Precision Strikes and Dialectical Contradictions

With references to the Allman Brothers Band, MC Hammer, and the Rolling Stones

Friends,

One of the challenges of writing a newsletter like this is that our new cycle feels like a cyclone. It is hard to keep track of all the developments and what you think you will write about at the start of the week rarely remains the same.

As of this writing, the United States struck three Iranian nuclear facilities early Sunday morning Iranian time. The U.S. Defense Secretary says the nuclear facilities have been “obliterated,” while the Iranians dispute this and downplay the damage. If the three nuclear facilities weren’t completely destroyed, there is no reason to believe that the U.S. and Israel won’t conduct follow-up strikes.

Operation MIDNIGHT HAMMER (an admittedly cool name for a military operation, but I kind of wish they had used an Allman Brothers Band reference and called it Operation MIDNIGHT RIDER) saw the use of military deception, with some B-2s flying west out of their base in Missouri towards the Pacific as a diversion, while others flew east, more covertly, on an 18-hour flight to conduct the bombings of Fordow and Natanz. It also saw the use of submarine-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles to hit the nuclear facilities at Isfahan.

The OG Midnight Riders… the Allman Brothers Band in May 1969. The only surviving member of the band is John Lee Johnson (aka Jaimoe), lower right.

[NOTE: I thought about using the codename MIDNIGHT HAMMER and making a reference to MC Hammer’s U Can’t Touch This especially considering how the Iranian air defenses performed… but that is just too easy and I don’t make those kinds of cheap shots]

The operation last night is probably the most significant employment of the B-2 Spirit in its 35-year history.

It also might be one of its last, as the B-21 Raider is expected to enter service in 2027 to replace both the B-1 Lancer (38-years old) and B-2.

Apparently, we will never retire the B-52 Stratofortress, an aircraft that first flew in 1952, entered service in 1955, and the current model in service was produced in 1961 and 1962… that’s seven decades in service, most of its pilots are a third of its age. The Air Force currently plans to keep the BUFF (Big Ugly Fat F-ker) in service until the 2050s. Proof that low-cost and dependable, has some advantages over expensive and technologically advanced.

The B-2s did not conduct their mission alone, as fourth and fifth generation fighters (F-15 Eagles, F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, F-22 Raptors, and F-35 Lightning II’s) likely out of Al Udeid air base in Qatar, Al Dhafra air base in the UAE, and Al Asad air base in Iraq, and from carriers in the region (USS Carl Vinson and USS Nimitz), preceded the stealth bombers to conduct SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defense).

This SEAD apparently worked as no shots were taken at the B-2s, no Iranian fighters came up to defend Iranian airspace, and none of the Iranian air defense systems appeared to engage the U.S. force despite having more than a week of notice that the U.S. was planning this kind of attack.

I do wonder if a handful of B-52s could have done this mission… had the Air Force used that aircraft, it would have added insult to injury, suggesting that the U.S. had such a low regard for Iranian capabilities that we were willing to send in a geriatric aircraft to blow-up their most secure facilities which were ringed by the country’s best air defenses.

Over the past week, Israel has dismantled Iranian air defenses and it would appear that Israeli and American air power can operate with near impunity over Iranian airspace. The Iranians have struck back at Israel by using missiles and drones to target population centers (killing 24 Israelis and injuring several hundred), but the Iranians appear completely unable to prevent Israeli military power from achieving its objectives of dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, destroying Iranian military power, and, perhaps most importantly, killing specific Iranian leaders.

This should not have been a surprise to Iranian leaders, Israel has been conducting precision strikes against the leaders of its enemies for years.

Of the objectives Israel is trying to achieve, it seems that precision attacks against senior Iranian military officials is high on the list. Based on reporting there are nearly 20 dead after just a week of fighting, these include General Mohammad Bagheri, Chief of the General Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces, General Hossein Salami, Commander-in-Chief of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Major General Gholamali Rashid, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Iran’s Armed Forces, Brigadier General Ali Hajizadeh, Commander of the IRGC’s Aerospace Force, Brigadier General Saeed Izadi, Commander of the “Palestine Corps” of the IRGC’s Quds Force, and Brigadier General Mohammad Kazemi, Director of Intelligence for the IRGC.

[NOTE: I wonder how many folks will want to fill their bosses’ shoes… especially considering that those shoes are likely still smoking.]

Also killed by Israeli airstrikes are as many as 14 top Iranian nuclear scientists like Fereidoun Abbasi, former head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Mohammad Mahdi Tehranchi, a top nuclear scientist, and Akbar Matlali Zadeh, a specialist in nuclear warhead research.

It is not easy to reconstitute scientific expertise, and of course Iranian leaders have to worry about whether younger Iranian scientists have been turned by Western intelligence agencies.

These attacks require an incredibly advanced intelligence apparatus that can collect, analyze, and act on fleeting bits of data. It also requires a dependable inventory of precision strike weapons that can hit specific rooms in buildings.

No doubt, both Beijing and Moscow have been watching this closely.

Moscow is likely kicking itself that its precision strikes against Ukrainian leaders in the opening hours of the war failed.

For Beijing, I suspect they believe that Taiwanese air defenses resemble Iranian ones more than they do Israeli air defenses. Beijing’s intelligence on the location and routine movements of Taiwanese senior political and military leaders is likely as good or better than what the Israelis have in Iran. This might convince Chinese Communist leaders that they could launch a swift decapitation campaign against Taipei and other locations targeting military and political leaders that they believe are overly pro-independence.

By removing those individuals, Chinese Communists may believe that they could bring about capitulation and a regime change in Taipei, particularly if they can limit collateral damage.

For the last several years, folks have debated whether Taiwan (and the United States) should be preparing to repel a full-scale invasion or break a blockade. But the proliferation of precision strike capabilities, as well as the advances in intelligence gathering and processing, should make us just as concerned about the likelihood of precision strikes to remove specific political and military leaders.

Whether this would have a decisive effect (precision killing of specific individuals leading to political capitulation) is another question, but I think it is at least feasible that Xi and his closest advisors *could* be convinced that it would work.

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Two Takes on Sino-American negotiations and rivalry

One of the great things about doing this newsletter is that I get to read and consume different perspectives on the same phenomenon.

This week, I got to experience this after reading Scott Kennedy’s Foreign Policy article, “Does Xi Have Trump’s Number?” (June 16, 2025) and Ryan Fedasiuk’s essay on his Substack, Leapfrog, titled “Emerging Cracks in the China Tech Consensus” (June 12, 2025).

Both examine what we should learn from the last few weeks of intense rivalry and negotiation between the United States and the People’s Republic.

Scott’s main take-away (as evidenced by the title) is that the PRC feels more confident to control the tempo of the Sino-American rivalry. Its use of an embargo on rare earths and magnets forced the United States to the table and accept status quo ante. Scott concludes that Beijing is more likely to use this new-found power in the future even as Scott hopes that both sides can agree to a tense truce.

Ryan sees the last few weeks through the lens of an emerging American technology strategy which pivots away from what the Biden Administration developed. Ryan focuses on the simultaneous negotiations with Middle Eastern countries and how that relates to the ongoing rivalry with the PRC. His catalogue of the six actions to “manufacture leverage and apply it for maximum effect” was quite useful (Banning the sale of certain U.S. AI chips; Imposing penalties for purchasing Chinese AI chips; Banning the sale of EDA software; Banning the sale of aircraft engines; Banning the sale of chemicals; and Banning the sale of nuclear reactor components).

