China-maxxing, subsidies, and Taiwan arms sales
Friends,
This week was the 37th anniversary of the massacre of Chinese students and citizens in Tiananmen Square by the Chinese Communist Party.
Perhaps the greatest photo of courage ever captured on film.
Unfortunately, the week of June 4, 1989 was a bit of a musical wasteland in the United States, the top three songs on the U.S. Billboard chart that week were:
“Rock on” performed by the soap opera actor-turned pop musician, Michael Damian
“Soldier of Love” Donny Osmond’s last hit single
“Wind Beneath My Wings” performed by Bette Midler for the soundtrack of the movie Beaches
While the CCP tries to memory-hole June 4, 1989, I’ve memory-holed these songs.
On China-maxxing and other gaslighting
While much of the commentariat class is busy China-maxxing and telling Americans that Xi is confident and winning, I think there are at least three important signals that suggest the opposite.
Beijing’s decision to impose strict travel restrictions on its AI researchers and entrepreneurs. Nothing shows a lack of confidence in the future of a country quite like taking away the passports of your best and brightest because you are terrified that they might defect [especially after you ordered two of them back from Singapore for re-education and to unwind their deal, after they sold their company to Meta].
Beijing’s draconian announcement last week of tightening even further the significant capital controls they put in place in late 2015. This is to prevent Chinese citizens from moving their money out of the country, so that wealthy Chinese citizens and their families can escape themselves. Again, nothing reveals a lack of confidence like having to enforce strict capital controls. [If you are a Multinational Corporation still in the PRC, it is time to start heading for the exit]
Beijing’s desperate attempts to prevent Europe from opening a second trade war against them, as the one with the United States simmers in the background, unresolved. Even if Washington and Brussels don’t collaborate closely, the effect this will have on the Chinese economy will be devastating. [For those who say, “what about the Global South?”… well, the Global South cannot absorb the PRC’s massive overcapacity because their citizens lack the wealth to buy what the PRC produces.]
I suspect we will continue to see “China-maxxing” stories, particularly ones that look like gaslighting from the Chinese Embassy in Washington.
I thought this quote was particularly laughable.
“Ambassador Xie noted that in fact, this is not the first time “Chinamaxxing” has occurred. As early as over 1,000 years ago, envoys, caravans, and scholars from more than 300 countries traveled to Chang’an, the capital of China’s Tang Dynasty, to live, study, and work there, writing an epic chapter of history in which diverse cultures met, blended, and resonated in perfect harmony.”
“…perfect harmony”
Ambassador Xie couldn’t miss the chance to blame the United States for “bottlenecks in the visa application and border entry for Chinese citizens”… had I been interviewing him, I might have asked how revoking the passports of Chinese AI researchers and refusing to let them leave the PRC was somehow Washington’s fault.
Just remember only those folks who the CCP approves for travel outside of the PRC can even apply for a visa.
How subsidies distort PRC manufacturing
This week, the OECD published a helpful report on subsidies at the firm level and the Wall Street Journal covered it with this story. One of the OECD’s key points struck me as significant:
“The database also finds manufacturers based in China to receive relatively more subsidies than their competitors based in other jurisdictions, mainly in the form of government grants and below-market borrowings.”
As one friend pointed out, this is quite an understatement, the OECD report finds that manufacturers based in China receive as much as EIGHT times the subsidies that their competitors receive in other jurisdictions.
“Between 2005 and 2024, Chinese firms received on average three to eight times more government support than firms based in the OECD, a conservative estimate. These subsidies were also considerably higher than the support received by firms based in non-OECD economies such as Brazil, India, and Indonesia.”
Here is the first line of the first chapter:
“In open economies, government support in the form of subsidies to economic activities has the potential to distort international markets. As a result, companies are no longer competing on a level playing field. This can result in less productive firms winning global market share at the expense of more innovative and efficient ones with implications over time for innovation, fair competition, and support for global trade. For these reasons, the use of subsidies has been disciplined in the multilateral trading system.”
It has been a quarter century since the PRC joined the WTO under the understanding that they would phase out their subsidies. The opposite has happened and there is nothing that the international organization based in Geneva can do about it. Luckily, the United States, the European Union and Japan are taking action outside the WTO system to protect themselves. Hopefully, other nations will follow their lead.
Germany remains torn over how they should deal with this problem. For decades their companies have bet on China as the answer to their long-term profitability. The evidence is mounting that this was a terrible bet.
As the Wall Street Journal reported this week, Volkswagen’s profits in the PRC have collapsed.
But instead of recognizing that they have no future in the China market (because the CCP does not want them to succeed), the company is rolling out a new strategy (“in China, for China”) which is arriving just as the EU kicks off a trade war with the PRC.
My prediction: VW’s plan will fail.
The German company has been hiding its head in the sand for years and has lobbying heavily to prevent the German Government from taking effective action against the PRC’s predatory trade practices. VW will be lucky to survive as its PRC competitors not only wipe out their position in China, but also wipe out their position in their home market of Europe. It is ironic, that VW’s only hope might be doubling down on the United States.
Hot-take on U.S. arms sales to Taiwan
For the last few weeks there has been renewed attention on U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. This is a topic that attracts attention in spurts, but with President Trump’s remarks in the run up to and immediately after his summit with Xi, there are many who are concerned that the Administration is poised to block a $14 billion package and that the President might “abandon” Taiwan.
I think it is helpful to understand the history of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, particularly since the signing of 1982 U.S.-PRC third communique. That communique contained language that suggested the United States would gradually reduce arms sales to Taiwan over time. Simultaneous with the signing of the third communique, President Reagan signed a memorandum to his Secretaries of State and Defense stating that while the U.S. intended to reduce arms sales to Taiwan, as they agreed in the communique with Beijing, whether that reduction took place was based on the threat that the PRC posed to Taiwan. This memorandum remained classified until John Bolton, President Trump’s third National Security Advisor declassified it and made it public in August 2019.
Based on the numbers I could find from reports by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), here is a chart by year from 1982 to 2025 of the approved U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.
There are some trends in this chart that I think are significant.
During the 1980s, the Reagan and Bush administrations largely maintained a steady Taiwan arms sales tempo of about half a billion dollars per year. That spiked just three years after the Tiananmen massacre, when President George H.W. Bush approved the sale of 150 F-16s to Taiwan in September 1992, valued at roughly $5.8 billion. To date, that was the largest arms sales package by the United States to Taiwan. This approval had less to do with the breakdown in U.S.-PRC relations, or any particular threat to Taiwan, and more to the fact that Lockheed Martin wanted the sale to go through as U.S. defense spending was declining as the Cold War ended. It should not be missed that Bush pushed through this sale two months before the 1992 election (“It’s the Economy, Stupid!”).
Of note, those F-16s sales which were agreed to by the Bush Administration in September 1992 weren’t delivered until the late 1990s under the Clinton Administration (half delivered during FY1997 and the other half delivered during FY1999). This delayed sequence (date of arms sales package approval versus date of actual delivery) is important to keep in mind as there are routinely years between the two dates.
Following the 1992 F-16 package, the Clinton and George W. Bush Administrations largely reverted to the pattern of the Reagan years with around half a billion per year approved. However, that began to decline significantly near the end of the Bush Administration with only about $10 million in arms sales approved over the three years between 2005 and 2007.
The first term of the Obama Administration marked a big turning point with significant increases between 2009 and 2011. In his first three years, President Obama approved $10.2 billion worth of arms sales to Taiwan, with $5.85 billion of that in September 2011 (compare that with the $10 million of the Bush Administration between 2005 and 2007).
Then the Obama Administration halted sales for four years. Between September 2011 and December 2015, President Obama approved no arms sales to Taiwan. This was the period when his Secretary of State, John Kerry (February 2013-January 2017), was focused on negotiations with Beijing to bring the PRC into the Paris Climate Agreement. We will likely have to wait a few years until the internal documents of the Administration are declassified, but I would speculate that early in Obama’s second term, his new national security team (Susan Rice and John Kerry) decided to cut off Taiwan arms sales to maximize the chances that Beijing would sign the Paris Agreement.
In September 2015 during a state visit to Washington, Xi agreed to sign on to the Paris agreement and three months later the Obama Administration announced their first Taiwan arms sales package in four years ($1.8 billion). 2016 saw a return of zero arms sales even as the new administration of President Tsai Ing-wen came into office and Beijing increased their threats against the island nation.
The pattern changed again when President Trump entered office. During his first term, he approved $18.26 billion worth of arms sales to Taiwan… $1 billion more than the sales by the Clinton, George W. Bush, AND the Obama Administrations combined (1993-2016).
The Biden Administration approved less than half of that during its four years in office ($7.8 billion), though it did institute an important change by approving smaller packages on an almost monthly basis between 2022 and 2024.
In December 2025, less than a year into his second term in office, President Trump approved the largest ever Taiwan arms sales package at $11.4 billion.
What is being debated now is whether President Trump will approve a $14 billion arms sales package this year, which would make it the largest ever package. If President Trump does approve it, that would mean that the U.S. would have approved over $25 billion in arms to Taiwan in just two years… that would be just $2 billion less than what the U.S. approved across five administrations between 1982 and 2016.
It seems clear that since 2017, the U.S. is committed to much more significant arms sales to Taiwan. This increased scale and pace of arms sales is directly connected to the scope and scale of the threat posed by the PRC. Between 1995 and 2025, the CCP increased spending on the PLA by 20-fold.
