migrants and the arrest and conviction of the snakeheads attempting to smuggle hundreds of Chinese migrants into the United States.

Existing tensions

Though there is plenty of precedent for Chinese migrants arriving without documentation, Chinese asylum seekers have better odds of success than many of the other migrants making the dangerous journey north.

An estimated 55% of Chinese asylum seekers are successful in making their claims, often citing political oppression and lack of religious freedom in China as motivations. By contrast, only 29% of Venezuelans seeking asylum in the U.S. have their claim granted, and the number is even lower for Colombians, at 19%.

The new halt on the migratory highway from the south has affected thousands of new migrants seeking refuge in the U.S. But the mix of push factors from their home country and encouragement on social media means that Chinese migrants will continue to seek routes to America.

And with both migration and the perceived threat from China likely to be features of the upcoming U.S. election, there is a risk that increased Chinese migration could become politicized, leaning further into existing tensions between Washington and Beijing.

Meredith Oyen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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