Dear Commons Community,

Foreign tourists are trickling back to China after the country loosened its visa policy to unprecedented levels. Citizens from 74 countries can now enter China for up to 30 days without a visa.

The government has been steadily expanding visa-free entry in a bid to boost tourism, the economy and its soft power. More than 20 million foreign visitors entered without a visa in 2024 — almost one-third of the total and more than double from the previous year, according to the National Immigration Administration.  As reported by The Associated Press.

“This really helps people to travel because it is such a hassle to apply for a visa and go through the process,” Georgi Shavadze, a Georgian living in Austria, said on a recent visit to the Temple of Heaven in Beijing.

While most tourist sites are still packed with far more domestic tourists than foreigners, travel companies and tour guides are now bracing for a bigger influx in anticipation of summer holiday goers coming to China.

“I’m practically overwhelmed with tours and struggling to keep up” says Gao Jun, a veteran English-speaking tour guide with over 20 years of experience. To meet growing demand, he launched a new business to train anyone interested in becoming an English-speaking tour guide. “I just can’t handle them all on my own” he said.

After lifting tough COVID-19 restrictions, China reopened its borders to tourists in early 2023, but only 13.8 million people visited in that year, less than half the 31.9 million in 2019, the last year before the pandemic.

30 days for many in Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Mideast

In December 2023, China announced visa-free entry for citizens of France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Malaysia. Almost all of Europe has been added since then. Travelers from five Latin American countries and Uzbekistan became eligible last month, followed by four in the Middle East. The total will grow to 75 on July 16 with the addition of Azerbaijan.

About two-thirds of the countries have been granted visa-free entry on a one-year trial basis.

For Norwegian traveler Øystein Sporsheim, this means his family would no longer need to make two round-trip visits to the Chinese embassy in Oslo to apply for a tourist visa, a time-consuming and costly process with two children in tow. “They don’t very often open, so it was much harder” he said.

“The new visa policies are 100% beneficial to us,” said Jenny Zhao, a managing director of WildChina, which specializes in boutique and luxury routes for international travelers. She said business is up 50% compared with before the pandemic.

While the U.S. remains their largest source market, accounting for around 30% of their current business, European travelers now make up 15–20% of their clients, a sharp increase from less than 5% before 2019, according to Zhao. “We’re quite optimistic” Zhao said, “we hope these benefits will continue.”

Trip.com Group, a Shanghai-based online travel agency, said the visa-free policy has significantly boosted tourism. Air, hotel and other bookings on their website for travel to China doubled in the first three months of this year compared with the same period last year, with 75% of the visitors from visa-free regions.

No major African country is eligible for visa-free entry, despite the continent’s relatively close ties with China.

North Americans and some others in transit can enter for 10 days

Those from 10 countries not in the visa-free scheme have another option: entering China for up to 10 days if they depart for a different country than the one they came from. The policy is limited to 60 ports of entry, according to the country’s National Immigration Administration.

The transit policy applies to 55 countries, but most are also on the 30-day visa-free entry list. It does offer a more restrictive option for citizens of the 10 countries that aren’t: the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Sweden, Russia, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Indonesia, Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.

Aside from the U.K., Sweden is the only other high-income European country that didn’t make the 30-day list. 

This is a smart move on the part of the Chinese.  When  I visited Mainland China in  2001 and again in 2006, it was a real hassle getting a visa  and in fact, I  had to pay an expediter.  However, the visits were well worth it to see the incredible history and culture of this country.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

I have just finished reading Hombrecito, a novel by Santiago Jose Sanchez. It is a book that reviews the life of a troubled gay immigrant, Santiago (same first name as the author), who struggles with his sexuality, his family, and his life in the United States. He comes from Columbia but much of the novel takes place in Miami and New York as well as his native, Ibague, Columbia. The book provides a lot of introspection. Hombrecito‘s strengths are surely how the author analyzes Santiago’s relationships with his mother, father, and brother.  The ending chapters focus extensively on his mother and father.

In sum, I found it a good summer read.

Below is a review that appeared in BookPage.

