Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Michael Flynn, President Trump's former national security adviser, arrives for a plea hearing Dec. 1, 2017, at US District Court in Washington. He entered a guilty plea on lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia's ambassador to the United States.

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn has flipped and struck a deal to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller. What does that say about the direction of Mr. Mueller’s investigation into Russian attempts to influence the 2016 US presidential election?

One word provides a powerful hint. It’s near the bottom of the Statement of Offense released by Mueller’s office Friday in the Flynn case. That word is “very.” It’s used in the phrase “very senior member of the Presidential Transition Team.”

What it indicates is that Mr. Flynn will testify in court that a top transition official – “very senior” – directed him to contact officials from foreign governments, including Russia, to try and defeat a UN vote condemning Israeli settlements in December 2016.

Who was that person? The circle at the top was small, centered on President-elect Trump and members of his family. All have denied such contact. All presumably are now aware that meddling in foreign affairs while someone else remains president is, at least technically, illegal.

But the December UN vote is only one smallish item of Mueller’s interest, after all.

What the use of the word means in a larger sense is that Mueller’s investigation has entered the White House and crept close to the Oval Office itself.

With Flynn, the special counsel may have acquired a witness who can explain and tie together who knew what, and when, about the known Russia contacts of Donald Trump Jr., Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, former campaign chief Paul Manafort, and others.

In that sense he’s a guide into unexplored territory.

“I’m pretty confident Flynn is singing like a bird to Mueller,” says Andy Wright, an associate professor at Savannah Law School and a founding editor of the legal blog Just Security.

Is Jared Kushner next?

Mr. Kushner might be the next person affected. Circumstantial evidence hints he’s the person who gave Flynn the order to try to influence the UN vote. He’s the White House official tasked with trying to negotiate a Middle East peace deal. He’s traveled often to the region. On Friday, Bloomberg News reporter Eli Lake said other former transition officials had identified Kushner as the “very senior official” in question.

Flynn, in his plea deal, also admitted he had lied to the FBI about talking with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak about new US sanctions on Dec. 28 and 29, 2016. In fact, he had urged Mr. Kislyak to advocate a restrained Russian reaction to these sanctions, saying Moscow would get a better deal with the incoming Trump team.

Meddling in foreign policy via contact with a foreign power by a private citizen is illegal under a 1799 statute known as the Logan Act. But it’s a dusty statute, seldom used, and no American has ever been convicted under this law.

“I would be surprised if the first successful Logan Act prosecution is against someone in this investigation. That’s possible, but it would be a very aggressive move by Mueller,” writes Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor and current Democratic candidate for Illinois attorney general, in a tweet responding to a reporter’s inquiry.

Obstruction of justice?

For the president, the biggest impact from Flynn’s flip might involve another legal avenue entirely.

“For Trump the most serious peril is obstruction of justice,” said Norman L. Eisen, former White House special counsel for ethics and government reform under President Obama, in an interview late last month.

Mueller appears to be investigating whether Trump personally obstructed justice by firing former FBI Director James Comey. According to Mr. Comey, before he was ousted from the bureau Trump asked him directly whether he could see fit to let Flynn off the hook of the Russia investigation, since he was a “good guy.” Comey gave no such indication. He lost his job.

That could look to a prosecutor as if Trump was trying to shield someone he knew had damaging information about himself or his family. In turn that could bear on his intent in dismissing Comey – a crucial question in establishing whether a particular move obstructs justice or not.

Trump also reportedly contacted Flynn after he was fired from the White House for allegedly lying to Vice President Mike Pence about his Russia contacts. The president told Flynn to “stay strong,” according to these reports. A prosecutor might interpret that as an attempt to tamper with – obstruct – the testimony of someone Trump knew might be an important witness against him.

In this context, it’s important to remember that obstruction of justice isn’t easy to prove. It’s not just about actions. It’s about state of mind – “corrupt intent,” according to lawyers. That’s something very difficult to unravel in a court of law.

One last thing the Flynn plea proves is that the Mueller investigation will have more surprising, big news days such as this in the weeks and months to come. The probe is a submarine that mostly glides below the surface.

Much missing from documents

There is a lot Mueller did not say in the court documents released as part of Flynn’s plea deal. They focused on Flynn’s lies about contacts with foreign leaders. There was nothing further about internal contacts about Russia, or knowledge of meetings about Russia, or group meetings with Russians prior to the inauguration. They shed little light on the core issue of whether the Trump campaign worked with Russia in any way during the campaign.

That could be because there was no such coordination. It could also be because the special counsel is quietly building his case.

Mueller has dozens of interview transcripts, piles of National Security Agency wiretap transcripts, tax returns, emails, and huge amounts of other material we know nothing about, says Professor Wright of Savannah Law School. Put that all together, and the full story may be much clearer than it now appears.

