April 10 2024
Ping pong diplomacy
1 The world is rearming
2 OPINION Spending is root of widening deficits: WSJ Editorial
3 Foreign-born workers fill majority of high-end STEM jobs
4 SLC, Jacksonville top jobs cities: WSJ
5 OPINION Iran beneficiary of Mideast chaos
4/10/1971 U.S. table tennis team visits communist China
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1 The world is rearming
A new era of global rearmament is gathering pace, and it will mean vast costs and some tough decisions for western governments already struggling with shaky public finances. Despite world defense spending reaching a record $2.2 trillion last year, European Union nations have only just begun to consider what 21st-century security will require with an aggressive Russia stirring on their eastern borders, a volatile Middle East, and the expansion of the Chinese military tugging Washington’s attention toward the Pacific. Political leaders have been congratulating themselves on the progress toward NATO’s targets for members of the alliance to set aside 2% of their gross domestic product on defense. But officials focused on security say that military budgets may need to emulate Cold War spending of as high as 4% in order to deliver on the alliance’s plans.
2 OPINION Spending is root of widening deficits: WSJ Editorial
Congressional Budget Office reported Monday that the federal budget deficit for the first six months of fiscal 2024, ending in March, was $1.064 trillion. Enjoy it, because you’ll eventually pay for it in higher taxes. The problem isn’t a shortage of tax revenue, which rose 7% from a year earlier to $2.19 trillion. Individual income-tax and payroll-tax revenue both rose 6%, while corporate income taxes rose 35%. Is a 7% increase what President Biden would call a “fair share” increase? Probably not, because he wants to raise taxes even higher if he’s re-elected. The deficit is a spending problem, as ever. Total outlays for the six months rose 6% to $3.25 trillion, and $73 billion more if not for some year-over-year timing differences. The usual suspects are behind it—namely, Medicare payments, which climbed 10%, and Social Security benefits, which rose 9%. As everyone but the politicians admit, entitlement spending drives deficits and debt.
3 Foreign-born workers fill majority of high-end STEM jobs
According to the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s 2024 Indicators Report on the state of U.S. science and engineering (S&E), foreign-born workers comprise approximately 19 percent of the overall U.S. STEM workforce in 2021, inclusive of citizens and non-citizens. However, among the U.S.’s most highly educated STEM workforce cohort, foreign-born representation is dramatically higher, with nearly 60 percent of doctorate-level computer and mathematical scientists (58 percent) and doctorate-level engineers employed across all S&E fields (56 percent) in the U.S. are foreign-born. The NSF report further states that, upstream from the workforce, international students who hold temporary visa status are more likely to pursue degrees in S&E compared to U.S. citizens and permanent residents. A staggering 83 percent of all doctorate degrees earned by temporary visa holders were in S&E fields, with many recipients reporting a strong desire to remain and work in the U.S. after graduation. The “stay rate” for temporary visa holders with doctorate S&E degrees is approximately 71 percent after five years and 65 percent after ten years, with the highest rates in fields crucial for national security and economic competitiveness like engineering.
4 SLC, Jacksonville top jobs cities: WSJ
Salt Lake City was the country’s hottest job market in 2023, followed by three cities in Florida: Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa. Miami also made the top 10, making Florida the top state last year. The Mountain West and Sunbelt cities bucked the trend in a year marked by layoffs in the technology, manufacturing and financial sectors. Workers flocked to these areas for their plentiful job opportunities, wage growth, affordability and recreational offerings.
5 OPINION Iran beneficiary of Mideast chaos
The post–October 7 strategic landscape in the Middle East is one that was largely created by Iran and that plays to its strengths. Tehran sees opportunity in chaos. Iranian leaders are exploiting and escalating the war in Gaza to elevate their regime’s stature, weaken and delegitimize Israel, undermine U.S. interests, and further shape the regional order in their favor. The truth is that the Islamic Republic is now in a better position than ever to dominate the Middle East, including by attaining the ability to disrupt shipping at multiple critical chokepoints. Left unchecked, the dramatic expansion of Iran’s influence would have a catastrophic impact on Israel, the wider region, and the global economy.
4/10/1971 U.S. table tennis team visits communist China
The U.S. table tennis team begins a weeklong visit to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) at the invitation of China’s communist government. The well-publicized trip was part of the PRC’s attempt to build closer diplomatic relations with the United States, and was the beginning of what some pundits in the United States referred to as “ping-pong diplomacy.”
Diplomatic relations between the United States and the PRC ended in 1949 when the U.S. severed ties to the new communist government that had taken power. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the United States and the PRC remained implacable enemies. During the Korean War they clashed militarily, and during the 1960s they supported opposing sides in the conflict in Vietnam. By the late 1960s, however, the communist leadership in the PRC began to rethink its policy towards the United States. Several factors motivated China to reconsider its relationship with the United States. Chinese officials hoped that closer relations with the United States might provide a very useful counterweight in Chinese relations with Russia. Chinese communists were concerned that the Soviets were deviating from the Marxist hard-line, and Soviet and Chinese troops engaged in some brief but bloody border skirmishes in 1969. The Chinese desire for U.S. trade was another factor motivating the re-establishment of diplomatic ties. The invitation to the U.S. table tennis team in April 1971 was a friendly gesture indicating that the Chinese hoped for a general easing of tensions. The “ping-pong diplomacy” worked. In June 1972, President Richard Nixon made a historic visit to China to begin talks about re-establishing diplomatic relations. The Chinese table tennis team also toured America, causing a short-lived craze for table tennis.
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