In short, Trump admitted defeat without admitting it. The goods that matter will be allowed to pass. China will probably also reduce something on their side.
To save face, Trump will continue to hinder trade of bamboo mats and sex toys until they work out a formal way of de-escalating.
To him, everyone is disposable. His likely goal: bargaining his way to interesting technologies and getting feedback from surviving soldiers to modernize his army.
I would characterize China as “wanting to be on both sides of history”.
Most notably, China hasn’t condemned Putin’s invasion, only speaking of the conflict as a problem like it has no clear initiator. Xi has met with Putin and hasn’t used his influence to stop Putin, instead reaffirming their previous cooperation. On that background a statement of support to Ukraine’s territorial integrity looks like empty words.
Also, China has kept buying Russian fuels, which keeps Putin afloat. (It should be noted that other countries, even European countries, make the same mistake, but they’ve been making efforts to get off the Russian tap, while China has not.)
But they sell electronics and communication systems to both sides. Drones made of Chinese parts fight both on the Ukrainian and Russian side. And their army weapons haven’t been seen in Russian hands.
Note: design and licensing is a far cry for semiconductor fabbing, and not every country can do the latter.
Most countries depend ridiculously much on TSMC (from Taiwan), while TSMC depends ridiculously much on instruments from ASML (from the Netherlands). Grossly simplified, getting where those two currently are takes a decade, and by that time they’ll be a decade ahead (unless they get lazy).
As far as I recall, Samsung (South Korea) can fabricate large quantities of semiconductors on their own (but several times less than TSMC). Then come several Chinese companies, one in the US and one in Israel. Beyond that, there’s very small fish. The only European foundry worth mentioning (X-Fab) has dropped out of the top 10.
A note: two of them. The remaining 1.3 billion didn’t come.
Jokes aside, it’s known for some time that some Chinese mercenaries are fighting on the Russian side. Some of them post on blogs or social media. Occasionally several have been noticed together. If their countrymen read the posts, they’ll both understand the war better, and mostly understand that it’s not worth joining.
It is understandable that they received their military training in the PLA. Because where else would a Chinese person receive training. However, it would be news if they were discovered to be active duty personnel from the PLA. (Then the question would arise of who allowed them to do that.) I have not yet read anyone saying that.
Unfortunately, there will be more soon.
Businesses in the US will soon face the fact that goods they ordered from Taiwan cost 1.3 times more on arrival, while goods from Vietnam cost 1.6 times more. They can either try to negotiate with sellers for return of goods (which sellers won’t accept, since they did nothing wrong) or curse Trump and pay.
If immediate relief isn’t in sight, the cost (and predicted future cost) will be passed to consumers. As a result, consumers won’t be able to purchase what they used to. Sales volumes will drop and the economy will cool. Less workers will be needed, so there will be layoffs. Etc.
If your main geopolitical competitor runs headfirst into a brick wall, that is indeed a good day, no doubting.
Not only that, but the table itself tells a lie.
They needed numbers to look like other countries are mistreating the US. They made up some numbers. He went on the big screen to tell yet another lie.
For example, the average tariff on US goods in Europe until now is around 4% (probably less). He’s representing it as 39%.
If a war criminal visited my country and my country refused to arrest him, I would consider direct action.
Special scenario for Belgium: suppose that 1000 people with the means to break and enter show up and arrest Netanyahu, and deliver him to a neigbouring country where the ICC resides. What will the cops do, shoot them all?
At first a crime, then doubling down on the crime and making it a massacre, then destroying evidence and lying to everyone about the circumstances…
…I do wonder if there’s something else the IDF needs to accomplish, for some countries to reconsider their support to Israel.
Wow, interesting. :)
Not unexpectedly, the LLM failed to explain its own thought process correctly.
Yep, found them all now.