This trend certainly had its antecedent during the first term of the Obama Administration, but that was likely due to the influence of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her team of folks like Kurt Campbell, as well as Michelle Flournoy as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. It isn’t clear that President Obama was committed to helping Taiwan. When that original team left near the end of Obama’s first term, the folks who replaced them were not as committed to helping Taiwan defend itself and were much more focused on cutting a climate deal with Beijing.
This was after the campaign of aggression and coercion against Japan in 2010 and 2011, as well as the ramping up of aggression by the PRC in the South China Sea between 2012 and 2015. There was plenty of evidence that the PRC under Xi Jinping was going to be more militaristic and threaten its neighbors, unfortunately, neither President Obama, nor his team during the second term, were focused on this.
It is entirely possible that President Trump might change course and refuse to approve any further arms sales packages, but to date across five years, his Administration has already approved an enormous amount (nearly $29.8 billion) far more than any of his predecessors.
***
If you find this newsletter helpful and informative, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.
Thanks for reading!
Matt
MUST READ
Yes China Can
Dongxian Jiang, The Wire China, May 28, 2026
A country as vast and populous as China cannot be ruled as a liberal constitutional democracy, argue Chinese Communist party and government officials — and many others — who personally benefit from the country’s current political status quo. In his forthcoming book, Why China Needs Democracy, Dongxian Jiang argues that they are wrong.
In the summer of 2024, I embarked on a journey through the Dongbei Provinces — China’s northeast, historically known as Manchuria. The high-speed rail network made it easy to glide from city to city in comfort. But one leg of my trip took me off the modern grid: I planned to visit a Liao Dynasty Buddhist temple in a remote county, reachable only by a slow, regular-speed train that connects small towns and county seats across the region.
I boarded at a station in the Qinhuangdao area, a coastal enclave long used as the Communist Party’s summer retreat — a kind of political backyard to Beijing. The security checks were surprisingly stringent, even by Chinese standards. After passing through the usual procedures — having my belongings screened, scanning my ID at the gate, and undergoing facial recognition — I was stopped again. Two uniformed policemen scanned my ID a second time with handheld devices. Only after a green checkmark appeared on their screen was I cleared to board.
Since it was a short ride, I had booked a seat in a standard seating car. These cars are communal by design: four to six passengers share booth-like sections, seated knee-to-knee around a narrow table. This setup creates an ideal social environment where casual conversations often emerge. Here, one encounters a different China — less polished, less affluent, and more raw. It was an unexpected chance for some impromptu fieldwork on the ground-level realities of Chinese society.
Shortly after the train departed, my fellow passengers — three others sharing my booth — began complaining about the security checks. As locals, they suggested the reason behind the heightened scrutiny: senior party leaders were vacationing nearby, and the extra ID screening was intended to identify and intercept petitioners, citizens seeking to lodge formal complaints against local authorities through the state’s Letters and Visits system. Each year, local officials go to great lengths to prevent these “troublemakers,” who come from all different places but especially northern China, from spoiling the leadership’s holiday.
This sparked a wave of frustrated stories from two of my companions — a man and a woman, both in their late fifties or early sixties. Each had been a seasoned petitioner, now disillusioned. The man, an army veteran whose labor rights had been trampled by a local employer, had spent eight years filing complaints after receiving no help from local officials. Instead of justice, he encountered relentless political harassment that left lasting psychological scars. The woman recounted an equally harrowing ordeal: after her husband’s death, local authorities denied her and her son the pension they were legally entitled to. When she persisted, officials retaliated — going so far as to frame her son and have him imprisoned.
Their mood was grim. They had tried everything, but the machinery of government proved impermeable. At the peak of their conversation, the woman — a small-town shopkeeper without formal education — said with striking clarity: “Look at the United States. They have two parties. We only have one. We have no way to resist.” The man nodded in agreement and added that, for people like them, the only sane path forward was to give up hope and practice carpe diem.
The woman’s remark about the American political system would likely provoke pushback from many in the United States — progressives, moderates, and conservatives alike. After all, criticisms abound that, despite having two major parties, the American political system largely serves the interests of the wealthy while neglecting those of the poor. With deepening polarization, the two-party system often produces gridlock, preventing meaningful legislation from advancing. On the surface, the United States remains a competitive electoral democracy; in essence, many argue, it functions as an oligarchic dictatorship. Voters do not so much support a party out of conviction as they vote out of disillusionment about the incumbent. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), long armed with the ideological tools of Marxism, has echoed these critiques to defend the superiority of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
In November 2024, the reelection of Donald Trump brought the crisis of American democracy into sharp relief. [I]t appears that Trump and the Republican Party are poised to dismantle what remains of America’s democratic institutions. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party, demoralized by a devastating defeat, has shown little resolve in resisting this authoritarian turn. As the United States falters, American intellectuals look toward China with a mix of anxiety and admiration. “I just saw the future. It was not in America,” wrote Thomas Friedman in a New York Times op-ed.
While he stops short of endorsing the Chinese political system, his words suggest a growing recognition that the CCP, unencumbered by electoral cycles, is, at least in some respects, better positioned to make long-term strategic decisions. According to Friedman, as American politicians remain mired in partisan squabbles, the Chinese state is expanding its investment in higher education and technological innovation. As one of world’s biggest countries in terms of territory, population, economic size, and global influence, China seems to represent a story of “authoritarian success”: it demonstrates the capacity of a non-electoral regime to enhance the prosperity of its citizens, foster a dynamic society, and fortify its national prowess.
Yes, we have entered a historical moment in which any serious discussion of humanity’s political future must confront the rise of China. The competition between China and the North Atlantic West is not merely about geopolitics or economics. At its core, it concerns a deeper theoretical question that has animated every generation in human history: Which political system is better equipped to meet the most pressing challenges of our world? China has emerged as a formidable contender in this debate. Yet the track record of its current political system cautions against any quick or uncritical affirmation of its supposed superiority over liberal democracy. Over the past decade, both China and the West have experienced moments of brilliance and of failure. In this ongoing contest, partisans on each side often take comfort in the short-comings of their rivals. But history has not yet declared a winner.
Take the COVID-19 pandemic. When the outbreak began in Wuhan, the initial cover-up, suppression of medical professionals, and chaos of the early lockdown were widely interpreted as the Chinese regime’s “Chernobyl Moment.” Yet soon after, China’s draconian containment measures were hailed as a demonstration of state capacity, especially when compared to the Trump administration’s chaotic and politicized response to the crisis. Two years later, however, with the arrival of the Omicron variant, China’s refusal to lift its zero-COVID policy sparked immense public suffering — most notably during the 2022 Shanghai lockdown — and ultimately led to the White Paper Protests demanding political change. Today, while the Chinese government may appear more professional in its policymaking than the second Trump administration, the Chinese people continue to suffer from an economic slowdown exacerbated by years of strict pandemic restrictions.
China’s pandemic response — marked by both remarkable achievements and profound failures — has underscored the ongoing need for political reform, even as Xi Jinping’s consolidation of power since 2012 has suppressed reformist voices that once thrived in the post-Mao era. During a period of relative openness in the 1980s and 1990s, Chinese intellectuals, though divided in outlook, broadly agreed on the need for reforms to enhance routinization, institutionalization, professionalization, and even limited democratization of the political system. There was a shared belief that ordinary citizens should have some say in governance; that the bureaucracy should be staffed by competent professionals; that leadership succession should be institutionalized; and that the exercise of political power must be restrained by law and constitutional norms. Whether such reforms would ultimately converge with liberal democracy remained an open question — but the consensus was clear: The Chinese political system needed change.
In this context, a noteworthy group of reform proponents has emerged, what I call the political theorists of the “China Model.” Unlike the woman on the train, who seemed to suggest a wholesale rejection of the current system, these theorists aim to synthesize what they see as the strengths of both China and the West. Their project envisions a political structure that retains one-party rule while expanding freedom of speech, strengthening adherence to the rule of law, and widening avenues for political consultation, all without granting citizens the right to choose their leaders through competitive multiparty elections. In the absence of electoral accountability, they argue, power can still be checked through the virtue and competence of ruling elites, selected through rigorous meritocratic procedures and instilled with a strong sense of responsibility. These ideas, they claim, are not only functionally viable but also culturally legitimate, grounded in China’s Confucian and/or socialist traditions.
This book enters — and extends — the ongoing debate about the normative foundations of China’s political future, a debate increasingly constrained within mainland China. At its heart lies a core question: Can China’s traditions and contemporary realities yield a legitimate and desirable alternative to liberal constitutional democracy, an ideal born in the West but now globally practiced in various forms?
COMMENT – I just bought Dongxian Jioang’s new book and will provide a review once I finish it.
My first impression is that he seems a bit too convinced by the trope that “constitutional democracy seems barely able to survive the global surge of populism,” but my initial skim suggests that he knows constitutional democracy isn’t that feeble or on the verge of collapse.
China, US clash over Tiananmen anniversary; Taiwan says face up to history
Ju-min Park and Ben Blanchard, Reuters, June 3, 2026
China on Thursday blasted U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s comments on the deadly crackdown on protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square 37 years ago as “smearing” the country’s political system, as Taiwan told China to face up to history.
The events on and around the central Beijing square on June 4, 1989, when Chinese troops opened fire to end student-led pro-democracy protests, are not publicly discussed in China and the anniversary is not officially marked.
Rubio said on Wednesday that Beijing’s censorship could not erase memories of the military assault.