“I’m sure they are sitting on mountains of that stuff,” says Wright.

Editor's note: ABC News issued a correction of its Friday special report. It now says that, according to a confidant, Flynn is prepared to testify that President-elect Trump directed him to make contact with the Russians during the transition – initially as a way to work together to fight ISIS.

Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

A logo of bitcoin is seen on an advertisement for an electronics shop in Tokyo in September. Bitcoin has become a household name, as its surging value increasingly attracts ordinary investors.

The digital currency called bitcoin has made speculators a fortune, drawn in drug dealers, technology optimists, and those who distrust traditional banks.

Now, it’s ever-more mainstream. From small investors in Japan to big institutional ones in the West, bitcoin is attracting new waves of people anxious to pour money into the latest craze.

It’s hard to resist the action. Worth 6 cents seven years ago, a bitcoin now sells for more than $10,000 – a mind-blowing rise of more than 16 million percent. This year alone, it’s value jumped from $998 to a record $11,155 on Wednesday morning. Seven hours later it had dropped 17 percent, then rose above the $10,000 mark, only to drop another 15 percent on Thursday. By Friday, it was up around $10,500.

“I talk to a lot of people and they say: ‘I have bitcoin’ – average households, many colleagues, friends,” says Daniel Heller, a fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and former official at the Bank for International Settlements and the International Monetary Fund. “It’s definitely very big.”

It also looks like a financial bubble, he and other financial experts say.

Research firm Birinyi Associates ranked bitcoin No. 3 among historic bubbles, – behind an 18th-century French venture to explore the Mississippi River and a single-day surge in Qualcomm stock in 1999, but ahead of the stock boom of the Roaring Twenties (No. 9).

There’s one crucial difference with the 1920s boom and crash that helped usher in the Great Depression: The digital (or crypto) currency is not so widely owned by mainstream financial institutions that a dramatic drop in value could trigger a big financial crisis, Mr. Heller says.

But that could change as bitcoin or similar digital assets increasingly go mainstream.

“What is happening in crypto currency is the entry of traditional financial incumbents into the space,” Lex Sokolin, global director of fin-tech strategy at London-based Autonomous Research, writes in an email.

Unlike historic bubbles, such as the Mississippi Bubble in France or Dutch tulip mania in the 1620s, bitcoin is not confined to a single nation of investors. Its price keeps surging as new countries come on board, albeit with volatility and some full-blown crashes early on.

A shift to Japan

For much of bitcoin’s existence (it was invented in 2008), China has been the center of bitcoin “mining.” Mining is the term for highly intensive computing that solves mathematical problems to create new bitcoin.

But when China cracked down on bitcoin exchanges in September, the action quickly moved to Japan. The Japanese government had already set the stage five months earlier by creating the world’s first national licensing program for cryptocurrency exchanges.

Now, bitcoin is all the rage.

“It’s a strong bull, but it’s going to end eventually,” says Yoshimitsu Jimmy Homma, director of the Japan Digital Money Association and chief executive of United Bitcoiners. “So some buyers will lose a lot of money.”

Ditto for South Korea, another place where bitcoin buying has surged as banks and other institutions made it easy to purchase cryptocurrencies.

“There's really nothing to invest in anymore,” says John Saeyong Ra, founder and chief executive of Bitcoin Center Korea. Savings accounts offer no real return. Stocks and real estate are lackluster. “Cryptocurrency and bitcoin became something rather more exciting. It comes with higher risk, but Koreans tend to be a little more risk tolerant.”

A US surge next?

The next stop for the bitcoin surge could be the United States. On Friday, Chicago-based CME Group, the world’s largest futures exchange, announced it would start trading bitcoin futures starting Dec. 18. Federal regulators have also cleared trading for CME’s rival Cboe, also based in Chicago.

Futures contracts, which allow traders to hedge their bets and reduce their risks when buying speculative products such as bitcoin, represent the further mainstreaming of the cryptocurrency. Asset managers are creating cryptocurrency trusts and other investments for sophisticated investors, says Mr. Sokolin of Autonomous Research. What’s lacking are instruments, such as a well-known mutual fund or exchange-traded fund, that would allow ordinary investors to get involved.

That “would be a game changer,” he says.

Underlying these digital currencies is a revolutionary technology, called blockchain, which creates secure records of digital transactions and can safeguard digital assets from counterfeiting or theft. The so-called “distributed ledger” technology promises to make financial transactions simpler and cheaper and could create brand new markets that entrepreneurs haven’t yet dreamed up.

But there’s a dark side, too. In the wake of bitcoin’s success, more than 200 other currencies have sprung up, unregulated. Some are legitimate, some not. Bitcoin is usually the onramp to purchasing these currencies.

“There are scammy ventures that promise you the next bitcoin,” says Leo Weese, president of the Bitcoin Association of Hong Kong. “These funds often do target people who have absolutely no idea what's going on.”

