The weekend military coup that deposed Myanmar’s elected government and landed democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi under arrest poses an early test for President Joe Biden’s vow to buttress the world’s democracies against a rising authoritarian tide.

The United States played a critical role in the Southeast Asian nation’s emergence a decade ago from a half-century of military rule and international isolation.

When the country returned to nominally civilian rule in 2015, the U.S. hailed Myanmar, also known as Burma, as an example of how persistent and coercive diplomacy could team up with a fervent local population to deliver a transition to democracy.

But in the wake of the Feb. 1 coup, Mr. Biden may find there is not much, beyond a reimposition of sanctions and coordinated international condemnation, the U.S. can do to deter a military leadership that never fully relinquished power.

That does not mean Mr. Biden’s vision of a renewed commitment to supporting democratic growth is a waste of time and resources, some international experts say, but rather that political transition – especially from military rule – is almost always prone to setbacks.

“This is another instance of something we’ve seen repeatedly in the past, namely that entrenched militaries have a very hard time giving up power,” says Thomas Carothers, a leading authority on international support for democracy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. He cites Egypt and Thailand as other examples.

The U.S. can try to come to a common diplomatic stand with other democratic powers and return to the heavy sanctions it imposed in the past, “but beyond that, there are limits as to what democracy support and promotion can do,” he says.

“That doesn’t mean [the U.S.] shouldn’t do it, or that Biden is in a worse place than others in the past, or that because there was a coup your pro-democracy policy failed,” he adds. “It’s a reminder that it’s difficult supporting democracy.”

International outcry

On Monday Mr. Biden issued a statement declaring the military’s seizure of power and detention of civilian leaders including Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi “a direct assault on the country’s transition to democracy and the rule of law,” and called on the international community to “come together in one voice to press the Burmese military to immediately relinquish the power they have seized.”

On Tuesday the Biden administration declared the military’s actions a coup d’etat, which by law requires a review of U.S. assistance to the country, the State Department said.

Some members of Congress joined the White House in calling for an immediate reversal of the military’s actions, and international pro-democracy and human rights groups added their voices.

“The military’s outrageous assault on democracy, following atrocities against the Rohingya, should be a clarion call for the world to act as one to finally get the military out of politics and put the interests of Myanmar’s people ahead of all other considerations,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, referring to the Muslim minority community that has been subjected to what some term a campaign of genocide.

Reuters

A soldier sits inside a military vehicle in front of a Hindu temple in the downtown area in Yangon, Myanmar, Feb. 2, 2021.

President Biden said the military’s actions in Myanmar prompted the U.S. to review sanctions law and other options. The United Nations Security Council was also set to meet Tuesday to discuss Myanmar.

Authoritarian models

Still, questions about effectiveness have dogged international democracy promotion for decades. And for some, those questions are only sharper at a time when U.S.-led pro-democracy initiatives face increasingly aggressive competition from the authoritarian models promoted by powers like China and Russia.

The U.S. cannot expect to rival China in Myanmar on the economic scale, some regional experts say, noting that U.S. trade with Myanmar is a small fraction of China’s, and that Chinese investment in the country far outstrips that of the U.S.

But U.S. actions like sanctions still can matter, in part because Myanmar’s military is wary of becoming fully dependent on China.

“When the country’s opening started 10 years ago, Suu Kyi attributed it in part to pressure from outside,” while others cited a desire for Western investment and access, says Walter Lohman, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center in Washington.

Now some will argue, he adds, that “we cannot be too tough on Burma because it will give room for China to consolidate its relationship,” he adds, “but the truth is that Beijing already has a relationship that far outstrips Washington’s.”

In that context, he says, far better for the U.S. to act on its principles instead of on “great-power competition” and to “stand with the people aspiring to democracy and human rights.”

U.S. officials appeared to acknowledge Tuesday that the U.S. has only limited leverage, especially since the U.S. had already reimposed some sanctions in 2019 over military atrocities against the Rohingya.

But at the same time, State Department officials suggested the U.S. continues to have room to pressure a regime that is wary of China’s dominance – and mindful of strong democratic aspirations among some of its people.