“Those who sacrificed to uphold their unalienable rights of free expression and peaceful assembly will be vindicated someday,” he said in a statement that followed past practice of the United States’ top diplomat marking the anniversary.
Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning said the government had long reached “a clear conclusion” about the “political turmoil that occurred in the late 1980s”, reiterating Beijing’s stance.
“China is strongly dissatisfied and firmly opposed to the U.S. distorting historical facts, smearing China’s political system and development path,” Mao said of Rubio’s statement.
She also accused the U.S. of interfering in China’s internal affairs “on the pretext of” democracy and human rights, and defended Beijing’s “path of socialism with Chinese characteristics”.
Public commemorations of the crackdown take place in overseas cities, including Taipei, where senior Taiwanese government leaders often use the anniversary to criticise China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory.
Writing on his Facebook page, Taiwan President Lai Ching-te said a truly great country should not “blindly believe in military might or engage in militarism.”
“I sincerely hope that China can face up to the June 4 incident of 37 years ago, acknowledge the truth, soothe the pain, and open the door to reconciliation and dialogue,” he added.
COMMENT – Apparently the Secretary of State has the latitude to call out Beijing… I’m sure Beijing is complaining that this undermines the framework of a “constructive relationship of strategic stability.”
How China is breaking apart a people and its culture
Alison Killing, Financial Times, May 28, 2026
The campaign of repression against the Uyghurs has entered a new phase.
In August 2024, the parents of Ekpar Asat made a long journey to a prison in the Chinese region of Xinjiang.
Asat, who belongs to the Uyghur ethnic group, was detained by authorities in April 2016 on charges of “inciting ethnic hatred”. The founder of a popular Uyghur-language website, he had recently returned from attending a prestigious leadership programme in the US.
The August visit was the first time Asat’s parents had seen him in person since his disappearance, and he had lost so much weight he was “unrecognisable”, his sister Rayhan later said.
The meeting lasted barely 10 minutes and was done through a glass window, according to human rights groups. The family was forced to speak in Chinese — a language Ekpar is fluent in, but his parents barely speak — and not permitted to show any emotion. “Prisoners have to be always happy,” Rayhan tells the FT.
It has now been a decade since Asat was jailed, one of an estimated million people swept up in a crackdown on the Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang. Reports by human rights groups of “re-education” camps and forced labour led to an international outcry and sanctions on China.
In late 2019 the Chinese government announced they were closing the camps which had drawn so much condemnation. Shohrat Zakir, Xinjiang’s governor, said detainees had “graduated”.
But FT analysis suggests that the Chinese state’s campaign of oppression against Uyghurs and their culture and identity has in fact entered a new phase. While many camps have shut, a vast network of prisons and detention centres remains, alongside pervasive surveillance and systems of coercive social control.
It shows Xinjiang has the world’s highest prison detention capacity relative to its population size — evidence that authorities continue to rely on mass incarceration. Researchers and rights groups say repression in the region now extends towards the long-term remaking of Uyghur society.
Beijing has expanded labour transfer programmes that move Uyghurs into factory work elsewhere in the country — schemes UN experts say can amount to forced labour. This places multinational corporations that work in China in a challenging situation, as Beijing is also making it increasingly difficult and dangerous for companies to perform due diligence in their supply chains so they do not target Uyghur rights.
The employment scheme is Beijing’s new priority, says Adrian Zenz, director of China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, a US non-profit. The camp system acted as a “catalyst” for policies including “birth prevention, parent-child separation, boarding schooling . . . and labour transfer”.
What the state orchestrated through the boarding school system amounted to a “dramatic tearing apart of Uyghur society”, Zenz adds. He says children are separated from families at increasingly young ages, while the Uyghur language and cultural practices are heavily restricted.
Researchers say the campaign reflects Beijing’s drive to assimilate Uyghurs into mainstream Han Chinese identity amid rising nationalism under Xi Jinping.
Uyghurs’ distinct language, culture and Islamic faith create a “degree of insecurity that has only intensified as China has begun taking this profoundly nationalistic turn”, says historian Hannah Theaker. “They just want to force them to be Chinese,” adds Peter Irwin, co-executive director of the Network for Uyghur Rights.
Xinjiang is also strategically important to Beijing, as it straddles trade routes linking China to Central Asia, the Middle East and Europe, while holding large reserves of coal, oil and gas. “They see it as an economic engine for the country,” Irwin says.
China continues to frame its policies in Xinjiang as essential to security and stability. In a speech last year, Xi stressed the need for readiness in “combating terrorism”. State media said Xi also called for religions to “conform to China’s realities” and for officials and ethnic groups to “develop a correct view” of the country, its history, nation, culture and religion.
COMMENT – I find it amazing that progressive groups that are obsessed with the plight of Palestinian Muslims pay absolutely no heed to the plight of Uyghur Muslims.
I’ve said this before, but it deserves repeating: there is no clearer example of “settler colonialism” taking place in the world today than what the Chinese Communist Party is doing to native Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Mongols. Yet since the CCP portrays themselves as “anti-imperialists,” they appear to get a pass from left-leaning progressive groups who are blind to Beijing’s crimes. It just goes to show how sticky the First Cold War ideological camps really are: liberators vs oppressors.
China Aims A.I. at Predicting Who Could Pose a Political Risk
Julian E. Barnes, New York Times, June 1, 2026
New research examines how a Chinese company struggled to develop its predictive surveillance technology while U.S. restrictions were in place.
A Chinese company has been trying to develop artificial intelligence-powered technology that would enable authoritarian governments to not just monitor dissidents but also potentially predict who could become one in the future.
The work, which appears to be in the research stage, is ripped out of dystopian science fiction, offering a glimpse of a world in which an authoritarian state is able to move against its citizens before they begin any public dissent.
The Chinese company, Geedge Networks, sells a commercial version of the Great Firewall, the surveillance and censorship software that China uses to control online activity. Those tools allow governments to monitor internet traffic and flag when someone tries to get around traditional internet censorship.
But according to leaked company documents, the firm is working on new products that use artificial intelligence to examine location data and internet use to predict who could do or say something critical of the government, according to researchers at Vanderbilt University.
Such technology, if perfected, would give authoritarian governments a powerful tool to use against perceived enemies.
The idea that an authoritarian government would use artificial intelligence to suppress dissent is troubling enough. But the use of A.I. to predict dissent well before a person has taken action has become a nightmare scenario, according to some involved in the industry.
“This is what happens when mass surveillance meets A.I.,” said Brett J. Goldstein, the director of the Wicked Problems Lab at Vanderbilt’s Institute of National Security. “Without checks and balances, what China is doing to its own citizens is a preview of what becomes possible anywhere these tools go unchecked.”
The Vanderbilt researchers found that Geedge, working with its government-supported research arm, MESA Lab, was developing technology that would generate profiles of Chinese citizens and then use A.I. to highlight who may pose a political risk.
But the company’s progress appears to have been hampered by Biden-era export controls on U.S.-designed computer chips that power artificial intelligence. That suggests that U.S. restrictions may have slowed China’s development of the next generation of surveillance technology.
Documents from Geedge show that in 2024, when tough U.S. export controls on China were in place, the company and its lab struggled to find enough computing power for surveillance technology.
Brett V. Benson, a political science professor at Vanderbilt, said the documents refer to GPU limitations. GPUs — graphic processing units — are the chips that power A.I. models. As a result of the limitations, he said, the company began using older, less powerful A.I. models and chips.
Today, Geedge has access to enough graphic processing units for its current products, according to U.S. officials. But to carry out the most ambitious version of its predictive technology, the company would probably need more advanced chips than China can acquire, the officials said.
Former Biden administration officials said intelligence showed that their policies restricting China from high-end, U.S.-designed chips had worked at keeping the U.S. artificial intelligence edge and at slowing the development of other Chinese technology.
COMMENT – I think there are movies about this kind of dystopia.
Michael Schuman, The Atlantic, June 3, 2026
Some economists assumed that the buying power of China’s expanding middle class would ultimately fuel global growth. China has instead become a destabilizing force in the global economy. Chinese President Xi Jinping is running the country as a government-subsidized, export-driven manufacturing juggernaut. This policy is not just bad for whole industries around the world; it’s also distorting China’s economy and alienating trading partners.
Chinese manufacturers would be competitive without Xi’s help. He provides massive aid anyway—directly, with handouts and tax breaks, and indirectly, by suppressing the wages of factory workers and the value of China’s currency to make the country’s exports artificially cheap. The result is an economic model that favors producers, restrains consumers, and floods international markets with supercheap exports, including steel, solar panels, and electric vehicles. Foreign companies simply can’t compete. Chinese competition is costing Germany 10,000 manufacturing jobs a month and could strip Indonesia of hundreds of thousands of garment-worker jobs. China’s trade surplus ballooned to a record $1.2 trillion last year. As a share of the global economy, China’s surplus in manufactured goods is the largest amassed by any country ever.
President Trump used to regularly complain that China was “ripping off” the United States and duly slapped tariffs on cheap Chinese goods. But lately Trump has seemed less concerned about the particular threat that China poses to America’s economic future. In Beijing last month, Trump fawningly called Xi a “friend” and agreed to work with China to create a mutually beneficial “board of trade” to help manage their economic relationship. At risk are industries that are vital to American growth, jobs, and national security, including the automotive, robotics, heavy machinery, and semiconductor sectors. “It’s going to be pretty catastrophic,” David Autor, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told me. Xi’s policies are spurring “the forced deindustrialization” of advanced economies worldwide.
