Democracy Now! Thursday, May 14, 2026

In a pivotal moment of global diplomacy, U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping held a high-stakes summit in Beijing, marking the first such meeting in nine years and signaling a dramatic shift from escalating U.S.-China tensions toward a new era of strategic stability. Despite ongoing U.S.-Israeli military operations in Iran and continued violence in Gaza, the two leaders emphasized cooperation on trade, technology, and Taiwan—where Xi warned that any move toward independence would risk conflict. The summit, attended by a billionaire-heavy U.S. delegation including Elon Musk and Jensen Huang, underscored the deep economic interdependence between the world’s two largest economies. Meanwhile, artist and author Molly Crabapple unveiled a powerful new book, *Here Where We Live Is Our Country*, which resurrects the forgotten history of the Jewish Bund—a secular, anti-Zionist socialist movement in Eastern Europe that fought for Jewish dignity and self-determination without a state. Her work, written amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza, draws urgent parallels between the Bund’s resistance to fascism and today’s struggle for Palestinian liberation, framing the Bund not as a failure but as a defiant legacy of solidarity and resistance. The episode exposes the contradictions of contemporary geopolitics: while the U.S. and China seek to stabilize relations, both continue to fuel violence abroad—Israel’s intensified attacks on Gaza despite a U.S.-brokered ceasefire, and the U.S.-led war on Iran. Domestically, the Trump administration faces mounting criticism for punitive actions against Democratic states like California, political purges within federal agencies, and the suppression of dissenting voices like UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese. As the world grapples with war, displacement, and authoritarian overreach, Crabapple’s narrative offers a radical reimagining of belonging—not through ethno-statehood, but through collective struggle, cultural memory, and the enduring fire of resistance.