The return to civilian rule in 2015 allowed Myanmar to turn away from “relying on others in the region who do not support democracy and human rights,” said one official in remarks to reporters Tuesday. “We will continue to support the people of Burma,” the official added, noting that humanitarian and democracy promotion assistance, mostly to nongovernmental organizations operating in the country, would continue.

Military cites election fraud

In seizing power, the military cited the country’s constitution, which allows for the military to take control from civilian rule in an “emergency.”

The military cited what it said were fraudulent parliamentary elections in November – elections that overwhelmingly repudiated military-backed candidates in favor of those from Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party. The new parliament was to have opened Monday.

The turn of events in Myanmar is more a reflection of the tenacity of military rule than it is of rising authoritarianism globally, experts like Carnegie’s Mr. Carothers say.

“True, China’s influence is not pro-democratic, but I wouldn’t describe Myanmar’s failures as an example of the rise of an authoritarian model in the world,” he says. “A military coup is not the Chinese model. They’re following their own Burmese military model.”

Short of a military intervention, which Mr. Carothers says is certainly not going to happen, Mr. Biden may lack the power to effect a reversal of the coup. But that does not mean the president’s “aspirational statements” or impending coercive actions like renewed sanctions serve no purpose, he adds.

The military may have cut internet access in the country, but the people of Myanmar still know of outside support, some experts say, even as statements and measures taken by the U.S. and other pro-democracy nations send a signal beyond Myanmar’s borders.

“You may not get results overnight, but I think we’ve learned that in the long run you get more by taking a strong stand on your principles and values than by disregarding them,” says Mr. Lohman at Heritage. “There’s a sort of demonstration effect that is powerful, both in the country you’re targeting and in other struggling democracies in the region and around the world.”

Leaders in America have long faced a built-in challenge – a tension woven into the fabric of their nation’s version of democracy.

Individual elections are winner-take-all, and competition in a two-party system can mean polarization and fierce struggles for influence. Yet the nation’s founders were fundamentally skeptical toward concentrated power. They sought to diffuse the necessary authority invested in individuals, institutions, or even more populous regions of the country.

The Madisonian principle of checks and balances – designed to thwart a leader who seeks undue power – implicitly calls for leaders who can put the needs of democracy ahead of their own ambitions. 

In the 2020 election and its aftermath, both this ideal and the constitutional checks on executive power were sorely tested, as President Donald Trump sought to overturn the outcome of the vote. In the aftermath, a sitting president was impeached a historic second time and his trial begins in the Senate next week.

Now, as politicians – and Republicans, in particular – are calibrating how to move forward, these principles from the nation’s founding remain vital. On one hand, they show the power of the politics of self-interest in a time of polarization. But they also highlight how dearly democracies depend on the opposite qualities to survive: humility and an unselfish spirit of service.

“Instead of it just being, you know, about me, me, me, or being a sole independent operator” in places like the Senate, “or instead of trying to be the great savior of the country, how do you see yourself in the context of other people?” says former Sen. John Danforth, a Missouri Republican who served three terms through the mid-1990s. “Do you have sufficient humility so that you’re not somebody who’s just trying to roll over people? Are you able to love your enemy? But we shouldn’t even think in terms of enemies – do you love your opponent?”

While it may sound quaint in this hard-edged political era, this vision isn’t merely wishful, scholars say. Politicians aren’t expected to give up partisanship, but to engage in the tug-and-pull of the American system.  

Rick Wilking/Reuters/File

Former Republican Sen. John Danforth of Missouri (foreground, left) greets Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut before the vice presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri October 2, 2008. Former Senator Danforth says successful politicians need "sufficient humility" as well as other dimensions of leadership.

“We expect our political leaders, our elected officials, to listen to the popular will of the majority, but we also must expect them to make decisions on behalf of broader interests – and those may not always be congruent with our individual, particular, or partisan interests,” says Meena Bose, a political scientist at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York.

“So leadership in the American political system must be built on the premise that the people’s representatives should balance intra-competing interests,” she adds. “Our system of separation of powers and checks and balances means that negotiations, compromises, and alliance-building are key building blocks of our political system – and part of that process is recognizing that, you know, that there are successes and disappointments.”