I found Ryan’s three “debates” to be quite illuminating of the dynamics I’ve been observing but hadn’t conceptualized them in any sort of organized manner. Any strategy worth the paper its printed on must wrestle with trade-offs (Do we want to hoard technologies or nurture a global market? What costs will we bear to constrain the PRC technologically? Should our objective be maximalist or more limited?). Ryan helps create the sketches of what a strategy might look like and connects it to the political fault lines that make up President Trump’s coalition.

Scott focuses more closely on the dynamics unfolding in the PRC and how Chinese Communists likely interpreted the last five months. I think Scott is probably right, Xi and his close advisors likely believe that they forced President Trump to blink and that their efforts to build an export control regime around their global dominance of mineral processing, has paid off. This means that Beijing will be more willing to use this tool to achieve their objectives.

The one thing Scott doesn’t really touch on is whether this chokehold on mineral processing is a good tool or not. As I’ve written before, imposing export controls on commodities is usually a bad idea if a country’s only advantage is producing them at low cost (…and we should be clear, the PRC’s ONLY advantage in critical minerals is producing them artificially cheap which drives other companies out of the market). By creating uncertainty in the availability of supply, Beijing is destroying the entire rationale for their market dominance in mineral processing.

My main take-away from both of these fine arguments is that we aren’t anywhere close to resolving the Sino-American rivalry and that technology and trade will continue to be the main theaters of battle between the two countries.

The sooner U.S. companies and investors internalize this, the better. For the United States to put together an effective, long-term strategy, Americans have to accept that they NEED a strategy.

***

Why is Europe so over-represented at the G7?

Does anyone else find this photo of the G7 meeting odd?

The G7 is supposedly a group of the leaders of the world’s seven advanced economies, but there are nine people at the table. Five of those nine, a majority, are part of the European Union.

In the middle front of the photo is the President of the European Council, António Costa, and to his right is the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. These two European Union officials are at the table alongside the elected leaders of three of their member states (Germany, France, and Italy).

It would be like having the U.S. President, the U.S. Speaker of the House, as well as the Governors of California, Texas, and New York there (of note, the California economy is larger than most of the members of the G7, and the Texas and New York economies are larger than the Italian and Canadian ones).

And it isn’t as if Costa or von der Leyen were elected by the European people for their positions, the President of the European Council and the President of the European Commission are “chosen” in backroom deals by the leaders of the EU member states, three of which are at the table themselves.

Listen I’m pretty happy with Ursula von der Leyen’s efforts to push her member states on China policy (see below at #7, Statement by President von der Leyen at Session II). She is a bulldog and better than the other Europeans at the table. She has a great staff inside the Commission, who understand the world and chafe to do more. But it seems weird that the European Union gets five of the nine seats given how little geopolitical power the Europeans possess these days.

As for Antònio Costa, I have no idea what he does or why a former Socialist Prime Minister of Portugal deserves a seat next to the Japanese Prime Minister. Portugal has an economy smaller than South Carolina (…no offense to South Carolina).

In all seriousness, if the G7 wanted to be taken seriously (rather than just a talk shop for euro-centric interests), it would exclude the European Union representatives, drop Canada, and add India, the world’s fourth largest economy that will soon surpass Germany and is double the size of Canada’s economy.

Or, perhaps a better idea is to have the European Commission replace Germany, France, and Italy as their collective representative, drop Canada, and add India, which would make it the G5 (United States, European Union, India, Japan, and the United Kingdom).

I don’t reflexively object to the EU, it has great potential. But I think the Europeans should be forced to make a choice: either they are represented by their member states individually OR they are represented by the European Union collectively… they shouldn’t get it both ways.

To borrow a term from Hegelian dialectics and Marxism, this is a dialectical contradiction. Europe cannot simultaneously be a singular Union AND 27 sovereign states. America has some experience with this, so trust us, Europe needs to resolve it. Europe’s failure to implement tough structural and political changes is harming the rest of us.

In the Hegelian sense, this contradiction should be the engine of progress, driving Europeans to construct a political system that takes the thesis (Europe is made up of dozens of sovereign independent states), deals with the anti-thesis (there is a European Union which gets rid of the boundaries between independent states in Europe) and creates a synthesis (a political system that resolves the contradiction and is more comprehensive).

My preference would be to see Brussels take over the permanent seat at the UN Security Council from Paris, EU member states devolve their sovereignty to the Union, member states would get rid of their individual militaries and foreign ministries, as well as close their individual embassies in foreign countries to be represented by a single EU Embassy. Brussels would take charge of Europe’s economic, trade, defense, national security, and foreign policy portfolios, allowing for the first time consistency across these domains. That would allow other countries to deal with a single, sovereign entity, rather than the confused mess of overlapping jurisdictions.

I thought that this was the path Europeans were on in the 1990s and early 2000s with the dropping of border controls and adoption of a common currency, but that has petered out.

The structure they have today seems purpose built to enable foreign powers to manipulate individual European nations and ensure that the European Union acts indecisively.

Some in the United States will object and say that we shouldn’t encourage Europe to get its act together because that will diminish our relative power. I think that is wrongheaded. Europe’s relative weakness is a much bigger problem for the United States given the multitude of threats we face.

If Europe made these structural reforms, I think Washington would finally get a responsible partner who could act effectively on the global stage and could help maintain an international order that citizens in Europe and the United States would be comfortable with.

A stronger and unified Europe would likely mean that the United States wouldn’t get what it wants all the time, but it would get what it really needs: an effective ally.

To quote Sir Mick Jagger:

• You can't always get what you want

  But if you try sometimes, well, you might find

  You get what you need

But the only folks who can make that choice are our European friends, they need to put in the work to create their synthesis.

If the Europeans continue to punt on these hard decisions and reforms, my advice to American leaders is to focus on working with the member states as 27 sovereign nations and largely ignore Brussels. If member states won’t invest the EU with the power to represent them, then we shouldn’t treat the EU as a representative of the member states. We lack the time and bandwidth to indulge in endless negotiations with people who aren’t responsible for making decisions or only have influence over a narrow band of trade policy decisions and market regulations.

We should also be clear that Canada doesn’t deserve a seat at the G7 table and India does. We need an institution like the G7 to look forward, to what the international system will become, rather than look backward and include an economy that is largely an adjunct to the U.S. economy.

Instituting these changes would make the G7 (or G5) relevant for the 21^st Century and allow these leaders to coordinate policies that apply to the world writ large, rather than just the Euro-Atlantic basin.

The fact that President Trump left the G7 Summit early should be interpreted by the other leaders at the table as an indictment of the forum they have built for themselves. It is time to “right-size” the G7 and demand that Europeans resolve their dialectical contradiction.

***

Well Played Pakistan, Well Played

X (Twitter) post from June 20, 2025

This week, the Government of Pakistan nominated President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.

President Trump has long sought this recognition and Islamabad’s blatant act of flattery opens a strategic door for them. By framing last month’s Indo-Pakistani conflict through the Pakistani lens (that Pakistan was the innocent victim of Indian aggression, rather than the truth, that Pakistan employs proxies and terrorists to attack and kill Indian civilians), Islamabad furthers its overall strategic objective of isolating India, something that Pakistan’s ally, the PRC, is more than happy to support.

