Boletines-Artículos

El 25 de noviembre del 2021, Velia Govaere, coordinadora de OCEX, tuvo una participación en el “Foro Internacional COSTA RICA DE CARA A ASIA PACÍFICO: Haciendo más corto el camino”. Este evento convocó destacadas figuras públicas, del sector privado, de organizaciones internacionales y especialistas nacionales e internacionales que examinan las oportunidades de Costa Rica en esta región del mundo.

Esta jornada con reflexiones de amplio espectro contó con más de 20 ponencias y 30 expositores del ámbito gubernamental, privado y académico costarricense y una serie de invitados especiales nacionales como el Exembajador Marco Vinicio Ruiz o internacionales como el Embajador de Chile en Costa Rica, don Óscar Alcamán, quien compartió con el público la experiencia de la histórica vinculación chilena con Asia Pacífico.

Representantes de entidades competentes en materia comercial, como el ministro de COMEX, Andrés Valenciano Yamuni, retrató la estrategia del país hacia esos mercados asiáticos. La ponencia del Canciller Rodolfo Solano, en cambio, versó sobre Asia como nueva frontera estratégica de la política exterior costarricense. La ministra de Planificación, Pilar Garrido, se enfocó en el valor estratégico de Asia Pacífico para las relaciones internacionales políticas y económicas de Costa Rica. El ministro del de Obras Públicas y Transportes reflexionó sobre la importancia de la modernización portuaria de cara a un mejor aprovechamiento de nuestro potencial exportador a Asia Pacífico y el ministro de Turismo, Gustavo Segura sobre como posicionar a Costa Rica como destino turístico de esta región del mundo.

Al enfoque gubernamental se sumaron voces representativas del sector privado, como la de don Carlos Wong de la Zona Franca El Coyol que reflexionó sobre las tareas y desafíos pendientes y el papel de las zonas francas como modelo para la atracción de inversión extranjera directa. Erick Scharf, presidente de CINDE relató como la estrategia de near-shoring puede generar valiosos réditos para Costa Rica. 

En el segmento de intervención académica, Velia Govaere estuvo presente en el módulo público de presentación del Centro de Promoción del Comercio y la Inversión Asia Pacífico – América Latina escudriñando en su intervención los espacios que puede ocupar este Centro de Estudio en el contexto de un mundo globalizado cuyo próximo eje será asiático. En este espacio de presentación de este centro de estudio especializado en las relaciones de América Latina y la región de Asia Pacífico compartió reflexiones con la colaboradora de larga data de OCEX, Patricia Rodríguez, exembajadora de Costa Rica en China. También intervino Álvaro Cedeño, nuestro Exembajador ante Japón y además se contó con la participación como moderador con Jairo Hernández, también Exembajador del país ante Australia.

En su intervención, Govaere reflexiona sobre el espacio del nuevo Centro de Estudio sobre América Latina-Asia Pacífico indicando que:

“Es un nuevo y necesario espacio de reflexión, investigación e intercambio sobre un espacio intercontinental que ya está marcando el sentido de la historia contemporánea. Para la Academia, el Empresariado y el gobierno tanto de Costa Rica como también para los de América Central tiene un gran significado la reflexión compartida y el estudio profundizado sobre el acoplamiento de estos mundos, tan distantes en geografía y culturas y que ahora están unidos por la comunicación, el comercio y las preocupaciones por un planeta amenazado. (…)

Más allá de la labor encomiable de las entidades gubernamentales competentes en materia comercial, el Centro tiene un enorme espacio para abrir puertas de adaptación cultural y de creación de capacidades humanas. Son muchos los espacios existentes para generar alianzas al servicio del comercio y la inversión en Costa Rica y sustentar, incluso desde la academia, la creación de condiciones que nos permitan fortalecer los lazos de nuestro país con esa región del mundo.

