From International Trade to Shakespeare's Stage: Asian American Angles on Law and Literature

Since March 2018, America and China have been in a trade war that has broadened and deepened. The two superpowers battle over tariffs, non-tariff barriers, political liberties, and human rights. The effects of their combat are felt worldwide, including Kansas, by farmers, manufacturers, and service suppliers at all stages of commercial supply chains. This trade war and its consequences are almost certain to worsen.

As a law professor, I often look to literature—including drama—to offer perspectives on, and propose solutions to, vexing problems. That is why I teach Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice as we look at the Sino-American trade war in my KU Law School courses, International Trade Law and International Law and Literature. In this class we explore connections and seek lessons from the world’s greatest literature to guide us through real-time conflict.

The Merchant of Venice is well known for its theme of antisemitism. But it is also a series of transactions that are familiar in the political, economic, social, and legal life of today. Antonio takes a loan from Shylock to help his friend woo Portia. But when Antonio cannot repay the loan, Shylock demands a pound of his flesh. Portia then dresses as a male lawyer and saves Antonio. In this Shakespearean comedy, ten different deals are made among the various characters, deals that reveal religious bigotry and many other realities of our human condition.

What inferences might we draw, or insights might we gain, from The Merchant of Venice that are potentially relevant to the Sino-American Trade War, and to the combatants in it—ourselves and the Chinese?

When revisiting the play, I also consider concepts I bring to the text as a reader, as we all do: I draw on experiences from my own life and family.

This linking of concepts lead to what cognitive specialists say is the highest level of thought: synthesis. By bridging seemingly unconnected points—such as international trade law with a 400-year-old play and our personal histories—we can connect the dots and make connections to our own lives. To connect dots is to synthesize, and to synthesize is to link ideas across space and time with concepts that facilitate those linkages.

From my Asian-American perspective, here are two key linkage ideas: intersectionality and empathy.

Considering Intersectionality
Each character in a play is multi-dimensional in nature, just as each of us is. We understand a character, and each other, if we acknowledge the simultaneous identities we hold.

Intersectionality certainly is true of me. On my father’s side, I am a child of the August 1947 British Partition of the Indian Sub-Continent, hence my enduring sensitivity to marginalization, oppression, and poverty. On my mother’s side, my heritage is Celtic (Scottish and Irish), hence my love for the Western canon. My wife is Malaysian-Chinese, a financier and a feminist. Our extended family embodies every major world religion.

Likewise, the identities of each of the characters in The Merchant of Venice encompass political, economic, social, and legal perspectives. In the play, Antonio, Bassanio, Portia, and Shylock provide a glimpse—comedic and otherwise—into a complex world.

Those of us swept up in the Sino-American Trade War likewise have multiple overlapping aspects to our identity: ideology (political); class (economic); race, gender, and religion (social); and standing (legal). This intersectionality is no less true of hard-pressed workers in Chinese factories and the managers of their state-owned enterprises, and their bosses in the Chinese Communist Party, than it is for devout steelworkers in Pittsburgh, utilitarian private equity groups in Chicago, and elected officials in Washington, DC.

Considering Empathy
Appreciating intersectional identities of the superpower players on both sides of the Indo-Pacific is the first of two steps toward de-confliction. The second step is empathy.

Like many citizens in nations across the world, Chinese citizens suffer job insecurity, fear mass attacks, and foresee no sociopolitical upward mobility.

The Chinese have witnessed dramatic changes in their government as well. Many throughout the world, including in China, believed that China would become more democratic once it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. Has it?  Experts would suggest the combined forces of the Made in China industrial policy and the U.S. Inflation and Reduction Act have exacerbated the Sino-American Trade War.

When considering this turn of events, my students and I return to Shakespeare and the relationships among Antonio, Portia, and Shylock. How do these three characters navigate their own necessary “trade agreements”? Although the audience may not agree with the motivations of these characters, Shakespeare invites us to empathize with their predicaments. 

And so it is with U.S.-China trade relations.

Enter “Negative Capability"
Will the Sino-American Trade War be another of America’s forever wars? Not if international lawyers—my KU Law students and I, among others—do our job. Our noble quest is to resolve conflict. Intersectionality and empathy, as concepts linking the world’s greatest literature to the world’s greatest trade conflict, are useful in this pursuit.

Every quest has hurdles. To deal with the Sino-American Trade War, we must surmount the reality of what the Financial Times calls a “post-literate society” wherein citizens of many countries are experiencing declines in literacy proficiency.

This means that international lawyers must resolve complex cross-border disputes while also negotiating with domestic constituencies that have uneven levels of education and varying degrees of interest in discourse or critical analytical thinking. Explaining why collaborative U.S.-China relations matter, or how free trade should be balanced with fair trade, is part of the challenge.

There will be no easy answers. Although intersectionality and empathy may be necessary instruments for international lawyers, they are not sufficient for the quest. What other talents ought to be in the tool kit?

Perhaps “negative capability” is one candidate.

The English Romantic poet John Keats (1795–1821) defined negative capability as the characteristic whereby an individual accepts and is comfortable with uncertainties, and does not feel compelled to nail down a specific answer to every issue. That is, it is “when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”

Negative capability is a virtue: it is critical to intellectual growth, and, in a messy world, helps ensure that international lawyers can adapt to an ever-changing and ever-messier world trading system.

Research notes are available upon request. Contact Leslie VonHolten, HK Director of Grants and Outreach, LVH@humanitieskansas.org.

Raj Bhala is Brenneisen Distinguished Professor in the School of Law at the University of Kansas. He serves as a Fulbright Specialist in Law and Literature and International Trade Law (2024-2027) and is Founding Editor of the Law and Literature Web Page at the University of Kansas Wheat Law Library. He is also a member of the Speaker Program for the U.S. Department of State. Please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raj_Bhala

Spark a Conversation

• VISIT Raj Bhala’s SSRN webpage and the new Law and Literature website at the KU School of Law.
• WATCH Shakespearean actor Adrian Schiller discuss the complex role of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice at the Globe Theatre. 
• READ about Shakespearean actors maintaining hope and culture in a post-apocolyptic world in Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. Part of HK's TALK series "After the Fact"