Trump and a polarized era

Mr. Trump proclaimed his populist message with unshakable confidence and a deep sense of self-reliance. “I alone can fix it,” he famously said of the problems confronting the nation. 

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, he added: “When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total. And that’s the way it’s got to be.” (Though later, he also proclaimed, “I don’t take responsibility at all” for the crisis.) 

Vigorous opinions and sharp partisanship are necessary parts of the democratic process. But there are also personality traits and skills that promote cooperation and consensus.

“Lincoln had a ‘public servant’s heart,’ but he also understood how to combine it with a partisan head,” says Matthew Pinsker, a Civil War historian at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. “Nobody should expect Republicans to stand down in their battles with Democrats, but they have to relearn some of the lessons of past GOP heroes like Lincoln or Reagan, who knew when to put country above party.”

That can be difficult in such a polarized environment. Republican leaders and rank-and-file GOP voters in states such as Arizona, Michigan, and Georgia have lashed out against Republicans who spoke out forcefully against Mr. Trump’s false allegations of election fraud or voted to impeach him. Republicans as a whole remain steadfast in their support for the former president, even as he faces a trial in the Senate. 

But the cost for such thinking might already be apparent, some say.

“While I don’t think I would rely on politicians changing their instincts of self-preservation, I do believe that Republicans should begin to think, well, we’re not going to preserve ourselves if we continue to be a party that’s wildly popular with maybe a third of the population,” says Senator Danforth, an ordained Episcopal minister who presided at the funeral of former President Ronald Reagan. 

“We teach our kids”

In 2018, when former two-term Republican Congresswoman Mimi Walters lost her seat in a California district Democrats had never won before, she, too, expressed concerns that Democrats might try to steal the tightly-contested election, even as she watched her initial lead evaporate as mail-in votes were counted for days after the election.

“We teach our kids to win gracefully and to lose gracefully,” says Ms. Walters, who eventually accepted the process and conceded to her Democratic opponent. “But that’s not what we’re witnessing with our leaders on both sides of the aisle, and we haven’t witnessed that in the last four years.” 

She calls for leadership by example – with implications that go beyond politics. “You know, a younger generation is looking at the way our leaders conduct themselves as they forge their lives and come into adulthood, and if they witness our leaders being disrespectful to one another and treating one another the way that they have been, then they will think that that behavior is OK. And it’s not OK.”  

In fact, humility is anything but weakness, says Ken Ruscio. As a distinguished lecturer at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond in Virginia, he is studying how humility has impacted presidential leadership. 

He sees the power of humility “in the admission of error and the capacity to learn from one’s mistakes; in the reverence for institutions and the reluctance to assert power beyond what the duties and the responsibilities of the office require; in the intellectual modesty that makes one aware of the need to seek truth through reason and analysis rather than assuming you are the repository of received wisdom.” 

These result in “a recognition that power is to be deployed in service of goals larger than the self, and certainly never in service only to the self,” he says.

Such virtues are necessary for the challenges of democratic leadership, adds former Rep. Christopher Shays, a Republican from Connecticut who served 11 terms.

“Leaders, good leaders, speak in a way to bring out their better nature, and then speak to the public to bring out the public’s better nature, so that it magnifies and grows and then becomes dominant,” he says.

“And that means that truth matters, it means that courage matters, and it means that leaders should be willing to lose support because you’re saying things that your supporters may not want to hear, but need to hear,” he adds. “In the end, you’ll be in a much better place personally, and so will your country.”

In the wake of the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol, America’s top military leaders issued a rare and eyebrow-raising letter to troops warning that the “violent riot” was a “direct assault” on Congress as well as on the nation’s constitutional process – and also an act of sedition.

“The rights of freedom of speech and assembly do not give anyone the right to resort to violence, sedition and insurrection.” These activities are against the oath troops take to the Constitution, they wrote – and against the law.

One week later, after the FBI conducted background checks on all National Guard troops doing Inauguration Day security, at least 12 were removed from duty.

