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Will American Industrial Policy overcome the PRC’s weaponization of Rare Earth Magnet Production?

Friends,

Perhaps lost in the fast-paced news cycle last week, not everyone noticed a move by the Department of Defense to take an ownership stake in MP Materials and agreeing to a 10-year off-take agreement at a specified price for certain rare earth elements. With the investment by DoD and financing from the private sector, MP Materials will mine in California and build facilities there and in Texas to process neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr) oxide for the manufacture of advanced permanent magnets that go into a variety of defense systems.

As you may remember, one of the most important issues over the last few months in Sino-American relations was Beijing’s decision to embargo a number of critical items including rare earth elements and advanced permanent magnets. The PRC has dominated these industries by ruthlessly pursuing non-economic market dominance in violation of its trade agreements with other countries. As Washington sought to correct wider trade inequities with the PRC, Beijing employed its control over these industries to harm the U.S. economy.

The DoD now owns about a 15% share of MP Materials after acquiring $400 million worth of the company’s preferred stock. This makes the DoD the company’s largest shareholder and provides a template for how the U.S. Federal Government could respond to other instances in which the PRC creates market failures for the purpose of gaining geopolitical leverage.

The DoD investment will enable MP Materials to build a fully integrated permanent magnet production capability. The facilities are slated to produce 10,000 metric tons of neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnets annually starting in 2028. This could fulfill a large proportion of American demand for these magnets.

Along with the equity investment, DoD will provide a $150 million loan to expand the company’s heavy rare earth separation capabilities at their California facility.

The DoD also provided further support with a 10-year off-take agreement in which the DoD will buy all of the magnets produced by the company, along with a 10-year price floor on NdPr oxide at $110 per kilogram, which is a little less than double the current market price, given PRC dumping of NdPr on the global market.

These agreements with the DoD allowed MP Materials to obtain a commitment letter from JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sach to provide $1 billion in financing for the costs of constructing the processing and production facilities in California and Texas.

The Mine-to-Magnet Supply Chain

Two trends have been unfolding over the past 10-15 years. First, the relative importance of rare earth elements and permanent magnets has increased as these commodities and products get incorporated into electric vehicles and other advanced electronic systems. The second trend is that the PRC has vastly expanded its processing and production of rare earth elements and advanced magnets, this has reduced the cost of these commodities (encouraging industries to incorporate them into more products and accelerating the first trend) and has driven other producers/processors, in countries that are not the PRC, to stop their production as the price has gone down and environmental regulations have increased.

PRC entities involved in rare earth and advanced magnet production have pursued market share over profit by selling these goods at artificially low prices given PRC Government subsidies and lack environmental and labor standards. As PRC production increases, the cost of these goods goes down and industries begin finding uses for these materials in their own products that they would not have done had the cost been higher.

Commodity Markets… and their Failures

From a rational economic perspective, none of these efforts would be necessary or wise… but we don’t live in a rational economic world, we live in a world of geopolitical rivalries. Religious commitment to free trade and resistance to industrial policy won’t change the fact that the PRC’s own industrial policies are harming us both economically and our national security.

One of the centerpieces of the CCP’s geoeconomic policies is to create market failures which provides Beijing geopolitical leverage. By subsidizing the production of rare earth elements and permanent magnets, the PRC floods the global market with their goods at a price that commercial players cannot match. This drives those commercial players out of the industry, providing Beijing with market dominance. With that market dominance, the CCP then weaponizes access to these goods as a method to coerce foreign governments and companies.

“How China wields rare earths as a strategic weapon” Nik Martin, DW, June 23, 2025

Unfortunately, the only solution to this problem (aside from capitulation to the CCP’s demands) is our own government intervention in the market. This means providing a commercial player with the kinds of funding and guarantees that would allow them to cover the costs of production and return profits to shareholders.

For some this seems like trying to “out China, China,” but I would differentiate this action, which is a response to a market failure created by the PRC in a very specific sector, to the broad-based industrial policies implemented by the PRC.

Industrial Policy with American Characteristics

For at least the last decade, Americans (as well as Europeans and Japanese) have been wrestling with an inconvenient truth: while we may prefer neo-liberal economic policies in which the market, not states, determines the flow of economic activity and prices, we live in a world which is increasingly determined by state-directed industrial policies. Unfortunately, those policies are NOT our own and they are designed to put us at a disadvantage.

The PRC’s industrial policies are reshaping the global economic order and trade patterns. Beijing employs these policies to reduce its vulnerability to the rest of the world, while it makes the rest of the world more vulnerable to Beijing’s coercion (aka ‘dual circulation’).

The hope of American (as well as European and Japanese) policymakers had been that we could persuade China’s leaders to embrace our neo-liberal preferences. In the language of the Obama Administration, this was the “bind” portion of their “Engage, Bind, and Balance” policy towards the PRC. In essence, “bind” the PRC to our preferred international rules and norms. For someone like Robert Zoellick during the Bush Administration, this is what he meant when he called on Beijing to become a “responsible stakeholder.”

We should be honest with ourselves, the Chinese Communist Party rejects our vision of market-driven economic and trade policy, and they refuse to be bound by the rules and norms associated with that system… even as they gaslight us about upholding multilateralism and the World Trade Organization (see Beijing’s response to the speech by the European Commission President this week, #2 and #3 below)

When the PRC was an economic midget, their refusal to play by these rules was an inconvenience but didn’t do much harm. Western leaders believed they had time to persuade the PRC to change its ways and make itself soluble to the rules-based international order. That isn’t the situation we face today. The PRC is now of such economic, industrial, and technological stature as to fundamentally alter global markets.

We all live in a global economic system that is determined by PRC industrial policy.

To deal with this new reality, the United States will need to adopt an industrial policy with American characteristics. Washington has been inching closer to this, starting in the first Trump Administration with efforts to employ tariffs, export controls, and other economic statecraft tools to deal with the massive disruption that the PRC has had on the global economy. The Biden Administration continued these efforts, and we are seeing them evolve with the second Trump Administration.

This week’s announcement by DoD and MP Materials about magnet production provides some insight into what I think this Americanized industrial policy will look like.

First, it will be narrowly focused on specific market failures impacting specific industries. The mining and processing of rare earth elements like neodymium (Nd) and praseodymium (Pr), as well as the manufacture of permanent magnets using these commodities, is a very narrow and relatively small industry (even if it has outsized impacts on the broader economy and defense industrial base).

To provide some sense of scale, the total global annual production of neodymium is about 220,000 tons and for praseodymium it is about 12,000 tons, the value of that is about $6 billion for neodymium and $1 billion for praseodymium. To put that in context with another part of the mining industry, the total global annual production for iron ore is about 2 billion tons at a value of about $180 billion.

Here is one way to visualize this disparity:

Very Large Bulk Carrier (VLBC) can transport around 300,000 metric tons.

A single VLBC (Very Large Bulk Carrier) could transport the entire global annual production of neodymium (and have space left over), and the same ship could carry 25 years’ worth of praseodymium.

It would take nearly 7000 of these ships to transport the global annual production of iron ore.

So, these rare earths are certainly valuable, and they contribute to making valuable and strategically important products, but the global mining industry, as a whole, is valued at about $2.3 trillion. These two elements make up a relatively small fraction of that industry and the U.S. demand for these rare earths make up just a fraction of the global annual production.

These investments (about $500-$600 million) by the DoD into this narrow slice of the mining industry helps provide a sustainable source of supply over the next decade to the American defense, aerospace, electronics and automotive industries that have a combined value of about $3 trillion.

It would be better if the United States could rely on the global market to provide rare earths and permanent magnets for these industries, but Beijing has purposefully weaponized them. Making it necessary for the U.S. Government to intervene and guarantee a secure source of supply.

The second characteristic will likely be that U.S. Government investment is used as leverage to unlock additional capital from the private sector. The $1 billion from JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs is a business decision based on both the explicit commitment by the U.S. Government as the largest shareholder in MP Materials AND the 10-year off-take agreement which provides a pricing floor for MP Materials’ products.

Without the long-term off-take agreement, it is doubtful that banks would provide that kind of lending. As we have seen in the past, the PRC is likely to dump rare earths on the global market to drive down the price and force their competitors out of business. Without the off-take agreement, this is what Beijing would have done to MP Materials. A guaranteed price floor of $110 per kg of NdPr materials gives MP, its shareholders, and its lenders, a degree of certainly that Beijing’s dumping won’t undermine the company.

The third aspect of “Industrial Policy with American Characteristics” isn’t yet obvious with this announcement: will the U.S. Government waive environmental restrictions and obstacles associated with NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act of 1970)? NEPA created a prohibitively high barrier for new industrial or manufacturing activities in the United States by requiring that federal agencies determine if proposed actions will have a significant environmental effect. Litigation by environmental groups and other local constituencies has created a byzantine maze of environmental impact reviews and approval processes that grind to a halt those efforts that receive government support. Case in point, the high-speed rail in California, countless clean energy projects, and the last Administration’s efforts to build EV charging stations across the country (see the book Abundance by Ezra Klain and Derek Thompson to get a sense of the impact that NEP has had).

Overcoming NEPA, perhaps for just these narrow and strategically significant activities like rare earth processing and permanent magnet production, will likely be a critical aspect of any industrial policy pursued by the United States.

I think this is a really important area to watch and I’m glad to see that the United States Government is finally taking action to address Beijing’s purposeful manipulation of market failures for their own benefit.

Thanks for reading!

Matt

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MUST READ

1. Is the Chinese Leadership Turning Inward?

   Victor Shih, The Wire China, July 9, 2025

If Xi Jinping is becoming more preoccupied with internal politics, it could lead to a period of relative calm in China’s relations with the United States.

Since the inception of the BRICS grouping over a decade ago, Xi Jinping has attended every leaders’ summit that has been held in person. This year, he missed the meeting in Rio, with Premier Li Qiang attending in his stead last weekend.

To be sure, the world is a much more dangerous place today than at the inception of BRICS [Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa]. Major conflicts are flaring across two continents. However, after the fragile Middle East ceasefire, the global situation is perhaps only slightly more dangerous for global travel than last year, when Xi flew to Russia for the equivalent BRICS summit.

An alternative explanation for Xi’s absence is that he is beginning a new phase of his administration that is more inward looking, and increasingly preoccupied with internal political issues than external influence. On a positive note: This could actually serve to stabilize China’s relations with the United States.

This inward phase is common for dictators who wield true, all-encompassing power domestically. Mao Zedong became consumed by domestic political issues leading up to the Cultural Revolution. Relations with China’s socialist allies deteriorated so much back then that Albania, itself a pariah state, became China’s closest ally. Even the Sino-U.S. rapprochement in the early 1970s took place likely because senior U.S. officials, from Kissinger to Nixon, were happy to travel to Beijing to start the relationship. Had that not been the case, the opening up might not have happened until after Mao’s passing.

Two factors drive the inward orientation of aging dictatorships. First, as illness compounds their aging, dictators still need to tend to their domestic political survival, while foreign policy increasingly becomes a secondary concern. Compared to the blistering pace of global travel seen during the first five years of Xi’s administration, spanning multiple continents in a single year, the number of trips he is taking has shrunk markedly since the end of the Covid lockdown in late 2022. In 2025, Xi was compelled to visit Southeast Asian countries in a diplomatic overture to counter U.S. tariffs, but otherwise, Xi has only visited familiar places like Russia and Kazakhstan this year. There may only be one or two further trips for the remainder of the year, again to familiar places like South Africa.

COMMENT – I think Victor makes some great points, particularly about the dynamics within an authoritarian regime where its leader has been in place for so long. It is really useful to consider what happens within an “aging dictatorship,” how governing structures change and how the next generation of leaders position themselves for the inevitable: China after Xi.

I would encourage the outside world to conduct thought experiments and speculate about the different options Chinese citizens have after Xi Jinping leaves the scene, including what the appropriate role of the CCP is, given its proclivity to monopolize power for itself, act in ways that harm the interests of common Chinese citizens, and put the interests of the Party above the nation and its people. This is something that Chinese citizens cannot do with any freedom, so the world owes it to them to explore these possibilities.

We should recognize that if the outside world examines these issues (what does China look like without Xi and the CCP) that the Party will scream that folks are advocating “regime change.” We should confidently respond that we are simply examining options that the Party refuses to allow its own citizens to examine because they know that the Chinese people aren’t pleased with the Party’s selfishness.

As for Victor’s conclusion, that Xi’s inward turn will result in less hostile Sino-American relations, I’m not convinced. But I guess anything is possible and its worth considering that possibility.