Makes you wonder why the Indian Government didn’t beat them to the punch and frame Trump’s diplomatic intervention in a way that benefits Delhi.

Thanks for reading!

Matt

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MUST READ

1. VIDEO – Cheng Lei's story: China's horrific, ultra-secret prison facilities exposed

   Sky News Australia, June 10, 2025

A new documentary about journalist Cheng Lei’s wrongful detention in China takes Sky News Australia viewers deep inside the communist nation’s horrifying state imprisonment facilities. Lei was held in isolation for extended periods, denied access to family, and subjected to a closed-door trial. Her detention, which lasted more than three years, drew international condemnation and became a flashpoint in deteriorating diplomatic relations between Australia and China.

COMMENT – Fascinating documentary.

2. China and Central Asian leaders cap summit with friendship pact and aid pledge

   Alyssa Chen, South China Morning Post, June 17, 2025

Beijing commits more than a billion yuan to a region at the heart of its infrastructure and security interests.

China wrapped up its latest engagement effort in Central Asia on Tuesday with a 1.5 billion (US$209 million) yuan pledge towards livelihood and development projects in the region.

The six participating countries in the second China-Central Asia Summit also signed a landmark permanent friendship pact.

“China is willing to provide 1.5 billion yuan in grant assistance to Central Asian countries this year to support livelihood and development projects of common concern to each country,” Chinese President Xi Jinping said in his keynote address to the summit in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana.

“Additionally, China will offer 3,000 training opportunities to Central Asian nations over the next two years.”

Xi hailed the signing of the Treaty of Permanent Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation as a milestone in relations among the six nations, saying it represented “an innovative endeavour in China’s neighbourhood diplomacy – a contribution for our time that benefits generations to come”.

China has similar treaties with Russia and Pakistan.

Xi also stressed the need for cooperation in a world “entering a new period of upheaval and transformation”.

“There will be no winners in the tariff and trade war. Supporters of protectionism and hegemonism will harm both others and themselves,” state news agency Xinhua quoted Xi as saying.

“The world should not be divided but united; humanity must not return to the law of the jungle but work to build a community with a shared future for mankind.”

Xi also announced the establishment of three cooperation centres under the China-Central Asia cooperation framework, focusing on poverty alleviation, educational exchanges, and desertification control, along with a trade facilitation platform.

COMMENT – For anyone who considers themselves a Russian nationalist or who is proud of the Russian imperial legacy, these photos and videos coming out of the China-Central Asia Summit, held in Astana, Kazakhstan’s capital, must be REALLY embarrassing.

Astana is closer to Moscow than Paris is.

Kazakhstan *was* the heartland of the Russian and Soviet Empires and it was the last constituent republic to declare independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Lenin, and Stalin must be spinning in their graves.

The longer Moscow wages its costly war in Ukraine, the stronger Beijing will become and the more it will dominate Russia’s near abroad.

And this is what the Russian are left doing… begging Pyongyang for help rebuilding.

• North Korea will help Russia rebuild Kursk after Ukrainian incursion, Kim tells Putin ally

  Andrew Osborn, Reuters, June 17, 2025

Sergei Shoigu in Pyongyang begging assistance from Kim Jong Un.

That is humiliating.

3. Trade With China Is Becoming a One-Way Street
   Jason Douglas and Clarence Leong, Wall Street Journal, June 14, 2025

Trump is trying to further open up China’s market to U.S. companies as Beijing’s appetite for the rest of the world’s exports is diminishing.

After the U.S. and China reached an agreement this past week to end the latest skirmish in their trade war, President Trump wrote on social media that he and Xi Jinping will “work closely together to open up China to American Trade.”

“This would be a great WIN for both countries!!!” he added.

The reality is that China is becoming less and less interested in other countries’ goods. Its imports are stagnant even as its exports soar, a result of sluggish consumption and Beijing’s all-out push to beef up domestic industries.

Chinese leader Xi’s effort to strengthen China’s fortresslike economy will make it harder for the U.S. and China to agree to a long-term trade deal that resolves ongoing tensions—especially one built around more Chinese purchases of American goods.

It is also fueling tensions with other countries that fear trade with Asia’s rising superpower is becoming one-directional.

“China’s vision of trade is exporting without importing,” said Brad Setser, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former Treasury Department official. China isn’t a realistic alternative to the U.S. as a market for global goods, he said.

Whether for cars, chemicals or commodities, Chinese demand for many of the exports other countries produce is flat or falling, even as its economy reports modest growth of around 5% a year.

In volume terms, which adjust for the effect of exchange rates, Chinese imports through March haven’t grown at all since the end of 2022—while exports have rocketed 33% higher, according to data from the Netherlands Bureau of Economic Policy Analysis, a Dutch research institute.

Such a lopsided relationship is largely the result of Xi’s policies, which have funneled investment toward factories while doing little to pep up sluggish consumer spending. The end of a real-estate boom, meanwhile, has reined in China’s ravenous demand for commodities.

Western brands from Swatch to Porsche to the luxury giant LVMH have reported weak sales in China as consumers keep a tight leash on spending.

Xi’s longer-term ambition is to ensure that China is self-sufficient in key technologies while dominating their supply abroad. He is moving close to that goal in fields including electric vehicles, batteries, construction machinery and medical devices.

Chinese companies say they are replacing overseas suppliers with China-based ones to “localize” their supply chains and push out imports—a trend given extra impetus by the trade conflict with the U.S. State-owned companies in some sectors have been ordered to replace foreign software in their IT systems by 2027, an initiative some refer to as “Delete A,” referring to Delete America.

COMMENT – Beijing has been pursuing an aggressive “decoupling” campaign for years and Western companies are still desperate to believe that they can get access to the China market if only their home governments would negotiate with the PRC.

I think we should recognize reality: achieving access to the China market is a fantasy.

The Chinese Communists want to remove foreign products from their market while simultaneously making the world even more dependent on Chinese products.

4. The Missing Human Element in China’s AI Plan
   Lingling Wei, Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2025

My alma mater, Shanghai’s Fudan University, celebrated its 120th anniversary last month. The school’s liberal-arts legacy is profound. It is where writer Lu Xun laid the foundation for modern Chinese literature, where the political theorist Wang Huning rose to national fame and where former President Ronald Reagan, during his historic 1984 visit to China, candidly described Americans as a people who are “free to disagree among themselves.”

For me and many others, Reagan’s speech, with its message of openness and individual liberty, left a lasting impression and helped turn Fudan into our dream school. The very classroom where he spoke, No. 3108, became a sacred place—our go-to sanctuary for burning the midnight oil.

China’s leaders back then put emphasis on reviving the humanities and social sciences—disciplines abandoned during decades of political turmoil—in a bid to build a modern economy.

Recently, however, Fudan, along with universities across China, have been pivoting sharply toward the “hard” sciences. The shift, guided by Beijing’s focus on building China into a powerhouse in areas like artificial intelligence, risks overlooking the human element in the development of high tech.

The whole-of-nation AI effort by the world’s second-largest economy is undeniable. From ambitious policy goals and massive government funding to a revamped education system emphasizing STEM, China is churning out a formidable army of engineers and data scientists, positioning the country as a key player in areas like facial recognition and autonomous vehicles.

The goal is technological supremacy, but the shift comes at a price: Disciplines dedicated to understanding human behavior, culture, ethics and society at large are increasingly marginalized.