Tony

—————————–

BookPage

Hombrecito

By Santiago Jose Sanchez

Review by Laura Sackton

Santiago Jose Sanchez’s debut, Hombrecito, is a queer coming-of-age following a boy’s life from Colombia to Miami to New York. It’s a heartbreaking pleasure to get lost inside these pages.

In their haunting debut novel, Hombrecito, Santiago Jose Sanchez illuminates the hidden. The story begins in Ibagué, Colombia, a city that the protagonist, Santiago, returns to again and again, in dreams, memory and reality. Santiago is a young boy trying to make sense of a world he doesn’t understand: his absent father, his mother who sometimes “forgets she is a mother,” his feelings of alienation and otherness. When he moves with his mother and brother to Miami, those feelings continue to grow, even as he begins to embrace his queerness.

Sanchez traces Santiago’s search for belonging as he grows up and eventually leaves home for college in New York. The story follows the expected beats of a queer coming-of-age novel, but does so at a slant. Time moves unexpectedly. Scenes that take place over a few hours go on for pages; several years pass in the blank space between chapters. The prose is intensely visceral and deliberately opaque. It feels as if the narrator holds both himself and the reader at a distance before, distraught and needy, suddenly pulling them close. It’s a heartbreaking pleasure to get lost inside these pages.

Santiago’s complicated relationships with his brother and his mother shift with time, but never get easier. This is true of every relationship in Santiago’s life. There’s his first boyfriend, whom he meets in an internet chat room; his father back in Colombia, who drifts in and out of Santiago’s life; his roommate in New York; the men he sleeps with but doesn’t show himself to. His relationships to places are equally fraught: He longs for Colombia even as he distances himself from it. He leaves Miami but feels constantly pulled back by his mother.

Hombrecito is a novel about the events, sometimes unseen, often beyond our control, that shape our understanding of the world. It’s about growing up amid silences that reverberate into adulthood. It’s about self-destruction and self-denial; about fierce and unconditional love; about the cost of hiding and the turmoil of leaving a country. It’s about queerness and transience and one man’s long, slow journey to find a home inside both.

Dear Commons Community,

President Donald Trump dubbed former ally Elon Musk a “TRAIN WRECK” in a fiery Truth Social post, trashing the Tesla CEO after he announced that he was launching his own political party.

“I am saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely ‘off the rails,’ essentially becoming a TRAIN WRECK over the past five weeks,” Trump wrote yesterday. “He even wants to start a Third Political Party, despite the fact that they have never succeeded in the United States.”

Musk on Saturday had announced the formation of the America Party, a new political party he’s starting to purportedly combat “waste & graft.”

Musk’s announcement marked the latest salvo in a deepening feud with Trump after they fell out over the President’s recently passed tax bill, which the tech billionaire previously described as a “disgusting abomination.”

While the two had appeared to reach a brief détente of sorts, escalating social media posts over the past week suggested that the animosity between the two was still very much alive.

Trump also referenced Republicans’ sunset of federal tax credits for electric vehicles, a move that could negatively affect Musk’s business. And he noted that he rejected “one of [Musk’s] close friends” for the role of NASA administrator, because he was a “blue blooded Democrat” and posed a conflict of interest.

Musk, meanwhile, has threatened to back primary challenges for Republican lawmakers who supported the tax bill, which he’s repeatedly slammed for bloating the national debt.

Trump wrote that “The one thing Third Parties are good for is the creation of Complete and Total DISRUPTION & CHAOS.”

Trump would know since he proves over and over again that he is the “king” of disruption and chaos.”

Tony

A view inside of a cabin at Camp Mystic, which was essentially washed away after the flash flooding in central Texas on Saturday.  Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images.

Dear Commons Community,

Officials in Texas’ Hill Country said yesterday that the death toll from this weekend’s raging flash floods has risen to more than 80 people, as families and search teams continue to look for loved ones still missing in the region.

The new death toll includes 28 children from hardest-hit Kerr County, according to Sheriff Larry Leitha. With additional fatalities reported in Travis, Burnet, Kendall and Tom Green counties, the overall number of those killed in central Texas is at least 82.