2. Speech by President von der Leyen at the EP plenary joint debate on EU-China relations
   European Commission, July 9, 2025

Indeed, we discussed today EU-China relations ahead of the China Summit where we will be with the Council President, António Costa. And therefore, let me complement what you said so that we have the whole view of the EU's position. This year marks half a century of diplomatic relations between our Union and China. And this has coincided with possibly the most remarkable chapter in China's long history. In just fifty years, its GDP has grown by more than ten times. Villages were replaced by megacities. More than 800 million people lifted themselves out of poverty. Once an agrarian society, China has become an industrial giant and a clean tech leader. Once an underdeveloped country, it has turned into the largest lender to developing nations. China has always been one of the great global civilisations. But in the last fifty years, it has also become one of the great global powers.

This makes our relationship with China one of the most defining and consequential for the rest of this Century. But our relations with China must be rooted in a clear-eyed assessment of this new reality. I have always said it: Europe is fully committed to results-oriented engagement with China. And this Commission is leading the way when it comes to de-risking not de-coupling. We, the EU and China, are two of the three largest economic and trade powers in the world. But we only trade some EUR 2 billion worth every day. That is only twice the volume we are trading with Switzerland. Because – while the Chinese market is enormous – our access to the market remains limited. The point here is that, while we are leading voices on global challenges, there are very real risks at play for Europe. These risks are both strategic and systemic in nature. They affect our security, and our competitiveness. These risks emerge from the fact that China has an entirely different system. And it has unique instruments at its disposal to play outside the rules. This, for instance, allows China to flood global markets with subsidized overcapacity – not just to boost its own industries, but to choke international competition. Finally, China has also become a formidable actor in the global information and cyber‑space. We very much welcome the voices of all Chinese on global issues of shared concern. But we will be very vigilant against any form of influence operations and cyber-attacks in Europe.

These realities do present a real challenge for Europe to confront. And we have started to address these challenges. Whether de-risking our economy and industry. Using our new toolbox of trade defence measures. Or diversifying our supply chains in sectors where China holds dependencies, if not outright monopolies. At the same time, I believe there is also an opportunity here, to build a more meaningful partnership with China. But to move our relationship forward, we need to make real progress – and find fair solutions – on the issues where we have been deadlocked for far too long. Predictability and reliability – this is how we can work in our mutual interest. And this is the message I will bring to the EU-China Summit later this month.

There are three priorities on which we need to focus on. First, rebalancing our economic relationship with China. Second, derisking. And third, advancing diplomacy on global issues, including climate.

On my first point. China is running the largest trade surplus in the history of humankind. Its trade surplus with our Union has surpassed 300 billion EUR last year. And this is while it is getting harder and harder for European companies to do business in China. Our products are systematically discriminated in public procurement, because of Beijing's “Buy China” policy. Goods and services that are “made in China” get an automatic 20% price advantage in public bids. This is simply not fair. The system is explicitly rigged. So, we have taken action to rebalance the public procurement market for medical devices. Because it is a matter of basic reciprocity. Europe remains fundamentally open – but most of our companies are rapidly losing market share in China. We want to see tangible progress on our longstanding requests for market access.

The same is true on state-subsidised overcapacity. China cannot rely on exports to solve its domestic economic challenges. Overcapacity must be addressed at its source – it cannot simply be offloaded onto global markets. That is the clear message behind our investigation into electric vehicles. Interestingly, we see that a serious debate within China on excessive production, disorderly price undercutting and distorted market has started. They understand that a domestic challenge cannot be solved at the expense of others. Let me be clear: If our partnership is to move forward, we need a genuine rebalancing: fewer market distortions, less overcapacity exported from China, and fair, reciprocal access for European businesses in China.

The second priority is to speed up with derisking. China invested early in many of the technologies of the future. But then it started flooding global markets with cheap, subsidised goods, to wipe out competitors. Entire Western industries closed - from solar panels to mineral processing – leaving China to dominate. I have already spoken about China's domination of the rare earth permanent magnets market. And how that can be used for economic leverage. This is why we are developing alternative supply sources in close cooperation with our partners. Of course, dialogue with China is also essential. We are engaging with Beijing so that it loosens its export restrictions. Because as I said at the outset – we do not believe strategic decoupling is in our interest. I believe that for Europe, it would be inefficient and ineffective. But we will continue to de-risk. Because we have learnt the lesson. About the extent to which dependencies are vulnerabilities. And how tech, trade and security are inherently linked. Derisking is simply a matter of European independence.

My next point is on geopolitics. Security is more interlinked between the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific than it has been in several generations. And it is evolving rapidly. So it is in our interest to work together. But we also know that China's unyielding support for Russia is creating heightened instability and insecurity here in Europe. We can say that China is de-facto enabling Russia's war economy. We cannot accept this. And I have always said: How China continues to interact with Putin's war, will be a determining factor for EU-China relations going forward. If China claims to defend the international rules-based order – then it should unequivocally condemn Russia's gross violation of Ukraine's sovereignty, territorial integrity and internationally recognized borders. And act accordingly. And if China claims to defend multilateralism – then it must respect the rules and principles of international trade, anchored in the WTO.

My final point is about our cooperation to address climate change. While China is the largest emitter in the world with 30% of global emissions, clean energy also accounted for over a quarter of China's GDP growth. China invested over 900 billion dollars in clean technologies alone – more than the U.S., Europe, Japan, and India combined. Beijing is at once a staunch competitor in the clean tech race, and a vital partner for global decarbonisation. This is the complexity we must deal with. We must switch gear in our competition, but also explore every avenue for cooperation. We are both convinced that the triple planetary crisis of climate, biodiversity loss and pollution requires a strong multilateral framework. And we want COP30 in Belem to deliver ambitious results. We both see net-zero targets and policies as a growth strategy and a real driver for industrial modernisation. And we both see the opportunities to work closer together in sectors such as emissions trading, carbon capture and storage or the circular economy.

The point is that there is a lot that we can do together – if China is ready to work together in a spirit of predictability and reliability. Just like Europe, China is a continent-sized power. And just like our Union, it is a complex and fascinating giant. Our relationship must reflect this complexity. We will always defend our interests. We will de-risk our economies. But we do not want to decouple. As we enter our second half century of cooperation, China is changing. But this is also a new era for Europe – an independent Europe. We are ready to build a more balanced and more stable relationship. And write a new chapter in this defining relationship.

Long live Europe.

COMMENT – I wish the Office of the President of the European Commission had more power to realize the policy positions that von der Leyen describes in this speech. As I’ve covered in previous commentary, I think Europeans and Americans would benefit from a stronger European Commission in which diplomatic, security and economic policy-making was centralized in Brussels, instead of being fractured across EU member states.

3. China Rebukes EU Chief After Demand for Greater Trade Access

   Bloomberg, July 9, 2025

China hit back at European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen after she accused the nation of distorting trade and limiting access for Europe’s firms — a back-and-forth clouding the outlook for an upcoming summit.

“We hope the EU can realize that what needs to be rebalanced is the EU’s mindset, not China-EU economic ties,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said at a regular press briefing in Beijing on Wednesday.

Mao also called on her nation and the European Union to manage their differences through dialog.

The remarks come after von der Leyen said that if China and Europe were to move forward, “we need a genuine rebalancing: fewer market distortions, less overcapacity exported from China, and fair, reciprocal access for European businesses in China.”

Mao added that her nation was “willing to expand the imports of quality products from the EU that meet our markets needs and hopes the EU will ease restrictions on high-tech products to China.”

She also added: “The EU’s public procurement market is far from fair and open as claimed by the EU but has many hidden barriers.”

COMMENT – I wonder what the Chinese word for ‘gaslighting’ is?

4. Beijing disinformation targeted French Rafale jets to boost sales of China-made planes, intel says
   France 24, July 6, 2025

French military and intelligence officials say China deployed its embassies to promote a disinformation campaign sowing doubts about the performance of Rafale jets during the India-Pakistan military clashes in May. It was aimed at undermining sales of the French-made fighter planes while promoting Chinese-made military hardware.

China deployed its embassies to spread doubts about the performance of French-made Rafale jets after they saw combat in India and Pakistan's clashes in May, French military and intelligence officials have concluded, implicating Beijing in an effort to hammer the reputation and sales of France's flagship fighter.

Findings from a French intelligence service seen by The Associated Press say defence attachés in China's foreign embassies led a charge to undermine Rafale sales, seeking to persuade countries that have already ordered the French-made fighter – notably Indonesia – not to buy more and to encourage other potential buyers to choose Chinese-made planes. The findings were shared with AP by a French military official on condition that the official and the intelligence service not be named.

COMMENT – Unsurprising.

5. China's Huawei must face US criminal charges, judge rules
   Jonathan Stempel, Reuters, July 1, 2025

A U.S. judge on Tuesday rejected Huawei Technologies' bid to dismiss most of a federal indictment accusing the Chinese telecommunications company of trying to steal technology secrets from U.S. rivals, and misleading banks about its work in Iran.

In a 52-page decision, U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly in Brooklyn found sufficient allegations in the 16-count indictment that Huawei engaged in racketeering to expand its brand, stole trade secrets from six companies, and committed bank fraud.

The Iran accusations stemmed from Huawei's alleged control of Skycom, a Hong Kong company that did business in that country.

Donnelly said prosecutors satisfactorily alleged Skycom "operated as Huawei's Iranian subsidiary and ultimately stood to benefit, in a roundabout way," from more than $100 million of money transfers through the U.S. financial system.

Huawei has pleaded not guilty and had sought to dismiss 13 of the 16 counts, calling itself "a prosecutorial target in search of a crime."

A trial is scheduled for May 4, 2026, and could last several months.

COMMENT – Huawei was first charged with racketeering back in early 2019… why has it taken so long?

6. El Gobierno paga 12 millones a la china Huawei por custodiar las escuchas policiales [The government pays 12 million to China's Huawei to protect police wiretaps.]

   Victor Recacha, The Objective, July 7, 2025 – ORIGINAL IN SPANISH

[GOOGLE TRANSLATE] The [Spanish] Ministry of the Interior has awarded contracts worth €12.3 million to the Chinese multinational Huawei for the management of judicial wiretap storage. According to official information submitted by the department itself and on the public procurement portal, these are the last tenders within the framework of centralized contracts between 2021 and 2025. The contract includes the digital storage of the results of wiretaps ordered by judges and prosecutors and is part of the standard processes managed by the General Directorate for the Rationalization and Centralization of Procurement.

The system used is the OceanStor 6800 V5, a line of high-performance storage servers developed by Huawei. This equipment supports the preservation and classification of communications legally intercepted by state security forces, in compliance with the ICT Security Guidelines developed by the National Cryptologic Center (CCN-STIC) and the requirements of the National Security Framework. The contract was awarded following established public procedures and can be consulted on the State Procurement Platform.

The purchase of the system from the Asian company did not occur in isolation: Huawei already provided technological support within legal interception systems (SITEL). As THE OBJECTIVE published, there is growing unrest in sectors of the National Police and Civil Guard over Huawei's continued provision of sensitive systems for police forces and the CNI. Internal sources from both forces expressed concern over what they consider a strategic inconsistency in terms of security, since they attempt to exercise extreme caution with foreign programs but entrust this data to a company linked to the Chinese Communist Party.

The unrest has intensified after it was discovered that Huawei maintains a presence in high-level IT systems within the Ministry of the Interior, while other Western powers, especially within NATO, have expressly banned the company from critical networks and structures.

The OceanStor model acquired by Spain is a high-end enterprise storage system designed to manage large volumes of data with high availability. Within its category, however, it stands out for being more affordable than its Western competitors, such as Dell EMC, IBM, and Hitachi. This combination of features and price has favored its expansion in several countries in Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. However, its origin and Huawei's ties to the Chinese state apparatus have been a source of recurring concern.

COMMENT – Come on Madrid!?!

Have Spanish Government officials been living in a cave or is this the influence of Sanchez’s Socialist Government that is bending over backwards to ingratiate itself to Beijing?

7. Europe’s Dangerous Gap in China Expertise
   Stefan Messingschlager, The Diplomat, July 2, 2025

Most European capitals still treat China expertise as a background resource, not a strategic asset. That needs to change.

When Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, many in the West still hoped that deepening economic ties would eventually nudge China toward liberalization. Over a decade later, that optimism is gone. China has become more authoritarian domestically, increasingly assertive internationally, and notably more difficult to predict. In 2018, U.S. analysts Kurt Campbell and Ely Ratner famously declared in Foreign Affairs that the decades-long strategy of engagement with China had failed. Their blunt assessment catalyzed a strategic rethink in Washington – one that gave China specialists a seat at the strategic policy table.

Europe, by contrast, has struggled to make the same adjustment. While its leaders increasingly view China as a “systemic rival,” most European capitals still treat China expertise as a background resource, not a strategic asset. The result is a dangerous “China expertise gap” that undermines Europe’s coherence, credibility, and capacity to respond decisively to Beijing’s global assertiveness. Closing this gap is now a strategic imperative.