That’s a huge concern, especially in those areas of the world where ordinary investors are already buying in.

Classic ingredients for a bubble

In Japan, “bitcoin is still not a super common topic yet,” says Mr. Homma of United Bitcoiners. “Almost everyone knows the word, but my guess is that only 5 or 10 percent understand what it is…. We need to be very careful about speculation and trading, otherwise people will lose a lot of money, because this is too volatile of a market.”

“It's kind of a fear of missing out [on a great investment] that's also playing a part,” says Mr. Ra of Bitcoin Center Korea. Some investors just focus on the upside. “They will just borrow money or do margin trading and they just gamble.”

These are classic ingredients for a speculative bubble. And bitcoin has its own alluring story, as all bubbles do. The revolutionary technology was invented by Satoshi Nakamoto to allow consumers to use a currency outside the control of the world’s central banks. No one knows who Nakamoto is or whether that name represents a person or a group.

The true value of bitcoin is also a mystery.

“People have always been saying that this is one of these things that can go between $0 and $1 million per coin,” says Mr. Weese of the Bitcoin Association of Hong Kong. “So this is something that, if it succeeds, can become very big.”

Mr. Heller of the Peterson Institute is skeptical the currency is worth all that much. Still, when he started his research, he spent $120 to buy bitcoin. Now, his stash is worth $2,400.

Will he sell?

“I am just holding on like many of the others,” he says.

Outwardly, David Satterfield's quiet neighborhood on this barrier island’s southern tip looks pretty much like it always does. But Mr. Satterfield says the veneer is false. In fact, his world was shattered this fall.

The hurricane claimed his man cave.

The final lashes of hurricane Irma colluded with a full-moon “king tide” to flood large parts of Tybee Island for the second time in less than a year. Much of the island already up on eight-foot stilts. But rooms below a home’s “freeboard,” or bottom floor  – many of them turned into man caves, apparently – were hit along with entire homes sunk in three feet of storm surge. For Mr. Satterfield and hundreds of other homeowners, that means TVs, stuffed chairs, and other furnishings of a well-used basement were lost to flood waters that rose to heights not seen for more than 80 years.

In response, Satterfield is spending a fall afternoon building shelves – to put his prized belongings above any future inundation. His flurry of sawing, sweating, and bolting underscores a personal shift in priorities caused by a historic storm season – and a sense of creeping threat from the ocean.

“It’s the risk you take” living on a barrier isle, says Satterfield, whose family’s company was recently inducted into the Towing Hall of Fame. “At the same time, there’s only so much money.”

Amid a record year of costly hurricane strikes, Congress has until Dec. 8 to fix a federal flood insurance program that Bob Hunter, its former administrator, tells the Monitor “is failing in every way.”

To be sure, many coastal dwellers – including Jason Buelterman, the mayor of Tybee Island – are skeptical that Congress can summon the political fortitude to fundamentally reform how the country battens down its hatches.

At the same time, experts say the sheer numbers of homes destroyed by worst hurricane season in US history have brought the inadequacies of the nearly 50-year-old National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) into stark relief.

Patrik Jonsson/The Christian Science Monitor

Tybee Island Mayor Jason Buelterman was hailed as a hero for his work in reopening the island so residents could assess massive damage after hurricane Irma. Over 100 Tybee Island homes were flooded for the second time in less than a year, underscoring the kind of repetitive claims that are sinking the National Flood Insurance Program. Frustrated by Congressional inaction, Mr. Buelterman is nevertheless pushing residents to apply for federal grants to raise low-lying homes on stilts ​– before the next storm hits. The island's struggle embodies a national debate on coastal preparedness and subsidies for beach dwellers.

On Oct. 27, President Trump signed a disaster relief bill that forgave $16 billion in debt owed by NFIP. The program was already more than $20 billion in the hole before a series of strong hurricanes shook the mainland, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands, causing more than $200 billion in damage. Back-to-back disasters are one part of the insolvency. But Congress, wary of offending coastal interests, has also hamstrung the agency’s ability to set premiums commensurate with risk.

The question is whether Congress will truly address what House Freedom Caucus member Rep. David Schweikert (R) of Arizona has called “a moral hazard” in the design of the NFIP. To him, this includes a vexing lack of clarity on risks to not just household wealth, but the US Treasury.

“Where do you draw the line as to what is too much money on the front lines, especially when you look at the basic promise [of NFIP]: protecting assets and livelihoods when there wasn’t a free market solution for doing that?” asks Jeff Schlegelmilch, deputy director of Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness, in New York. “The problem is we are good at looking at the last disaster – seeing the need and how to help – but we are not very good at thinking strategically” to minimize the impact of the next one.