Y eso debe marcar el azimut de nuestra estrategia hacia Asia Pacífico: el respeto que merecen diferentes culturas y la comprensión de otros modos de hacer negocio. Ahí, repito, una estrategia comercial y de inversión hacia Asia Pacífico requiere de un esfuerzo colectivo, donde debemos sumar las capacidades institucionales, gremiales, académicas, y es en estos desafíos donde encuentra asidero la misión de este Centro.”

En el espacio de clausura del foro, Pedro Beirute, Gerente General de PROCOMER, presentó una visión panorámica de las oportunidades comerciales frente a Asia Pacífico y a este se sumaron intervenciones virtuales de varios de expositores internacionales. Este acto de clausura también fue engalanado por la firma de un memorando de entendimiento con la firma tecnológica china Huawei. En este marco, el señor Tang Heng, Embajador de la República Popular China en Costa Rica, fue el testigo de honor de la incorporación del emblemático gigante tecnológico como aliado formal al esfuerzo del Centro de Asia Pacífico. El Sr. Embajador presentó valiosas reflexiones sobre los cimientos de la economía china en un país bajo un esquema político socialista moderno.

El segmento final de la clausura estuvo enfocado en las visiones hacia Asia Pacífico de algunos candidatos presidenciales como Eli Feinzag, Natalia Díaz, Rodrigo Chaves y Fabricio Alvarado. OCEX pone a su disposición el acto de clausura de este muy completo evento sobre nuestra actual y potencial relación con esa región del mundo en el enlace: https://youtu.be/Z6pLtSzrslI

Free translation

By VELIA GOVAERE -  Professor UNED

As spurious as they may be, political crusades are often dressed up in ideological narratives. There is no ideal vaccinated against this contagion. Nothing illustrates it better than the phrase attributed to Manon Roland on her way to the guillotine: "Liberté, que de crimes on commet en ton nom!". It is so. The human paradigm suffers from this chronic ailment. It upholsters national interests with sublime chimeras. When even religion itself has often been drained of its spirit, it is not surprising that the most insignificant banners become mired in soulless formalisms. It is human, all too human, as Nietzsche would say.

We live in one of those confusing times, when form can pervert content. Authentic ideals that sustain life in common can be manipulated for adulterated purposes. This is the case of the defense of democracy as a principle of social contract, which is something very different from the defense of "democracy" as an offensive of geopolitical interests.

In every corner of the globe, democracy is under siege, but its enemies are far from external. As a form of government, nothing threatens it more than lack of cohesion, inequality, denial of political identity and deprivation of opportunity. Chile has just demonstrated this. Economic growth is not enough. No progress is sustainable on injustice and inequality. The momentum of the enemies of democracy feeds on abandonment. Because no one stalks democracies from the outside and, if they do, their greatest enemy is within.

Biden just held a "Democracy Summit". There, countries of dubious human rights credentials lifted the veil on their barely more transparent goal of being a geopolitical crusade. It was the United States, as a hegemonic power, against the rise of the Chinese star, as an emerging power. This was the background to this call, which overlooks the fact that what is decisive for humanity at the international level is not a fragmentation with ideological overtones, but historical collective battles that demand collaboration: climate change, universal vaccination capacity, technological coupling and commercial functionality.

Which is not to say that the defense of democracy is not the most decisive battle that will define the legacy of Joe Biden's presidency. But his first concern should not be on the outside, but on the inside. Of all the threats, democracy is no more vulnerable than in its own cradle, where on September 17, 1787, the first Constitution of the liberal democratic system was adopted in Philadelphia. Even before the French Revolution, the United States adopted there a political system that has become the archetype of Western civilization. Such is its veneration that its forms often replace its substance with impunity. On the dubious altar of democracy as an ideology more than one nation has been invaded. Dario had noted that irony: "lighting the path of easy conquest, Liberty raises her torch in New York".

But this democracy took up the deepest ponderings of the previous 200 years of Enlightenment political thought. Hegel himself, without fully understanding it, considered it the most appropriate political form for the recognition of the same human essence valued with the universal suffrage of a vote without distinctions. This yearning for self-esteem was, for him, the very hallmark of humanity, as opposed to the animal kingdom, even more so than thought.