Personnel is plural. I notice that you also use plural for “minors”. So, do you know of more occurrences? Edit: found them. One was in 1995, one was in 2016. The latest was in 2024:
US serviceman sentenced to 5 years for kidnapping and raping Japanese schoolgirl, officials say
Needless to say, “enjoying nightlife” is one thing, while “kidnapping and raping” is a totally different thing. If one person turns to violent crime - does it follow that others should not enjoy nightlife any more?
However, the article behind the title link is not at all about military personnel in Japan. It’s about diplomats and embassy personnel in China.
It should also be noted that the US has “burned through” 9 units of MQ-9 Reaper - the Houthis shot them down. Total worth? Maybe 500 million. That’s 9 out of 300 produced, not a sustainable thing to do without producing more.
Still, I don’t think the US is particularly deterred because the Houthis are a low-tech fighting force and depend on Iran for fancy equipment.
There’s also a definite possibility of an US-Iran conflict on the horizon. Both have their reasons to go where they’re going.
Iran wants to be a regional big player and intends to overcome Israel in a tech race (on top of ruling their own people with an iron fist and repressing a lot). The US has tried to contain Iran and considers influence over the Middle East to be of importance. Containment is obviously failing since Russia now cooperates with Iran, and has likely returned some favours (in the field of technology) for the weapons (mostly “Shahed” drones) Iran sent them to help invade Ukraine.
On personal matters - Trump ordered the assassination of Qasem Soleimani during his previous term, and Iran promised revenge. So there’s a chance they’re going to collide head on.
In this case, I would think the perpetrator has already received their drone strike. The surveillance drone operator likely didn’t spend a long time before alerting FPV pilots.
In general… yes. Finding them later would be hard. If they survived the war, they’d likely escape unknown.
A bit harsh, but I understand the reasoning.
Diplomats know it by heart, night and day - to recruit a person, you need to know what they’re vulnerable to and what moves them. Can they be manipulated with greed, shame, ambition, even their sense of justice or compassion? If you know, you can plan your steps towards obtaining their assistance - either in a single case or permanently.
People living in a foreign land are uniquely vulnerable to loneliness, so attracting their romantic interest is an age-old method.
It works domestically too - for example in the UK, a dozen cases are known where undercover cops have befriended activists and even had children with them. If it’s not beyond the law enforcement of a democratically elected government, it is absolutely within the methods (and perhaps a preferred method) of an authoritarian government which cares less about people’s rights.
Perhaps for this reason, diplomats often bring families along, as to not have issues of loneliness or temptation, since they live abroad for most of their careers. Ordinary embassy workers probably get a short lecture. First about honey traps, secondly about serious pressure from the local government that may target any of their genuine romantic relations. Basing on this, they would be expected to manage their risk. Apparently, someone decided they cannot handle it.
Has China stepped up efforts to recruit embassy workers? Maybe… but that’s probably confidential. Alternatively, someone just got extra worried. This kind of policy changes would benefit from a bit of transparency, e.g. some three letter agency writing in their journal that “we detected a 200% rise in recruitment efforts”.
Trump’s government has made the US a village idiot - and if the idiot gets into a fight with the whole village, the idiot will have more bruises.
Why he does that - I don’t pretend to understand.
Yes. Every country on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea has recently left the land mine ban.
Unlike Ukraine, we don’t have hundreds of kilometers of space for a strategic retreat. So if signs start indicating that an invasion might come, border areas will have mine fields.
If it comforts anyone: many modern land mines have electronic detonators. They can be designed to become inert after a set amount of time, or when their battery runs out of juice. Old models had mechanical / piezo detonators, and could survive decades in the right conditions.
Note for medical accuracy: often, renal failure can be compensated for with dialysis and life prolonged until a transplant is found.
After a trauma like a car crash, there might be other issues that prevent some treatment, however.
Basically, despite the headline, I will say that I hope she lives and finds a donor.
They already can. It’s called “Neptun”. But they can’t build them fast enough, and have to keep it extremely secret since production is in range of Russian weapons.
On the matter of just sending it, I fully agree. Finland for example doesn’t say what it sends. It just says something like “we sent materials for the 40th time”.