Since its founding in 1968, the National Flood Insurance Program has had a mission: Protect home and business owners from disaster events, but also discourage foolhardy development by creating detailed flood maps that allow insurers, underwritten by the US Treasury, to charge varying rates depending on risk.

Now, sea rise and coastal erosion have complicated and delayed the mapping process. In Texas’s Harris County, which includes Houston, Rice University and Texas A&M researchers found that FEMA’s flood maps for southeastern Harris County missed about 75 percent of the damages from hurricanes Ike, Allison, and three other storms. At the same time, as witnessed by Harvey’s impact on Houston, runaway development has placed more and more assets in the danger zone. Only 15 percent of flooded homes in Houston were insured for flood damage.

Meanwhile, FEMA has struggled to fulfill NFIP’s promise, sometimes creating perverse incentives – including subsidizing the rebuilding of frequently flooded homes and businesses. 

“The incentive was the subsidy – that was the carrot – and the stick was they would impose tough maps [higher rates for more flood-prone areas],” says Mr. Hunter, the former administrator. “But FEMA lost control of the program.”

As Irma flooded Tybee, driftwood artist Jay Altman looked out his window and saw the marsh waters swelling onto land and pressing on his doors and into his house.

He looked up and down Lewis Avenue, worst-hit by the storm, and realized the core of the problem: severe repetitive loss. While repeatedly flooded homes make up just 2 percent of the program’s 5 million policies, they account for roughly 30 percent of flood claims — about $17 billion — paid over the program’s history, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

These are not high-rollers, but blue-collar folks: fishermen, artists, carpenters. The average value of a frequently flooded home, FEMA says, is $110,000.

Mr. Altman was living under a tarp in his front yard while rebuilding.

“Unfortunately, I think we have to reconsider whether all of us can stay in these homes,” he says. “I hate to say that, but these storms have shown that it’s true.”

The impact on the island’s culture is already being felt. Already, rising flood insurance premiums have driven perhaps as many as 20 of his friends to sell and leave the island.

Patrik Jonsson/The Christian Science Monitor

Driftwood artist Jay Altman almost got swept away in a massive "king" tide pushed into the island by Hurricane Irma. Having no insurance, he will have to rebuild his home by himself. It was one of 125 on the island that were completely inundated ​– less than a year after many of them were nearly destroyed in hurricane Matthew. Such repeat claims are a major reason why the National Flood Insurance Program is broke.

“It’s not just about this house and this flood insurance program, but about the whole continuum of sustainable development that we’ve been potentially ignoring as a nation, that is being borne out in the damage to this home [and] … to this family,” says Mr. Schlegelmilch,  at the Columbia disaster research center. “With every dollar of relief funding comes an ounce of human suffering and pain that could have been prevented – that’s the message.”

But will it be heard in Washington?

Up until now, there has been little interest in mitigation. When Mr. Buelterman spoke in front of a House committee about more funding to build sand dunes in order to stave off future disaster relief, only half the committee was present and two members were talking on cell phones.

Congress has other reasons to simply forgive the debt and move on. After all, every $27,000 spent by Washington on disaster relief earns one vote for local representatives. Spending money on mitigation ahead of storms earns little to no such electoral credit, political scientists have found.

That political reality is only further fanned by a broader debate over the role of climate change in rising costs – combined with the fact that many of the costs are not primarily climate change related but, rather, can be blamed on flawed risk assessments and incentives for those who choose to live and work close to the water.

Yet there are some subtle signs of deeper political shifts. For one, rather than R or D, this fight is between lowlanders and highlanders.

New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez (D) this summer co-sponsored a bill that would provide low-interest loans for homeowners to invest in flood mitigation projects. That bill is co-sponsored by Republican Sen. John Neely Kennedy of Louisiana. 

On Nov. 14, House Republicans passed the 21st Century Flood Reform Act, which would allow raising rates on properties that have repeat claims, though capping annual premiums at $10,000 even for the riskiest homesteads. The House did not address President Trump's demand that Congress ban new construction from the federal program in order to balance its books. The measure, which has moved to the Senate, is facing opposition from Louisiana, especially, where some 500,000 people who currently pay below-market rates under a grandfathering provision would likely see their rates increase. A lot of coastal dwellers argue that it is not fair that they are facing rate increases for factors beyond their control – including climate change.

The legislation, if enacted, is expected to increase revenues into NFIP by $187 million through 2027, in part by steering more homeowners to private insurers, which are currently barred from offering anything but the federal insurance package. That runs counter to what flood insurance advocates want: a broader risk pool that would bring in more premium cash flow to offset claims. The bill does allow municipalities to draw their own flood maps, which could increase the accuracy of risk assessments. But expanding mitigation efforts – like paying for levee projects, new dunes, and house-lifting grants – would require a broader effort in Congress

“I’m more of a Republican than anything, and [resistance to reforming the program] infuriates me because we’ve got to spend money on mitigation” like sand-dune fortification and helping homeowners raise their homes, says New Jersey resident George Kasimos, whose experience with FEMA after superstorm Sandy in 2012 set him on a course of coastal advocacy. “If we don’t do that, then were done. The program is going to get worse and worse in the hole.”