The decided need for these measures gave many in the halls of the Pentagon pause; the question in the weeks to come will be how to drive home the point. The answer is the subject of robust debate within the military community, which is discussing culpability and consequences that range from canceling pensions and Veterans Affairs health care to shaming any military academy graduates who took part by revoking their class rings and disinviting them from reunions. 

“We need to throw the book at them,” Rep. Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat and former Marine infantryman, told CNN. “We have to punish them and punish them hard so that other military personnel and veterans recognize this is not acceptable. … It will never be acceptable to strike against your government, and if you do, there will be strong consequences.”

The process of determining who is destined to be at the receiving end of such measures has begun, and so far 14% of those charged in the Capitol insurrection are current or former members of the military. (Active-duty military personnel make up less than half of 1% of the U.S. population; veterans make up 7%.)

Without excusing treason, the debates about consequences also indicate some measure of sympathy for those who truly believed they were following the orders not only of a president, but also a commander-in-chief who relentlessly swore the election was rigged and the nation in danger. That message was amplified by many conservative news outlets and foreign-backed social media accounts that prey on military service members – and on veterans who, while not still under oath to serve their country, may nonetheless feel they are. 

While “there’s always a case for compassion,” says Air Force veteran Loren Moore, echoing the sentiments of many vets, “it doesn’t mean you can take steps to overthrow democracy.” 

Determining appropriate punishment

Jeremy Butler, a former Navy officer and now a reservist, was previously stationed at the Pentagon and spent many hours on Capitol Hill. Sitting in his New York City apartment watching the news on Jan. 6 “was literally like watching your home being invaded,” he says.

Now the CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Mr. Butler says the first order of business is for the government to do “an excellent job tracking down everyone who took part in this.”

The fact that there were military participants in a riot filled with Confederate symbols, “Well, that’s probably more of a surprise to the civilian population than to those of us who have been in the military,” he says, pointing to a recent Military Times survey which found that one quarter of service members have seen evidence of racism in the ranks.

But while those who invaded the Capitol “definitely need to be punished appropriately, I would never advocate for taking health care away from anybody – particularly mental health care, which potentially plays a bigger factor here than perhaps we realized,” Mr. Butler says. “If you’re already suffering from some level of mental health issues and you have your president and commander-in-chief saying, ‘Go to the Capitol and take back our democracy’ with very strong martial language directed at his followers, it’s obvious to me why they interpreted it that way.”

Military members “who fall prey to this [misinformation] may feel a duty to act, really believing that they’re protecting this country,” Ms. Moore says, pointing to Jacob Fracker, a corporal in the Virginia National Guard who has been arrested for, among other things, violent entry of Capitol grounds. “My entire adult life has been dedicated to protecting my fellow Americans,” Cpl. Fracker said in a statement to The Roanoke Times, adding that his actions were an “expression of grief against what very many Americans would consider tyranny.” 

Susan Walsh/AP/File

Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers, a citizen militia group, speaks during a rally outside the White House on June 25, 2017. For weeks before the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Mr. Rhodes, an Army veteran, said his group was preparing for a civil war and was "armed, prepared to go in if the president calls us up."

Going beyond the symptoms

For a number of those who took part in the Capitol riots or who join militias, having served in the military “is their primary identifier,” Mr. Butler adds. “It plays into their sense of self-worth, mission, purpose – it really ties back to everything.”

Separating from the military after service can lead to a feeling of dislocation, say veterans, many of whom advocate for the Pentagon to establish better programs for those moving from military to civilian life. In particular, this transition time has been shown to make vets easy prey for extremist groups, who like to recruit them specifically for their street credibility and military training. 

For this reason, some within the military community advocate for service members and veterans found to have taken part in the storming of the Capitol to lose their benefits until they complete a mandatory de-radicalization program. Better civics education wouldn’t hurt either, they add, to drive home the point of the military oath, why democracy is important, and why “security shouldn’t be the driving force of the nation,” Ms. Moore says, pausing to add, “along with your standard critical thinking skills.” 