The U.S. Model: Institutionalizing Expertise as Infrastructure

The United States demonstrates vividly how institutionalizing China expertise can significantly strengthen national strategy. Leading think tanks – including the Council on Foreign Relations, the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings, and the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis – act as talent pipelines, where analysts routinely rotate into government roles. Under the Biden administration, this integration deepened further. In late 2022, the State Department launched “China House,” a dedicated coordination hub bringing together experts across regional and functional bureaus to sharpen China policy.

The results are tangible. Academic researcher Adrian Zenz’s documentation of human rights abuses in Xinjiang directly informed U.S. sanctions and import bans, including the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which restricts goods from the region. Meanwhile, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission has consistently provided detailed reports on China’s economic practices and global ambitions, feeding into landmark legislation such as the CHIPS and Science Act, aimed at revitalizing domestic semiconductor manufacturing and reducing technological dependence on China.

U.S. expertise has also influenced international outcomes. In 2018, when Myanmar faced a potential debt trap from a $7.3 billion China-backed port under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), discreet advice from Western experts enabled the government to negotiate the project down to $1.3 billion – dramatically reducing exposure to Beijing’s leverage. This kind of behind-the-scenes guidance exemplifies how deeply institutionalized expertise can project strategic influence well beyond national borders.

Europe’s Fragmented Approach – and Its Costs

Despite its wealth of academic and analytical talent, Europe has long lacked structural mechanisms to embed China expertise in policymaking. Decision-makers often rely on ad hoc consultations or default to trade ministries with limited geopolitical bandwidth.

The consequences have been visible. In 2019, Italy became the sole G-7 country to join the BRI – an ill-advised move taken with minimal expert consultation and significant strategic repercussions. Promised investments never materialized, while Italy’s trade deficit with China worsened. By 2023, Rome quietly announced its intention to withdraw from the BRI, calling the original deal an “improvised and atrocious act.” Strategic misjudgments like this might have been avoided with systematic expert consultation.

Another case in point is Europe’s divided response to Huawei. While the United States and several allies moved early to restrict Huawei from their 5G networks, the EU issued a “toolbox” of recommendations – but left implementation to member states. The result was a patchwork. As of mid-2024, fewer than half of EU countries had enacted legal measures to restrict high-risk Chinese vendors like Huawei and ZTE. Germany, the EU’s largest economy, was especially slow to move. According to EUISS Senior Analyst Tim Rühlig, internal divisions and economic ties to China contributed to years of delay. This fragmentation left Europe’s 5G infrastructure vulnerable – and weakened its negotiating position with Beijing.

The problem is not a lack of talent. Institutions like the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) in Berlin, Chatham House in London, and IFRI in Paris produce top-tier research. But their insights often struggle to reach the desks of those crafting policy. Without institutional channels, even the best analysis risks being sidelined.

Signs of Change: From Peripheral Insight to Policy Core

Encouragingly, Europe is beginning to close the gap – albeit slowly. In 2019, the EU’s Strategic Outlook labeled China a “systemic rival” for the first time, echoing long-standing expert warnings. That framing provided the analytical backbone for subsequent EU initiatives, including investment screening regulations and an anti-coercion instrument launched in 2023.

Germany has gone further. Its 2023 China Strategy was shaped significantly by insights from MERICS, SWP, and other influential think tanks, demonstrating a rare example of expertise directly informing policy. The document highlights “de-risking,” transparency, and strategic coordination across government – and explicitly credits external experts. Notably, MERICS had been sanctioned by Beijing in 2021 for its research on China’s human rights record – a move widely seen as validating the institute’s relevance and impact.

At the EU level, expert-informed concepts like “de-risking” are increasingly shaping discourse. In a March 2023 speech, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen outlined the new approach: reducing dependencies in critical sectors while maintaining selective engagement. Three months later, the EU unveiled its Economic Security Strategy, including tools for outbound investment screening and export controls – long-standing proposals from the China policy community.

Further efforts are underway to strengthen the pipeline of expertise. The Horizon Europe–funded “China Horizons” project (2022–2025) brings together academic centers and think tanks from across Europe to provide policy-relevant research. With 4 million euros in funding, the project aims to boost “Europe’s knowledge base on contemporary China” through joint studies, training, and policy briefings.

What Europe Must Do: Three Strategic Reforms

To turn expert awareness into strategic coherence, Europe needs more than sporadic consultations or one-off strategies. Three reforms are critical: embedding China expertise in policymaking, strengthening pan-European knowledge infrastructure, and aligning language with strategy.

European governments and EU institutions should establish dedicated China units or advisory councils within key bodies: national foreign ministries, defense and security councils, the European External Action Service, and the European Commission. These units must have clear mandates, dedicated resources, and consistent access to top decision-makers, ensuring proactive strategic foresight rather than reactive crisis management. The goal is to move from ad hoc expert input to institutionalized insight. Policymakers need anticipatory analysis of China’s trajectory, not just reactive briefings in a crisis.

The U.S. National Security Council’s Asia team and the State Department’s China House offer possible templates. Europe could, for example, appoint a chief China policy coordinator (analogous to a “China czar”) to ensure that expert analysis is integrated across all relevant departments – from trade and tech to climate and security. Embedding a cadre of China specialists at the heart of EU and national governments would improve everything from investment screening decisions to diplomatic strategy.

The EU should also invest in a more coordinated intra-European network for China research and intelligence-sharing. The existing European Think-tank Network on China (ETNC), which links institutes across the continent, is a good starting point but remains an informal collaboration. Brussels could elevate this into a structured, well-funded China knowledge hub that produces joint assessments and policy memos for EU and member-state officials. A permanent “China analysis unit” in Brussels – drawing on ETNC members, Horizon Europe projects like China Horizons, and national research centers – could pool expertise and provide real-time advice to all 27 EU countries. This would be especially valuable for smaller states that lack in-house China analysts. By comparing risk assessments and coordinating perspectives, Europe can avoid being divided and played off against itself. In practical terms, the EU might fund regular joint studies (for instance, on Chinese economic coercion tactics or tech standards strategy) and create secure channels for sharing sensitive findings among governments. Think of it as Europe’s collective brain trust on China.

Finally, Europe must align its rhetoric with its strategy. European leaders have begun to adopt more strategic language – but too often, it still downplays the risks at hand. The term “de-risking” has been a useful and more palatable alternative to “decoupling,” yet too much euphemism can obscure intent. By contrast, U.S. officials now speak relatively plainly of selective decoupling, supply chain security, and even Taiwan contingency planning. While Europe need not copy Washington’s rhetoric verbatim, it must adopt language that clarifies rather than obscures strategic intentions. Calling China a “partner” or “competitor” is fine for nuance, but not if it blunts recognition of systemic rivalry.

Clear, evidence-based language is essential both for internal clarity and external signaling. EU leaders should forthrightly communicate what “de-risking” entails – e.g. screening Chinese investments in strategic sectors, curbing exports of dual-use technology, defending academic freedoms, and preparing for possible Chinese aggression in Asia. Where European interests diverge from Beijing’s, officials should say so unambiguously. Precision and candor in public statements will help prepare European publics for tougher measures, reassure allies that Europe is realistic, and let China’s leadership know that divide-and-rule tactics won’t easily find fertile ground.

Strategic Autonomy Begins With Expertise

In an era of systemic rivalry and rapid geopolitical change, Europe’s ability to act coherently on the China challenge will depend on whether it can systematically integrate expertise into policy. The talent is there – Europe boasts many of the world’s leading China scholars and analysts, and many European diplomats are themselves savvy on China. The challenge lies in building pathways that connect expertise to power. That means embedding China specialists into real-time decision processes, linking national research centers into a continental knowledge network, and ensuring leaders are briefed by people who read Chinese-language sources (and Xi’s speeches) long before they read the latest news headlines.

The United States moved early to harness its China experts as architects of policy, and is reaping the benefits of foresight and agility. Europe must now catch up. A more strategic Europe would leverage its rich knowledge base to avoid naïve entanglements (like Italy’s ill-fated BRI foray), to harden its vulnerabilities (from 5G networks to supply chains), and to speak with a more unified voice when Beijing attempts to intimidate or coerce one of its members. All of that requires the infrastructure of expertise: dedicated units, funding, information-sharing, and political will to listen to the specialists.

The window for Europe’s strategic awakening on China is open, but it will not stay open indefinitely. As Beijing continues to expand its global reach and sharpen its tactics, a reactive or fragmented Europe will find its interests undermined one by one. By contrast, a Europe that is informed, proactive, and collectively self-assured can better defend its values and autonomy.

Ultimately, strategic autonomy is not merely about possessing industrial strength or military assets; it fundamentally depends on having the independent analytical capacity to understand, anticipate, and decisively respond to your most pressing external challenges. Closing the China expertise gap is thus not a technocratic sidebar; it is central to Europe’s security and sovereignty in the 21st century. The time to act is now, before today’s strategic blind spot turns into tomorrow’s strategic failure.

COMMENT – The problem goes deeper than what Messingschlager implies.

As long as Europe maintains a fractured political and policy-making system that spreads power across member states and various institutions to handle security, trade, technology and economics separately, Europeans will be at a massive disadvantage.

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Authoritarianism

8. « Un dialogue de sourds » : le ton monte entre la Chine et l'UE avant un sommet de plus en plus incertain ["A dialogue of the deaf": tensions rise between China and the EU ahead of an increasingly uncertain summit]

   Raphael Balenieri and Karl De Meyer, Les Echos, July 9, 2025 – ORIGINAL IN FRENCH

Tensions are rising between China and the European Union, two weeks before a summit between the two blocs scheduled for July 24 in Beijing, which has already been shortened by one day. While Donald Trump's aggressive trade policy could have encouraged a cautious rapprochement between China and the European Union, the opposite is happening.

Originally planned to celebrate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the EU and China, the meeting is turning into a nightmare. "European officials in charge of China issues are in the doldrums; I've never seen anything like it in my life," says a Chinese expert who has just spent several days in Brussels. "We're in a dialogue of the deaf, with no common ground. Even discussions on climate change are being held hostage by tensions."

9. 10 Years Since ‘709 Crackdown,’ Lawyers Still Under Fire
   Human Rights Watch, July 6, 2025

10. Dalai Lama defies China to say successor will be chosen by Tibetan tradition
    Penelope Macrae, The Guardian, July 2, 2025

11. China Warns India to Choose Its Words Carefully on Dalai Lama and Tibet
    Tripti Lahiri, Wall Street Journal, July 4, 2025

China responded after an Indian minister said the Dalai Lama’s wishes and Tibetan tradition should determine his successor.

China issued a warning to India after a minister said that only the Dalai Lama and Tibetan tradition can determine the selection of the next Tibetan Buddhist leader, a stance that runs counter to Beijing’s efforts to exert more control over a figure it considers a danger.

The exchange, which came after the Dalai Lama clarified his plans for the future of the institution, highlighted how the process of identifying the next Dalai Lama could add fresh tensions to relations between India and China. The two countries are trying to improve ties, which took a sharp downturn following a deadly clash on their disputed Himalayan border in 2020.

“We hope that India fully realizes that the Tibet issue is highly sensitive, recognizes the anti-China and separatist nature of the 14th Dalai Lama [and] abides by its commitments on the Tibet issue,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning on Friday.

COMMENT – Very glad to see India weigh in on this issue. Chinese cultural genocide of Tibetans shouldn’t be ignored.

12. China and Russia Keep Their Distance from Iran During Crisis
    Edward Wong, New York Times, July 8, 2025

13. Chinese Surveillance-Gear Maker Fights Canadian Ban
    Du Zhihang and Kelsey Cheng, Caixin Global, July 8, 2025

Chinese surveillance-equipment maker Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co. Ltd. is challenging a Canadian government ban.

Its Canadian unit, Hikvision Canada Inc., has applied for a judicial review of the June 27 order that requires it to close all local operations within 120 days, according to a company statement published Monday.

Hikvision said it is asking the court to pause the government order until its application for a judicial review is decided. It has also struck a deal with the Attorney General of Canada to resume normal operations until the court makes its decision on whether to pause the order.

COMMENT – Don’t cave Canada.

Also, you might want to tell your citizens to leave the PRC… as you know well the Chinese Communists have a habit of taking Canadians hostage when they don’t get their way.

14. Leung Kwok-hung, Hong Kong’s shaggy agitator for democracy
    The Economist, July 8, 2025

His League of Social Democrats, the territory’s last pro-democracy party, disbanded this week.

Leung kwok-hung understands the power of images. One of Hong Kong’s most famous pro-democracy lawmakers for two decades, he spurned suits for t-shirts emblazoned with the face of his idol, Che Guevara.