“It’s about doing what’s best not only for Tybee Island and across the country but how to make ourselves more resilient and less reliant on the federal government,” he adds.

Those sentiments have echoed through the Republican Party, as well, especially as they try to reconcile proposed tax cuts with years of complaints about a growing national debt.

“You’ve got to have an honest conversation,” Representative Schweikert, the Arizona Republican, told The Hill. “The subsidizing of putting homes in harm’s way, it’s not really great for society."

For Mayor Buelterman, the challenge to his island involves not just house values but also the permanence of culture, life style, and responsibility.

“I’ve just about given up on Congress” helping the island address its growing predicament, he says. “But maybe I’m wrong.”

Just down the road from the mayor’s office, Amanda Murray is overseeing trucks hauling flood-rotted debris, from fridges to La-Z-Boys. The pile next to the fire station has grown into a small mountain, a poignant reminder, to some, of the changing dynamics of storm risk – and Washington’s role in protecting what FEMA estimates are 18,000 flood-prone communities.

“Sure seems like a piece of everybody’s house is in that pile,” says Ms. Murray.

Ms. Zhu had heard about the nearby rail bridge long before she and her husband decided to move to this city in the frigid northeast corner of China. It’s been talked about across the region for the past decade: nearly one-and-a-half miles of steel and concrete that, when completed, will span the width of the Amur River and become a vital new trade route between China and Russia.

But just in case she had forgotten, a billboard on the outskirts of Tongjiang presents a turgid reminder: “Seize the opportunities of the bridge network era and achieve the goals of a well-off society.”

It’s the promise of economic opportunity that led Zhu and her husband to leave their rural village for Tongjiang in March. They’ve since opened a small convenience store on the city’s main street, eagerly waiting for the bridge to open and bring with it new customers.

“The bridge should be good for the local people,” says Zhu, who gave only her family name. “But finishing it depends on Russia,” she adds, expressing a sense of impatience shared by many people in this city of 210,000.

That impatience is largely directed at Moscow’s delay in building its own section of the bridge – a delay that exposes the gaps in Russia and China’s strategic partnership. But the frustration felt by Zhu and other Tongjiang residents has been compounded by a deepening economic malaise in China's northeast. For them, the bridge represents the lifeline they’ve been waiting for.

Still, it’s a lifeline dreamed up for a different Chinese economy – one that looks increasingly outdated, as residents in cities like Tongjiang worry that the country’s economic transformation could leave them behind.

A shifting economy

Known as the country’s rust belt, northeastern China is dotted with empty coal mines and abandoned steel mills. The three provinces that make up the region have been among China’s worst performing in recent years, as they’ve struggled to overhaul bloated state-owned enterprises and reduce their dependency on heavy industries.

Although the bridge isn’t expected to dramatically transform the region’s economy – moving away from coal and streel production will likely take years – it will provide a much-needed boost, analysts say. It’s designed to carry 21 million tons of cargo a year. 

“Any economist will tell you that more connectivity is always good for trade,” says Artyom Lukin, an associate professor of international relations at the Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok, Russia. “It’s not going to save northeast China from its current problems, but it will certainly help.”

The region’s economic slump stems from its abundance of state-owned coal and steel firms that are saddled with excess capacity due to decreased demand. As China tries to curb its reliance on credit-fueled investment and government spending, Beijing has pledged to make “structural reforms” that could throw even more millions of people out of work by closing down inefficient mines and factories.

Xie Yujuan/The Christian Science Monitor

Lü Yuxiang, a shop owner in Tongjiang, is eagerly awaiting the completion of the nearby bridge that is expected to provide a much-needed boost to the local economy.

It was in the middle of a Chinese industrial boom that plans for the Amur River bridge got under way. Back then, in the mid-2000s, the role of the bridge in the country’s economy was obvious: It would provide the raw materials needed to maintain economic growth. But construction on the bridge didn’t start until 2014. By then, China’s economy was growing at its slowest rate in a quarter century. 

The original plan was for the bridge to open by the end of 2016. China finished its section on time, but funding shortages delayed the Russian side for years. Construction picked up again earlier this year after China agreed to help with the financing.

End in sight?

The bridge is now scheduled to open in June, according to Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency. When it does, it will become the first of any kind to connect China and Russia across an almost 2,000-mile-long stretch of frontier. (A highway bridge farther north is scheduled to open in October 2019.)

The pick-up in construction comes as Russia begins to emerge from a difficult recession. Trade between Russia and China has started to pick up after a two-year downturn. Two-way trade volume reached $61.38 billion in the first nine months of this year, a 22.4 percent increase from the period last year, according to China’s Ministry of Commerce. 