China’s leaders don’t seem to care. Pan Gongsheng, the governor of China’s central bank, recently dismissed concerns about undue state support driving an export boom as a “lingering misconception.” Job losses in Ohio or Stuttgart are not his problem.
Yet China’s economic policies aren’t great for China, either. Its economy has been floundering. Private investment and consumer spending remain weak, property values have been slumping, and the competition for jobs is fierce. Xi’s industrial programs encourage too much investment in factories, which often lose money and require yet more state aid to survive. Taxpayer funds that could be spent on social services and welfare programs are instead propping up a glut of assembly lines.
As a result, Chinese families are essentially subsidizing shoppers around the world while their own quality of life suffers. “Chinese policies would not be viable in a democratic country,” Autor said. This system requires submission, he added, which means no one is asking, “Why aren’t we consuming the fruits of all this investment? Why are we exporting everything to the world and yet we’re getting poorer, or at least we feel poorer?”
Xi is far less interested in the needs of Chinese people than he is in gaining an advantage in strategic industries, such as electric vehicles and humanoid robots. China hopes “to lead the world in innovation and manufacturing,” Craig Allen, a senior counselor at the consulting firm Cohen Group who previously served as president of the U.S.-China Business Council, told me. “The Chinese have a strategy here that has worked magnificently for the last 12 years, and they don’t see any reason why that will change.”
In a speech in 2020, Xi called for making other countries more reliant on China so that they can’t stand up to Beijing. “We must tighten international production chains’ dependence on China,” he declared, “forming a powerful countermeasure and deterrent capability against foreigners who would artificially cut off supply.” Last year Beijing suspended rare earth exports to the U.S. to press Trump to back away from ratcheting up tariffs on Chinese goods. In April China’s policy makers introduced measures that give Chinese authorities more power to investigate and punish foreign companies that shift their supply chains out of the country.
With the global success of Chinese EVs and other products, Xi’s plans may appear unstoppable. But they rest on the assumption that other countries will continue to absorb China’s exports. Yet some governments are starting to protect their industries and workers. In March, the European Union introduced legislation to decrease its reliance on China by encouraging the manufacturing of green-energy products in Europe. “Trade does create efficiencies, but there is supposed to be something in it for everyone,” Jens Eskelund, the president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, told me. “We are in a situation now where trade with China destroys value rather than creates value. Then the big question becomes: Why trade?”
Some lawmakers in Washington are attuned to the dangers and have begun promoting a more aggressive approach. President Biden slapped steep tariffs on Chinese EVs, computer chips, and other products in 2024 and boosted government support for crucial industries such as semiconductor manufacturing to defend U.S. industries and reinforce national security. Ro Khanna, a Democratic representative from California, advocates for more government support for essential American industries. “They can’t hold us hostage,” he told me.
COMMENT – Worth reading in full.
China’s anti-corruption watchdog targets its former senior official Li Xiaohong
William Zheng, South China Morning Post, June 3, 2026
Li Xiaohong, a former senior disciplinary official in charge of national inspection, has been placed under investigation for suspected severe disciplinary and legal violations, China’s top anti-corruption authorities said on Tuesday.
The downfall of the 73-year-old veteran – known for spearheading high-level anti-corruption crackdowns and his top disciplinary roles at the securities regulator – underscores Beijing’s continued efforts to target corruption among its most senior disciplinary enforcers and financial industry heads.
Li was suspected of “serious violations of discipline and law” – a euphemism for corruption – and is currently under disciplinary review and supervisory investigation by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), according to a statement on its website.
Li’s fall, nine years after his retirement, is set to send shock waves through China’s financial sector and discipline inspection and supervision system, as he spent most of his political career in these two fields and held critical positions.
Li, a native of Hubei province, served as chairman and party secretary of the former Huaxia Securities in 2000, which was restructured into China Securities in 2005. Other posts included director of Citic Securities, party secretary and chairman of China Securities.
COMMENT – If there is one lesson we should learn from Xi’s 13 year-long anti-corruption/rectification campaign, it is that everyone is corrupt in the Chinese Communist Party.
If Xi was serious about removing corruption, step one is obviously instituting an independent judiciary, allowing for a free press, and removing the CCP from power.
U.S. and intelligence allies issue rare joint warning about China
Greg Miller, Washington Post, June 3, 2026
The United States and other nations in the Five Eyes intelligence partnership on Wednesday took the unusual step of issuing a joint warning that China is using LinkedIn and other job platforms to pry secret information from security professionals worldwide.
The alert reflects rising concern that China is using artificial intelligence and other emerging tools to flood career networking platforms with fake profiles and job offers targeting military officers, spies and others with access to classified or sensitive information, security officials said.
The rare “safeguarding” alert warned that “China’s military intelligence services are using an increasingly wide array of professional networking sites and online job platforms to target Five Eyes government and military personnel.”
Officials said it marked the first time that members of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing group — the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — combined to issue a public warning about the expanding threat over networking platforms.
Trump Officials Worry US Loophole Let Chinese Firms Buy Nvidia Blackwell Chips
Mackenzie Hawkins, Bloomberg, June 5, 2026
COMMENT – We covered this last week in the commentary. I have yet to see hard evidence that semiconductor companies took advantage of this loophole, but the only reason we don’t have that evidence is because the companies refuse to provide detailed data about their sales and the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security refuses to provide transparency.
Congress, in particular Senate Banking and House Foreign Affairs, could get to the bottom of this if they wanted to. As the committees of jurisdiction, they could hold hearings and force officials from BIS to testify under oath about this. They could also call representatives of the companies and have them testify under oath.
I would be willing to wager that the information about which companies sold these chips to Chinese subsidiaries in third countries is available within BIS. There is likely a paper trail of emails and documents between the companies and these federal regulators that would reveal that BIS knew about this loophole and refused to address it for a year.
US reciprocal trade deals built to push America’s trade partners away from China
Mary E. Lovely and Christine Y. Wan, Peterson Institute for International Economics, June 4, 2026
When the Trump administration imposed so-called “reciprocal,” country-specific tariff rates in April 2025, it made clear that the measures were intended not only to protect US industry but also as negotiating leverage to extract bilateral concessions.[1] The president’s team subsequently negotiated several deals—called Agreements on Reciprocal Trade, or ARTs—with other countries to adjust US tariff rates and product coverage in return for a variety of concessions. As of May 22, 2026, nine ARTs have been signed and several more are under active negotiation.
The ARTs’ fine print reveals, however, that they are far more significant than simple bilateral trade deals: They construct a legal architecture to pull US trade partners away from China and to constrain China economically. They push partners to keep supplying the US market, but on terms that reduce space in other countries for Chinese firms, capital, and technology, as well as China-linked transshipment. The United States is not simply reducing direct imports from China. It is setting a framework to mold global value chains around US strategic preferences.
Before the 2018–19 US-China trade war, 22 percent of US goods imports came from China. By the end of 2025, China’s share had fallen to 9 percent.[2] But US imports overall have not declined, as sourcing has shifted to other countries in Asia and the Americas. These other economies have intensified their trade and investment flows with China, suggesting that further US efforts to decouple from China must now be directed at the Chinese value-added content of these third-country exports to the United States.
The ARTs deals do not name China explicitly as the target of these efforts, referring instead to a “third country,” “covered nation,” or “country of concern”—but it is obvious which nation is in the crosshairs. The deals require partners not only to buy more from the United States but also to help police third-country trade, investment, and technology flows. The nine ART partners with signed agreements to date are Argentina, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Taiwan.
This approach may strengthen US leverage, but it also raises the question of how much policy autonomy partner countries are giving up in exchange. China could retaliate against them in many ways. Given the deep integration of many middle-income ART partners with China, especially those located in Asia, the agreements place them in a difficult bind: meet US demands and risk Chinese punitive measures or defy the United States and endure a snapback of the “reciprocal” tariff rates.
The Trump administration celebrates commitments made by ART partners to remove behind-the-border measures that the United States has long claimed negatively affect American exports. But ARTs do more than exchange relief from punitive US tariffs for unilateral trade concessions. They are part of the Trump administration’s abrupt departure from World Trade Organization–based constraints on discriminatory tariff rates (tariff rates that differ among partners or are conditional on partner actions outside the scope of the agreements). Indeed, although the United States has long provided certain benefits to its strategic partners, ARTs mark the first large-scale use of US tariffs to enforce alignment with American policy choices since the end of the Cold War.
COMMENT – This sounds like a great move and I suspect matters much more that the “nice words” spoken between Washington and Beijing… the Trump Administration wants a degree of “strategic stability” so that it can construct these agreements that lock out the PRC.
Authoritarianism
‘Every year I get new pictures’: the fight to preserve the memory of Tiananmen
Amy Hawkins, The Guardian, June 3, 2026
Amid growing censorship at home under the rule of Xi Jinping, efforts to document the massacre of 4 June, 1989, are intensifying abroad
Discussions about the bloody crackdown on peaceful protesters that took place around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on 4 June, 1989 – and in cities across China – often dwell on the risk of forgetting the massacre.
The passage of time, with the world’s eyes soon drawn elsewhere, and suppression by authorities at home mean that the pivotal moment in Chinese history is at risk of fading into grey.
“Even when it was happening, people felt like the memory of it was going to be fragile,” says Jeffrey Wasserstrom, chancellor’s professor of history at UC Irvine, who has studied student protest in China.