“We are seeing bodies recovered all over, up and down,” Kerrville city manager Dalton Rice told reporters, with officials warning the casualties will continue to climb. Of those deceased, 18 adults and 10 children are still pending identification.

Officials have so far found many of the dead at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp near the Guadalupe River that was essentially swept away after torrential rains overnight Friday resulted in fast-moving waters rising 26 feet. Photos and video showed a cabin of girls holding on to a rope amid powerful floodwaters, as well as the camp’s absolute devastation the next day.

As of Sunday afternoon, the sheriff said that 10 campers and one camp counselor remain missing. Search teams and families have both been seen sifting through the riverbanks and the camp’s destruction for survivors.

“We will continue our search efforts until everybody is found,” Leitha said, adding that 400 first responders from 20 agencies at the local, state and national levels are working to find missing people.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said that authorities have rescued about 850 people over the last 36 hours, including some clinging to trees. The governor confirmed that 41 people are still missing, though it’s unclear if that includes those from Camp Mystic.

“It was nothing short of horrific to see what those young children went through,” Abbott said regarding his tour of the campgrounds.

Some Texas officials are facing scrutiny for the lack of preparedness, despite the National Weather Service (NWS)  sending out several flash flood warnings overnight on Thursday that told people to “move immediately to higher ground” before issuing the rare flash flood emergencies. Former officials at the NWS told The New York Times that key emergency response roles were vacant, and like FEMA, the Trump administration’s major staffing cuts forced remaining employees to spend less time coordinating with local authorities on disaster preparedness.

“You have to have a response mechanism that involves local officials,” former NWS director Louis Uccellini told the Times on Saturday. “It involves a relationship with the emergency management community, at every level.”

Kerr County also does not appear to have a local flood warning system, likely contributing to the summer camps along the river not being ordered to evacuate in time. Despite the area being long vulnerable to flooding, Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly said that residents felt a warning system was too expensive to implement.

“What I do know is the flood hit the camp first, and it came in the middle of the night. I don’t know where the kids were,” he said, according to NBC. “I don’t know what kind of alarm systems they had. That will come out in time.”

What a tragedy!

Tony

Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto / Getty; Maxar Technologies / Getty.

Dear Commons Community,

Phillips Payson O’Brien has an opinion essay today in The Atlantic entitled “What Trump—And the U.S.—Can’t Understand About Air Strikes”.  He provides kernels of good advice to the Trumps of the world who think they can change things by showing their military might.  Here is the entire essay.

“When Donald Trump ordered air strikes on key Iranian nuclear-enrichment sites last month and immediately declared that the targets had been “completely and totally obliterated,” he was counting on a single display of overwhelming air power to accomplish a major strategic goal. Though initially hesitant to join Israel’s 10-day-old bombing campaign against Iran, the president came to believe that the United States could finish off Tehran’s nuclear ambitions all at once. After what he called a “very successful attack,” Trump demanded that Israel and Iran stop fighting, declaring, “NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!”

In reality, the U.S. attack may have only delayed the Iranian program by months. Trump ended up short-circuiting both his own efforts at diplomacy with Iran and an extraordinary Israeli campaign that required years of elaborate preparation, rendered Iran’s air-defense network inoperable, and allowed Israeli forces to methodically work through a long list of target sites across the country over the course of a week and a half. Destroying a military target from the air usually requires multiple raids on the site—not one night and a victory declaration on Truth Social. Israeli military planners had clearly hoped to enlist American help in attacking Iran but may not have anticipated that it would be for one night only.

To some extent, Trump’s approach is typical of American leaders, who have routinely underestimated the true complexities of military tasks and assumed that a burst of overwhelming force will secure U.S. objectives and allow Washington to impose its version of peace. Recent events—not just in the Middle East but also in Ukraine—suggest that smaller countries with fewer resources than the United States have a far more urgent understanding specifically of how to use air power and generally of how to defeat their enemies.

