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INTERNATIONAL EDITION | FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2018

OPTIMAL EATINGSYNCING MEALSTO BODY’S CLOCKPAGE 6 | WELL

TASTE OF SUMMER THE RETURN OFTHE HIGHBALLPAGE 15 | TRAVEL

DECONSTRUCTING CLASSICSCHOREOGRAPHER’S TAKEON THE DANCE CANONPAGE 14 | CULTURE

ordeal was at last bending toward a littleless misery — if only for the Arsalis. Therefugees, for their part, were still livinga nightmare.

Seven years of war in Syria has dis-placed more than half the country’s pop-ulation, leaving millions of refugeesshipwrecked between the wasteland ofhome and the void of exile. Among the

The mayor was tired. Asleep-at-3,awake-at-6 tired. Tired the way you can-not help but be after years of the IslamicState squatting in your town, killingyour citizens and forcing the army toquarantine you from the rest of thecountry.

Tired of Syrian refugees from justacross the border growing so numerousthat they eclipse your actual constitu-ents — and of your constituents growingso sick of the refugees that they mutterabout taking the town back by force.

All this fell to the mayor of Arsal, Leb-anon: checkpoints to negotiate, ref-ugees to manage, townspeople to ap-pease. And now even his wife com-plained that he was neglecting her.

“At night, I go back home and I listento people’s problems again,” said themayor, Bassil Hujeiri. “It’s not like myshift ends and I get to close the door.”

And yet the mayor has recently hadcause to believe that the arc of his town’s

many Lebanese and Jordanian townsthat received them was Arsal, whererented rooms and tent cities overflowedat one point with 120,000 Syrians —quadruple its Lebanese population.

But now with the Syrian governmentclosing in on victory, President Basharal-Assad declaring the country safe forSyrians again and their reluctant Leba-

nese hosts pressing them to leave, theSyrian refugees are beginning to set outon the fraught road home.

Over the past month, convoys carry-ing nearly 2,000 Syrians have crossedthe border, returning families to thehomes they had abandoned years ago —though few knew whether those homeshad survived the bombs and shells.

But many may be stuck in Lebanon.Thousands of Syrians in Arsal have ap-plied to return, only to be rejected by Mr.Assad’s government. Many more saythey believe that if Mr. Assad remains inpower — the outcome tacitly acceptedby the global powers haggling over Syr-ia’s future — they have only arrest, tor-ture, death or forced conscription to re-turn to.

“Here, I’m a refugee,” said a formerSyrian soldier who asked to be identifiedby his nom de guerre, Abu Fares. “InSyria, I’m a traitor.”

Few of the refugees leaving Arsalknew for certain that they would be safeat home. All had decided that home wasnevertheless preferable to a tent with nofuture.

“My life there would be better than itis now,” Mohsin Ishac, a former taxidriver from Fleita, a village just acrossthe border, said before he left with thefirst convoy. “I have a tent here. I’ll put atent there if I have to.”LEBANON, PAGE 2

Hassan, a Syrian refugee in Arsal, Lebanon, checking a water tank. At one point, rented rooms and tent cities in Arsal housed 120,000 Syrians, quadruple its Lebanese population.PHOTOGRAPHS BY DIEGO IBARRA SANCHEZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Syrians’ worn-out welcomeLEBANON DISPATCHARSAL, LEBANON

BY VIVIAN YEE

In one Lebanese town, refugees and locals agree it’s time for exile to end

Bassil Hujeiri, the mayor of Arsal, where the refugee crisis may finally be easing. WithSyria declaring itself safe again, migrants have started returning home.

Passing through the airport immigra-tion checkpoint on a trip home to theUnited States from South Korea, HenryGarcia responded truthfully whenasked the reason for his travel: He hadjourneyed thousands of miles to cut abaseball player’s hair.

“The officer was surprised, andlaughed at me,” said Garcia, normallythe on-call barber at Nationals Park inWashington. “Then he called over an-other officer and says, ‘This guy goes toKorea to cut hair.’”

As one of several barbers catering to aperipatetic clientele of wealthy majorleaguers, Garcia goes to great lengths toplease his customers. He has become aclose friend and confidant, particularlyto the many baseball players from theCaribbean. For them, Garcia is a link to

the tradition of a weekly visit to the bar-ber shop.

“I tried others before, but I didn’t feelcomfortable with anyone but Henry,”said Roger Bernadina, a former Wash-ington Nationals outfielder who is fromCuraçao and is now playing in South Ko-rea. “It was a no-brainer to have himcome over to Korea, too.”

Garcia, 37, who was born and raised inthe Dominican Republic but is now anAmerican citizen, said he had made sixhair-cutting trips to South Korea andone to Japan, where the Kia Tigers,Bernadina’s team, held spring training.Bernadina, 34, put up Garcia in hisapartment and paid for his flight, foodand whatever business he missed out onat the barbershop he works at in Wash-ington.