It remains to be seen, however, how the bridge fits into Beijing’s plan to shift the economy toward a more consumer-driven growth model. Starting last year, the Tongjiang government has promoted the bridge as an important addition to China’s One Belt, One Road initiative, a landmark program intended to establish new trade routes between Asia, Africa, and Europe. The bridge will link China's northeast railway network with Russia's Siberian railway network, providing a new connection to European markets.

Liang Qidong, vice president of the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences and an expert on the economy of northeastern China, says the opening of the bridge will bring with it more jobs and investment to Tongjiang and the surrounding region. He says it will become a major trading hub for goods flowing in and out of China.

That’s the kind of forecast locals want to hear. More economic activity in Tongjiang also means more customers for shop owners like Lü Yuxiang, whose cluttered store is filled with goods from across the border. There are, of course, the standards: Russian caviar, vodka, and nesting dolls. Then there are the more unusual wares. One shelf is filled with camouflage binoculars, and slingshots hang on the wall behind the front counter. After years of struggling to get by, she has high expectations for the future.

“When the bridge opens, we will have a logistics park in Tongjiang just beside the border,” Ms. Lü says. “Then big companies will move to here to do business. In this way it will help the economy.”

But first, Russia needs to finish building the bridge. On a recent morning, the entrance to it on the Chinese side was closed because of heavy snow. A nearby customs building stood empty, waiting for a train that has yet to come.

Xie Yujuan contributed reporting.

Tobias Hase/picture-alliance/dpa/AP

André Rieu performs on Nov. 29, 2017, in Munich at the recording of the TV show 'Christmas Eve with Carmen Nebel.'

The original Waltz King, Johann Strauss II, had five orchestras. On numerous Saturday nights during his musical reign, the maestro would book his various ensembles into five different venues in and around Imperial Vienna. As the evening’s balls and cotillions began, Strauss would play his violin and conduct – at the first of these dance pavilions.

Once the dancers were lost in the whirl of waltzing, the maestro would pack away his violin, steal into his carriage, and race to the second venue, where he would arrive to cheers from another ballroom of dancers. He would conduct a few more waltzes, and maybe squeeze in a polka.

Strauss raced about like this all night, until he had led each of his five orchestras.

Two things resulted: Thousands across Vienna were able to tell their friends they had, indeed, danced to the Waltz King. And the Waltz King grew rich.

Yet the wealth amassed by Strauss is a pittance compared to the modern-day King of Waltz, André Rieu. The Dutch violinist, who conducts his orchestra – like Strauss – while standing and playing his violin, has become a multimillionaire by taking the music of Strauss to hockey arenas and soccer stadiums worldwide.

That Maestro Rieu, who lives in a 15th-century castle, has inspired millions to embrace the classical music of “dead white men” in an age of rock and hip hop seems a minor miracle. But his numbers don’t lie, and there’s nothing minor about what he’s accomplished.

Including his breakthrough album “Strauss & Co.” in 1994, Rieu has sold more than 40 million albums and DVDs. His recordings, not including his latest “Shall We Dance,” have garnered more than 500 Platinum and more than 270 Gold awards. In 2009, Billboard Magazine anointed him the biggest solo male touring artist, and he is the only classical performer ever to crack Pollstar’s TOP 10, which ranks performers by crowd size during tours.

On his recent US Arena Tour, during a stop in Portland, Ore., about 12,000 fans crowd into the Moda Center, home to the NBA’s Trailblazers. These André Aficionados bear little resemblance to a typical symphony crowd. And none seem to care that classical-music purists have called Rieu’s music “affected,” “histrionic,” or “conceited.”

“It’s pleasant to listen to,” says Janet Holliwell. “There’s a lot of excitement to it. But it’s relaxing, too.”

She and her companion, Peter Klimuk, have driven 485 miles from Kelowna, British Columbia, to see the concert. Mr. Klimuk explains that the pair have been fans of Rieu for three years, since they watched a concert shown at a Kelowna theater.

“He’s a master showman,” Ms. Holliwell adds.

Brian Urban drove his family 277 miles from Lynden, Wash. “I first heard of André Rieu when I was 13,” Mr. Urban says. “I introduced him to my kids – we got all the DVDs we could watch. Every Christmas we watch his concerts: ‘Masricht.’ ‘Live in Vienna.’ And now my youngest daughter has decided she wants to play the violin.”

Urban has seen Rieu four times in concert: “twice in Vancouver, once in California, and now in Portland.”

From 'The Blue Danube' to Michael Jackson

Tickets to Rieu’s arena concerts instruct concertgoers to “Please Be Seated By 6:45,” 15 minutes before showtime. This ensures the crowd will see the maestro lead his 50 musicians and 16 vocalists in a grand entrance, processing to the stage a la Rocky Balboa, buoyed by cheers and applause.