An unbounded faith in American military might, combined with a desire not to get bogged down in long foreign engagements, has led to excesses of optimism in the past: the constant escalation cycle in Vietnam, when it was said that more force would bring victory; the infamous mission accomplished banners after U.S. forces deposed Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq. In conflicts since the end of World War II, the U.S. military has prevailed in individual battles, but it has won only one clear victory in a war: Operation Desert Storm in 1991. This conundrum has led to far less introspection than it deserves.

One of the reasons might be that U.S. military power has been so extensive that the military, and policy makers, have not had to think too deeply about the process of winning wars. For 80 years, the U.S. military could be deployed to occupy territory, blow up structures, or destroy an enemy force—and was able to do it. It could inflict a frightening toll on its enemies at remarkably little cost to itself.

The risk of overestimating American capabilities may be greatest in decisions about applying air power. The U.S. has the most awesome air force the world has ever seen. (Not coincidentally, the successful Desert Storm campaign involved purposeful and relentless air attacks on enemy targets.) Such power has immense costs, however, one of which is the destructive luxury of not having to think deeply about just what it means to win a war. American policy makers feel able to lecture smaller powers about what they should and should not do. Trump pushed Israel—which had, remarkably, achieved the ability to move freely in Iranian airspace—to stand down before the U.S. could reliably ascertain whether its own air strikes had been effective.

Since 2022, bad instructions from the United States have been devastating to Ukraine’s effort to fight off Russian invaders. Under the Biden administration, the United States feared escalation with Russian President Vladimir Putin and kept Ukrainians from using Western-made long-range weaponry to strike legitimate military targets inside Russia. In effect, the American veto created a large safe space in Russia, and gave the Russians the flexibility to plan and execute a hugely destructive strategic air campaign against Ukraine. Until Ukraine began developing its own systems, it was nearly powerless to stop the Russians from unleashing drones and missiles on Ukrainian military and civilian targets. Instead, the Ukrainians were forced to concentrate their resources on a bloody land war fought in trenches and by drones; despite large casualties on both sides, the fighting has produced only tiny changes in territorial control.

Ukraine has done its best to change this dynamic, by working to expand its own long-range capabilities and using those weapons against targets in Russia. The tragedy for Ukrainians is that the Biden administration stood in their way for three years—and was succeeded by a Trump administration that, perhaps because of a broad sympathy with Putin, seems intent on letting Russia win.

For all its advanced weaponry, the United States would benefit from listening to smaller, more inventive militaries that are fighting larger adversaries in a rapidly evolving technological environment. Ukraine, for example, has developed enormous expertise in designing and deploying unmanned aerial vehicles, which—as the recent attacks on Russian airfields thousands of miles away from the Ukrainian border showed—create new vulnerabilities at traditional military facilities.

Unfortunately, nothing about recent U.S. actions suggests that the country’s leaders have any intention to learn from others. Under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the Pentagon seems obsessed with “lethality”—the idea that the United States wins wars by bringing greater lethal force to every direct engagement with the enemy. But although that focus might sound macho and hyper-militaristic to him and Trump, it may be the precursor to more events like Trump’s Iran strikes: showy tactical attacks that fail to accomplish any strategic goals of substance.”

So true!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday, Elon Musk announced in a post on X  that “Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.” His decision to create a new political party stems from his dispute with  Republican Donald Trump saying Trump’s “big, beautiful” tax bill would bankrupt America.”

A day after asking his followers on his X whether a new U.S. political party should be created, Musk declared in the  post that “By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you shall have it!””  As reported by Reuters.

The announcement from Musk comes after Trump signed his self-styled “big, beautiful” tax-cut and spending bill into law on Friday, which Musk fiercely opposed.

Musk, who became the word’s richest man thanks to his Tesla car company and his SpaceX satellite firm, spent hundreds of millions on Trump’s re-election and led the Department of Government Efficiency from the start of the president’s second term aimed at slashing government spending.

The first sign of investor dissatisfaction with Musk’s announcement followed later in the day. Investment firm Azoria Partners will postpone the listing of a Tesla exchange-traded fund, Azoria CEO James Fishback said in a post on X.