While there, Garcia also cut the hair ofa few Dominican players.

“Caribbean hair doesn’t get cut wellthere,” said Garcia, who cut the hair of afew South Korean players, too. “Theirhair is different.”

The bond between the players and BARBERS, PAGE 12

Flying 7,000 miles to cut a ballplayer’s hair

Jordan López giving Yankees pitcher C. C. Sabathia his weekly shave. “When you takeoff your hat, you want to be fresh,” Sabathia said. “Look good, feel good, play good.”

EMMA HOWELLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Star baseball barbers caterto major leaguers fussyabout who grooms them

BY JAMES WAGNER

The New York Times publishes opinionfrom a wide range of perspectives inhopes of promoting constructive debateabout consequential questions.

The United States and China havesparred repeatedly over trade, in a tit-for-tat skirmish that has shown littlesign of abating. High-level talks havestalled, while both sides have beenthreatening further tariffs in recentdays.

But beneath the acrimony, two poten-tial paths for China seem to be emerg-ing, according to participants in thetrade negotiations and their advisers.Both would deliver trade wins for Presi-dent Trump and his more moderate ad-visers, while also letting President XiJinping of China push ahead with hisambitious industrial plan to build na-tional champions in cutting-edge tech-nologies.

A stalemate appears the most likelyendgame, with new American and Chi-nese tariffs staying in place for monthsor even years. So far, the United Stateshas imposed tariffs on $34 billion of Chi-nese technology goods and $3 billion ofChinese steel and aluminum, with an-other $16 billion in the offing. China hasresponded in kind, outlining its own planon Wednesday for measures on $16 bil-lion of American goods.

While the policies have drawn loudcomplaints from American companiesthat have become reliant on importsfrom China, they have been forcingmultinational corporations to rethinktheir supply chains and start movingthem away from China. Over time, suchchanges could reduce the United Statestrade deficit with China and limit na-tional security concerns, two bigsources of discontent for Mr. Trump.

A negotiated truce is also possible. Al-though the two sides remain far apart,Beijing has made subtle shifts to a moreconciliatory position. China now ap-pears willing to discuss changes to itsstrategic plan, Made in China 2025,which the Trump administration hasidentified as a long-term threat to bigAmerican industries like aircraft manu-facturing, semiconductors and pharma-ceuticals.

China’s stance now is that a resolutionof trade tensions must not block its fur-ther economic progress, but adjust-ments to Made in China 2025 could hap-pen. The latest trade figures, whichcame out Wednesday, show that Chineseexports continue to surge, giving Bei-jing some confidence. “The red line isChina’s right to develop, not the con-crete industrial policies and measuresregarding Made in China 2025,” said HeWeiwen, a former Commerce Ministryofficial who remains one of China’s toptrade experts.TRADE, PAGE 8

2 endgamesemerge intrade warwith ChinaBEIJING

Potential paths could giveTrump a victory whileBeijing moves ahead

BY KEITH BRADSHER

American tensions with China overinternational trade spring partly fromconcerns that China gives tax breaksto its companies to boost their exports,restricts access to its markets, forcesforeign companies to transfer theirtechnology to Chinese companies,steals intellectual property and pur-sues industrial espionage.

Expert, decisive action is needed tostop these practices in defense of fairinternational competition and Ameri-ca’s strategic and commercial inter-ests. But it would be a mistake to thinkthat an aggressive defense alone willsomehow prevent China’s technolog-ical success — or ensure America’sown.

China is not an innovation also-ranthat prospers mainly by copying otherpeople’s ideas and producing them

quickly at low cost.The country is ad-vancing aggressivelyto assert technolog-ical supremacy incritical fields ofscience and technol-ogy.

In quantum com-puting, China’s Al-ibaba is battlingGoogle to achieve

the technical milestone of “quantumsupremacy.” In 5G technology, thethree largest global players are Nokiaof Finland, Ericsson of Sweden — andHuawei of China, which is spendingmore than two and a half times asmuch on research and development asits two rivals. The Fuxing bullet train,designed and built in China, is theworld’s fastest in regular operation.

China is also a world leader in fieldslike mobile payment and facial andspoken language recognition, whereChinese companies have made themost of their advanced algorithms andtheir advantages in scale and dataaccess. It is also making bold nationalinvestments in key areas of researchlike biotechnology and space, anddirectly supporting start-ups andrecruiting talent from around theworld. And China has unrivaled capaci-ty to rapidly ramp up large-scale pro-duction of advanced technology prod-ucts and quickly bring innovation tomarket.

In short, stopping intellectual prop-erty theft and unfair trade practices —even if fully effective — would notallow the United States to relax backinto a position of unquestioned innova-tion leadership. Unless America re-sponds urgently and deliberately to thescale and intensity of this challenge,

China’s pushcan be U.S.opportunityL. Rafael Reif

OPINION

Americamust respondurgently asChinaadvances inscience andtechnology.

REIF, PAGE 11

nytimes.com/thedaily

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