His men wear black tailcoats, the women wear pastel Disney-Princess gowns, each of which cost roughly $4,000 and was designed by the maestro. The stage is bedecked with swaths of silk flowers, the music stands are gleaming-gold ornate curlicues, and behind all of this hangs a stage-width curved video screen.

“I love to give people something for the eye,” Rieu tells the Monitor. “I would not call it a strategy. I just follow my heart. If I love it, hopefully my audience will love it, too.”

And love it they do. Song after song, the arena echoes with applause, cheers, even howls. Part of Rieu’s secret to getting “regular” folk clapping and cheering for classical music: His repertoire includes much outside of the classical canon.

Yes, Rieu thinks waltz “is the most beautiful music in the world. But I play much more than waltzes in my concerts. I mix songs like ‘Besame Mucho,’ ‘Ballade pour Adeline,’ ‘Grenada,” with waltzes or arias or songs such as ‘Think of Me’ from ‘Phantom of the Opera,’ ‘Ben’  by Michael Jackson, or a medley from ‘My Fair Lady.’”

Indeed, Rieu’s program this night is a musical buffet: Puccini’s aria “Un bel di” from “Madam Butterfly,” a zither-led “Third Man Theme,” Ravel’s “Bolero” fronted by four snare drummers, a whirling “Blue Danube,” during which about 50 audience members waltz  around the main floor, Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” set against a video rendering of a Gothic stained-glass window drenched in digital sunbeams, and, what may have been the most rousing tune of the night, Little Richard Penniman’s hit, “Tutti Frutti.”

Under Rieu’s direction, the Moda Center feels more like a pop concert than a classical recital. Until the mood shifts and it feels more like a camp meeting. Or, until Rieu addresses the assembly, which he does between every song, and it feels like stand-up comedy. At one point the maestro divides his audience into four sections, and gives each a different pitch to hum: sopranos over here, altos in the middle, basses on this side – “and the rest of you, the double basses.”

Rieu turns to the Johann Strauss Orchestra as a huge American flag unfurls across the massive video screen. As the audience recognizes “America the Beautiful,” thousands rise reflexively to their feet, place hands over hearts, and sing their four-part discordant harmonies as the pixilated flag flutters. No camp meeting now; for one song the Moda Center feels eerily like Nuremberg. Rieu plays his fans as expertly as he plays his 1732 Stradivarius.

Violins, cellos ... and giant foam hammers

“I like him because he’s not like those hoity-toity symphony orchestras,” says one middle-aged women, seated center-stage row nine, to her companion. 

This is an understatement. At times the concert feels less like classical music and more like a two-hour running gag punctuated by this waltz or that aria. After one orchestral number, when a musician in the front row has been featured, another musician, behind her, rises up and produces a gigantic foam-rubber hammer and beans the featured soloist atop the noggin. Whenever the stagehands in their black T-shirts schlep props onstage, they take formal bows, as if they are the featured soloists. More yuks from the audience. And so it goes: slapstick topped with dollops of orchestral cream.

At least one woman came away disappointed. “I feel like he either doesn't trust the strength of his material – or he doesn't trust his audience,” says Lucia Neare, a theater artist who traveled from Seattle to see the concert. “The show tonight included some of the greatest music ever composed, but he doesn't seem to think the music, by itself, is enough to make his audience fall in love with it.”

She hadn’t expected Rieu’s concert to be the Vienna Philharmonic. But neither did she expect to see “Laurel and Hardy Go to the Symphony.” She wonders if Rieu’s European concerts depend on the same degree of slapstick antics and schmaltzy video his American audiences apparently need.

“The classical music world often is so snobbish. I don’t listen to them,” Rieu says of his critics. “Purists criticize everyone who plays classical music for people in an arena or stadium, for the masses. I do what I feel is right. The only person I listen to is my wife. She believed in me from the beginning. I can’t tell you how many managers and label people told me, in the beginning, to ‘go home and play for your grandmother.’

“They regret that today,” he says, laughing.

'Saturday Night Fiedler'

Rieu is hardly the first classical conductor to employ audacity in the service of popularizing great works. For one, there was Johann Strauss II, who marshaled his orchestras across Europe with fervor not unlike Rieu’s relentless touring. More recently, Arthur Fiedler and Leonard Bernstein, like Rieu, employed showmanship as well as musicianship to inspire a love for classical music among the general populace.

Though critics chastised Fiedler for “over-popularizing” music, his half-century with the Boston Pops made that orchestra into one of the best known in the United States. He offended purists by arranging condensed versions of the classics, and, like Rieu, he delighted in arranging pop music, notably The Beatles, for his orchestra.