That was what the suffragists defended, the fulfillment of the promise that the democratic premise had installed in their consciences. That was the impetus for the abolition of slavery, the respect for their human worth expressed in the unrestricted exercise of the suffrage. That is why the offensive of the Republican Party to hinder the vote, focused against the African-American and Latino population, is so worrying. This is the internal enemy of American democracy. That is where it must defend itself. Hic Rhodus hic salta.

In 2021, 19 states passed 34 laws restricting the vote. And that's not the end of the offensive. There are 440 more bills in the pipeline. It's clear: the greatest dangers to that democracy are not outside its borders. Democratic legislators understand this. Since the beginning of this legislature, the House of Representatives prioritized and approved two bills that, because they are federal, would overlap state restrictions and prevent most of the restrictions to free and fair elections. They are the "Freedom to Vote Act" and the "John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act." Both form a stronghold of defense of democracy where it is under attack.

President Biden understands that if he fails to get the Senate to pass such legislation in 2022, this impotence will be his legacy. And he himself clearly confesses: "This sinister combination of voter suppression and electoral subversion is un-American, anti-democratic and unprecedented since Reconstruction" (WP 12/17/2021). He is determined to put up a fight, but understands the gravity and urgency of overcoming the Republican blockade, only surmountable without filibustering. He has until November 2022, when he will probably lose the majority to confront it. Biden has a historic responsibility that the Democrats of the world support. A year after the assault on Capitol Hill, the defense of democracy in the United States is a crusade that is more than justified and of reserved prognosis, painfully so.

The danger of our time is that democracy fails where its defense is legitimate and triumphs where its defense is ideological. That would leave us with the first democracy on crutches in a fragmented world with a dangerous decoupling from China. It would be a high-risk world because American democracy is the best counterweight to having a military nationalist escalation there that would put the world in check. That is why the difference between democracy and geopolitics is so important.

Versión en inglés

POR VELIA GOVAERE VICARIOLI
Biden tiene ante sí el desafío de la aprobación de las leyes que protegen el derecho al voto de las minorías

Por espurias que sean, las cruzadas políticas suelen revestirse de narrativas ideológicas. No existe ideal alguno vacunado contra ese contagio. Nada lo ilustra mejor que la frase atribuida a Manon Roland camino a la guillotina: “Liberté, que de crimes on commet en ton nom!”.

Es así. El paradigma humano sufre de esa dolencia crónica. Tapiza intereses nacionales con quimeras sublimes. Cuando hasta la misma religión ha sido muchas veces escurrida de su espíritu, no es de extrañar que las banderas más insignes se enloden de formalismos sin alma. Es humano, demasiado humano, diría Nietzsche.

Vivimos uno de esos tiempos confusos, cuando la forma puede pervertir el contenido. Auténticos ideales que sustentan la vida en común son manipulados con propósitos adulterados, por ejemplo, la defensa de la democracia como principio de contrato social, que es algo muy diferente de la defensa de la “democracia” como ofensiva de intereses geopolíticos...

Accese el artículo completo en: https://www.nacion.com/opinion/columnistas/lucha-democratica-en-el-corazon-de-estados-unidos/ZLQ4RELOTVDGZHWOIFL7MQEWSE/story/

Artículo publicado en Periódico La Nación, 30 de diciembre 2021.
La autora es coordinadora de OCEX y catedrática de la UNED. 

Free translation

By VELIA GOVAERE -  Professor UNED

A few years ago, I turned my gaze to the past and in those reminiscences I interpreted the meaning of past events, which took place 10 years earlier. I referred, then, to Hegel, when he pondered the upheavals of his time, including the French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars, and the monarchical restoration. It was difficult for anyone to glimpse the future that these convulsions outlined. Despite this chaos, Hegel was optimistic.