On military chat groups, “You hear a lot about, ‘What kind of punishment can we do? What kind of things can we take away? But not a lot about, ‘What are the root causes behind this?’” she adds. “It makes me nervous that what we see is just trying to deal with the symptoms.” 

But as valuable as exploring root causes can be, legal defenses in which service members take a “just following orders” tack have been largely panned. “There’s no confusion at all in the military about whether you should follow an unconstitutional order. It’s ingrained early on that your oath is to the Constitution, not your chain of command,” says Lindsay Rodman, a former Marine lawyer who is now executive director of the Leadership Council for Women in National Security. “I don’t have any problem with reinforcing that message through accountability if people are confused about it.”

If they are convicted in court, insurrectionists need to be charged to the full extent of the law, says Kristofer Goldsmith, an Army combat veteran and founder of High Ground Veterans Advocacy, a nonprofit that offers former service members training in public policy engagement. “While we can have sympathy for people who are so deluded by these false beliefs, if we allow them to continue to fester without imposing a cost, then we’re just going to see events like this more often.” 

In particular, this includes holding accountable former military leaders like retired Gen. Michael Flynn – a convicted felon who was granted a presidential pardon – Mr. Goldsmith says. “You can’t use your military rank and status as a veteran to whip a crowd into a frenzy to go commit insurrection.”

Clear-cut legal consequences

As charges surrounding the storming of the Capitol are brought forward for current and former service members, the laws that will serve as a guidepost when it comes to sentencing “are completely competent and give us ample tools to deal with this – which I almost never say,” Ms. Rodman says. 

The legal guidance on convictions of sedition, insurrection, and treason are also quite specific when it comes to penalties involving military benefits. Normally revoking military pensions in the wake of criminal charges is off the table, for example, since a central tenet of military culture is that few service members have earned a pension without the considerable support of spouses and children. As a result, the pension is generally considered a family benefit with provisions to pass it on to a child in the case of, say, imprisonment, and legal obligations for service members to give pro rata portions to ex-spouses in the event of a divorce.

Yet this is not the case for service members convicted of taking up arms against the government, in which case they lose their retirement pay.

“I take great comfort that as a mature democratic society, we have tools in place for this, and we can apply them dispassionately: ‘You violated the law when you committed treason.’ If you use the affirmative defense (‘Yes, I did, but I had a good reason’), the courts will answer that the affirmative defense is garbage, and so you are convicted. Upon this, the following things happen,” Ms. Rodman says. “That sounds fundamentally fair to me.”

Charlie Riedel/AP/File

Downtown buildings in Kansas City, Missouri, stand against the hazy rising sun, Sept. 18, 2020. COVID-19 has made the city resort to budget cuts, reductions in services, furloughs, and the elimination of vacant jobs.

Quinton Lucas is frustrated, yet calm and composed, as he rattles off the issues facing Kansas City, Missouri, where he’s mayor.

The economic effects of the pandemic have withered the tax base. Budget cuts made in response have left less money for public health, contact tracing, and small-business relief. The city has also resorted to furloughs, reductions in services, and the elimination of vacant jobs. “People always think that’s easy,” he says of the last one. “But when you’re talking about firefighters or paramedics, which we are, it creates a real challenge.” Now the city is facing a revenue shortfall of $58 million, and in total a $70 million budget hole will need to be plugged this month.

2020 was a rough year for state and local governments. In Mr. Lucas’ state, the Department of Social Services cut some 200 jobs. In Rochester, New York, the school district – already financially troubled – laid off teachers and closed five schools. Medicaid copays increased in Colorado, and both the city of Arlington, Texas, and the governor of Ohio ordered hiring freezes.

The economic fallout from the pandemic – high unemployment and cautious consumer spending – has battered budgets that rely on sales taxes, income taxes, and other revenue related to travel, tourism, and consumer expenditures. With Democrats taking control of Congress, federal relief might be on the way. But for now, states and cities are navigating the consequences of major cuts made last spring – when revenue projections were worse – while factoring in current economic forecasts, which are improved but still uncertain. All this time, the legal requirement to keep budgets balanced has been hanging overhead.