The side of his van bore a large cartoon of Mr Leung kicking the bottom of one of the city’s former leaders. In 2010 he bought a licence plate that read “d0naldpk”—an abbreviation that suggested that the city’s then leader, Donald Tsang, should drop dead (puk kai in Cantonese). His mane, seemingly as untamable as its owner, is so well known that Hong Kongers call him simply “Long Hair”.

15. The Locknet: How China Controls Its Internet and Why It Matters
    Jessica Batke, ChinaFile, June 30, 2025

16. The Party’s Interests Come First — the political upbringing of Xi Jinping
    Kathrin Hille, Financial Times, July 8, 2025

17. Hong Kong proposes tightening prison rules to restrict visiting of inmates on national security grounds
    Hans Tse, Hong Kong Free Press, July 8, 2025

18. How Rare Earths Became China’s Top Trade Weapon
    Christina Lu, Foreign Policy, July 1, 2025

19. China's decision-making system under review amid economic woes
    Katsuji Nakazawa, Nikkei Asia, July 3, 2025

20. How China Is Quietly Funding Iran’s War Machine

    Elaine Dezenski and Max Meizlish, The National Interest, July 9, 2025

Chinese firms, especially Wanda Holdings, are helping Iran bypass sanctions, funding Tehran’s military through illicit oil trade. Targeting China’s economic links is key to stopping Iran’s rearmament and future threats.

For too long, the United States has given China a pass on slave labor, unfair trade practices, and its quiet but critical support for America’s adversaries. Nowhere is that support potentially more dangerous than in Iran.

In June, while US and Israeli jets struck targets in Iran, China’s oil imports from Iran surged to record highs. Approximately half of Iran’s military budget stems from oil and gas sales, and no country is more critical to sustaining this financial lifeline than China.

To be sure, destroying Iran’s nuclear program and military infrastructure is vital, but so is denying the regime the cash it will need to rebuild and rearm. That means going after the buyers, bankers, and billionaires in China, propping up Iran’s oil economy. It means sanctioning China to stop Iran.

21. Russian Drone Documents Draw Line from China to Ukraine’s Skies
    Alberto Nardelli, Bloomberg, July 8, 2025

Investigation shows how Chinese suppliers have been key for Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Soon after President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale war on Ukraine, a little-known Russian company thousands of miles away hatched a plan to partner with Chinese firms and solve one of the most urgent challenges faced by the invading army — the need for combat drones that were radically reshaping the battlefield.

Documents reviewed by Bloomberg — including memos from the company, Aero-HIT, as well as correspondence with Russian government officials — offer unprecedented insight into how Moscow capitalized on its friendly ties with Beijing to skirt Western sanctions and acquire the know-how and capability to build drones to attack Ukraine. They lay out in detail a previously unreported case study of Russian-Chinese corporate collaboration on defense technology.

Taken together, the documents show how sensitive technologies can move from China to Russia even if President Xi Jinping's government says it's not supplying either side.

Aero-HIT, which has received Russian state funding, claims its production plant close to the airport in the far eastern city of Khabarovsk will have the capacity to turn out as many as 10,000 drones per month this year and it’s planning to expand production further into more advanced models. It has grown rapidly into one of Russia’s main drone suppliers for military operations in Kherson, the partly occupied region of Ukraine that Putin insists must be handed over fully to Moscow’s control as part of any deal to end the war.

Its products include the Veles, a First-Person View (FPV) drone that allows pilots to monitor the battlefield in real time via a screen or virtual-reality goggles linked to the quadcopter’s camera. FPV drones have become a crucial weapon for both sides in the war, and multiple reports suggest Russia has deployed them to deliberately target and hunt down civilians in Kherson city that Ukraine successfully retook in late 2022.

FPV drones can cost anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars, depending on their configuration. One order for 100 Veles models was priced at 8 million rubles, or about $1,000 per drone, according to a purchase order in March reviewed by Bloomberg.

Last June, the US Treasury sanctioned Aero-HIT, stating that the Veles drones it makes “have been used by Russian forces based in Kherson against Ukrainian targets.”

Aero-HIT didn’t reply to a request for comment and a detailed set of questions.

The documents, which date from late 2022 through to June 2025, show the extent to which Moscow goes to mask its suppliers and deliver equipment to its military, often by using intermediaries that operate in other sectors like airline catering, agricultural supplies and seafood transportation services.

In a letter dated June 16 this year, Aero-HIT wrote to the head of the department of interdisciplinary research and special projects at Moscow’s Ministry of Defense requesting financial support to expand its output by localizing the production of the Autel EVO Max 4T drone.

Autel Robotics is one of China’s major manufacturers of drones and drone parts. It denies supplying or having any business relationships with Russian firms as of February 2022.

The letter, which contains financial plans for what would be a 7.1 billion ruble ($90 million) investment and a schedule of proposed deliverables over 28 months, states that the Russian company has been cooperating with Autel engineers since early 2023. The relationship between the two firms was briefly interrupted due to sanctions, but contacts with Autel personnel were re-established around the end of 2024 and the parties have been negotiating localizing production for the drone since May 2025, the letter states.

The proposal says the Autel EVO Max 4T was originally designed for civilian use but has proven highly effective in combat due to several key advantages such as a radio module resistant to electronic warfare. The sale price would be 650,000 rubles apiece, VAT included, and the plan foresees making as many as 30,000 units per year, according to details outlined in the proposal.

By localizing production of that model, Aero-HIT says it would be able to bolster high-tech drone manufacturing in Russia and gain the transfer of technologies and know-how, including firmware, debugging, production, and repair. Crucially, the project would integrate the drones with domestic IT systems and adapt them to frontline needs.

It is unclear from the correspondence whether Autel, which was sanctioned by the UK in November for making available goods and technologies that undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty, is aware of the project or if the relationship is with individual company employees or re-sellers of Autel’s technologies. The company has also been blacklisted by the US Defense Department for its alleged ties to the Chinese military.

The Russian Ministry of Defense didn’t reply to a request for comment.

Autel Robotics said in an emailed statement that it has never engaged in any form of cooperation with a Russian company called Aero-HIT, nor is the firm aware of any local production arrangements involving Aero-HIT or the Autel EVO Max 4T drone. The company said it completely terminated all business relationships and transactions involving Russia as of February 2022, ceased all direct and indirect sales to Russian entities and put in place rigorous internal compliance policies.

Autel issued a statement in January rejecting US claims of its links to the Chinese military. “As a high-tech enterprise specializing in civil drones, Autel Robotics is not a defense contractor, nor a supplier to the military, and does not possess any military qualifications,” it said.

Beijing has repeatedly said it controls exports of so-called dual use goods like drones that can be used for military purposes, and that it has never provided either side with lethal weapons. It is unclear from the documents whether the government in Beijing is aware of the extent to which some Chinese companies continue to work with Russian firms.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs didn’t reply to a request for a comment.

As Beijing tightened trade restrictions on exporting drones, some Chinese companies balked at working on the Russian project and walked away from their contracts, but others stepped in to take their place, the documents show.

Drones have increasingly become a critical weapon to both Ukraine and Russia as the war approaches the 3 1/2 year mark. Russia has significantly increased its attacks on Ukrainian cities recently, at times sending barrages of almost 500 drones in a single night, resulting in rising civilian casualties.

Ukraine estimates Russia is preparing to produce between 300 and 350 long-range drones a day and wants to raise output to 500 a day, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in late May. That same month he told a group of reporters that China had stopped selling drones to Ukraine but continued shipments to Russia.

The origins of Aero-HIT and its relationship with suppliers in China date back to the second half of 2022 — and have been crucial to Russia’s ability to manufacture Veles drones at scale, the documents show.

In the fall of 2022, discussions began between a Russian company called Komax, representatives of the Harbin Comprehensive Bonded Zone in China, and Khabarovsk Airport — which lies around 20 miles from the Chinese border — to build a warehouse with special tax and customs arrangements to facilitate imports, as well as establish the production of drones using Chinese parts and technologies nearby.

Russia’s business registry shows Komax is owned by an individual named Konstantin Basyuk. He is a former KGB operative, according to Russian media reports, and since 2022 a senator for Russian-occupied Kherson. Basyuk was sanctioned by the European Union in 2023. Komax also manages Khabarovsk airport.

The types of drones the parties aimed to produce would have resembled those of Chinese manufacturers Autel and SZ DJI Technology Co. Ltd., known as DJI, the document shows. The Russian Ministry of Defense and other government agencies were identified as potential key customers.

Basyuk didn’t reply to a request for comment about Komax and Khabarovsk airport. The Harbin Comprehensive Bonded Zone didn’t respond to a request for comment enquiring about discussions with the Russian firms.

The relationship stepped up when, between April 28 and May 3, 2023, a Russian delegation traveled to China to meet with representatives of the Harbin Comprehensive Bonded Zone and companies linked to the Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), one of China’s top engineering universities and particularly prestigious in the fields of astronautics and defense-related technologies.

HIT’s relations with the Chinese military have drawn US concerns about its role in developing cutting-edge weapons for the People’s Liberation Army, leading to the university being sanctioned by the US Department of Commerce in 2020. HIT has long-standing ties with Russia; Putin visited the school during his state visit to China in May 2024. HIT didn’t reply to a request for comment.

The parties agreed to set up a joint venture in Khabarovsk and that a sample of 100 drone kits would be delivered to Russia. During the same trip, the Russian delegation also visited the headquarters of Autel Robotics and a drone factory in Shenzhen, according to a Russian memo.

Later that month, on May 22, Russian and Chinese representatives of the joint venture met with Putin’s special envoy for the Far East, Yury Trutnev, on the sidelines of the China-Russia Business Forum in Shanghai. Trutnev recognized the project as a priority and promised to help it receive permits from Russia’s customs service to allow for tax-free imports, another memo indicates. A readout on the website of the Russian government confirms that Trutnev met with Chinese executives “to discuss the development of cooperation between Russia and China in the Russian Far East.”

COMMENT – Sounds like there are some Chinese companies who deserve some fairly serious sanctions.

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Environmental Harms

22. EU and China stand-off over climate action before Xi and von der Leyen meet
    Alice Hancock, Financial Times, July 7, 2025

23. Campaigners call for ‘spirit’ of ambition in China climate targets
    Edward White, Financial Times, July 7, 2025

24. China’s Rare Earth Origin Story, Explained
    Keith Bradsher, New York Times, July 5, 2025

25. Poisoned water and scarred hills
    Laura Bicker, BBC, July 8, 2025

The price of the rare earth metals the world buys from China.

When you stand on the edge of Bayan Obo, all you see is an expanse of scarred grey earth carved into the grasslands of Inner Mongolia in northern China.

Dark dust clouds rise from deep craters where the earth’s crust has been sliced away over decades in search of a modern treasure.

You may not have heard of this town - but life as we know it could grind to a halt without Bayan Obo.

The town gets its name from the district it sits in, which is home to half of the world’s supply of a group of metals known as rare earths. They are key components in nearly everything that we switch on: smartphones, bluetooth speakers, computers, TV screens, even electric vehicles.

And one country, above all others, has leapt ahead in mining them and refining them: China.

This dominance gives Beijing huge leverage - both economically, and politically, such as when it negotiates with US President Donald Trump over tariffs. But China has paid a steep price for it.

To find out more, we travelled to the country’s two main rare earth mining hubs - Bayan Obo in the north and Ganzhou in the province of Jiangxi in the south.

We found man-made lakes full of radioactive sludge and heard claims of polluted water and contaminated soil, which, in the past, have been linked to clusters of cancer and birth defects. These journeys were challenging.

Beijing appears sensitive to criticism of its environmental record. We were pulled over by police, questioned by them and stuck in a three-hour standoff with an unidentified mining boss who refused to let us leave unless we deleted our footage.

Our calls for an interview or a statement have gone unanswered, but the government has published new regulations to try to strengthen its supervision of the industry.

Authorities have been making an effort to clean up these mining sites, scientists told the BBC. Still, China’s mining operations in the north just keep growing.

Machines are constantly on the hunt for rare earths called neodymium and dysprosium that go into making powerful magnets for a variety of modern technology, from electric vehicles to computer hard drives.

To find these rare earths, the machines strip away the topsoil layer-by-layer, kicking up harmful dust, some of which contains high levels of heavy metals and radioactive material.

COMMENT – This is the price of relying on the PRC to provide for the Green Energy Transition. The only way to achieve the low costs that make PRC products attractive is to cut corners on environmental and labor practices.

26. Dangerous mines: A death at the bottom of the EV supply chain
    Tawanda Karombo and Kimberly Mutandiro, Rest of World, July 3, 2025

In Zimbabwe, the EV rush has brought a surge of Chinese investment into lithium mines. But many locals feel left out — and some have turned to stealing.