Today it is our turn to peek over the horizon. The signs of the times are torn between technological lights, haphazard patriotism and a civilization impotent in the face of its own climatic cataclysm. "In a pit of shadows humanity is enclosed". Thus, Dario foresaw the imminence of a World War. And it happened as an unthinkable shipwreck of reason in the face of nationalist passion. Nevertheless, our globalized world eventually blossomed out of two hecatombs. Hegel was right. Harmony can emerge from chaos. Hard to see that when darkness dominates the light. So here we are, in a Darian well of darkness due to struggles between antagonistic forces on three major axes where scenarios of pessimistic uncertainty dominate.

In the world, democracy is receding and this retreat has reached the cradle of modern democracy. The decline of Biden's popularity and the possibilities of not only Republican ascendancy but of Trump himself is its most alarming sign. The midterm elections herald a Republican victory. It would be dry cut with the social revitalization of the United States. Biden was expected to bring efficiency and rationality, in contrast to his haphazard predecessor. The Democratic majority in both Houses augured substantial improvements in the quality of life. Both expectations are falling short. The pandemic renews its sting. Employment and wages are rising, but less than the cost of living, with inflation under Biden rising from 1.4% to 6.2%. This nullifies the positive perceptions of economic growth.

Added to this feeling of poor performance in office is the hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan. The immigration challenge is not to be ignored either. According to the "Harvard Harris Poll", 68% consider that illegal migration increased under Biden. Insecurity is more acutely perceived. This pessimistic feeling is aggravated by a fragmented Democratic Party facing the mid-term elections.

It is normal for an administration to lose seats, but this time the projections are catastrophic. Despite formidable legislative victories, such as the Covid relief package and the infrastructure bill, if the midterm elections were held today, the balance of power is 51-41 against Democrats who could lose as many as 40 seats. It would be the biggest Republican gain since 1981, according to ABC/Post. Bad sign with Republicans pushed strongly to the right, with Trump dominating, whose return is looming for 2024. If this trend is not reversed, we foresee widening gaps, the outbreak of street violence and the return of a confrontational international agenda. In this, the fight against climate change would lose the central element for success: a collaborative environment between the United States and China.

The frustration of Glasgow, with barely palliative gestures to the climate threat, shows the impotence of the world order in the face of the greatest damage that civilization is inflicting on itself. Its announced impacts, already described in every possible way, are suicidal results, when in the name of a pretended economic development the very bases of sanity are sabotaged with impunity.

Both scenarios weaken the environment of international cooperation that sustains globalization, a supreme human, political and technological conquest, which is beginning to be harassed by dominant currents of confrontation between the great powers on whose collaboration it depends. The Biden administration has not meant, hélas, a break with Trump's confrontational orientation against China. The first actions of the "return" of the United States to the arena of cooperation with its allies was an attempt to consolidate an alliance against China. This was done in Europe, putting NATO (nominally an Atlantic organization) with an azimuth towards the Pacific. There, the negotiation with Australia and England, oriented against China, was disloyal to France and showed a facet of Biden's policy that is not necessarily in line with the interests of the European Union, especially after Brexit.

The U.S.-China relationship is at an all-time low. Biden's three-hour virtual summit with Xi Jinping did not seek rapprochement but merely to establish provisions so that things do not spiral out of control. It did not even get that far. There seems to be no political will to address increasingly irresolvable differences, to the detriment of the enormous need for commercial, political, and environmental cooperation that the world needs. The future of globalization is at stake between China and the United States. We are in a bind. Although we are not experiencing an imminent trade crisis, since 2016, trade has been approached through the distorted lens of national security, turning trade into an instrument of pressure and extortion. This jeopardizes the historical prospects of international economic integration, of benefit to all countries.

These three points mark the time we are living in. The republican return will place greater obstacles to the reconstruction of the internal social fabric and will accentuate the confrontation of a climatically threatened world. They are the brown cats of today and only the future will show us the finished design of the world they outline. "In the night all cats are brown", said Hegel, pointing out that the meaning of events cannot be understood in the night of the instant in which they occur, but in the light of the subsequent memory, where their potentialities are revealed in full detail" (LN 5-11-2017).