“In the shortest terms possible, revenues are going down and expenses are going up. And whenever you’re putting together a budget, that’s a really difficult thing to deal with,” says Dan White, who studies fiscal policy at Moody’s Analytics.

In human terms, economists say, the result has been about 1.3 million local and state government jobs lost since last February – adding to unemployment lines, to say nothing of delayed or cut government services. Jobs data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Jan. 8 indicates that about 50,000 state and local government jobs (including in education) were lost in December alone. On average, cities across the country have seen revenues contract 21% since the pandemic started, according to a December report from the National League of Cities (NLC).

“In the first CARES Act that came out, the $2 trillion package, there was some support for state and local [governments]. It wasn’t enough,” says Joseph Kane, a senior research associate at the Brookings Institution. Ditto for the stimulus package passed shortly before the new year.

“We’re still early days in the true, long-term effects of this,” Mr. Kane says.

Narrowly targeted aid

While Congress approved some aid in both of these relief bills, much of it was narrowly targeted, or restricted to cities of certain sizes. Additionally, Congress left much of the divvying up of funds to be negotiated between state and city governments – “and in most cases, the localities don’t have much leverage,” says the NLC’s Michael Gleeson. While the funding that has come through has helped with personal protective equipment and other costs that have increased due to the pandemic, it hasn’t helped prop up jobs or general budgets, mayors and economists say.

“We were fortunate enough ... to participate in the Payroll Protection [Program],” Mayor Ronny Walker of Ruston, Louisiana, says of the private businesses his wife runs. But over at mayors’ offices, “cities got no payroll protection plan at all.” 

Some state budgets haven’t fared much better. In Florida, legislators will have to plug a significant budget shortfall this spring. Last May in Ohio, the state government slashed $775 million from public spending. Although Gov. Mike DeWine recently restored some of the funding, given that worst-case budget projections haven’t come to pass, $390 million in cuts remain in place.

On the one hand, when revenues – in this case, mostly taxes – decline, expenditures have to follow suit. But the federal government can change the equation by injecting funds. It “sits in a unique position [in] that it can stimulate activity,” says Mr. Kane of Brookings. “This is not the time to be like, ‘We need to cut back.’”

Mr. White of Moody’s Analytics agrees that while the federal government’s aid to state and local governments has had its bright spots, and some places have fared better than others, the current level of stimulus hasn’t been enough. Still, as some state budgets start to balloon with pension and Medicaid costs, it could force improvements: Tighter budgets are “going to make government think of better and more efficient ways to do things,” and could lead, in the long term, to a more efficient delivery of services. But with state and local government jobs at their lowest level since 2001, Mr. White says, the economy is missing out on “relatively well-paying, mid-wage to high-wage jobs” – and will be for a while.

It’s also important to watch how public sector layoffs play out along racial and ethnic lines, says Mr. Kane, noting that “a lot of Black and Hispanic workers in particular have been hit very hard. And some of those same workers depend on transit systems to get to work, so they’re hit that way, too.”

Balanced budgets – but at a cost

At the beginning of the pandemic, Mayor Nan Whaley of Dayton, Ohio, “didn’t know what the bottom was going to be” in terms of revenue lost. Things have since improved, and the city was able to balance its 2020 budget and pass one for 2021, but it came at a cost: The city furloughed 25% of its workers last spring, and as it started bringing people back to work, it put out calls for voluntary layoffs. Just over 100 workers took one. The employees union took a pay cut, as did management. Without federal funding, the city won’t be able to hire a new class of firefighters or police officers.

“When you do a voluntary separation, voluntary buyout, you have huge holes in the organization,” Ms. Whaley says, citing the fact that the city’s housing inspection unit lost a number of employees. “Well, then that puts us in a big hole in housing inspection. And we haven’t adjusted to that yet because we don’t know what ’21 is going to be like, and we don’t know if we’ll be able to afford it. So you can lose large swaths of an organization that way.”

Public sector layoffs can also hamper recovery in the private sector. With fewer people around to approve permits and sign off on private sector development, “those projects will be stalled out,” says the NLC’s Michael Wallace.

