When Will Washington Get Serious About Taiwan? | Who Would Benefit from Ebrahim Raisi’s Death? | Hundreds of India Election Rallies Targeting Muslims, and more

“We are opening a great project of the construction of a safe border, including a system of fortifications and of the shaping of terrain that will make this border impenetrable by a potential enemy,” he said. “We have begun these works to make Poland’s border a safe one in times of peace, and impenetrable for an enemy in times of war.”
The defensive shield against the threat of Russia from the East comes as Poland takes a leading role in European defense and the NATO military alliance. “We will build the East Shield and thereby fulfil the task assigned by NATO of deterrence and defense,” said Tusk, 67. “These tasks are extremely important, as the largest country on NATO’s eastern flank. Fortifications, forestation where necessary, and various types of obstacles will be built along the entire border of Poland with Belarus and the Russian Federation.”
Dr Patrick Bury, a former NATO analyst and senior associate professor in security at the University of Bath, compared Poland’s plan to the Maginot line, an elaborate defensive barrier built in the 1930s in northeast France which failed to deter an invasion by Nazi Germany.

When Will Washington Get Serious About Taiwan?  (Raymond Kuo, Michael Hunzeker and Mark Christopher, Foreign Policy)
In the run-up to President Lai Ching-te’s inauguration, the U.S. foreign-policy establishment busied itself debating whether and how the Lai administration might diverge from his predecessor’s finely calibrated cross-strait policies. Their fear is that Lai—who once advocated for Taiwanese independence—might rock the boat, provoking Beijing’s ire and thereby dragging Washington into another crisis, or worse.
Such worries were perhaps understandable back when Taiwan was ruled by an erratic dictator who really did want to entrap the United States. But times have changed. Taiwan is now a mature democracy. Its leaders represent millions of voters who understand the stakes and have no interest in triggering a war that destroys everything they know.
Democracy has transformed Taiwan. Unfortunately, the way Washington treats Taipei has not kept pace. To be sure, all great powers have a bad habit of condescending to allies and partners. Yet even by this low bar, Washington’s treatment of Taipei borders on the pathological. From referring to the Taiwanese people as “the Taiwans” to enforcing ever-changing and Byzantine protocols about official interactions with Taiwanese counterparts, Washington consistently gives the impression that Taiwan is last among equals.
It’s time for Washington to treat Taiwan like a serious partner rather than engaging in symbolic gestures that do nothing for its defense, like sending high-profile congressional delegations, debating Taiwanese military uniforms, and rendering the Indo-Pacific as an afterthought in supplemental spending bills. Such measures consume government bandwidth and public attention without meaningfully improving the cross-strait military balance. Worse yet, they give the appearance of doing something, without taking actual meaningful action.
Treating Taiwan like a serious partner means delivering the U.S.-built weapons that Taiwan has already paid for. It means applying real pressure on Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) to embrace an asymmetric defense posture. And it means increasing the capability of Taiwanese forces, as well as leveraging the strength of other friends and allies.