Fishback is asking Tesla’s board to clarify Musk’s political ambitions and said the new party undermines the confidence shareholders had that he would be focusing more on the company after leaving government service in May.

Musk said previously that he would start a new political party and spend money to unseat lawmakers who supported the bill.

Trump earlier this week threatened to cut off the billions of dollars in subsidies that Musk’s companies receive from the federal government.

Republicans have expressed concern that Musk’s on-again, off-again feud with Trump could hurt their chances to protect their majority in the 2026 midterm congressional elections.

Asked on X what was the one thing that made him go from loving Trump to attacking him, Musk said: “Increasing the deficit from an already insane $2T under Biden to $2.5T. This will bankrupt the country.”

There was no immediate comment from Trump or the White House on Musk’s announcement.

The feud with Trump, often described as one between the world’s richest man and the world’s most powerful, has led to several precipitous falls in Tesla’s share price.

The stock soared after Trump’s November reelection and hit a high of more than $488 in December, before losing more than half of its value in April and closing last week out at $315.35.

Despite Musk’s deep pockets, breaking the Republican-Democratic duopoly will be a tall order, given that it has dominated American political life for more than 160 years, while Trump’s approval ratings in polls in his second term have generally held firm above 40%, despite often divisive policies.

It will be a tall order indeed but politically the country might need this shakeup to the two-party system.

Tony

Dear Commons Community

Barack Obama had a simple elegant message for America as we celebrated July 4th. 

“Independence Day is a reminder that America is not the project of any one person. The single most powerful word in our democracy is the word ‘We.’ ‘We The People.’ ‘We Shall Overcome.’ ‘Yes We Can.’ America is owned by no one. It belongs to all citizens. And at this moment in history—when core democratic principles seem to be continuously under attack, when too many people around the world have become cynical and disengaged—now is precisely the time to ask ourselves tough questions about how we can build our democracies and make them work in meaningful and practical ways for ordinary people.”

Amen!

Tony

Jessica Tarlov

Dear Commons Community,

Fox News host Jessica Tarlov said the “big, beautiful bill” might be anything but beautiful for moderate Republicans during next year’s midterm elections who were jubilant  as they marked the passage of Trump’s  signature “big, beautiful bill.”

She warned said that some of them might not be celebrating next year and could face unexpectedly early retirement.  As reported by The Huffington Post.

Polls show the bill ― which adds trillions to the debt, cuts taxes for the wealthy, and slashes Medicaid ― is deeply unpopular with the American public.

With midterm elections looming in 2026, Tarlov ― a rotating co-host of “The Five” ― wrote on X that moderate Republicans in particular will be at risk next year:

The bill is so unpopular that CNN data chief Harry Enten earlier this week showed it was underwater in five recent polls by between 19 and 29 percentage points.

“The American public at this particular point hate, hate, hate the ‘big, beautiful bill,’” he said. “As far as they’re concerned, it’s not a ‘big, beautiful bill,’ it’s a big, bad bill.”

Democrats also believe that Republicans who support the bill will pay the price at the polls next year.

“There are House Republicans now, this morning, who are about to sign their political obituary with this vote,” Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) told Reuters before the final votes were cast. “They are literally walking the plank for Donald Trump.”

The party that wins the White House often suffers in the midterm elections that follow. Former MSNBC host Chris Matthews expects that to be the case next year, as well, and said the passage of the bill won’t make things any easier for Republicans.

He estimated that Democrats could pick up between 15 and 20 seats ― more than enough to win control of the House.

While I appreciate the optimism of Tarlov and others, the Democrats have to get their act together.  Right now they are suffering from a serious leadership gap.

Tony

Housing Affordability on the Rise. Courtesy of Seeking Alpha.

Dear Commons Community,

The Atlantic has a featured article this morning reviewing the cost of housing in  the country.  Here is an excerpt.