…

China has the world’s top EV industry and dominates the global lithium supply chain: About 70% of all lithium is processed there. As other nations race to catch up, Beijing has leaned into its long-standing role as a major investor in mining in Africa. In Zimbabwe, China’s relations with the government are particularly close, dating to when it backed eventual dictator Robert Mugabe’s guerilla faction during the struggle for liberation in the 1960s. Mugabe’s successor, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, has supported Chinese takeovers of lithium mines, arguing they will bring economic growth for a country where close to half the population lives in poverty.

But many residents in mining areas in Zimbabwe say the relationship with China is one of exploitation. The lithium boom has created little benefit for their communities, they argue, and in many ways has harmed them. Residents say they’ve been displaced from their homes by expanding operations at Chinese-run mines with little or no compensation. They say farmland has been degraded and water supplies contaminated. Some residents have complained that well-paying jobs in the mines are often filled by workers imported from China or Zimbabwe’s cities, while unions have criticized conditions and pay. Security crackdowns at the mines have resulted in arrests of illicit miners.

“China is seeing Zimbabwe as a colony, and it has marked it as its territory,” Farai Maguwu, executive director of the Centre for Natural Resource Governance, a research and advocacy group in Harare, told Rest of World. Zimbabwe’s mining sector has long been allegedly intertwined with the financial interests of government and military elites. But Maguwu accused Beijing of helping to further an environment of unaccountability in which Zimbabwe’s leaders “don’t take action to protect the integrity of their own people” — echoing critiques of Chinese mining operations around the continent.

COMMENT – This seems pretty accurate: China does see African countries, like Zimbabwe, as their colonies. And like their European predecessors, the Chinese maintain control of their colonies by buying off African elites and ensuring that Africans don’t have political choices or access to independent information.

27. Is China funding the climate lobby?
    Ross Clark, The Spectator, July 9, 2025

Western climate policy practically invites bad actors.

Anyone who questions any aspect of climate doom, or who challenges targets to achieve net zero carbon emissions, is of course funded by the oil industry. We know this because the climate lobby keeps telling us so. While they painstakingly try to convey scientific truths, they are constantly undermined by dark money purveying lies and distortions.

That is what they want us to believe, at any rate – although I have to say I am not sure where exactly in my bank accounts all these bungs from the oil industry are supposed to be.

But could it actually be the climate alarmist lobby and the renewable energy industries which are funded by dark money – from the Chinese Communist Party? That, at least, is the claim made by Ted Cruz while chairing a Senate Committee this week. He cited the case of a San Francisco-based not-for-profit organization, Energy Foundation China, whose website openly boasts that it has spent $500 million bankrolling 4000 climate-related projects, and whose name hardly disguises its origins.

China certainly has a strong incentive to fund climate alarmism and campaigns for net zero in the West: it is manufacturing many of the wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicle batteries which Western climate policies are either hurriedly incorporating into the electric grid or are forcing Western consumers to buy. Meanwhile, Western industries are being undermined by high energy prices caused by carbon taxes and other climate initiatives. Net zero polices could not have been better designed as a vehicle for helping China to gain advantage over the West. While China nods along with net zero targets, its actual policy follows a very different line. Coal, which is being phased out as an energy source in the West – Britain, which built the industrial revolution on the back of its coal reserves in the 18th and 19th centuries, closed its last coal power plant last year – there is little sign of China following suit. In spite of hefty investment in wind and solar, China still generates 60 percent of its electricity from coal. While China notionally has a net zero target of 2060, Xi Jinping has made it abundantly clear that the target will not be pursued at the expense of economic growth.

You don’t have to believe that every single climate activist and green energy corporation is funded by Chinese money to be wary of the immense possibilities for perverting Western democracy. One of Cruz’s claims is that Chinese money is being used to fund lawsuits against Western fossil fuel interests. Western policy – which revolves around legally-binding carbon reduction targets – positively invites bad actors to channel money into cases designed to undermine Western businesses. Such cases, which for example have seen Shell in the dock in the Netherlands, do seem to be remarkably well-funded. It is hard to believe that the money is emanating entirely from the pockets of climate activists – even if there are some extremely well-off charities, such as the Getty Foundation, involved.

Unsurprising, Democrats are quick to dismiss accusations about Chinese money as a conspiracy theory. Yet surely they deserve to be taken at least as seriously as claims about oil money funding climate skeptics. A disinterested person would surely come to the conclusion that both are of concern. Yet politics has become so engrained in climate issues that it is hard to find anyone any more who surveys the evidence with an open mind – it has become a highly partisan issue, where one side’s incontrovertible truths are the other side’s conspiracy theories.

Chinese money or no Chinese money, Western governments need to be asking themselves: just why are we formulating policies which in so many ways are destroying our own industries while boosting those in China? Even if no Chinese funding was involved, Xi Jinping would be getting one of the biggest freebies in history.

COMMENT – The Soviets certainly funded activities like this during the First Cold War, it would appear that Beijing is just following a tried-and-true playbook.

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Foreign Interference and Coercion

28. A l’Assemblée nationale, l’embarrassant rapport de Sophia Chikirou sur la Chine [At the National Assembly, Sophia Chikirou's embarrassing report on China]
    Pierre Januel, Le Monde, July 6, 2025

The Assembly's European Affairs Committee has adopted a report on relations between Europe and China. Written by the LFI MP for Paris, the document takes a very different approach from that of the government.

"This report is, against the grain, a profoundly pro-French and anti-globalization report." The conclusion of the "unsubmissive" Sophia Chikirou is in keeping with the tone of the 153-page report on relations between the European Union (EU) and China. The Paris MP draws up an indictment of the EU's policy, "too often aligned with American policy towards Beijing." The "resolutely Atlanticist approach adopted by Europe has resulted in a sort of trade war against China, with deleterious effects ," she writes.

But this highly political document did not originate from La France Insoumise (LFI), whose positions in support of Beijing have multiplied in recent years. It is an official report from the European Affairs Committee of the National Assembly, which authorized its publication on June 17. The debate was brief, with only eight MPs present: four LFI MPs, three Renaissance MPs, and one National Rally MP. On sensitive international issues, Assembly reports are rarely so contrary to government policy.

Sinologist and political scientist Paul Charon fears the future exploitation: "This report is very positive for the Chinese authorities. They would be wrong not to use it to demonstrate the lack of unity within the French authorities." For a European diplomat, "when it discovers the report, the Chinese embassy will be delighted to drive a wedge into the French position."

Thus, in its fifty recommendations, the report calls for the revival of Franco-Chinese cooperation – France “sometimes has more common interests with China than it does with its partners on the Old Continent”, while Germany, “a false friend of France”, is at the centre of many criticisms.

Avoided topics

The (Renaissance) MP for Bas-Rhin, Charles Sitzenstuhl, regrets a report that has a "very Mélenchonist tone ." For him, "the entire argument is constructed in opposition to the United States, which leads to complacency and naivety toward China." Jean-Luc Mélenchon, cited four times, was also the only political figure interviewed. When questioned, Sophia Chikirou retorted that other figures contacted (Jean-Pierre Raffarin, Dominique de Villepin) did not respond.

According to Constance Le Grip, MP (Renaissance) for Hauts-de-Seine, "all of this is very biased and driven by an unrealistic vision. There is no mention of Chinese foreign interference, even though the work on the subject is well documented." For Sophia Chikirou, "it is a global rule to try to influence one's neighbor. The European Union, France, and the United States all do it. I have not received any specific information on Chinese interference, and no one at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has brought this issue to my attention."

While the report covers a wide variety of topics, others are ignored. Lithuania, which has been in a standoff with China, is barely mentioned. Threats to Taiwan are addressed in a box titled "Refusing to follow the United States in provocations, no NATO in the South China Sea." According to the report, China is credited with "expansionist initiatives without any evidence or confirmation (...) to support these accusations ." But for Paul Charon, "China has an expansionist policy! One need only observe its attitude towards the Philippines in the South China Sea, for example, to be convinced of this . "

The criticisms of the European and French officials interviewed, who highlighted China's aggressive trade policy, were dismissed. According to the report, "behind these criticisms lies a deeper mistrust, which seems less linked to economic grievances than to discomfort caused by the rise of a non-Western model." The MP regrets the ineffectiveness of the sanctions policy. According to her, "a trade war is not possible given our interdependence . "

Sophia Chikirou refutes the term "dictatorship"

In her report, Sophia Chikirou praises the incredible capacity for innovation of a very vertical system. The "Chinese political system constitutes much more than an institutional framework: it is the political infrastructure of an assumed national voluntarism ." For Paul Charon , "these remarks quite simply justify the dictatorship of the party!" In Le Monde , Sophia Chikirou also refutes the term "dictatorship" for the Chinese regime, which would be "factually false" : "A dictatorship is the regime of only one man, which is not the case in China."

The report has a complex genesis. In early 2024, a duo was appointed, bringing together Sophia Chikirou and Frédéric Petit, the MoDem MP for French people living outside France. But, according to Petit, relations quickly became stormy, as the approaches were so antagonistic: "My colleague absolutely wanted to go to China, while I saw no point in being led around by the Chinese authorities." The Paris MP actually went there in March.

Following the dissolution of the National Assembly on June 9, 2024, Sophia Chikirou wished to continue her work, and the mission was reconstituted in October. But no group wanted to form a pair, which is customary and would have allowed for nuanced content. The role of co-rapporteur is often thankless, especially since the work of the European Affairs Committee is confidential—it meets on Tuesday afternoons, at the same time as the debates in the session.

While Sophia Chikirou's work was deemed "substantial and documented ," the report's direction bothered the Renaissance MPs on the committee. But, after reflection, they did not oppose its publication. According to the entourage of the committee's president, Pieyre-Alexandre Anglade, "it would have been contrary to custom and would have set a precedent . "

In Parliament, refusing to publish a report is rare. But cases are increasing. On June 18, the National Assembly's Finance Committee rejected a report by Vincent Trébuchet (Ardèche, Union of the Right for the Republic) on organic farming, for "lack of intellectual honesty ." In March, it was the Senate's Law Committee that buried a report on Corsica, with other groups opposing the positions of elected members of the Les Républicains party. The Renaissance deputies on the European Affairs Committee did not wish to follow them. This meant stamping the seal of the National Assembly on a report that was far removed from the French government's guidelines.

COMMENT – I included this, not because I think it represents the French position, but to point out that there are elements within the French Government on the Left (with growing influence) who view the PRC as a partner.

29. Rapport d'information, n° 1588 Par La Commission Des Affaires Européennes sur les relations entre l’Union européenne et la Chine [Information Report Number 1588 by the Committee on European Affairs on relations between the European Union and China]
    Assemblée Nationale, June 17, 2025

SUMMARY OF THE REPORT

In 2025, the European Union and China celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of their diplomatic relations in an unstable global context where major powers vie for influence and exploit economic interdependencies. This information report draws attention to an unbalanced Euro-Chinese relationship, marked by growing tensions and latent strategic confrontation. It avoids the pitfall of an evaluation based on ideology. It seeks to understand decisions based on the needs each is trying to meet and the means available to the protagonists to act.

The European Union, weakened on the international stage and too often aligned with US policy towards Beijing, sees its influence diminishing and its interests poorly protected. Since the Commission's 2019 communication, which now describes China as an " economic competitor " and " systemic rival," and no longer just a cooperation partner, ties have deteriorated.

Europe's resolutely Atlanticist approach has resulted in a kind of trade war against China, with deleterious effects and to the detriment of Euro-Chinese dialogue. However, China, with its thousand-year history and all the attributes of economic, technological, military, and geostrategic power, has established itself as a key player on the world stage that cannot be ignored or isolated. Any attempt to intimidate or contain it is doomed to failure and only undermines the credibility and interests of the European Union itself.

Moreover, Europe's internal weaknesses: political fragmentation between member states, liberal dogmatism and industrial and technological shortcomings, hamper the objective of "European strategic autonomy".

Faced with this alarming diagnosis, the report calls for a strategic change of direction in relations between the European Union and China, in favor of cooperation that respects national sovereignty.

For European countries, the stakes are high: it is time to embrace the ecological shift in production systems, not by exalting the logic of the globalized market, but by planning relocation, reindustrializing around the general interest, and making the energy transition an accelerated reality. While evidence and experience demonstrate its urgency and benefits, it is clear how the dogma of free and undistorted competition opposes it. The focus of this report is the search for regained sovereignty. It is no longer a question of passively depending on supply chains managed by other powers, but of regaining democratic control over what we produce, trade, and consume.

Concretely, several lines of action are emerging to rebalance the relationship and defend the interests of the European people. First, it is necessary to redefine the framework of Euro-Chinese relations: the EU must move beyond the ambiguity of the "2019 triptych" (partner/competitor/rival) by clarifying its objectives. It is recommended to abandon the strictly confrontational stance and reconnect with a spirit of demanding dialogue. This implies establishing cooperation conditional on reciprocity and respect for fair rules.