A political scientist professor at Fudan recently went as far as calling for “shrinking” studies of social sciences while the university embarks on an initiative to embed AI education across all disciplines for all students. The new curriculum system is called “AI-BEST.”

Blind spot

This neglect of the fields devoted to the deep understanding of humanity represents a significant blind spot in China’s grand tech strategy. The reason is simple: The development of technologies such as AI isn't merely a technical challenge; it is a deeply human endeavor with profound consequences for society.

The algorithms used to power AI are designed by people, trained on data reflecting societal biases and deployed in complex social contexts. Without the critical lens of the humanities and social sciences, the risk of creating biased, unfair and even harmful AI systems escalates.

Then there are important questions about the moral dilemmas posed by AI. Questions like the accountability of autonomous weapons require deep and nuanced ethical reasoning, not just elegant code.

Like Reagan said at Fudan, "It's not so much what's inside the Earth that counts but what's inside one's heart and mind, because that's the stuff that dreams are made of."

One might argue that the higher education system in China is under heavy state control anyway and the teaching of liberal arts-related disciplines isn’t meant to foster independent and critical thinking. That argument, while understandable, fails to recognize the progress the Chinese people have made toward reviving a tradition of humanistic inquiry and scholarly debate—progress made possible by the country’s engagement with the rest of the world, including the U.S.

Over my years at Fudan, we had many Fulbright scholars who introduced us to some of the best work in American journalism. We could read The Wall Street Journal at a new library funded by the Americans. We even had Lung Ying-tai, an outspoken cultural critic from Taiwan, as our guest speaker.

China is stronger now and as it focuses on technological supremacy, at least to this Fudan alumna, it is worth keeping in mind that the insights of political scientists, poets and philosophers are still as crucial as the algorithms of engineers.

During Fudan’s anniversary celebrations, a poignant moment came from alumnus Wang Changtian, who is now a media executive. His declaration—“I am proud of being a liberal arts student of Fudan!”—was met with thunderous applause. That roar from the crowd felt like more than just school spirit; it seemed an endorsement of an ideal in danger as China’s national priorities shift.

COMMENT – Some great insights from Lingling Wei.

5. US-China Tech Fight Widens After Taiwan Blacklists Huawei
   Mackenzie Hawkins, Miaojung Lin, and Yian Lee, Bloomberg, June 17, 2025

Taiwan joined a yearslong US campaign to curtail China’s technological ascent when it blacklisted the country’s AI and chipmaking champions, an unprecedented step that may signal a resurgent effort to isolate its powerful neighbor’s semiconductor sector.

Taipei this month added Huawei Technologies Co. and its main chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. to its entity list, barring the island’s firms from doing business with the pair without a license. It was the first time Taiwanese officials have used that blacklist to sanction major Chinese firms, taking a cue from a longstanding US approach of blocking access to advanced technologies.

The move also marks Taipei’s first public action on semiconductor restrictions since President Lai Ching-te pledged in April to address unspecified concerns from Washington about export controls. President Donald Trump’s administration has urged Taipei to take more ownership over chip restrictions on China, people familiar with the matter said, with a particular focus on enforcement of existing curbs. They requested anonymity as they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

A congressional committee focused on China, meanwhile, said after Taipei’s move that the US “must continue working with our partners to ensure the CCP’s attempts to illegally transfer tech are stopped cold.”

Taipei’s decision may be the first of a series of measures tightening the flow of technology to China, marking a departure from a policy of nurturing cross-Strait business ties. The longer-term goal may be to throttle supply of the vital components, silicon materials and plant construction expertise that helped transform Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. into the world’s most advanced chip operation.

“This recent shift marks a substantive move toward strategic technological competition with China,” said Chiang Min-yen, an analyst at Taiwan’s government-funded Research Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology. “Compared to other tech democracies with similar industrial structures — such as Japan and South Korea — Taiwan is now taking a more decisive stance.”

Lai didn’t specify in his April comments what steps Taiwan would take in response to US concerns, but instead described a broader strategy to boost trade relations with the US. It’s unclear whether the Huawei and SMIC sanctions are related to ongoing tariff negotiations with Washington, or whether the US requested that specific step. The US Department of Commerce, White House, Taiwan’s Office of Trade Negotiations and China’s Foreign Ministry didn’t respond to requests for comment.

COMMENT – I’m certainly glad to see this action by Taiwan, but it does beg the question: why didn’t Taipei act sooner? It isn’t as if this is a new request by the United States or something that Taiwanese leaders are obvious of.

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Authoritarianism

6. ‘A new China shock’: von der Leyen revives hard line on Beijing at G7 summit
   Finbarr Bermingham, South China Morning Post, June 17, 2025

After months of soft-pedalling, EC chief urges leaders to unite against China’s dominance of rare earths supply chains.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen has accused Beijing of deliberately creating a near-monopoly in the global supply of rare earth elements, then weaponising the world’s reliance on those chains.

Addressing the Group of Seven summit in Canada on Monday, von der Leyen made a hawkish return to form, reversing a course of toned-down criticism of China spurred by the return of US President Donald Trump in January.

In two separate speeches in the first two months of the year, she surprised many observers by talking about “deepening trade and investment” with China.

But with Trump in the room on Monday, von der Leyen took aim at China’s policies, reviving some of the aggressive language she has used over recent years, and setting the stage for a showdown at the EU-China Summit in Beijing next month.

“On this point, Donald is right – there is a serious problem,” von der Leyen said at a round-table leaders’ meeting.

“But we strongly feel that the biggest challenges are not the trade between G7 partners. Rather, the sources of the biggest collective problem we have has its origins in the accession of China to the WTO in 2001.”

7. Statement by President von der Leyen at Session II - working lunch of the G7, 'Economic growth, security and resilience'

   European Commission, June 15, 2025

Today, I brought with me a permanent magnet.

Not just any magnet—this is a rare earth permanent magnet.

It was manufactured in Estonia, by a Canadian company using raw materials sourced from Australia, and supported by the EU's Just Transition Fund.

This comes from the first rare earth magnet plant in the Western world.

And where does it end up?

In German, French, and American electric vehicles and wind turbines.

This small object tells a much bigger story—a story we are writing together.

Today, China dominates the global market for rare earth permanent magnets.

China is using this quasi-monopoly not only as a bargaining chip, but also weaponizing it to undermine competitors in key industries.

We all witnessed the cost and consequences of China's coercion through export restrictions.

I know this was a big focus for Donald and his team in the London talks with the Chinese.

It is a priority for all of us.

Even if there are signals that China may loosen its restrictions – the threat remains.

But there are other distortions.

We are seeing a new “China shock”.

As China's economy slows down, Beijing floods global markets with subsidized overcapacity that its own market cannot absorb.

Europe's approach is de-risking, not de-coupling.

We were first to act swiftly on Chinese EV subsidies.

We are updating our frameworks for screening inbound and outbound investment, to avoid fuelling the military and intelligence capabilities of systemic rivals.

But unilateral action can only take us so far.

To be effective – we have to cooperate among likeminded partners.

I see three priorities for joint G7 action.

First, we must diversify and build resilience in critical supply chains, particularly for raw materials.

Thank you, Mark, for Canada's leadership with the G7 Critical Minerals Action Plan.

No single country should control 80 to 90% of the for essential raw materials and downstream products like magnets.