One aspect particular at risk is a detail less commonly associated with the massacre: the hope that blossomed in the days leading up to the killing of hundreds, possibly thousands, of unarmed protesters by the Chinese army as they demanded democratic reforms.
One collection encapsulating that sense is a set of photographs taken by Austrian sinologist Helmut Opletal who was posted to Beijing as a journalist in May 1989. His photographs show crowds of protesters holding up banners calling for freedom and democracy, many with smiles on their faces and thrusting peace signs into the air.
“One of the things that gets forgotten was that at the early phase of [the protests], there was this incredible kind of joyousness and sense of possibility,” says Wasserstrom.
But in recent years, censorship controls inside China have grown tighter, with state-sponsored amnesia intensifying under the rule of leader Xi Jinping, sparking renewed efforts abroad to document what happened on that night, when Beijing’s streets flowed with blood.
COMMENT – Just imagine how much better the world would be today had the CCP not murdered so many of their citizens who just wanted a better life for themselves and a government that was accountable to them.
It is disturbing to see how many business leaders, academics, and investors turn a blind-eye to this regime and make excuses for the CCP.
From reform hopes to brutal crackdown - China’s Tiananmen protests
Reuters, June 4, 2026
Thursday marks 37 years since China bloodily suppressed pro-democracy demonstrations in and around central Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, when Chinese troops opened fire on their own people.
The event remains taboo in China and will not be officially commemorated by the ruling Communist Party or government.
Here are some landmark dates leading up to the demonstrations and the crackdown that followed:
1988: China slides into economic chaos with panic buying triggered by rising inflation that neared 30 percent.
April 15, 1989: A leading reformer and former Communist Party chief, Hu Yaobang, dies. His death acts as a catalyst for unhappiness with the slow pace of reform, as well as corruption and income inequality.
April 17: Protests begin at Tiananmen Square, with students calling for democracy and reform. Crowds of up to 100,000 gather, despite official warnings.
April 22: Some 50,000 students gather outside the Great Hall of the People as Hu’s memorial service is held. Three students attempt to deliver a petition to the government, outlining their demands, but are ignored. Rioting and looting take place in Xian and Changsha.
April 24: Beijing students begin classroom strike.
April 27: Around 50,000 students defy authorities and march to Tiananmen. Supporting crowds number up to one million.
May 2: In Shanghai, 10,000 protesters march on city government headquarters.
May 4: Further mass protests coinciding with the anniversary of the May 4 Movement of 1919, which was another student and intellectual-led movement for reform. Protests coincide with a meeting of the Asian Development Bank in Great Hall of the People. Students march in Shanghai and nine other cities.
May 13: Hundreds of students begin a hunger strike on Tiananmen Square.
May 15-18: To China’s embarrassment, protests prevent a traditional welcome ceremony outside the Great Hall of the People for the state visit of reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Students welcome Gorbachev as “The Ambassador of Democracy”.
May 19: Party chief Zhao Ziyang visits students on Tiananmen Square, accompanied by hardline then-premier Li Peng and future premier Wen Jiabao. Zhao pleads with the student protesters to leave, but is ignored. It is the last time Zhao is seen in public. He is later purged.
May 20: Li declares martial law in parts of Beijing. Reviled by many to this day as the “Butcher of Beijing”, Li remained premier until 1998.
May 23: Some 100,000 people march in Beijing demanding Li’s removal.
May 30: Students unveil the 10-metre (33-foot) high “Goddess of Democracy”, modelled on the Statue of Liberty, in Tiananmen Square.
May 31: Government-sponsored counter-demonstration calls students “traitorous bandits”.
June 3: Citizens repel a charge towards Tiananmen by thousands of soldiers. Tear gas and bullets are used in running clashes a few hundred metres (yards) from the square. Authorities warn protesters that troops and police have the “right to use all methods”.
June 4: In the early hours of the morning tanks and armoured personnel carriers begin their attack on the square itself, clearing it by dawn. About four hours later, troops fire on unarmed civilians regrouping at the edge of the square.
June 5: An unidentified Chinese man stands in front of a tank convoy leaving Tiananmen Square. The image spreads around the world as a symbol of defiance against the crackdown.
June 6: Chinese State Council spokesman Yuan Mu says on television that the known death toll was about 300 people, most of them soldiers, with only 23 students confirmed killed. China has never provided a full death toll, but rights groups and witnesses say the figure could run into the thousands.
June 9: Paramount leader Deng Xiaoping praises military officers, and blames the protests on counter-revolutionaries seeking to overthrow the party.
COMMENT – Deng Xiaoping is often portrayed as a hero, let’s all remember that he ordered this massacre. Deng felt his own power, and the reputation of the Chinese Communist Party, was more important than the lives of Chinese citizens.
No story about Deng Xiaoping is complete without recognizing his culpability in this crime. The individual he picked to lead the Party (Zhao Ziyang) wanted to avoid bloodshed and negotiate… Deng had him removed in a coup and placed under house arrest for the rest of his life.
Go read Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang (2009).
Despite censorship, young Chinese are learning the truth about Tiananmen Square
Huiyee Chiew, Washington Post, June 4, 2026
Authorities have been largely successful at erasing the massacre of protesters who fought for democratic reforms, but the facts are emerging in often unexpected ways.
Chinese authorities have spent decades scrubbing details of the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square from the country’s memory — most recently deploying artificial intelligence to erase any trace of the massacre from the Chinese internet.
But even within the tightening confines of China’s Great Firewall, some young people are learning details of the events — including the government’s bloody crackdown 37 years ago Thursday — and often in unexpected ways.
In February, when the American figure skater Alysa Liu won Olympic gold medals in Milan, talk circulated in China about her father. Arthur Liu had participated in the Tiananmen Square protests. After the crackdown, he fled to the United States, where Alysa was born in 2005.
When she won the women’s singles and team events, some users on Chinese social media called him a traitor. Others praised him as a single father who had raised a champion.
A poster on the platform RedNote asked why Arthur Liu was so controversial. Anji, a 20-year-old college student from Wuhan, China, who learned about the Tiananmen Square protests from a history teacher, advised users to look up his background.
Within hours, her comment was taken down.
“I initially didn’t think it would be removed, since I didn’t even mention the June Fourth incident directly,” said Anji, who spoke on the condition that she be identified only by her nickname for fear of government reprisal.
On Threads, the social media platform linked to Instagram, a Chinese user read about Arthur Liu and began researching. “All I can say is that I was stunned,” they wrote. “I had no idea there were protests on such a massive scale.”
Analysts say overly zealous censorship of the events of Tiananmen Square has on occasion stirred greater curiosity about what happened.
Liu Lipeng, a former censor for the Chinese social media giant Weibo who now tracks censored information as an analyst for the California-based news site China Digital Times, said Beijing “has already pushed technology-driven surveillance to its limits.”
Past this point, Liu said, “its effectiveness actually starts to decline.”
Inadvertent disclosures about Tiananmen often come through entertainment content, said Margaret Roberts, a political scientist at the University of California at San Diego.
China is remarkable, Roberts said, in that it interacts with the world and has high rates of internet use but “still maintains a highly sophisticated system of information control that significantly shapes how ordinary citizens consume information.”
But “when political information and entertainment are paired,” she said, “this is particularly dangerous and difficult for governments that are trying to censor.”
COMMENT – Erasing history is a very difficult and costly effort for the Chinese Communist Party… just imagine the resources that are wasted by the Party to protect its own image and how those resources could be used to improve the social safety net of Chinese citizens or increase the wages of China’s poorest. Instead of doing what is best for its own citizens, the Party is obsessed with protecting the privileges of its corrupt elite and ensuring that the Party is never held responsible for its crimes.
Someday that effort by the CCP will fail.
Why Xi’s Pro-Natalist Turn is Failing: Legibility, Marketized Neo-Familism, and Micropolitical Refusal in China
Patricia Thornton, PRC Leadership Monitor, June 1, 2026China’s Global ‘Concierge Services’ to Strengthen Fellow Authoritarians
Christopher Walker, Just Security, June 4, 2026
The wars in Ukraine and Iran have laid bare a stark reality: some of the world’s most autocratic regimes are bound together by a far-reaching international mutual support structure. This loose but potent network operates not only across these conflicts, but well beyond them.
Thousands of North Korean troops have fought on the side of the Russians against Ukraine, in turn enabling Kim Jong Un’s “hermit kingdom” to learn new methods of modern warfare. The regime in Pyongyang also has accounted for upwards of 50 percent of the artillery used in some Russian units on the Ukrainian front.
The Kremlin also has had assistance from Iran, which supplied Russia with Shahed attack drones, as well as technical support and training to operate Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles, while helping Russia to develop its domestic drone production capabilities.
Since the U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran in February 2026, Moscow has returned the favor, providing the Iranian authorities with intelligence to enhance battlefield awareness. North Korea, meanwhile, has supplied its technology and expertise to help Iran sustain parts of its missile capability.
The dictatorship in Belarus has played its own corrosively supportive role, serving as a staging area for Moscow for logistics and operations against Ukraine. Recent reports suggest that Moscow and Minsk may be “setting conditions to justify Russia launching drone strikes at Ukraine from Belarus.” The authorities in Minsk also have offered strong diplomatic backing for the authorities in Iran, including propaganda on the Iranian regime’s behalf condemning of US and Israeli strikes.
But one power, China, stands apart as a pivotal enabler of authoritarian regimes. It is in a class of its own when it comes to the scale, range, and sophistication of support it provides to authoritarian causes worldwide.