Jeff Roberson/AP/File

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas attends an event in St. Louis on Oct. 16, 2020. Mr. Lucas' city faces a $50 million budget hole that will need to be plugged this month.

“It’s not lost on me”

Some eight months into the pandemic, reported COVID-19 cases hit record levels in the United States. As long as life is disrupted by the pandemic, local government budgets will be disrupted as well.

“We live off of conventions, we live off of football games, we live off of those big kinds of activities. People come to the city for Christmas celebrations, and shopping, and parades after Super Bowl wins,” says Mayor Lucas of Kansas City. “Those are the sorts of things that actually have generated significant revenues for Kansas City over the years.”

And with budgets in disarray, cuts are unavoidable, including to non-police public safety and youth outreach programs. Such programs received renewed attention and interest in 2020, a historic year for calls for police reform across the country. “It’s not lost on me,” says Mr. Lucas.

In some ways, things were easier at the beginning of the pandemic.

“You know, a year ago or certainly in March and April when this was first coming on, we still had strong budgets. We still had money at the local level to address these issues,” Mr. Lucas says. “Now we’re addressing issues with a $70 million budget hole. So I have concerns. But we’ve been through a lot in this city, this state, and this country, so I imagine we’ll get through it.”

Siow Ho Phiew’s studio is tucked away in a quiet lane in an industrial area just outside Kuala Lumpur. It is easy to miss the unassuming sign outside: Wan Seng Hang Dragon & Lion Arts Workshop. But the inside – cluttered with dozens of colorful lion masks in various stages of production, paint bottles and brushes, piles of thin wooden strips – is anything but ordinary. Someone is twisting long rattan slivers into near-perfect circles to form the base frame; someone else is coating a thick layer of red lacquer on a massive lion head. A third craftsman is attaching yellow fur on top of an almost finished mask.

In a far corner, Master Siow, as he’s often called for his expertise, is quietly sharpening rattan sticks, even as he keeps a benevolent eye on his apprentices. At 65, he’s one of the most respected creators of lion head masks in Malaysia, where the Chinese community makes up more than a quarter of the population. If not for the pandemic, dancers hidden in these elaborate costumes would soon be moving fluidly down the streets to the sounds of clashing cymbals and throbbing drums, casting out evil spirits and summoning good luck for the Lunar New Year, which begins Feb. 12.

Charukesi Ramadurai

Siow Ho Phiew in his workshop in Shah Alam, near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Mr. Siow spent a decade as a lion dancer earlier in his life, and has been making masks since 1986. He teaches this art, as well as the dance, to students from all over the world.

A self-taught artisan, Mr. Siow has been making lion heads since 1986, after spending a decade as a lion dancer. His daughter Siow Hui Qing translates his rapid-fire Mandarin as he recounts how he started making costumes himself.

Importing from China, he found high prices for low quality. “Bamboo is not so robust and breaks easily, so I changed it to rattan that is more flexible and lasts longer” – strong enough to protect the acrobatic dancers, and supple enough to form the masks’ fluttering ears and eyelids. At first, he only made masks for his own use, but his reputation soon spread within the country and then abroad.

“Now I export to many other countries, including China,” he laughs. 

Indeed, his stunning lion heads have patrons from as far away as Australia, France, and the United States. The workshop produces more than 300 annually, but this pandemic year has been a lean time for business, says Ms. Siow.

Chong Fui Dick, a longtime client and lion dancer in Kuala Lumpur, says the workshop’s quality is unmatched. Mr. Siow “understands customer demands and meets them perfectly – even when I want a different design, something totally new, like a mask in black and blue,” he says with a laugh.

Lion dances started during the Han dynasty, around 200 A.D., and were brought into Malaysia by immigrants more than a century ago. For Mr. Siow, it’s an integral part of Chinese culture here. Making lion heads and teaching the dance – he has students coming from all over the world for both – is his little contribution to keeping the traditions of his community alive.

In addition to Lunar New Year, the dances are also performed at temple ceremonies, weddings, corporate events, and competitions, where daring lion dancers prance and leap atop long poles, symbolically reaching greater heights. Each lion consists of two dancers, one acting as the head and the other bringing up the body, or the flowing tail. To the master craftsman, it is a test of not just skills, but also grace and discipline.