Remember that Europe, the US and Japan all used to have magnet-manufacturing industries – until they were squeezed out of business by China.

In the 1980s and 1990s, China invested strategically in mining and processing.

By the early 2000s, it overtook other producers.

The first severe warning that China is weaponizing its dominant position came in 2010.

China imposed a rare earth trade embargo on Japan, triggering a tenfold price spike.

Japan responded by diversifying, recycling, and partnering with others – cutting dependence on China significantly.

But China adapted: instead of restricting exports, it flooded global markets with cheap rare earths to wipe out competitors.

Western mines and processors closed, leaving China to dominate.

This pattern of dominance, dependency and blackmail continues today.

It is not enough that each of us takes measures.

Our response must be united.

We need to create alternatives along the supply chain – from mining and refining to recycling and stockpiling – and ensure critical mass of demand.

This means investing in new extraction projects and processing capacity, both in our countries and across the world.

The EU has identified priority projects within the EU and outside that will receive funding.

But we must go further.

Let's offer mineral-rich countries - partnerships that deliver jobs and added value locally.

I also support Canada's focus on “standards-based” markets.

This isn't just to ensure responsible extraction.

We need to build an alternative network of trusted suppliers.

And it will require long-term commitment –To create the conditions our companies need to make the necessary investments.

Second, we need to take a closer look at other key sectors where distortions are the biggest.

Take steel.

We all take measures to address this.

But we could maximise their impact with more coordination among us.

This is why we are interested in creating a metals club.

The same goes for pharma.

We have a strong dependency for Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API) and Key Starting Materials (KSM).

And on semiconductors, export controls are necessary for the most advanced ones.

At the same time, we need to prevent strategic dependencies from developing in less advanced semiconductors.

This is another area where we can make use of ‘standards' to support trusted trade.

Finally, we need to act together on non-market policies and practices.

Let us jointly monitor what is happening in a few specific sectors and technologies to coordinate policies and tools.

A common G7 response increases our leverage – pressuring China to take more responsibility for the impact of its state-led growth model.

To conclude, we have a shared stake in economic security.

The challenges we face are common.

And the best responses are those we shape together.

Thank you!

COMMENT – As covered above VDL (von der Leyen) has become the most strategically savvy European leader, unfortunately, she’s deeply constrained by the structural weaknesses of the European system.

8. EU walks away from economic dialogue with China
   Trivium China, June 13, 2025

9. EU Refuses China Meetings Over Trade Spat Before Leaders Summit

   Bloomberg, June 17, 2025

The European Union is refusing to hold an economic meeting with China due to a lack of progress on trade disputes, underscoring widening tensions between the two sides even as Beijing tries to warm ties.

European officials decided against holding the flagship EU-China High-Level Economic and Trade Dialogue, according to a person familiar with the matter. That meeting would typically lay the groundwork for a leaders’ summit that’s set to take place at the end of July.

A digital dialogue also expected in the coming weeks has been scrapped, too, the person said. No dates had been made public for either events.

China’s Commerce Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment. The Financial Times first reported the decision.

The disruption exposes the challenges facing President Xi Jinping as he looks to shore up ties with the EU, which have been tested by his support for Russia’s war in Ukraine and accusations of subsidizing exports. Beijing is trying to position itself as a more reliable partner than US President Donald Trump, who is alienating allies over issues from tariffs to defense.

Earlier this month, Beijing said negotiations over the EU’s electric vehicle tariffs had taken a “big step forward in the right direction of a proper resolution,” after China’s Commerce Minister Wang Wentao met with European Union Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic in France.

But fresh tensions have flared in recent weeks over China’s decision to put export curbs on rare earth metals vital to Europe’s autos industry. While Beijing imposed the restrictions after Trump hit China with new tariffs, the need for an export permit applies to all overseas shipments.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Monday slammed Beijing at a Group of Seven meeting. “The sources of the biggest collective problem we have has its origins in the accession of China to the WTO in 2001,” she said, referring to the World Trade Organization. “China has largely shown its unwillingness to live within the constraints of the rules based international system.”

“China and the EU have always maintained communication on economic and trade issues,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said in Beijing on Tuesday in response to a question about the the dialogue. “We are willing to work with the EU to implement the important consensus reached by the leaders of the two sides, strengthen high-level exchanges and dialogue and cooperation, and promote the development of China-EU relations.”

COMMENT – Good on Brussels, it appears some folks are finally starting to learn that you have to build leverage with Beijing and that mindlessly participating in “dialogues” and “talks” with the PRC is not only a waste of time, but often counterproductive.

10. Why China’s officials are braced for yet another round of inspections to check their work
    William Zheng, South China Morning Post, June 15, 2025

11. AIIB whistleblower sees China 'doubling down' on party control
    Kenji Kawase, Nikkei Asia, June 17, 2025

12. If Iran’s Oil Is Cut Off, China Will Pay the Price
    Carol Ryan, Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2025

Chinese refineries have become hooked on cheap imports of sanctioned Iranian crude.

Israel hasn’t attacked Iran’s energy export hubs so far. If it does, China could find itself cut off from a flow of cheap oil.

Iran exports around 1.7 million barrels of crude a day, less than 2% of global demand. The U.S. reimposed sanctions on Tehran’s oil exports in late 2018, a few months after President Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal during his first term.

Most countries won’t touch Iran’s sanctioned crude, so Tehran is forced to sell at a discount and find covert ways to get it onto the market. It uses a “dark fleet” of tankers that sail with their transponders turned off to ship cargoes of oil.

COMMENT – The PRC has tripled its imports of Iranian oil over the past decade, replacing every other customer. The Iranian economy functions largely due to Beijing’s support.

13. China’s Global AI Firewall
    Alex Colville, China Media Project, June 12, 2025

14. Statement on Defending the Western Hemisphere from China’s Malign Influence
    Carvalho Dialogue Statement in Republica, June 17, 2025

15. Speaking with One Voice: The Growth of CCP-authored News Media in China
    Stanford SCCEI Report, June 17, 2025

16. Hong Kong police launch first known joint operation with Beijing’s national security office
    Hong Kong Free Press, June 13, 2025

17. Obscure Chinese Stock Scams Dupe American Investors by the Thousands
    Dave Michaels, Wall Street Journal, June 16, 2025

18. “Reversed Front: Bonfire” in Hong Kong: Play a Mobile Game, Go to Jail
    Gladys Kwok, Bitter Winter, June 17, 2025

19. The Arctic in the Crosshairs: New Russian-Chinese Society, Trade and Submerged Dangers
    Gabriele Iuvinale, Extremaratio News, June 17, 2025

20. Pekings schwieriger Balanceakt im Iran-Israel-Konflikt [Beijing's difficult balancing act in the Iran-Israel conflict] - ORIGINAL IN GERMAN
    Martin Benninghoff, Handelsbatt, June 17, 2025

21. Israel-Iran war poses questions for China on energy and diplomacy
    Cissy Zhou and James Hand-Cukierman, Nikkei Asia, June 17, 2025

22. China, Iran's main economic support, spectator of the war in the Middle East
    Harold Thibault, Le Monde, June 17, 2025

23. China Is Unleashing a New Export Shock on the World
    Alexandra Stevenson, New York Times, June 17, 2025

24. Quad: The Next Phase
    Lisa Curtis, et al., CNAS, June 18, 2025

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Environmental Harms

25. World oil demand to keep growing this decade despite 2027 China peak, IEA says
    Alex Lawler and Enes Tunagur, Reuters, June 17, 2025

26. How Chinese media ignores the environmental toll of the Belt and Road Initiative in Africa
    Jean Sovon and Vivian Wu, Global Voices, June 12, 2025

African stories have become central to the ‘Tell China’s Story Well’ strategy.