COMMENT – I think this framing is about right, Xi and the CCP provide authoritarian “concierge services” to the world’s dictators.
This suggests that there is a real ideological dimension to the Sino-American rivalry. It would be better if we could get our ideological position as organized as our adversaries have done.
Xi’s surveillance state seeks to identify future dissidents
Richard Spencer, Times of London, June 2, 2026New trade secret rules: China says its AI data is none of your business
Anna Desmarais, Euronews, June 2, 2026
Under new Chinese regulations, any algorithm, dataset or program not publicly disclosed now counts as a trade secret.
Algorithms and computer programmes are now considered trade secrets by the Chinese government.
The new regulations, called “Trade Secret Protection,” went into effect on Monday. The rules say that any “information related to technology, such as structure, raw materials, formula, materials, samples, patterns, processes, methods, data, algorithms, computer programmes and codes,” is considered a trade secret.
Technical or business information that “is not publicly known, has commercial value,” and is confidential also falls under the regulation.
Anything that has already been described in the media or in open reports is not considered a trade secret.
The regulation sets out strict measures for remote work and cross-border collaboration, including access controls, data anonymisation to mask personally identifiable information, and detailed logs of who has accessed, copied or modified data.
People or companies can report whether their trade secrets have been divulged, and if an investigation by China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) confirms that, a fine of up to 5 million yuan (€630,000) could be issued.
The regulations are China’s latest move to protect AI secrets. Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that the government is restricting the movement of its AI talent and, in May, Beijing blocked Meta’s acquisition of China-founded Manus, one of the country’s top AI companies.
This week, China also issued sweeping new rules to tighten overseas deals that involve Chinese investors, technology, data and national security.
The new regulations are the first update to China’s trade secrets rules since 1998 and now explicitly mention AI and data as falling under the law.
COMMENT – Oh the irony… this is the country that pays absolutely no heed to anyone else’s “trade secrets” and routinely rewards its citizens who steal them from other countries.
Made-in-China EVs Enter Canada Under Deal Carney Struck with Xi
Brian Platt and Thomas Seal, Bloomberg, May 28, 202
Taiwan Criticizes China Over Expulsion of Times Reporter
David Pierson, Financial Times, June 1, 2026
China tungsten exports to Japan halve amid tightened controls
Nikkei Asia, May 29, 2026
The High-Seas Black Market That Keeps Iran’s Illicit Oil Flowing
Jon Emont, Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2026
China puts the EU on notice over trade
Trivium China, June 1, 2026The Economist, June 4, 2026
It is often said that China is ruled by engineers. In fact, it is ruled by people with engineering degrees. President Xi Jinping, who studied chemical engineering, has probably not looked at a flow chart since his university days. Upon leaving school he went to work in the government for one of his father’s old pals. Like Mr Xi, most of China’s top leaders have spent their adult lives climbing the ranks of the Communist Party.
COMMENT – I studied engineering in college (everyone that attends West Point does), that doesn’t make me an engineer… the PRC is ruled by Party ideologues and bureaucrats, not engineers or scientists. These engineers and scientists being hired by Xi and his cadres are simply performing their new roles within the straight jacket imposed by the CCP.
Sorry Dan Wang, I thought your book was well done (Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future), but I think you were wrong about that main point.
China’s Dual Economy: When Strategic Ambition Hollows Out the Foundation
Alicia Garcia Herrero, PRC Leader, June 1, 2026
Changes of Factional Dynamics under Xi Jinping
Guoguang Wu, PRC Leadership Monitor, June 1, 2026
OECD Says 60% of Chinese Gains in Market Share Driven by Subsidies
Paul Hannon, Wall Street Journal, June 1, 2026
China tightens grip on outbound investment after Meta-Manus deal fallout
Lorretta Chen, Nikkei Asia, June 1, 2026
After China Orders a Times Reporter to Leave the Country, the U.S. Reciprocates
Michael Crowley, New York Times, May 29, 2026
China Tightens Rules on Outbound Investment in Fight for Global Tech Edge
Brian Spegele, Wall Street Journal, June 1, 2026
Chinese Military Sought Nvidia Chips for Years, Report Says
Ana Swanson and Tripp Mickle, New York Times, June 1, 2026
China Adds Data and AI to Trade Secret Rules to Block Leaks
Nectar Gan, Bloomberg, June 1, 2026
Environmental Harms
China Cooks the Carbon Emissions Books: Beijing redefines a key metric to make itself look greener.
Wall Street Journal, May 31, 2026
Unlike the West’s green radicals, China isn’t willing to sacrifice its economy to meet its climate pledges. But Beijing isn’t above cooking its carbon books to gull Western activists into thinking it is.
At United Nations climate conferences in Copenhagen in 2009 and Paris in 2015, Beijing vowed sizeable reductions in the amount of carbon China emits per dollar of gross domestic product, or carbon intensity. Subsequent national planning documents reiterated this goal.
Beijing’s statistics have since suggested it would fall far from delivering on this climate promise. And last September the head of China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment admitted that “controlling carbon emission intensity is challenging.”
Yet suddenly in March China reported that it had achieved a 17.7% reduction in carbon intensity between 2020 and 2025—a sliver short of its 18% goal. Earlier official numbers had suggested a reduction of only 12.4% over the same period. Credit Lauri Myllyvirta of the nonprofit Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air for spotting this discrepancy and sleuthing out its cause.
“It is clear that there has been a major shift in the way that China measures its carbon intensity, specifically in terms of which types of emissions are included,” Mr. Myllyvirta writes in a report for the British climate news site Carbon Brief. A footnote in China’s latest statistical communiqué further suggests a redefinition of the metric.
Previously, China factored in all fossil-fuel consumption as it calculated carbon intensity. The new calculus retrospectively cherry-picks which carbon emissions count. One of the bigger howlers is the exclusion of some emissions from chemical production or the manufacture of plastics, both booming industries.
This redefinition “effectively halves the rate of growth in China’s CO2 [carbon dioxide] emissions over the past five years,” Mr. Myllyvirta says. With the stroke of a pen, Beijing has created a statistical gap more or less equal to the total emissions of South Korea or Germany.
In 2022 President Xi Jinping said carbon goals shouldn’t come at the expense of energy and food security or the “normal life” of Chinese people. Tell that to the climate fanatics in Europe and the U.S., who like to trumpet Beijing’s investments in solar or electric vehicles as evidence that even China is on board with their agenda. Next time they should try a little less trust and a little more verify.
COMMENT - Remember this article the next time you read someone praising the PRC for cutting its CO2 emissions.
China’s Emissions Rise as More Clean Electricity Goes to Waste
Bloomberg, June 3, 2026
Hong Kong and the Shadow Fleets
Jillian Kay Melchior, Wall Street Journal, May 28, 2026Efforts Grow to Counter China’s Expanding Distant-Water Fishing Fleet
Eurasia Review, May 24, 2026
China’s Climate (Counting) Change
Andrew Stuttaford, National Review, May 31, 2026
Foreign Interference and Coercion
Spain distances itself from call for EU to get tougher on China
Camille Gijs and Gregorio Sorgi, Politico, June 1, 2026SAIC to increase manufacturing capacity in Spain
Trivium China, June 4, 2026
China’s second-largest automaker – is building a EUR 200 million auto plant in Galicia, Spain (Reuters).
The plant – which will primarily manufacture EVs – is expected to produce up to 120,000 vehicles annually under the MG brand when it comes online in 2028 (Leifeng).
Some context: Amid warming bilateral relations, Spain has overtaken Hungary since 2024 as the preferred destination for Chinese automakers looking to localize production in Europe.
COMMENT – The corruption of socialist Pedro Sanchez will derail any serious attempts by Brussels to confront the PRC.
My prediction is that Xi’s compromise of Sanchez will end up being far more consequential than his compromise of Viktor Orban. Spain is the fourth largest economy in the European Union… Hungary is the 18th largest.
But since Sanchez opposes Trump and comes from the left of European politics, he will largely be given a pass for undermining the rest of the European Union because he doesn’t identify as a right-wing populist.
Sam Cooper, The Bureau, May 25, 2026
IBM, AT&T Accused by Whistleblower of Covering Up Foreign Hacks
Jake Bleiberg and Mark Anderson, Bloomberg, June 4, 2026
International Business Machines Corp. and AT&T Inc.’s computer systems were repeatedly breached by foreign hackers, and the companies concealed those intrusions from the US government in violation of the law, according to a lawsuit from a former IBM cybersecurity official.
William Barlow, IBM’s former vice president of threat intelligence, alleged in the complaint that the companies failed to disclose multiple breaches over years by attackers linked to foreign governments and made false assurances about the security of their systems in order to win and keep federal contracts.
The whistleblower complaint against IBM and AT&T was filed under seal in 2020 and is still pending before a federal court in New York. It was made public this week, after the US government declined to intervene in the case, and hasn’t been previously reported.
The suit offers a rare account of alleged security failures at two major government contractors. It raises questions about the protection of sensitive information on the networks, and about companies’ responsibility to disclose such compromises.
The hackers allegedly breached massive IBM cloud computing infrastructure that’s widely used by many parts of the US government, including the military. AT&T operates this “Core Network” on behalf of IBM, and the Dallas-based telecommunications company’s systems are part of them, according to the complaint.