It is clearly still necessary to protect the strategic interests of European nations : the report advocates for a Europe that intelligently defends its economic sovereignty in the face of current trade imbalances, not through unilateral sanctions, but through negotiated measures such as the establishment of import quotas on sensitive products, the generalization of floor prices on certain strategic goods, or the requirement for technological compensation for foreign investments supported by public funds. This strategy of "solidarity protectionism " is neither a retreat nor a closure. On the contrary, it must allow for mutually negotiated protections and secure trade for each party, so as to no longer suffer risks in supply chains.

This report is also a warning against the "vassalization" of Europe in the Sino-American confrontation, especially with the return of Donald Trump to power and his all-out aggressiveness. It is time to clearly reaffirm Europe's commitment to multilateralism and international law. Europe must break with "Westernism" (or the clash of civilizations) and the bloc-against-bloc logic promoted by the American hawks and their European spokesmen.

Europe must define its own path to peace. This can be built with China. Far from being a systemic adversary, it shares major responsibilities with the EU in managing global challenges. These two powers can jointly formulate ambitious proposals to reform global governance, currently dominated by Western powers, whether in diplomacy, the monetary system, or development aid.

The fight against climate change and the ecological transition must be a pillar of the Euro-Chinese partnership: China is a key player in addressing global environmental challenges, with Beijing, unlike the United States, maintaining its commitment to the Paris Agreement. The report therefore proposes establishing ambitious rules and mechanisms for financing and governance in environmental matters and the preservation of global commons.

China has also established itself as the undisputed world leader in renewable energy. We cannot make the ecological transition without China. Ecology can therefore also be a driving force for economic and industrial relations, particularly by enabling targeted industrial cooperation in the areas of solar energy, green hydrogen, electric vehicles, and energy storage technologies, as proposed by the rapporteur.

However, establishing a coordinated policy at the European level remains particularly challenging . The economic interests and strategic visions of member states remain very diverse. Some, such as Germany, favor strong unilateral economic relations with China, while others adopt a hostile stance. The European Commission itself struggles to fairly represent all national interests, which complicates the establishment of a clear and coherent common strategy towards China.

This is why the report pays particular attention to the role that France can and must play in this renewed Euro-Chinese rapprochement. A pioneer in the recognition of the People's Republic of China in 1964, France has a privileged historical bilateral relationship with Beijing. This Gaullist-Chirac legacy of Franco-Chinese friendship gives it a special responsibility to promote a balanced partnership, especially since it is the only EU member state to have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. The report identifies numerous areas of future cooperation between Paris and Beijing that will benefit both peoples: space exploration, scientific and academic research, public health, the digital transition, and cultural exchanges. These are all concrete initiatives that contribute to a lasting rapprochement between our societies and strengthen mutual understanding.

Ultimately, this report highlights a central conviction of your rapporteur: it is in the interest of France and Europe not to set themselves up as adversaries of China, nor to blindly rally behind American containment strategies, but rather to build a responsible and demanding relationship with Beijing. This requires a Europe that knows how to firmly defend its strategic interests and principles, while recognizing China as an indispensable partner in meeting the challenges of the century. However, faced with the absence of a truly coherent European policy towards China, it appears essential for France to adopt an independent policy , in order to preserve its own interests and fully assume its leading role in building a balanced European relationship with Beijing. By renewing its historical non-aligned diplomacy, France will be able to both better ensure its own sovereignty and preserve its role in the evolution of the world order.

COMMENT – Some of the report’s recommendation seem to be carbon copies of Chinese Communist talking points.

For example, Recommendation #10 (Respect UN international law and refuse any exploitation of the Taiwan issue). There is no “UN international law” with regards to the “Taiwan issue,” only Beijing asserts that UN Resolution 2758 does. In October 2024 the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the “misinterpretation of UN resolution 2758 by the People’s Republic of China and its continuous provocations around Taiwan.”

The European Parliament’s position on this issue is:

“UN Resolution 2758 addresses the status of the PRC, but does not determine that the PRC enjoys sovereignty over Taiwan, nor does it make any judgement on the future inclusion of Taiwan in the UN or any other international organisation; whereas, however, the PRC continues to misinterpret UN Resolution 2758 to block Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organisations and unilaterally change the status quo; whereas these actions highlight the PRC’s ambition to alter the existing multilateral international order and undermine international law, and can be seen as an expression of systemic rivalry.”

Sophia Chikirou apparently rejects this clear position by the European Parliament… Beijing must be very pleased to have her amplifying their falsehoods in an official French Government report.

Or Recommendation #17 (Support, with China, the creation of a UN digital supervision agency, independent of firms, with a clear mandate to audit, control and regulate strategic infrastructures). Chikirou’s idea is to team up with Chinese Communists to set up a global digital supervision agency to control and regulate the world’s digital infrastructure… an absolutely wacky idea.

While Chikirou rails against Europe’s “vassalization” to the United States, her report essentially argues for France’s “vassalization” to the PRC. The lion’s share of her recommendations obsess over climate issues, viewing Beijing as humanity’s green savior, something which echoes Ross Clark’s piece about the CCP funding the climate lobby.

30. Sophia Chikirou et Jean-Luc Mélenchon, cette France soumise à la Chine [Sophia Chikirou and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, France Submissive to China]

    Jeremy Andre, Le Point, July 10, 2025 – ORIGINAL IN FRENCH

In the National Assembly, LFI MP Sophia Chikirou succeeded in having a report published in the European Affairs Committee that was obsequious towards Beijing.

The bigger it is, the more it gets through. Sophia Chikirou, LFI MP and member of Jean-Luc Mélenchon's inner circle, managed to get a veritable anti-European , pro-Chinese dictatorship firebrand adopted in the European Affairs Committee in the seemingly harmless form of an information report on Sino-European diplomacy. She thus offers a fine propaganda tool, stamped with the French Republic, to the bosses of the Chinese Communist Party, whom she met during her tour there in March 2025.

Under other circumstances, the text—unworthy of a master's thesis—would have been rejected. This legislature, traumatized by the 2024 dissolution, agreed to affix the official stamp of the National Assembly to prevent LFI from sabotaging anything else.

COMMENT – Sophia Chikirou is a French parliamentarian and close associate of the far-left leader, Jean-Luc Melenchon (she served as his press officer and communications director during his 2012 and 2017 presidential campaigns).

Unfortunately, given President Macron’s political weakness and his desire to stop Marine Le Pen (the National Rally leader) at all costs, the French Government provides the Far Left, which is deeply compromised by Beijing, a platform to subjugate French interests to the PRC.

31. How Harvard’s Ties to China Helped Make It a White House Target
    Stephanie Saul and Steven Rich, New York Times, July 7, 2025

Harvard turned to international donors, including China, as one way to help save it from financial troubles. That money is dwindling, but Republicans are questioning the relationship.

The Great Recession left Harvard University in a financial crisis. Its endowment had plummeted by nearly 30 percent, or more than $10 billion, in 2009.

To help recover, Harvard’s leaders found part of the answer in China. Already, American business was pouring in, as Washington and Beijing encouraged — if at times warily — a policy of engagement as the best way to build bridges between the two countries.

China promised enormous academic and economic opportunities, and Harvard had something wealthy and well-connected Chinese craved: prestige and access to influential networks for themselves and their children.

Between 2010 and 2025, Harvard attracted $560 million in gifts and contracts from China and Hong Kong, the most of any American university, partly from private donors and foundations, as well as a small amount through contracts with government entities like universities.

“The confluence of new, enormous property wealth and especially favorable relationships” — with China’s leadership and scholars — “have happily converged,” wrote Harvard Magazine, a university-affiliated publication, almost breathless in describing the optimism in Sino-American relations at the time.

Now Harvard’s ties with China are coming back to haunt the university. Those connections were forged when Harvard was more financially vulnerable and when much of the foreign policy establishment believed that higher education could play a part in pushing America’s democratic ideals to China and the rest of the world.

COMMENT – Call me callous, but Harvard has the largest University endowment in the world, and we are supposed to feel sorry that it’s investments lost *some* value during the Global Financial Crisis.

In fact, between 2009 and 2010, Havard’s endowment GREW by 6%. The next year (2010 and 2011), Harvard’s endowment GREW by 17% (from $27.5 billion to over $32 billion). By 2012, Harvard’s endowment was back to its 2008 height and has only grown larger since then.

Harvard has NEVER been “financially vulnerable,” it has an obscene amount of money for a 501(c)3, non-profit university.

Are we supposed to believe that Harvard, during the GFC, couldn’t rub two pennies together and had to go out on the street and panhandle?

The Global Financial Crisis put hundreds of thousands of regular Americans on the street without homes or jobs… that did NOT happen to anyone at Harvard.

This is the same University that keeps its enrollment constrained, tuition high, and then offers seats to the rich, the powerful, and the influential (including Xi Jinping’s daughter)… all to protect and embellish its precious brand.

Cry me a river Harvard.

Let’s look at all the other universities with much more modest endowments, did they sell themselves to the Chinese Communist Party, like Harvard?

No, they didn’t… Harvard is unique in its cravenness.

Is this kind of behavior new? Nope.

According to Stephen Norwood in his article, “Legitimating Nazism: Harvard University and the Hitler Regime” (American Jewish History, June 2004):

“The Harvard University administration during the 1930s, led by President James Bryant Conant, ignored numerous opportunities to take a principled stand against the Hitler regime and its antisemitic outrages, and contributed to Nazi Germany's efforts to improve its image in the West.”

I’m seeing a pattern here…

If Harvard has a choice between standing up for principle or making itself the handmaiden of the powerful and the establishment… Harvard will pick the latter.

Something is indeed rotten on the banks of the Charles River.

I recommend everyone pull up this article from five years ago in The Harvard Crimson, “The End of the Harvard Century,” April 23, 2020. Harvard’s administration has known for years about its terrible relationship with a brutal Chinese Communist regime and has done essentially nothing about it.

Harvard’s former University President Drew G. Faust and Chairman Xi Jinping.

Now Harvard is getting hammered by the United States Government… something that should have happened decades ago.

32. Can Taiwan Really Disconnect Its Economy from China?
    Meaghan Tobin, Amy Chang Chien, and Xinyun Wu, New York Times, July 7, 2025

33. South Korea’s Lee Jae-myung caps first month in office with pledge to improve China, Russia ties
    Seong Hyeon Choi, South China Morning Post, July 3, 2025

34. Move over Bermuda, Caymans; Hong Kong wants to be the world’s dominant corporate domicile
    Enoch Yiu, South China Morning Post, July 8, 2025

As the appeal of traditional tax havens like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands wanes, Hong Kong steps in to lure global multinationals.

Christopher Hui Ching-yu has recently been on a world tour, conducting roadshows in Canada, the UK and Norway, in an effort to urge global businesses to redomicile in Hong Kong.

The main talking point for Hui, the Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, has been a new law, enacted in May, that sought to make it easier for overseas companies to reincorporate in the city.

Just a few days after the law came into force, Hui flew to Canada to meet senior executives from insurers Manulife and Sun Life in Toronto and urged them to move their incorporations from Bermuda to the city.

The new law came at a time when changes to global tax laws had made traditional havens like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands less appealing to international businesses. Hong Kong considered this an opportune moment to have firms redomicile in the city as part of its effort to promote itself as an international financial centre.

Companies interested in moving their incorporations to Hong Kong have been attracted to the city because it is a bridge to mainland China, according to analysts.

Not long after Hui met Manulife president and CEO Phil Witherington and other senior executives, Manulife (International), the biggest pension provider in the city, told customers it would redomicile to Hong Kong in November.

That came after French insurer AXA’s local unit made the same move on the law’s first day of implementation. And Sun Life’s Hong Kong CEO Clement Lam said the insurer was looking to do the same. “Sun Life has engaged in productive discussions with Hong Kong government officials regarding Hong Kong’s redomiciliation regime,” Lam said. “We believe this new framework will reinforce Hong Kong’s position as a global business and financial hub.”

The legislation allows companies that are incorporated overseas to establish themselves in the city while maintaining their legal identity and business continuity. In years past, a company that wanted to move its domicile had to close an existing entity and shift all assets and transactions to a new firm in Hong Kong. For insurance companies, they needed all policyholders to agree to the change, a complicated process that was seen as discouraging.

“Historically, companies chose to incorporate in traditional offshore jurisdictions due to favourable tax and regulatory factors,” Hui said. “These advantages are diminishing today.” He added that companies were intrigued by Hong Kong’s legal system and simple tax structure.

“I also met a number of companies during my visit to Canada to encourage their utilisation of the regime,” Hui said in a written interview.