China has become a major investor across Africa, with its companies playing visible roles in infrastructure, mining, and energy development. In 2024, China-Africa trade reached USD 295.6 billion, marking a 4.8 percent year-on-year increase and setting a record high for the fourth consecutive year.

China’s massive domestic market continues to offer vast opportunities for African products. The environmental damage tied to some of these ventures — polluted rivers, razed forests, and displaced communities — has been extensively documented by African media and international journalists. However, one striking and underexplored phenomenon remains: the near-total absence of such reporting in Chinese-language media.

A search for Chinese-language stories on China’s presence in Africa leads overwhelmingly to celebratory narratives — high-speed railways, win-win cooperation, and brotherhood between developing nations. Mentions of environmental degradation are almost nonexistent. The explanation cannot be reduced to the word “censorship” alone. The silence runs deeper, embedded in China’s domestic media structure, commercial logic, and strategic global storytelling priorities.

The discrepancy on the ground

While the harmful impacts of Chinese development projects are increasingly covered by African press and international watchdogs, they are nearly invisible in Chinese domestic media. State-run outlets like People’s Daily, Xinhua, and CCTV instead push positive messaging about economic partnerships and “South-South cooperation.” If there are local faces, they are often African presenters and reporters hired by Chinese state media at higher-than-local pay rates, who are tasked with presenting upbeat narratives that reinforce official talking points.

Commercial Chinese media — often perceived as more independent — largely follow suit. If stories touch on environmental issues at all, they do so in vague, sanitized terms that avoid direct attribution of harm to Chinese companies or projects.

Chinese investment and the presence of Chinese companies in Africa, in addition to their visible infrastructure and economic impact, are rarely scrutinized in terms of environmental harm within Chinese media. When environmental damage is addressed at all within Chinese media, it is either omitted or framed as incidental, often blamed on African mismanagement or natural challenges. Local community members are rarely quoted, interviewed, or centered in the storytelling. Instead, they remain nameless, stripped of agency, and disconnected from the audience.

And yet, the consequences of mega-development projects are real. In many countries in Africa where China has implemented projects, environmental problems have been repeatedly denounced. Deforestation, displacement of populations, loss of biodiversity in the construction of dams has damaged Sudan, Ghana, and the DRC; water pollution, and resulting negative health impacts due to mining are impacting Guinea, the DRC, and Mozambique; expropriations and violence in the context of a hydrocarbon project have destabalazed Uganda and Tanzania; and more.

In Kenya, for example, the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) — one of the flagship projects in China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), its mega global infrastructure project — has cut through wildlife migration routes and alarmed conservationists. Some environmentalists have alleged “the railway has disrupted wildlife migration routes.” Yet despite its scale and promise, many Kenyans say they have seen little benefit from the railway, pointing to a deep disconnect between grand development narratives and realities on the ground.

In Nigeria, Chinese-run mining operations have been linked to water contamination and community displacement. In Rwanda, locals affected by Chinese-financed hydropower initiatives report land loss and inadequate compensation. A local source who requested anonymity said to Global Voices:

“This dam is changing our daily lives forever. Today, we have no work, we have no arable land. The presence of the dam has altered the trajectory of the water during the rainy seasons, resulting in flooding that we didn't see before. No compensation from the Chinese company or our authorities.”

Faced with these consequences, in this 2022 article from the InfoNile, Prime Ngabonziza, Director General of the Rwanda Water Resources Board (RWB), a government agency, explains:

“Feasibility studies are carried out before a hydroelectric plant is built. In the case of Nyabarongo, the problem is erosion, which we have to deal with.”

The few mentions of corporate responsibility rarely, if ever, include Chinese firms operating on the continent. This silence is not accidental. It is structural, political, and strategic.

COMMENT – Dismantling the US apparatus for shinning a light on these activities was a mistake.

27. China sells coking coal to Indonesia in rare trade, sources say
    Sam Li, Sudarshan Varadhan and Hongmei Li, Reuters, June 16, 2025

China sent a rare shipment of at least three cargoes of coking coal to processors in Indonesia's Sulawesi in May, sources familiar with the matter said, encroaching on a market typically dominated by supplies from Australia and Indonesia.

The world's biggest importer of coking coal, China is not a major exporter of the steelmaking fuel, and has exported it to Indonesia only three times since the start of 2024, monthly Chinese customs data shows.

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Foreign Interference and Coercion

28. Former Cuomo Campaign Adviser Led Chinese State Oil Company
    Jay Root, Michael Forsythe, and Bianca Pallaro, New York Times, June 13, 2025

Larry He, who served as Mr. Cuomo’s Asian outreach director, held senior posts at a multibillion-dollar firm owned by China but omitted the experience from his résumé.

Andrew M. Cuomo’s mayoral campaign hired an adviser who was once the chairman of a state-owned oil company in China, a position typically held by people with close ties to the Chinese government.

In March, Mr. Cuomo announced that the adviser, Larry He, had become the campaign’s Asian outreach director to help garner support among New York City’s 600,000 Chinese Americans and other Asian communities ahead of this month’s Democratic primary.

Mr. He worked at the China-owned Guangxi Beibu Gulf Investment Coastal Petrochemical Co. and its parent company a decade ago, according to review of Chinese company documents and several online biographies. (His Chinese name is He Lining.)

Mr. He was chairman of the oil firm and also held other titles at the parent company, including director of asset management and head of investment promotion, before entering the New York political scene. He is now the chief of staff to State Assemblyman William Colton, who represents parts of Brooklyn.

In an interview, Mr. He acknowledged that his employment history in China could raise questions about his connections to the Chinese government and said he had omitted the experiences from a recent résumé to avoid causing concern.

Mr. He denied any past or current links to the Chinese Communist Party, saying he was never a member and that he had become a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2024 — undergoing a process that involved renouncing his Chinese citizenship.

“I don’t act under any kind of influence of the Chinese government or any entities,” Mr. He said.

Still, because his senior post brought him into contact with government and Communist Party officials, experts in Chinese government and politics said he met the criteria of someone whom China might try to use to influence politics in the United States.

“Campaign staff with strong ties to top state-owned enterprises in China would be a prime target for pressure, influence or co-option,” said Alex Joske, an analyst who has testified before a Congressional commission on Chinese influence operations.

After The New York Times sought comment from Mr. He for this article, he resigned from Mr. Cuomo’s campaign, saying he planned to return to his full-time position with Mr. Colton’s office “effective immediately.”

COMMENT – If I could offer a bit of advice to state and local politicians: please take a look at your collection of advisors and staff, if any of them have a history of working for the PRC Government or any of its instrumentalities, I recommend you remove them immediately.

We’ve known for decades that the Chinese Communist Party employs United Front activities to infiltrate and manipulate subnational governments as a way to influence political decision-making in other countries.

You may think these people are necessary to reach and influence Chinese-American communities in your districts, but by employing these people you simply reinforce the power of the CCP to undermine our democracy.

