The Nations That Don’t Appear on the Map

The most influential media network operating inside a dozen allied countries today has no masthead, no headquarters and no country of incorporation. It has roughly 50 million members across more than 150 countries. It is the Chinese diaspora — and it is only one of several.Since the Montevideo Convention of 1933, we have defined a state by four things: a permanent population, a defined territory, a government, and the capacity to conduct relations with other states. Diasporas have the first and, increasingly, the fourth. They skipped the middle two. Territory and government were the parts that made power addressable — the parts you can sanction, summon, deter or simply find on a map.Governments have borders and rules. Diasporas don’t.For most of the modern era this was an academic distinction because distance did the work of containment. A community abroad drifted. The second generation lost the language. The third lost the news. Diaspora influence decayed on a predictable curve.AI switched the curve off. Translation is now instant, free and good enough, which means homeland media reaches anyone of homeland descent regardless of what language they actually speak. Recommendation sys...