Under Fiedler’s direction, the Boston Pops Orchestra is said to have made more recordings than any orchestra in the world, with total sales exceeding $50 million. Fiedler’s 1947 recording of Jacques Offenbach’s “Gaite Parisienne” became RCA Victor’s first long-playing classical album, in 1950. He recorded light classics, Broadway show tunes, even film scores. Fiedler devoted his final album to disco. Its title: “Saturday Night Fiedler.”

Bernstein assumed leadership of the New York Philharmonic in 1954, a time when anti-communist hysteria and its evil twin, anti-intellectualism, were disparaging all things highbrow, from academic “eggheads” to the musical elites.

Unlike Rieu, Bernstein seems to have trusted his material, so much so that he took classical music to American television audiences. He was telegenic before there was such a term, becoming a celebrity, first on the award-winning Omnibus, created by the Ford Foundation to raise the level of Americans’ taste, later in 53 Young Peoples Concerts for CBS, and later still, in 1982, by conducting all nine Beethoven symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic for PBS.

Bernstein labored to help everyone comprehend symphonic music and conducting. He took the orchestra on tours of Europe, Japan, Latin America, Canada and Alaska. For millions, he managed to remove the “hoity toity” stigma from classical music—without changing the music.  Many still consider his Young Peoples Concerts the most influential series of music appreciation programs ever aired on television, and Bernstein became as famous for his educational work as for his conducting.

Fiedler and Bernstein did whatever it took to make classical music more appealing, more accessible, to the widest audiences possible. Now Rieu crisscrosses the planet on a similar mission.

“In my audience, you will find everyone from the cleaning lady to the professor, families, young and old people,” he says. “I am very happy and very proud, of course. Because it shows that classical music is not only for an elite. In music there are no boundaries. Wagner, Strauss, Mozart have written some wonderful music, so have Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, and ABBA.”

“I’d love to perform with Bruce Springsteen one day,” he adds. “I think he’s fantastic.”

In the Moda Center, when the ninth or eleventh encore concludes, when the last of several thousand balloons have floated to the arena floor, Bruno Jurewicz remains on his feet, still gazing toward the stage, statuesque in his swallowtail tuxedo decorated with an “André Rieu”-emblazoned scarf about his neck. He has seen three concerts in rapid succession – in San Diego, in Tacoma, and here in Portland.

An accomplished dancer and a resident of Burien, Wash., Mr. Jurewicz was one of those who waltzed about the Moda Center during “The Blue Danube.” Now he’s waiting to be interviewed by one of Rieu’s video crews – there are seven at work during each concert.

When Jurewicz learns that some criticize Rieu’s slapstick proclivities and soppy video, he says, “You can’t please everyone. I enjoy the music. I enjoy the scenes on the screen.

“I went to all three shows to see if he did do the same shows each night. And he did. I loved it.”

AP Photo

People gather to protest under the banner of Stand Up To Racism, outside the US Embassy in London Dec. 1. The mass protest was called after U.S. President Donald Trump shared anti-Muslim videos on Twitter originally posted online by a British extremist far-right group.

In a rare spat between close allies, British Prime Minister Theresa May has denounced a retweet by President Trump. The original Twitter message included three anti-Muslim videos posted by a nationalist group in Britain. Ms. May said resending such images “was the wrong thing to do.” Her courage to speak out against such biased claims, even if they are spread by a fellow world leader, is as commendable as what she actually said.

And that may be the larger point.

Just as more women now find it in themselves to reveal and denounce acts of sexual harassment and assault, many more non-Muslims are taking a brave stand against religious bigotry directed at Muslims. Their forthright honesty first exposes the wrong belief and then, even more important, asserts the truth about Muslims. In the case of the Trump retweet, May said that British Muslims are peaceful and law-abiding, and have themselves been subject to acts of terror.

Such affirmations aimed at countering anti-Muslim bias may be having a healing impact. According to a Pew survey released in July, nearly 50 percent of American Muslims said they have recently experienced support for being Muslim – a remarkable increase from 32 percent 10 years ago.

In fact, Muslims in the United States are 19 percentage points more likely than the general public to say that Americans are friendly toward Muslims.

“In a sense, with rising Islamophobia has come more support from the American public,” said Amaney Jamal, a professor at Princeton University who served as an adviser for the survey.

In addition, an earlier Pew poll found that the share of all Americans who say there is not much or no support for extremism among US Muslims has risen to 54 percent, up from 45 percent in 2011.

One reason may be that Muslims and non-Muslims are living closer to or working more closely with each other. The same survey found that non-Muslims who personally know someone who is Muslim are far more likely to say there is not much or no support for extremism among US Muslims.

The beneficial effect of these shifts in attitudes may be that Muslims and nonMuslims will be more willing to work together to curb extremists within the Muslim community and to head off terrorist acts. To broad-brush Islam as inherently violent only helps to stoke Muslim extremism. The best course against terrorism lies in accurate depictions of Muslims, not biased retweets against them.