29. TikTok Ban Loses Its Bite
    Noah Berman, The Wire China, June 17, 2025

TikTok remains under Chinese ownership, five months after legislation required that it be sold or banned.

Cybersecurity expert Jim Lewis was walking through Washington earlier this month when he bumped into a senior executive at the wildly popular social media app TikTok.

“I asked him, ‘how’s it going?’ and he said, ‘things are going great!’” Lewis says of their encounter one block from the White House grounds. “He was really happy. They don’t seem particularly fazed by what’s going on.”

On paper, the Chinese-owned social media app has plenty of cause for concern. For more than five years leading American politicians have been calling TikTok a tool of espionage, surveillance, and censorship. A law signed by then-President Joe Biden last year required the app to be sold to a non-Chinese buyer by January 19, or else face a ban in the United States. TikTok even shut down briefly just before the ban was set to take effect.

In reality, the executive’s attitude is less surprising. Political and legal pressure on TikTok has declined sharply ever since then-candidate Donald Trump came out against banning the app on the campaign trail last year. As president, Trump has not enforced the ban even though Chinese company ByteDance still owns TikTok; instead, he has imposed a series of extensions to the sale deadline, the latest of which expires on Thursday. Trump has already signaled he will again delay enforcement.

TikTok is meanwhile operating as it was before the legislation went into effect. And while last year eliminating ByteDance’s control of the app was a hot political issue supported by top Republicans like then-Senator Marco Rubio, along with prominent Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, it has since fallen way down the agenda, even amid intensifying trade tensions between the U.S. and China.

The app’s reversal of fortune shows how the views of politicians in Washington — who overwhelmingly voted in favor of the TikTok law last spring, across partisan divides — have grown increasingly divorced from those of the general public in a key area of tech competition between the U.S. and China.

COMMENT – This is really disappointing.

I get the sense that President Trump associates this legislation with Joe Biden and sees it as an intentional effort to tie his hands. As per Trump default setting, he has decided to act as a contrarian (if everyone seems to think a course of action is right, then he decides that the opposite must be right).

30. Trump to Again Extend TikTok’s Reprieve from U.S. Ban
    Sapna Maheshwari, New York Times, June 17, 2025

31. Viasat Identified as Victim in Sweeping Phone Hack Tied to China
    Jamie Tarabay, Bloomberg, June 17, 2025

32. Wie hat Japan seine Abhängigkeit von China reduziert? [How has Japan reduced its dependence on China?] - ORIGINAL IN GERMAN

    Martin Kölling and Moritz Koch, Handelsblatt, June 19, 2025

Beijing is using rare earths as leverage against the US and Europe. Japan has already reduced its dependence, setting a model for the G7 countries at the summit in Canada.

The US and China have reached an agreement in the trade conflict, but how long it will last remains to be seen. US President Donald Trump announced last week that the People's Republic would again permit the export of critical raw materials. This is good news for the American economy. Companies in the automotive, technology, and defense industries depend on supplies from China.

But the Chinese leadership remained cautious. The situation remains tense, and security of supply has not yet been restored. This is one of the reasons why access to raw materials such as rare earths will be one of the most important topics at the G7 summit, which begins this Monday in Canada.

The heads of state and government of the most important industrialized countries aim to overcome their dependence on China and build new supply chains. A "roadmap" for diversifying import sources is to be agreed upon at the summit, and concrete steps are to be adopted within a year, according to German government sources. These include common standards for raw material extraction and subsidies for companies that invest in the extraction and processing of critical minerals.

The others can learn a lot from one G7 country: Japan. Since 2010, the country has reduced its dependence on rare earths refined in China from 90 to 60 percent, while simultaneously halving their consumption.

33. Hong Kong police tell people not to download ‘secessionist’ mobile game
    Helen Davidson, The Guardian, June 11, 2025

34. Disruptions to Trade in the Taiwan Strait Would Severely Impact China's Economy
    Matthew P. Funaiole, et al., CSIS, June 17, 2025

35. China's online literature expands overseas readership in cultural export push
    Reuters, June 17, 2025

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Human Rights and Religious Persecution

36. Leaked files reveal how China is using AI to erase the history of the Tiananmen Square massacre
    Bang Xiao, ABC News, June 3, 2025

Hundreds of pages of classified documents leaked to the ABC have offered an unprecedented glimpse into China's infamous censorship regime.

It has grown faster, smarter and increasingly invisible, quietly erasing the memory of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre from public view.

Thirty-six years on, Beijing still has not disclosed the official death toll of the bloody crackdown on a pro-democracy gathering on June 4, when more than 1 million protesters were in the square.

Historians estimate that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) killed anywhere from 200 to several thousand people that day.

More than 230 pages of censorship instructions prepared by Chinese social media platforms were shared by industry insiders with the ABC.

They were intended to be circulated among multi-channel networks or MCNs — companies that manage the accounts of content creators across multiple social and video platforms like Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.

The files reveal deep anxiety among Chinese authorities about the spread of any reference to the most violently suppressed pro-democracy movement in the country's history.

The documents instruct MCNs to remove any content that depicts state violence and include compilations of text, images and video content for reference.

The reference material includes graphic scenes of the People's Liberation Army opening fire on civilians, while others say students attacked the soldiers.

The ABC understands that the material is being used by frontline content censors to train artificial intelligence tools to moderate vast amounts of content, under the direction of the Cyberspace Administration of China — the country's top internet regulator.

China's vast censorship regime relies on hundreds of thousands of human moderators to keep social media platforms compliant.

There is also a structured process for censoring posts.

Every post is first scanned by AI systems — known as a machine review — which are particularly sensitive to any references to the Tiananmen anniversary.

When the ABC asked the Chinese-made AI chatbot DeepSeek to tell us about the massacre, it answered: "That topic is beyond my current scope. Let's talk about something else."

One of the documents, a 2022 training manual for censors working for Douyin directly referenced the world-famous Tank Man image, labelling it a "subversive picture".

COMMENT – Whenever you get a chance to display a photo of one of the most courageous acts of the 20^th Century, you should do it!

37. Anhui, Three-Self Church Repressed for Resisting Surveillance Cameras
    Wang Yichi, Bitter Winter, June 16, 2025

38. Opera, ice cream, activism – daughter of jailed Uyghur scholar shares Father’s Day memories
    Amnesty International, June 13, 2025

The daughter of imprisoned Uyghur academic Ilham Tohti recounts singing opera down Beijing dormitory corridors, cooking aspirations, and her father’s generosity—“90 yuan for others, 9 for my ice cream.”

Since his 2014 life sentence she’s lived abroad, advocating for Uyghur rights while lacking family group chats or holiday reunions. She urges supporters to keep writing letters: even ten can soften prison conditions. Her message echoes her father’s last advice: “Don’t hate China; stay kind, brave, and never stop fighting for your rights.”