The complaint alleges that foreign and unidentified hackers repeatedly infiltrated the network and that the companies sometimes couldn’t determine who got in, or what was taken. It also says IBM downplayed or concealed incidents before entering government agreements requiring it to certify it had no significant unresolved cybersecurity issues.
“This complaint was filed six years ago, and the US Department of Justice declined to intervene,” said IBM spokesperson Adam Pratt. “IBM is confident that our actions followed the letter of the law.”
Representatives of AT&T didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Barlow worked at IBM in two stints beginning in 2002, including serving as vice president of threat intelligence from 2017 until his resignation in 2019, according to the lawsuit. He was quoted in a 2018 New York Times report about IBM offering cyber trainings in a mobile command center built in a customized semitrailer truck. Since leaving the Armonk, New York-based company Barlow has maintained a profile in the security industry, attending conferences and giving talks.
Jason T. Brown, an attorney for Barlow, declined to discuss the circumstances of his client’s resignation or say whether the Justice Department has investigated the allegations in the False Claims Act suit. Government decisions to intervene in such cases often take years and federal officials choosing not to get involved doesn’t indicate the merit of a complaint, Brown said. He added that the allegations implicate billions of dollars of federal business with AT&T and IBM.
“We’re looking forward to aggressively litigating the matter,” said Brown, of the firm Brown, LLC. “You can’t sell cybersecurity to the federal government while allegedly having these security problems within your own company.”
In his suit, Barlow claimed he personally witnessed numerous breaches of IBM’s core network and was pressured by executives to soften internal reports and omit details. Barlow alleged he knew of specific instances where IBM senior management “actively took steps to cover up and conceal” hacks from US regulators and government clients.
“The data breaches are so large and the core networks so poorly designed that neither IBM nor AT&T knows exactly what data was breached, who breached the data, where the data was breached or whether any data was exfiltrated, altered and/or modified in any respect,” the lawsuit alleges.
Chinese government-backed hackers were allegedly involved in some of the breaches cited in the suit.
In 2018, the US Department of Justice charged two alleged members of a Chinese hacking group that it said had waged a decade-long campaign to steal the data of 100,000 US Navy personnel. In his lawsuit, Barlow said the group, known as APT 10, had carried out that theft by infiltrating IBM’s networks.
Intelligence agencies told IBM that internet addresses associated with its network were connecting to infrastructure used by APT 10, according to the suit. An internal company investigation found more than 50,000 “potential APT 10 hits” between 2013 and 2016, the suit alleges. The following year, another internal probe allegedly found attackers had accessed nearly 400 compromised accounts and almost 200 total systems and servers in 18 countries, across every business unit, the complaint says.
COMMENT – This is what Beijing’s campaign of intimidation and coercion does, it makes multinational companies silent about the PRC’s attacks against them.
Part of this is due to a fear of lost business opportunities in the future, part of it is from the army of so-called “China whisperers” who advise companies to work this stuff out behind closed doors (exactly the way that Beijing prefers), and part of it is due to the perception that the U.S. Government won’t do anything to help them. This perfect storm of rationales combines to create the situation that the PRC’s massive attacks and thefts against these companies largely go unreported.
In Taiwan, Chinese-Born Wives Are a Focus of Infiltration Fears
Chris Buckley and Amy Chang Chien, New York Times, May 31, 2026Sam Cooper, The Bureau, May 22, 2026
In China, AMD CEO Lisa Su is understated while Nvidia’s Huang is more razzmatazz
Eduardo Baptista, Reuters, May 29, 2026
Payments group accused of being ‘Chinese backdoor’ moves staff out of China
Arjun Neil Alim and Zijing Wu, Financial Times, May 27, 2026
UK and European passports linked to restricted Chinese investors
Rachel Rees and Lucy Fisher, Financial Times, May 28, 2026
Chinese sports brand Li Ning partners with NBA star Steph Curry
Lorretta Chen, Nikkei Asia, June 2, 2026
With $1 Billion of New Chinese Money, Serb Leader Warns Europe
Misha Savic, Oliver Crook, and Andrea Dudik, Bloomberg, June 1, 2026
Nvidia’s AI Chips Sought by Chinese Labs with Ties to Military
Kate O’Keeffe and Maggie Eastland, Bloomberg, June 1, 2026
China’s Campaign to Extract American AI Capabilities
Daniel Remler and Ben Hayum, CNAS, June 2, 2026The China Penalty Is Quietly Reshaping American Science
Alexander Furnas, Ruixue Jia, Margaret Roberts, and Dashun Wang, SCCEI, June 1, 2026
International scientific collaboration has long rested on an ideal of universalism — that the best science happens when researchers share findings freely across borders, evaluated on merit rather than national origin. In the U.S.-China context, this ideal has come under increasing pressure. Over the past two decades, U.S.-China co-authored research produced some of the world’s most cited science, spanning astronomy, cancer research, and clean energy.
But since roughly 2018, amid rising concerns about intellectual property theft, national security, and surveillance, the partnership has fractured: collaboration rates declined sharply, visa restrictions tightened, and federal investigations targeted Chinese American scientists under the now-discontinued China Initiative. What has remained unclear is whether geopolitical pressure operates not just through formal policy but through the evaluative judgments of the scientists and officials who decide what gets funded in the first place. This paper provides the first large-scale experimental evidence that it does.
COMMENT – I suspect that the authors of this paper didn’t intend to get this reaction, but I think this is an incredibly positive development.
The CCP has demonstrated for years that it is unwilling to permit its scientists to participate in international collaboration in the same spirit of “universalism” (something that Chinese leaders and their institutions reject outright) and we are seeing American scientists wake up from their naivete and implement the kinds of “research security” measures that are unfortunately necessary given the corrosive behavior of PRC institutions in the practice of international science.
Participating in international science should be viewed as a commons, like international trade… if an individual or an institution or a country participates in good faith, follows the rules, and acts responsibly, then they should get the benefits of being accepted. If on the other hand, they act irresponsibly, selfishly, and as if the rules don’t apply to them, then the rest of the community must deny them the benefit of participation or risk ruining the broader commons.
I feel bad for the Chinese scientists that will be excluded and shunned, but pretending that the PRC is just a normal country is much more harmful to the rest of the scientific community.
Four New Zealand Lawmakers Barred from China After Taiwan Trip
Laura Chung, New York Times, June 4, 2026
New Zealand’s foreign minister was “surprised” to hear about the one-year travel ban, a spokesperson said, given lawmakers have visited Taiwan for years without issues.
Four lawmakers from New Zealand have been barred from traveling to China for a year following a visit to Taiwan last month, government officials said on Thursday, the first time such a restriction has ever been imposed.
The lawmakers, Maureen Pugh, Duncan Webb, Laura McClure and David Wilson, visited Taipei for five days in May as part of a cross-party group that was established in 2023 to maintain relations between Taiwan and New Zealand, the local media reported.
The travel ban, which emerged on Thursday, was met with shock in New Zealand. Lawmakers have visited Taiwan for years without issues, a spokesperson for New Zealand’s minister of foreign affairs, Winston Peters, said.
“In the context of that long history, the minister was surprised to learn that China has taken a decision to, for the first time, impose travel bans on New Zealand M.P.s as a result of travel to Taiwan,” the spokesperson said, referring to members of Parliament.
Human Rights and Religious Persecution
China: No Justice for Tiananmen Massacre 37 Years On
Human Rights Watch, June 1, 2026Zeng Liqin, Bitter Winter, June 2, 2026
The Chinese Patriotic Catholic Church has entered a new phase of political usefulness. In recent months, its official websites and regional branches have devoted sustained attention to the Law on Ethnic Unity and Progress, a piece of legislation the European Parliament has described as one that “openly promotes assimilation policies and restricts the cultural, religious and linguistic freedoms of various groups within China and beyond.” The contrast between international concern and domestic enthusiasm is revealing. The Church that Beijing recognizes as Catholic has become an active participant in the state’s campaign to reshape ethnic and religious identities according to Party doctrine.
A recent initiative in Inner Mongolia—known to Mongolians as Southern Mongolia—illustrates the trend. Local Patriotic Catholic associations organized a propaganda event under the slogan “Three Consciousnesses in the Heart, Ethnic Unity for Harmony.” The theme was not the Gospel, but the need to internalize the Law on Ethnic Unity. Clergy distributed booklets on the legislation, explained the Party’s ethnic policies, and urged believers to cultivate what officials call national, civic, and legal consciousness. The message was that Catholic life must be aligned with the state’s priorities, and that the law should permeate parish activities, daily routines, and the formation of the faithful.
The location of this event matters. Southern Mongolia has seen years of resistance to policies that weaken Mongolian language education and promote cultural assimilation. The Ethnic Unity Law is central to this process. Its implementation has already reshaped school curricula, public discourse, and cultural institutions. Now, the state-controlled Catholic Church is being mobilized to reinforce the same agenda. The clergy was instructed to emphasize that “national law takes precedence over religious norms,” and that believers must demonstrate loyalty to the state by embracing the Five Recognitions. The vocabulary of the event mirrored the political language used in Party schools rather than the pastoral language of the universal Church.
The “Five Recognitions” are a key concept of Xi Jinping’s propaganda and control. The first is the “Recognition of the great motherland.” This requires religious believers and ethnic minorities to affirm emotional and political attachment to the PRC as the only legitimate national home. The second is the “Recognition of the Chinese nation.” It refers to accepting the Party’s narrative of a single, unified Chinese nation, in which all ethnic groups—including Tibetans, Uyghurs, Hui, and Mongols—are expected to see themselves as branches of one overarching national identity.