Hui said the new legislation allowed companies to address external risks posed by maintaining offshore registrations.

“This in turn brings in investment, job opportunities and demand for local professional services, which fuels the development of our markets,” Hui said.

Singapore was quicker to address the redomiciliation issue than Hong Kong. It introduced its legal regime in 2017. Like Hong Kong’s, the programme allows companies to transfer their registration to the city state while keeping their corporate history and branding, according to a government website.

COMMENT – There needs to be some real costs imposed on multinationals that decide to do this. Instead of enabling a race to the bottom by competing for better and better deals to these companies, their access to the U.S. market should be tied to whether they domicile in places like Hong Kong.

35. China in the Taiwan Strait: May 2025
    Natalie Caloca, Council on Foreign Relations, July 3, 2025

36. Armenia looks to deepen ties with China while eyeing foreign relations beyond Russia
    Laura Zhou, South China Morning Post, July 3, 2025

37. Why Chinese investors can still expect a warm welcome in many American cities
    Ralph Jennings, South China Morning Post, July 6, 2025

38. China’s bid to influence the Philippines heats up
    The Economist, July 4, 2025

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Human Rights and Religious Persecution

39. Dalai Lama at 90: The Succession Battle That Will Shape Tibet’s Future
    Saransh Sehgal, The Diplomat, June 30, 2025

40. CFU Honors Victims of the Urumchi Massacre on Its 16th Anniversary
    Campaign for Uyghur, July 5, 2025

41. China Has Stifled Hong Kong’s Voice, But Not Its Spirit
    Richard Frost, Bloomberg, July 4, 2025

42. Hong Kong’s Freedoms: What China Promised and How It’s Cracking Down
    Lindsay Maizland and Clara Fong, Council on Foreign Relations, July 3, 2025

Beijing has tightened its grip on Hong Kong in recent years, dimming hopes that the financial center will ever become a full democracy.

China pledged to preserve much of what makes Hong Kong unique when the former British colony was handed over in 1997. Beijing said it would give Hong Kong fifty years to keep its capitalist system and enjoy many freedoms not found in mainland Chinese cities.

But more than halfway through the transition, Beijing has taken increasingly brazen steps to encroach on Hong Kong’s political system and crack down on dissent. In 2020, Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong. Five years later, authorities have arrested dozens of pro-democracy activists, lawmakers, and journalists; curbed voting rights; and limited freedoms of press and speech. In March 2024, Hong Kong lawmakers passed Article 23, an expansion of the 2020 security law that broadens the definition of external interference and espionage, further cementing China’s rule on the city’s rights and freedom.

These moves have not only drawn international condemnation, but have also raised questions about Hong Kong’s status as a global financial hub and extinguished hopes that the city could ever become a full-fledged democracy.

COMMENT – This explainer from CFR provides a pretty good map of the Chinese Empire… ethnic groups who should be able to pursue their own self-determination are instead conquered and colonized by a Han ethnic group who sees themselves as superior to their neighbors.

As we’ve seen in other parts of the world, this imperialistic behavior leads to suffering, crimes and death for the victims of this expansionism.

43. Hong Kong activist Lui Yuk-lin stages solo protest on Handover anniversary
    Hillary Leung, Hong Kong Free Press, July 1, 2025

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Industrial Policies and Economic Espionage

44. Italy arrests alleged Chinese hacker wanted by US for industrial espionage
    Amy Kazmin and Stefania Palma, Financial Times, July 8, 2025

45. Deflationary pressures loom large in June price data

    Trivium China, July 9, 2025

46. The hidden drag on China’s economy

    Evelyn Cheng, CNBC, July 9, 2025

47. China’s Producer Deflation Worsens as Weak Demand Persists

    Bloomberg, July 8, 2025

China’s producer prices fell the most in nearly two years, overshadowing a modest improvement in consumer prices and adding to the urgency to tackle deflationary pressures.

Factory deflation persisted into a 33rd month, with the producer price index falling 3.6% from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said Wednesday. The decline was the most since July 2023 and sharper than any economists had forecast.

The consumer price index unexpectedly increased 0.1% and ended a four-month falling streak, although it likely reflected the short-term effect of government subsidies rather than a lasting recovery in confidence.

COMMENT – Deflation is a big problem for Xi and his cadres…

48. VIDEO – Can Multinationals Win in China? Lessons from Apple’s Experience

    Scott Kennedy, Patrick McGee, James McGregor, Meg Rithmire, and Jeffrey Ding, CSIS, July 2, 2025

The world’s largest multinationals are all in China, and when surveyed, a majority report that they are making a profit there.

Yet there is a widespread view that China’s business landscape is heavily tilted in favor of domestic firms and that in strategic industries, foreign companies are primarily helping their Chinese competitors to catch up and displace them rather than helping themselves grow and maintain their advantages.

There is a parallel debate about whether multinationals operating in China have helped to marketize the economy and made society more open, or whether these investors have instead become complicit in supporting the illiberal foundations of Chinese Communist Party rule.

49. Trump Announces Preliminary Trade Pact with Vietnam
    Ana Swanson, New York Times, July 2, 2025

50. Vietnam’s deal with the U.S. will complicate trade with China
    Katrina Northrop, Washington Post, July 3, 2025

51. Vietnam Trade Deal Takes Aim at Back Door for Chinese Goods
    Jason Douglas and Jon Emont, Wall Street Journal, July 3, 2025

52. China criticises Donald Trump’s trade deal with Vietnam
    Joe Leahy, Nian Liu and A. Anantha Lakshmi, Financial Times, July 3, 2025

US president’s focus on punishing ‘trans-shipment’ of goods draws Beijing’s ire.

China has hit out at the US-Vietnam trade deal, amid concerns in Beijing that the US president is using his “liberation day” tariff negotiations with third countries to curb its export machine.

The deal with Vietnam lowers tariffs on Hanoi’s exports from a threatened 46 per cent to 20 per cent, but retains a 40 per cent levy on “trans-shipping” of goods — widely believed to be aimed at Chinese re-exports to the US.

The agreement, announced on Wednesday, is the second seen as targeting China since President Donald Trump outlined his “liberation day” increases in tariffs on April 2. In May, the US and UK agreed a deal that included strict security requirements for steel and pharmaceuticals that were widely seen as intended to squeeze China out of British supply chains.

China’s commerce ministry on Thursday said it was “conducting an assessment” of the US-Vietnam trade deal, adding: “We firmly oppose any party striking a deal at the expense of China’s interests.”

“If such a situation arises, China will take resolute countermeasures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests,” the ministry added.

Scores of countries are racing to reach trade deals with the US before the July 9 deadline, when Trump’s suspended “reciprocal” tariffs will come into effect.

Vietnam, one of the world’s most trade dependent countries, had a particularly strong incentive to act quickly to avoid US tariffs. The US buys 30 per cent of its exports.

But the extent of the final tariffs agreed and the additional levy on trans-shipping reflected the heavy price for Hanoi to seal the agreement, analysts said.

“The new US-Vietnam deal is not just about trade; it is clearly aimed at China . . . it is meant to block the flow of Chinese goods that often move through Vietnam to dodge existing US duties,” said Julien Chaisse, an expert on international economic law at the City University of Hong Kong.

“This fits a much wider trend: the US is lining up bilateral deals with countries near China to tighten economic co-operation and, at the same time, [make] it harder for Beijing to stretch its supply chain influence.”

Many south-east Asian nations had prospered during the US-China trade war by offering alternative manufacturing and export hubs for Chinese companies seeking to evade US tariffs. But capitalising on this “China plus one” strategy translated into large trade surpluses in goods with the US.

“The key lesson for other countries from this deal, and that agreed previously by the UK, is that they will be expected to curtail some trade with China,” said Capital Economics’ chief Asia economist Mark Williams and senior Asia economist Gareth Leather in a note.

COMMENT – The Chinese Communists hate agreements like this because they know countries will privilege access to the U.S. market over helping Beijing. Especially since the PRC’s own beggar-thy-neighbor policies undermine the economic development of their neighbors.

53. Trump Aims to Shut Trade Loopholes China Uses to Evade Tariffs
    Claire Jiao, Philip Heijmans, and Katia Dmitrieva, Bloomberg, July 3, 2025

54. Hong Kong Moves to Defend FX Peg for Third Time in a Week
    Bloomberg, July 4, 2025

55. China’s Accelerating Efforts to Internationalize the Renminbi
    Monique Taylor, The Diplomat, July 4, 2025

56. Treasury Issues Historic Orders under Powerful New Authority to Counter Fentanyl
    U.S. Department of the Treasury, June 25, 2025

57. France Urges Tariff Barriers to Stop China from Killing Industry
    William Horobin and Francois De Beaupuy, Bloomberg, July 5, 2025

French Finance Minister Eric Lombard said Europe must shore up its tariff barriers to counter Chinese imports that risk harming the continent’s industrial economy.

Europe has already taken action on steel and automobiles, but rules must be changed to allow the wider use of measures against imports from China, Lombard said.

“In the world we are in today, we must protect our industry,” Lombard said on Saturday at an economics conference in Aix-en-Provence, France. “We must do it on all industrial segments, otherwise the Chinese policy that consists of having a production capacity of more than 50% global market share in each sector will kill our industry.”

His comments underscore growing concerns in Paris that US President Donald Trump’s efforts to redraw global trade flows risk hitting Europe on several fronts, and not just because of potential tariffs on exports to the US.

COMMENT – Hmmm… maybe tariffs do have some utility after all.

58. The latest threat from the rise of Chinese manufacturing
    David Rotman, MIT Technology Review, July 7, 2025

59. Shein files for Hong Kong IPO to save London listing, FT reports
    Reuters, July 8, 2025

COMMENT – Don’t fall for the trick London.

60. Long Before Musk, Beijing Had a Playbook
    Lingling Wei, Wall Street Journal, July 8, 2025

In 2019, Elon Musk marveled at his new Shanghai gigafactory and declared, “China is the future.” Today, Tesla is learning a brutal lesson taught to a generation of American companies before it: China’s future may not include you.

As my colleagues Raffaele Huang, Yoko Kubota and I detailed this week, Tesla is falling behind the very Chinese competitors it helped foster. And Musk’s value to Beijing has sunk, partly thanks to his falling out with President Trump.

To U.S. executives who have done business in China, this is a painfully familiar story. Mark Duval, a former Motorola executive who spent 16 years on the front lines, has seen this movie before.

Duval’s story begins in the 1990s, when Motorola, a titan of American innovation, charged into China’s nascent mobile market. The potential seemed limitless. The status symbol of that era was the brick-like Motorola mobile phones nicknamed “da ge da”--the “big brother” of phones, a nod to the powerful figures who carried them.

Motorola’s entry didn’t just build a market; it helped build a modern China.

The company poured billions into manufacturing and R&D across the country. But Beijing’s price of admission was steep. In line with the state’s “technology-for-market” policy, Motorola did more than build factories. It transferred critical technology and trained legions of local engineers in the “Motorola Way”–its gold standard for manufacturing and quality control.

One of the keenest students was a then-fledgling company called Huawei. After starting as a reseller of telecom equipment in the late 1980s, it quickly pivoted to developing its own technology, absorbing lessons from the ecosystem Motorola helped develop. By the early 2000s, Motorola was selling Huawei-produced network gear under its own brand.

But the partnership became less beneficial over time. The Chinese government, determined to see its national champion win, began to tilt the field. Beijing rolled out regulations to hamstring Motorola, Duval recalled, including pressuring the American giant to adopt battery standards developed by Huawei.

“What Motorola dealt with was an all-of-nation approach to acquiring every possible technology, supply chain intelligence, and understanding of our products,” Duval told me.

“We partnered with them, and we were competitors with them,” said Duval, who now runs an advocacy group for Asian-owned businesses in Texas, referring to Huawei. “At the end of the day, they exist, and that Motorola does not.”

Motorola was shattered in 2011. Its core mobility division was sold first to Google, then, in a final act of irony, to Chinese tech giant Lenovo.

61. Elon Musk Is Running Out of Road in China
    Raffaele Huang, Lingling Wei, and Yoko Kubota, Wall Street Journal, July 6, 2025

As Tesla falls behind the local competitors it helped create, the billionaire’s rupture with Trump is limiting his value to Beijing.

As Elon Musk confronts deepening business and political challenges in the U.S., he’s also facing trouble in his other most important market: China.

For a while, Tesla was the hottest car on Chinese roads, and Musk was the toast of Beijing. Government officials showered the company with incentives, part of a concerted strategy to turbocharge the Chinese EV industry by injecting Tesla know-how into the country and spurring competition. Tesla’s sales took off.

But the risk was always that Tesla would start falling behind the rivals it helped create. Now, that is exactly what’s happening.