“Something is happening in the housing market that really shouldn’t be. Everyone familiar with America’s affordability crisis knows that it is most acute in ultra-progressive coastal cities in heavily Democratic states. And yet, home prices have been rising most sharply in the exact places that have long served as a refuge for Americans fed up with the spiraling cost of living. Over the past decade, the median home price has increased by 134 percent in Phoenix, 133 percent in Miami, 129 percent in Atlanta, and 99 percent in Dallas. (Over that same stretch, prices in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles have increased by about 75 percent, 76 percent, and 97 percent, respectively).

This trend could prove disastrous. For much of the past half century, suburban sprawl across the Sun Belt was a kind of pressure-release valve for the housing market. People who couldn’t afford to live in expensive cities had other, cheaper places to go. Now even the affordable alternatives are on track to become out of reach for a critical mass of Americans.

The trend also presents a mystery. According to expert consensus, anti-growth liberals have imposed excessive regulations that made building enough homes impossible. The housing crisis has thus become synonymous with feckless blue-state governance. So how can prices now be rising so fast in red and purple states known for their loose regulations?

A tempting explanation is that the expert consensus is wrong. Perhaps regulations and NIMBYism were never really the problem, and the current push to reform zoning laws and building codes is misguided. But the real answer is that San Francisco and New York weren’t unique—they were just early. Eventually, no matter where you are, the forces of NIMBYism catch up to you.

The perception of the Sun Belt as the anti-California used to be accurate. In a recent paper, two urban economists, Ed Glaeser and Joe Gyourko, analyze the rate of housing production across 82 metro areas since the 1950s. They find that as recently as the early 2000s, booming cities such as Dallas, Atlanta, and Phoenix were building new homes at more than four times the rate of major coastal cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York, on average. The fact that millions of people were being priced out of the locations with the best jobs and highest wages—so-called superstar cities—wasn’t ideal. But the Sun Belt building boom kept the coastal housing shortage from becoming a full-blown national crisis.

No longer. Although the Sun Belt continues to build far more housing than the coasts in absolute terms, Glaeser and Gyourko find that the rate of building in most Sun Belt cities has fallen by more than half over the past 25 years, in some cases by much more, even as demand to live in those places has surged. “When it comes to new housing production, the Sun Belt cities today are basically at the point that the big coastal cities were 20 years ago,” Gyourko told me. This explains why home prices in the Sun Belt, though still low compared with those in San Francisco and New York, have risen so sharply since the mid-2010s—a trend that accelerated during the pandemic, as the rise of remote work led to a large migration out of high-cost cities.

In a properly functioning housing market, the post-COVID surge in demand should have generated a massive building boom that would have cooled price growth. Instead, more than five years after the pandemic began, these places still aren’t building enough homes, and prices are still rising wildly.

As the issue of housing has become more salient in Democratic Party politics, some commentators have pointed to rising costs in the supposedly laissez-faire Sun Belt as proof that zoning laws and other regulations are not the culprit. “Blaming zoning for housing costs seems especially blinkered because different jurisdictions in the United States have very different approaches to land use regulations, and yet the housing crisis is a nationwide phenomenon,” the Vanderbilt University law professors Ganesh Sitaraman and Christopher Serkin write in a recent paper. Some argue that the wave of consolidation within the home-building industry following the 2008 financial crisis gave large developers the power to slow-walk development and keep prices high. Others say that the cost of construction has climbed so high over the past two decades that building no longer makes financial sense for developers.”

The article concludes:

“The forces opposed to new development are just as vehemently opposed to the kind of reforms needed to avert a future crisis. Many local and state governments across the Sun Belt have tried and failed to implement lasting pro-housing reforms. But the recent spike in home prices across the region has put even more pressure on lawmakers to act. The Texas legislature recently passed several pieces of legislation that will, among other things, reduce the minimum lot size of new homes, limit the power of the “tyrant’s veto,” and allow multifamily housing to be built on land currently zoned for offices and retail. Red states like to portray themselves as free from the pathologies that have made housing such a problem in other parts of the country. Now they have an opportunity to prove it.”

Interesting info.  The entire article is worth a read.

Tony