“For a lion dance performance to come together, many things are important: not only the beauty of the costume, but also the harmony between the dancers, as well as the music and expressions,” he says.

Wong Siong Loong, age 29, has already been learning from the master for more than 10 years. “I think being a dancer has improved my skill as a mask-maker, because I know the needs of the person using this,” he says, pointing to the wooden frame in his hands. “You know how some people can’t live without football? I need this for my happiness.”

While the workshop looks like an efficient assembly line, every artist knows the nuts and bolts of the entire process. Creating a new head takes seven to 10 days, starting with a skeleton of rattan sticks. The joints and ear and mouth flaps are molded with wire before the frame is wrapped in resin paper. Then come the painted designs that give the lion its unique personality, then a coat of glossy lacquer, and then fur, ribbons, and pompom balls. Finally, the head is attached to the long train that forms the fluid body of the lion.

Charukesi Ramadurai

Wong Siong Loong is a lion dancer as well as a mask apprentice with Siow Ho Phiew.

The most traditional motifs are taken from “Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” an influential 14th-century text about the Han dynasty. A yellow lion with a white beard indicates the warrior Liu Bei, considered benevolent and righteous, and a red lion with black beard, the brave and loyal Guan Yu. However, nowadays there are not just classic reds and yellows, but also shocking pinks and electric blues, as well as novel patterns – even clients’ brand names. “Each color and design used to have a symbolic meaning, but now clients want modern things ...” Mr. Siow says, his voice trailing off wistfully.

“This is not just my job; this is my passion,” he finally says. And as far as he is concerned, flashy colors or not, the lion dance tradition has survived the test of time, and will never die. And he will continue doing his bit to help it thrive.

Reuters

A worker collects plastic trash in Potpecko Lake near the town of Priboj, Serbia, Jan. 29.

When Britain’s regulators recently looked at whether the four largest audit firms help companies factor in the risk of climate change on financial outlooks, they found none did so. It was another example of contemporary economic thinking not accounting for nature. Now a report commissioned by the U.K. Treasury hopes to change that approach to business.

The 600-page report, prepared by a team of economists and released Feb. 1, says the worth of nature’s goods and services should be prioritized over traditional measures of economic activity such as gross domestic product. Companies and governments should account for the benefits of investing in the preservation of natural assets such as plants, wildlife, air, water, and soil.

“Nature is our home. Good economics demands we manage it better,” said Sir Partha Dasgupta, a professor emeritus at the University of Cambridge who oversaw the two-year collaboration of academics.

The report found that countries currently spend $4 trillion to $6 trillion a year on subsidies that damage nature, often unaware of the long-term loss of natural assets. It found that the global capital produced per person had doubled in the past three decades while the stock of natural capital, or services provided by nature to each individual, has dropped by 40%.  In other words, people are becoming more productive only by significantly depleting our environment.  

Companies and countries must shift their financial decision-making toward preservation. The report recommends, for example, that countries be paid to save forests and oceans. Companies that overfish in nonterritorial oceans should be charged for their exploitation.

What is just as important as the report’s findings is that it came from Britain’s economic leaders, not its environmental agencies. Its conclusions will be presented at the next United Nations summit on biodiversity, known as COP 15, in May. The summit is expected to finalize international targets for addressing biodiversity loss. The United Kingdom is also this year’s head of the Group of Seven leading economies and will host the next U.N. Climate Change Conference.

The report builds on a massive U.N. study in 2019 that looked at ways to regain an equilibrium between humans and nature. It recommended that “visions of a good life” should no longer “entail ever-increasing material consumption.” Progress, it found, must be redefined from “the current limited paradigm” of economic output.

Trying to measure nature’s capital “is not about putting a price tag on every bee and tree,” says Inger Andersen, head of the U.N. Environment Program. “It is about understanding that intact ecosystems are ultimately worth more to humanity than when they are destroyed.” Nature, in other words, has its own intrinsic worth. Its depletion is forcing humans to recalculate the nature of our own worth.