The Man Who Would Help Trump Upend the Global Economy  (Edward Alden, Foreign Policy)
For nearly a decade, U.S. trade policy has been remade in the image of a single man: Robert Lighthizer. As President Donald Trump’s trade representative, he turned the United States away from six decades of support for a rules-based, multilateral trading system and toward a robustly nationalist approach. Lighthizer’s successor under President Joe Biden, Katherine Tai, has continued on the path he laid out. Even as most of Trump’s former officials have denounced him as unfit to be president again, Lighthizer has kept the faith—seeing in Trump, as many others do, a flawed vessel for some greater public good. He remains one of Trump’s top policy advisors in the 2024 campaign and would be set for a bigger job—likely Treasury secretary—if Trump wins in November. Lighthizer’s mission of transforming not just U.S. trade policy but broader U.S. international economic policy is just getting started.
Lighthizer’s influence was on full display last month, when Biden traveled to the headquarters of United Steelworkers, North America’s largest industrial union, in Pittsburgh, in the political battleground state of Pennsylvania. Following the visit, the administration announced plans to sharply increase the tariffs on certain Chinese imports that were first imposed, at Lighthizer’s urging, by Trump. This week, following a review by Tai’s office, the administration slapped a 100 percent tariff on imported Chinese electric vehicles and raised the rates on Chinese-made semiconductors, lithium-ion batteries, solar cells, steel, and aluminum. Tai has also launched a new Section 301 investigation—a 1970s-era tool of U.S. trade unilateralism revived by Lighthizer—into Chinese subsidies for the shipbuilding industry. More tariffs are likely to follow. And Lighthizer himself has been counseling Trump to devalue the strong U.S. dollar if he is elected in order to boost U.S. exports—advice that has been widely read as an audition for the Treasury post.
Lighthizer’s growing influence is a warning to U.S. trading partners—including the country’s closest allies—that the aggressive nationalism of Trump’s trade policies is not a passing phase. Instead, the United States has made a choice across both political parties to embrace an “America First” approach to international economic policy. The implications of that choice will play out for years, and likely decades, to come. That makes Lighthizer—following a career spent mostly as a voice in the wilderness decrying the U.S. embrace of free trade and multilateral rules—the man in the middle.

Spain, Ireland Poised to Back Palestinian State  (David Ehl, DW)
As more protesters voice their support for Palestinians in Gaza in streets around the world, the UN General Assembly has expanded the rights of Palestine within the global body. 
Now, five EU members are planning to extend their solidarity to the population of Gaza by officially recognizing Palestine as a sovereign country. This is seen as a step toward the two-state solution, which is looking increasingly less likely for the Israeli government as it presses ahead with its offensive in Rafah.
After the October 7 attacks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israeli forces would destroy Hamas, the militant organization that rules Gaza and has been designated a terrorist organization by all EU member states, the United States and other governments.
Israel intends to maintain long-term control over the territory. Over time, however, it has faced growing international pressure owing to its harsh military approach, which has claimed the lives of more than 35,500 people, according to Palestinian sources, and precipitated a disastrous humanitarian situation in the territory.

US Watchdog Documents Hundreds of India Election Rallies Targeting Muslims  (Masood Farivar, VOA News)
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has stirred controversy with his anti-Muslim remarks since Indians began casting ballots in the country’s parliamentary elections last month.
But it’s not just Modi trafficking in controversial rhetoric about Muslims; top members of his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have been echoing similar sentiment as the party seeks a historic third term in power.
In the four weeks since the polls opened on April 19, Hindutva Watch, a U.S.-based watchdog, has documented hundreds of campaign rallies featuring the BJP’s “star campaigners” and candidates delivering incendiary speeches targeting Muslims.
Hindutva Watch founder Raqib Hameed Naik said that in addition to Modi, the party’s list of prominent campaigners includes Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah, Defense Minister Rajnath Singh, BJP National President Jagat Prakash Nadda and the chief ministers of several large states. Hindutva refers to the BJP’s Hindu nationalist ideology.
“They’re the ones at the core of the entire thing,” Naik said in an interview with VOA.

China Accelerates Forced Relocation of Rural Tibetans to Urban Areas, Report Says  (William Yang, VOA News)
In a newly released report, Human Rights Watch says China has been accelerating the forced relocation of Tibetan villagers and herders in the name of “poverty alleviation” and environmental protection since 2016.
While Chinese authorities describe the relocations as voluntary, the New York-based international rights organization’s report cites more than 1,000 Chinese state media reports and government publications that it says contradict that assertion.
“The news articles indicate that participation in whole-village relocation programs in Tibet is in effect compulsory,” the report said, adding that many Tibetans asked to relocate express “high levels of reluctance.”
China’s official data suggests that more than 930,000 Tibetans in rural areas have been relocated since 2000, and around 76% of these relocations happened since 2016, the report said.