The third is the “Recognition of Chinese culture.” The slogan demands acceptance of Chinese culture as defined by the CCP, often emphasizing Confucian values and Han cultural norms. For religious groups, it means reshaping doctrine and practice to align with state‑approved cultural themes. The fourth is the “Recognition of the Chinese Communist Party.” This is the political core: acknowledging the CCP as the legitimate and indispensable leader of the country, society, and all religious affairs. Finally, the fifth is the “Recognition of socialism with Chinese characteristics.” This requires endorsing the Party’s political system, ideological framework, and development model as the only correct path for China.
COMMENT – It would be spectacular if the Pope and his Vatican cardinals were to weigh in on what the Chinese Communist Party is does to abuse human rights. The Vatican doesn’t have a problem denouncing the political actions of American leaders, but they are curiously silent as the CCP carries out horrendous crimes against its own people and Catholics in the PRC.
He Became China’s Largest Critic in Exile. Then the Threats Followed Him.
Li Yuan, New York Times, June 1, 2026Sam Cooper, The Bureau, May 29, 2026
When the Dao Must March in Formation: The New Management System for Taoist Clergy
He Yuyan, Bitter Winter, June 3, 2026
The model tightens ideological discipline and expands monitoring, while temples quietly resist pressure to preach political doctrine rather than classical cultivation.
The China Taoist Association has triumphantly announced the completion, in mid‑May, of a special training for the clergy conducted in batches at the Hiode Zhenjun Temple in Beijing introducing its latest “revision” of the religious affairs management system. The name sounds like harmless administrative housekeeping, but in practice, it means something far more concrete: the clergy will now be watched more closely, instructed more firmly, and expected to align their spiritual path with the political compass. The official press release, a masterpiece of bureaucratic serenity, describes how Beijing’s Baiyun Temple and the Huode Zhenjun Temple dutifully gathered their entire staff for rounds of training led by senior instructors, who explained the “importance” of the new rules.
The message is familiar. One must study the General Secretary’s statements on religion, implement the Party’s decisions, and “systematically advance the Sinicization of religion.” It is always amusing, in a darkly comic way, to hear that Taoism must be Sinicized. If any tradition is already woven into Chinese culture, it is Taoism. Yet “Sinicization” has never meant cultural authenticity. It means alignment with the Communist Party, and nothing else. When the authorities insist that Taoism must be made more Chinese, what they really mean is that it must be made more governable by the CCP.
The revised system is also said to “strengthen the rule of law in Taoist affairs,” “promote healthy transmission,” and “solve internal problems.” These internal problems are left politely undefined, but those who follow the situation know exactly what they are. Many temples are wary of being told that their sermons must include Xi Jinping’s thought, that their rituals must be framed as patriotic performances, and that their clergy must spend more time studying political documents than the Daodejing. Some priests would prefer to return to a more classical approach to cultivation, one that does not require quoting the General Secretary. This, in the Association’s view, is a problem to be corrected through the new system.
Industrial Policies and Economic Espionage
JD.com’s €2.2 Billion Ceconomy Deal Hit by EU Subsidy Probe
Peter Chapman and Samuel Stolton, Bloomberg, May 28, 2026China owns more than 11,000 German-developed patents, IW study shows
Reuters, June 2, 2026
China’s world-beating solar industry is in turmoil
The Economist, May 26, 2026
China Manufacturing Activity Stays Flat in May as Energy Costs Weigh
Wall Street Journal, May 31, 2026
Temu Hit with Fine in E.U. Over Sales of Unsafe Goods
Alexandra Stevenson and Jeanna Smialek, New York Times, May 28, 2026
China’s Rise in Drug Development Looms Over U.S.
Rebecca Robbins and Gina Kolata, New York Times, June 1, 2026
Will Volkswagen’s Massive ‘Made for China’ Bet Pay Off?
Stephen Wilmot, Wall Street Journal, June 1, 2026
Cyber and Information Technology
Moolenaar, Obernolte, McClellan Introduce Legislation to Ban Dangerous Chinese Robots
House Select Committee on the CCP, June 3, 2026
Waymo to Deploy Robotaxi Built with Zeekr to Expand Public Rides
Edward Ludlow, Bloomberg, May 28, 2026
US takes step to halt Nvidia AI chip shipments to Chinese firms outside China
Karen Freifeld, Reuters, May 31, 2026
China’s tech rise is creating a new kind of tourism
Kinling Lo, Rest of World, May 28, 2026
China’s AI Heist
Jared Dunnmon, Avanika Narayan, and Jon Saad-Falcon, Foreign Affairs, May 29, 2026
Military and Security Threats
CIA makes new push to recruit Chinese military officers as informants
Michael Martina, Reuters, February 12, 2026
Just weeks after a dramatic purge of China’s top general, the CIA is moving to capitalize on any resulting discord with a new public video targeting potential informants in the Chinese military.
The U.S. spy agency on Thursday rolled out the video depicting a disillusioned mid-level Chinese military officer, in the latest U.S. step in a campaign to ramp up human intelligence gathering on Washington’s strategic rival.
COMMENT - This is from a few months ago, but I just wanted to highlight it again.
Growing US reliance on Chinese biotechs prompts national security fears
Patrick Temple-West, Financial Times, May 31, 2026
Chinese Use Electronic Warfare Attacks on Dutch Warship in South China Sea, Says PLA
Aaron-Matthew Lariosa, U.S. Naval Institute, May 27, 2026
One Belt, One Road Strategy
EU frets as China builds an industrial base in Morocco
Peter Foster, Financial Times, May 30, 2026
Opinion
Time to Stop Forecasting China’s Surplus Away
Brad W. Setser, Council on Foreign Relations, June 1, 2026
The IMF, rather consistently, has forecast that China’s surplus will fall over time.
And, until very recently, the IMF more or less forecast that it would fall back to around 1 percent of China’s GDP.
That was the IMF’s forecast in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.
The 2026 forecast in the latest World Economic Outlook is a bit better, but the surplus still trends back down to 2.5 percent of China’s GDP over time even in the absence of any projected large policy changes.
The systemic underestimation of China’s surplus was part-and-parcel of an IMF that, until last year, generally deemphasized imbalances (imbalances were judged to be small and on a declining path through the summer of 2024; fragmentation was consistently judged to the be bigger risk).
COMMENT - The IMF refuses to consider that Beijing intends to weaponize its economy against the rest of the world… that’s what happens when you let a bunch of economists run the global financial system and refuse to account for geopolitics.
Don’t Let China Buy into America’s Industrial Future
Nadia Schadlow, The Overview, June 4, 2026
The recently concluded U.S.–China summit highlighted that Beijing continues to double down on an economic model that is focused on dominating the industries it believes are strategically important. As U.S. officials return home and consider proposals for a board of trade and board of investment, which according to the White House could result in “increase[ed] Chinese investment into [U.S.] industries,” they should keep one principle in mind: Chinese capital and firms should remain outside of America’s advanced manufacturing buildout.
Modern manufacturing is no longer about building more factories. The emerging industrial ecosystem will fuse materials, chemicals, hardware, software, robotics, AI, and vast streams of data. Tomorrow’s factories will not merely produce goods. They will generate information, shape supply chains, and help determine future military and economic advantages. They are as much data systems as production systems.
The national security stakes are clear. Future military strength will depend heavily on commercial manufacturing. Many Department of War reforms center on producing weapon systems at scale through commercial industry. As Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has put it, the Department will “prioritize the purchase of industry-driven solutions, commercial solutions first.” Army leaders seeking to acquire tens of thousands of drones are emphasizing modular “plug-and-play” systems that can be rapidly upgraded as battlefield needs evolve. This shift is occurring across all the services. As one Army official explained, “if whatever they’re building isn’t modular with other industry partners … then I’m going to go with another industry partner.”
Mark Montgomery, Foreign Policy, June 3, 2026
In Washington, much of the debate over Taiwan’s security has focused on the island’s defense budget and purchases of U.S. weapons. On the first, Taiwan is headed in the right direction since President Lai Ching-te pledged to spend 5 percent of GDP on defense by 2030. On the second, the Trump administration has announced that a record $14 billion package of arms sales to Taipei is now on hold as a “negotiating chip” with Beijing. But while it is possible that future U.S. arms deliveries will be delayed or bundled in smaller packages, arms sales will likely continue.
U.S. President Donald Trump has also been ambiguous about the United States’ willingness to come to Taiwan’s assistance if China invaded or blockaded it. Although this is consistent with a long-established U.S. policy of strategic ambiguity on the issue, Trump’s statements stand in contrast to his predecessor’s, Joe Biden, who said that he would intervene to defend Taiwan on multiple occasions—statements that were quietly walked back by a spokesperson each time.
China’s quiet infiltration of US general aviation
Rep. Pat Harrigan, Washington Post, May 26, 2026
Hong Kong and the Shadow Fleets
Jillian Kay Melchior, Wall Street Journal, May 28, 2026
AI With Chinese Characteristics
Matthew Hennessey, Wall Street Journal, May 29, 2026
China’s comparative advantage is industrial policy
Tej Parikh, Financial Times, May 31, 2026
Europe is running from a phantom China threat
Martin Sandbu, Financial Times, May 31, 2026
China’s Plan to Lead the World Is Going Up in Smoke
Tobin Harshaw, Bloomberg, May 31, 2026
China created the rival it rails against
Andy Browne, Semafor, June 2, 2026