Tesla’s market share has shriveled as other Chinese automakers become more popular. Meanwhile, Musk’s reputation as a partner for Beijing in Washington took a beating as his relationship with Donald Trump soured.

Chinese consumers say Teslas increasingly feel tired and out of touch with local tastes. Top China-designed EVs nowadays come with features that aren’t normally found in Teslas, such as multiple big screens to watch films and play games, refrigerators to keep drinks cold and in-car cameras for selfies. BYD, which makes both EVs and batteries; and battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology, or CATL, recently said they each had developed new technologies that allow users to charge cars in just five minutes.

Tesla’s China staff have voiced concerns to headquarters about the company’s aging products, but their warnings often drew sluggish responses, China-based employees said. The frustrations have built as Chinese salespeople feel more pressure to hit targets, without the sexiest cars to sell.

Many Chinese consumers still appreciate Tesla’s brand image as an EV pioneer. And the company retains support in Beijing. Chinese leaders see Tesla as a poster child of successful foreign investment and a useful ally in helping China build a green economy, centered on industries such as renewable energy, EVs and batteries.

As trade tensions with the U.S. heated up this year, Chinese Premier Li Qiang made clear that Tesla’s local operation wasn’t to be targeted by any retaliatory measures, people familiar with the matter said.

But Beijing hasn’t given Tesla full regulatory approval for its so-called Full Self-Driving (Supervised) assisted-driving software, a technology central to Tesla’s ambitions to dominate transportation in the future—and which Chinese companies are also racing to master.

At the same time, the public breakup between Musk and Trump is limiting Musk’s value to Beijing. In January, Chinese Vice President Han Zheng met Musk in Washington and told Musk that Beijing hoped he could play a “constructive role” in U.S.-China relations, a person familiar with the exchange said.

62. Brandy Was a Hit Drink. Now It’s a Poster Child for the Trade Wars.
    Nick Kostov and Kim Mackrael, Wall Street Journal, July 4, 2025

63. China Sets Steep Duties on European Brandy but Spares Biggest Producers
    Liz Alderman and Keith Bradsher, New York Times, July 4, 2025

64. FTX’s Chinese Customers in Limbo Over Local Crypto Crackdown
    Becky Yerak, Wall Street Journal, July 7, 2025

65. China Accelerating Implementation of U.S. Trade Framework, Commerce Ministry Says
    Wall Street Journal, July 4, 2025

66. Porsche Deliveries Fall on Weakness in China and Germany
    Dominic Chopping, Wall Street Journal, July 8, 2025

67. China snaps up mines around the world in rush to secure resources
    Camilla Hodgson, Leslie Hook and Edward White, Financial Times, July 6, 2025

68. Mining boss calls for price support to challenge China’s critical minerals dominance
    Leslie Hook, Financial Times, July 6, 2025

69. China reroutes exports via south-east Asia in bid to dodge Trump’s tariffs
    Peter Foster, et al., Financial Times, July 8, 2025

70. Caught Between Tariffs and China, Mexico Adapts to an Unpredictable U.S.
    Emiliano Rodríguez Mega, New York Times, July 6, 2025

71. The Mexican Businessman Grateful for Trump’s Tariffs
    Emiliano Rodríguez Mega, New York Times, July 8, 2025

72. Chinese rural bank gets state rescue as it warns of up to $265m losses
    Lorretta Chen, Nikkei Asia, July 4, 2025

73. China's rare earth export controls are good for Beijing, bad for business
    Reuters, July 7, 2025

74. Why so many Chinese are drowning in debt
    The Economist, July 8, 2025

75. U.S. Ports Appeal for Delay to Tariffs on Chinese Cranes
    Paul Berger, Wall Street Journal, July 9, 2025

76. China tried to cut lavish spending. Now some officials fear ordering coffee
    Ji Siqi, South China Morning Post, July 9, 2025

77. China’s lead in global shipbuilding may already be fading, new data suggests
    Alice Li and Carol Yang, South China Morning Post, July 9, 2025

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Cyber and Information Technology

78. China is building an entire empire on data
    The Economist, July 3, 2025

79. US Plans AI Chip Curbs on Malaysia, Thailand Over China Concerns
    Mackenzie Hawkins, Bloomberg, July 4, 2025

President Donald Trump’s administration plans to restrict shipments of AI chips from the likes of Nvidia Corp. to Malaysia and Thailand, part of an effort to crack down on suspected semiconductor smuggling into China.

A draft rule from the Commerce Department seeks to prevent China — to which the US has effectively banned sales of Nvidia’s advanced AI processors — from obtaining those components through intermediaries in the two Southeast Asian nations, according to people familiar with the matter. The rule is not yet finalized and could still change, said the people, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Officials plan to pair the Malaysia and Thailand controls with a formal rescission of global curbs from the so-called AI diffusion rule, the people said. That framework from the end of President Joe Biden’s term drew objections from US allies and tech companies, including Nvidia. Washington would maintain semiconductor restrictions targeting China — imposed in 2022 and ramped up several times since — as well as more than 40 other countries covered by a 2023 measure, which Biden officials designed to address smuggling concerns and increase visibility into key markets.

All told, the regulation would mark the first formal step in Trump’s promised overhaul of his predecessor’s AI diffusion approach — after the Commerce Department said in May that it would supplant that Biden rule with its own “bold, inclusive strategy.” But the draft measure is far from a comprehensive replacement, the people said. It doesn’t answer, for example, questions about security conditions for the use of US chips in overseas data centers — a debate with particularly high stakes for the Middle East. It’s unclear whether Trump officials may ultimately regulate AI chip shipments to a wider swath of countries, beyond the Malaysia and Thailand additions.

COMMENT – I hope the Malaysians and the Thais understand that Washington does not trust them to act in good faith with the United States.

80. Trump Says He Will Start Talks with China on TikTok Deal
    Chris Cameron, New York Times, July 5, 2025

President Trump late Friday said that the United States “pretty much has a deal” for an American company to acquire the U.S. branch of TikTok, adding that he intended to restart talks next week with China to approve the deal.

“We’re going to start Monday or Tuesday talking to China,” Mr. Trump told reporters traveling on Air Force One on Friday night as it headed to Bedminster, N.J. “We think we probably have to get it approved by China. Not definitely, but probably.”

He added, “I think the deal is good for China, and it’s good for us. It’s money, it’s a lot of money.”

Mr. Trump did not say who the potential buyer was. The president said earlier in the week that he had found a buyer for the U.S. branch of TikTok, the popular Chinese-owned video app that faces a ban adopted by Congress over national security concerns. A 2024 law required that the app effectively be banned in the United States unless its parent company, ByteDance, sold it to a non-Chinese company. Congress was concerned that sensitive user data could end up in the hands of the Chinese government.

COMMENT – This ugly saga continues.

81. TikTok Building New Version of App Ahead of Expected U.S. Sale
    Sylvia Varnham O'Regan and Juro Osawa, The Information, July 8, 2025

82. US judge says China’s Huawei Technologies must face criminal case for racketeering and other charges
    Elaine Kurtenbach, AP News, July 2, 2025

83. U.S. Fines Semiconductor Firm $4.25 Million for Illegal Huawei Shipments
    Du Zhihang and Denise Jia, Caixin Global, July 5, 2025

84. The Coder ‘Village’ at the Heart of China’s A.I. Frenzy
    Meaghan Tobin, New York Times, July 6, 2025

85. China is making rapid space tech gains. Here’s how the military could use them
    Liu Zhen, South China Morning Post, July 7, 2025

86. Inside China's AI rise: Youth infusion pushes country past 'follower' status
    Cissy Zhou, Nikkei Asia, July 9, 2025

87. China Wants 115,000 Nvidia Chips to Power Data Centers in the Desert
    Andy Lin, Mackenzie Hawkins, Colum Murphy and James Mayger, Bloomberg, July 9, 2025

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Military and Security Threats

88. Chinese and Pakistani air chiefs seek military synergy on training and tech fronts

    Enoch Wong, South China Morning Post, July 10, 2025

89. U.S. to ban Chinese purchases of farmland, citing national security
    Cate Cadell, Washington Post, July 8, 2025

90. China denies military base ambitions in Pacific Islands
    Kirsty Needham, Reuters, July 3, 2025

91. Taiwan Holds Most Expansive Annual Drills Ever to Counter China
    Yian Lee, Bloomberg, July 9, 2025

92. NATO Chief Predicts China's Plan for Taiwan
    Ellie Cook, Newsweek, July 6, 2025

93. China Refocuses Its Science and Technology Ecosystem on Innovation and Security
    Glenn Tiffert, Kevin Gamache, Hoover Institution, June 26, 2025

94. Meet China’s first home-grown carrier, the Shandong – a bridge to a blue-water future
    Seong Hyeon Choi, South China Morning Post, July 3, 2025

95. Trump wants to ground China’s drones – but have they flown too high to reach?
    Leopold Chen, Xiaofei Xu, and Ralph Jennings, South China Morning Post, July 6, 2025

96. US munition hub plan for Philippines’ Subic Bay sparks China retaliation fears
    Jeoffrey Maitem, South China Morning Post, July 2, 2025

97. China’s Military Diplomacy in the New Era
    Phillip C. Saunders and Melodie Ha, The Diplomat, July 5, 2025

98. China’s Mysterious Ekranoplan Seen in Full for First Time
    Tyler Rogoway, The War Zone, July 5, 2025

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One Belt, One Road Strategy

99. China, Russia and the ‘Dragon-Bear’ embrace
    Peter Frankopan, Financial Times, July 13, 2025

100. China to speed up bullet-train connectivity with neighbours
     Ji Siqi, South China Morning Post, July 8, 2025

101. Inside China and Tanzania’s ‘very special relationship’ – found nowhere else in Africa
     Jevans Nyabiage, South China Morning Post, July 8, 2025

102. Why China Isn’t a Bigger Player in the Middle East
     Michael Schuman, The Atlantic, July 6, 2025

103. China signals investment in Brazil-led global forest fund, sources say
     Lisandra Paraguassu, Reuters, July 5, 2025

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Opinion

104. Beijing wants America to depend on China. Here’s how to fight back.
     Rahm Emanuel, Washington Post, July 6, 2025

COMMENT - Long piece from the former U.S. Ambassador to Japan (and former Mayor of Chicago and former Chief of Staff to President Obama). There is a lot I agree with in this piece an I hope that we, as a country, can adopt these ideas and use our rivalry with Beijing to remake our economy.

Politically, Rahm could fashion a Democratic Party platform that would be VERY difficult for Republicans to beat in 2028. Left-wing progressives hate Rahm almost as much as the hate the GOP which would give Rahm the ability to pull independent voters away from the Republican ticket.

“Progressives call on Senate to reject Rahm Emanuel's ambassador nomination,” Axios, September 1, 2021

Anyone hated this much by progressives must be doing something right.

I’m reminded of that classic Saturday Night Live skit, “An Even-Tempered Apology From Rahm Emanuel,” August 12, 2013.

It is worth watching what Rahm does over the next few years and his battle with progressives, who among other things, have no stomach for challenging the PRC.

105. The Fantasy of a Grand Bargain Between America and China
     William Hurst and Peter Trubowitz, Foreign Affairs, July 3, 2025

106. How China is out-innovating the West
     Michael Gibson, The Spectator, July 6, 2025

107. Xi Adopts the ‘Putin Doctrine,’ at Russia’s Peril
     Dan Quayle and Thomas J. Duesterberg, Wall Street Journal, July 7, 2025

108. Peace in Ukraine Depends on Beijing
     Jānis Bērziņš, Berzins, July 6, 2025

109. A band of innovators reimagines the spy game for a world with no cover

     David Ignatius, Washington Post, July 10, 2025

110. ‘Containing Xi’, or refining party rule? What does the latest politburo meeting reveal about Chinese politics?

     Holly Snape, Observing China, July 9, 2025

111. China's SCO leadership is being tested by regional conflicts
     Hao Nan, Nikkei Asia, July 3, 2025

112. China’s weaponisation of rare earths is a new kind of trade war
     Chris Miller, Financial Times, July 8, 2025

113. How BRICS Can Survive ‘America First’
     Sarang Shidore, Foreign Policy, July 1, 2025

114. The Dalai Lama Defies China to Announce His Reincarnation Plans
     Kelsang Aukatsang, Foreign Policy, July 2, 2025

115. Alligator Alcatraz’ policymaking leaves the field clear for China
     Adam Tooze, Financial Times, July 8, 2025

116. Why Americans Can’t Buy the World’s Best Electric Car
     Michael Dunne, New York Times, July 8, 2025

117. Xi Jinping is waging a proxy war against Trump in Ukraine

     Mark Toth and Jonathan Sweet, The Hill, July 10, 2025