39. EU’s Rights Dialogue with China Still Going Nowhere
    Hélène de Rengervé and Yalkun Uluyol, Human Rights Watch, June 17, 2025

40. China urged to release #MeToo journalist
    Sandy Almarradweh, Jurist, June 14, 2025

41. Two Tibetan Buddhist monastery leaders sentenced for Dege dam protests
    Radio Free Asia, June 16, 2025

42. Nat. security case of wanted Hong Kong activist Anna Kwok’s father adjourned until August
    Hong Kong Free Press, June 13, 2025

43. Hong Kong exiles seek to preserve democracy’s memory through Lennon Walls in Taiwan
    Chen Zifei, Radio Free Asia, June 12, 2025

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Industrial Policies and Economic Espionage

44. Chinese brands extend global reach
    Tessa Thorniley, Financial Times, June 17, 2025

45. Chinese Spenders Open Wallets as Factories Slow
    Jason Douglas, Wall Street Journal, June 16, 2025

46. China retail sales jump while industrial growth slows on trade war turmoil
    Thomas Hale, Financial Times, June 16, 2025

47. Corporate bond defaults disappear from China’s onshore market
    Thomas Hale, Financial Times, June 15, 2025

48. New U.S. Tariffs Mean Tough Times Ahead for Appliance-Makers
    Qin Min and Kelsey Cheng, Caixin Global, June 16, 2025

49. Cairo calling: why Chinese factories are moving to Egypt amid the trade war
    Mia Nulimaimaiti, South China Morning Post, June 15, 2025

50. Chinese Biotech Is Having a ‘DeepSeek Moment’
    Chen Xi and Han Wei, Caixin Global, June 16, 2025

51. Why US market is no longer top priority for Chinese companies building foreign factories
    Ji Siqi, South China Morning Post, June 15, 2025

52. China rare-earth controls loom over Japan, US car production
    Emi Okada, Takako Fujiu, and Shoya Okinaga, Nikkei Asia, June 14, 2025

53. US pharma bets big on China to snap up potential blockbuster drugs
    Sriparna Roy, Reuters, June 15, 2025

54. Can China reclaim its IPO crown?
    The Economist, June 15, 2025

55. EU spurns economic dialogue with China over deepening trade rift
    Andy Bounds and Joe Leahy, Financial Times, June 17, 2025

56. China hails Nvidia expo appearance as ‘vote of confidence’ amid tensions
    Leopold Chen, South China Morning Post, June 17, 2025

57. China's automakers aim for cars with 100% domestic chips from 2026
    Cissy Zhou, Cheng Ting-fang And Lauly Li, Nikkei Asia, June 17, 2025

58. As China seeks to end food dependence, US corn heads to Europe
    Tomoya Takayama, Nikkei Asia, June 17, 2025

59. Trump tariffs shine spotlight on Chinese targeting Southeast Asian consumers
    Stella Yifan Xie, Nikkei Asia, June 15, 2025

60. Häagen-Dazs, Starbucks Mull Overhauls in China to Fend Off Powerful Local Rivals
    Dong Cao and Manuel Baigorri, Bloomberg, June 17, 2025

61. G7 leaders agree on strategy to protect critical mineral supply, draft document says
    Reuters, June 17, 2025

62. China Isn’t on the G7 Agenda, but It’s Still the Main Event
    Henrietta Levin, CSIS, June 17, 2025

63. New Zealand PM to discuss trade, tourism and security on first visit to China
    Liz Lee, Reuters, June 17, 2025

64. Daimler Truck says rare earth supply concerns have led to more inventory building
    Ozan Ergenay and Marie Mannes, Reuters, June 18, 2025

65. China's new homes demand to remain well short of 2017 peak, says Goldman Sachs
    Reuters, June 17, 2025

66. Stocks fall, oil rallies as Middle East tensions unnerve investors
    Amanda Cooper, Reuters, June 17, 2025

67. Fabrikproduktion verlangsamt sich – Einzelhandelsumsätze robust [Factory production slows down – retail sales robust] - ORIGINAL IN GERMAN
    Handelsbatt, June 16, 2025

68. China pharma projects disrupted by Sino-US tensions
    Andrew Silver, Reuters, June 17, 2025

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Cyber and Information Technology

69. Inside the struggle for technological control in South Africa
    Bridget Phetasy, The Spectator, June 3, 2025

70. How China can become a biotechnology superpower
    Jacob Dreyer, Nature, June 16, 2025

71. Chinese AI Companies Dodge U.S. Chip Curbs by Flying Suitcases of Hard Drives Abroad
    Raffaele Huang and Liza Lin, Wall Street Journal, June 12, 2025

72. China’s Biotech Moment Ignites a 60% Stock Rally That Beats AI
    Sangmi Cha, Winnie Hsu, and Amber Tong, Bloomberg, June 14, 2025

73. US pushes Vietnam to decouple from Chinese tech, sources say
    Francesco Guarascio, Reuters, June 16, 2025

74. Expanding export curbs on chip-making equipment was an option if London talks hadn’t gone well
    Amrith Ramkumar and Liza Lin, Wall Street Journal, June 16, 2025

75. China’s MiniMax Says Its New AI Reasoning Model Beats DeepSeek
    Bloomberg, June 17, 2025

76. Trump says he will probably extend TikTok deadline again
    David Shepardson, Reuters, June 18, 2025

77. VIDEO – Billions of data records relating to Chinese citizens leaked online
    Tom Grundy, Hong kong Free Press, June 13, 2025

78. Is China's facial recognition data for sale?
    Claudia Laszczak, DW, June 17, 2025

79. China’s Spy Agencies Are Investing Heavily in A.I., Researchers Say
    Julian E. Barnes, New York Times, June 17, 2025

80. Malaysia Probing Reports of Chinese Firm’s Use of Nvidia AI Chips
    Ying Xian Wong, Wall Street Journal, June 18, 2025

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Military and Security Threats

81. If Chinese sleeper agents target facilities inside America, officials had better be prepared.
    Jon Gruen, Wall Street Journal, June 10, 2025

82. Massive Chinese Stealth Flying Wing Emerges at Secretive Base
    Tyler Rogoway, The War Zone, June 14, 2025

83. US Ally Keeps American Missiles at Choke Point Near China
    Ryan Chan, Newsweek, June 12, 2025

84. China builds a crude oil war chest amid Middle East tensions
    Clyde Russell, Reuters, June 17, 2025

85. US-China trade truce leaves military-use rare earth issue unresolved, sources say
    Laurie Chen, Reuters, June 15, 2025

86. Taiwan completes first sea trial for domestically made submarine in defence milestone
    Ben Blanchard, Reuters, June 17, 2025

87. Taiwan to Produce Its Own Blood Bags Amid Rising China Tensions
    DNA India, June 17, 2025

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One Belt, One Road Strategy

88. Xi Pushes to Deepen Central Asia Influence with Kazakh Visit
    Nariman Gizitdinov, Bloomberg, June 15, 2025

89. India and China compete to shape Africa’s economic future
    Ian Oxnevad, GIS Report, June 18, 2025

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Opinion

90. How New Delhi’s Grand Strategy Thwarts Its Grand Ambitions
    Ashley J. Tellis, Foreign Affairs, June 17, 2025

91. The myth of the suppressed Chinese consumer
    Ruchir Sharma, Financial Times, June 16, 2025

92. China Revoked My Visa and Came to Regret It
    James A. Millward, New York Times, June 15, 2025

93. US-China relations after trade talks in London
    Charles Parton, Observing China, June 17, 2025

94. Does Xi Have Trump’s Number?
    Scott Kennedy, Foreign Policy, June 16, 2025

95. Emerging Cracks in the China Tech Consensus

    Ryan Fedasiuk, Leapfrog, June 12, 2025

96. Chinese Spyware, Only $6.99
    Wall Street Journal, June 11, 2025