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Everyone: What if China didn't have censorship - No one: - and spawned a newspaper as fact-free and trashy as the Daily Mail? Me: *hold my baijiu* Tech @CNAIdc
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Apr 5, 2021 7 tweets 1 min read
COPIUM - A Thread: I think what Covid demonstrated is that most of the English-language pundit class is not only useless but counterproductive. In Jan/Feb (2020) it was "Reeeeee Chernobyl!" In Mar/Apr it was "it is vital to call this the Wuhan virus" while actual debate around tests/masks etc., was conducted by noobs like Noah Smith. In May to Nov (2020) it was prolonged tussling over how this would affect the election. From Nov onwards it's been "Reeeeee vaccines! America is awesome!"
Mar 24, 2021 7 tweets 2 min read
cnbc.com/2021/03/23/int… ASML having a monopoly upstream really hurt Intel's business model if you look at this, Intel started slipping vs its internal schedule and vs its competitors as Canon/Nikon exited the lithography/tooling race
Mar 16, 2021 4 tweets 3 min read
BREAKING: Senior US military officials now confirm prior rumors that the Tsai regime of Taiwan was considering unilateral moves towards independence The article is here:

archive.ph/iX8cP
Mar 15, 2021 13 tweets 4 min read
1/ The problem with even less toxic faux-progressives like Tobita is that their takes are devoid of geopolitical context.

AOC speaks up about Tibet because Tibet is a salient issue to India, and a Dem POTUS is pushing a diplomatic initiative with India, Japan, and Australia. 2/ Tobita then draws a strawman as to why people are criticizing AOC. At least for me, I don't find her views on Tibet ipso facto problematic - I dislike her use of human rights in a way that benefits American geopolitical objectives, like she did with Venezuela.
Mar 15, 2021 8 tweets 2 min read
Got some pushback on this so let me elaborate All extended air campaigns boil down to degrading opfor c4isr and airbases while keeping your facilities intact, while maintaining acceptable loss ratios
Mar 14, 2021 5 tweets 2 min read
As I've said again and again, US nuclear capabilities are increasingly critical to credibly denying China air superiority over the TW straits. That the US people are unaware of this is profoundly disturbing BTW, this is why I find the pro-TW faux-progressives in Critical China Scholars so infuriating. They willfully ignore how their identity politics provide cover for an arms race leading to a possibly nuclear conflict. At least US conservatives are upfront about nuking China
Mar 14, 2021 4 tweets 1 min read
1/ I've been making this point in real life to every blob-denizen I've met since 2018. Glad to see at least some are willing to face reality 2/ On the issue of Taiwan, the US needs to either put up or shut up. The power gradient in the TW straits, coupled with the dire health of the dollar system, means US threats of intervention are hollow
Mar 13, 2021 6 tweets 2 min read
1/ Engagement on those issues in the Quad doesn't have to preclude engagement on them with other countries, but it will make them more difficult - especially an issue with as much global coordination required as the industrial adjustments needed for climate change 2/ At Copenhagen 2009, the US tried dividing China from the rest of the developing world in terms of setting up climate targets and tech transfer agreements on green energy. It failed. Here, it appears the framing will be even more cynical:
Mar 13, 2021 7 tweets 5 min read
1/ This is an extremely detailed analysis of Atajurt, a propaganda mill behind much of the recent uptick in Xinjiang atrocity fiction - specifically, the stories of mass rape that the BBC have been pushing.
reddit.com/r/Sino/comment… 2/ Please give it a nice slow read. While we ought to be respectful of individual stories of tragedy (no matter where they come from), we should condemn those who are repackaging, exaggerating, and concocting stories in order to drive geopolitical ends.
Mar 12, 2021 4 tweets 2 min read
Can't believe I used to write this kind of stuff as an undergrad Remembered reading this kind of stuff and my head kind of exploding... Dulles basically telling Kishi that the US would refuse to help with Japan's industrialization if Japan didn't let US troops stay in Japan, and Kishi then asking the US to help the LDP rule Japan in perpetuity
Mar 11, 2021 11 tweets 3 min read
Am I the only one who sees the sick irony in the US claiming it doesn't want a Cold War with China, but then having its top national security official literally quote Dean Acheson to describe the US's security policy on Asia? For those who don't know, Acheson was a cold warrior par excellence - the primary architect of NATO - and someone who was so hawkish on Communism that he quit Kennedy's ExComm during the Cuban Missile Crisis because Kennedy preferred talking to Krushchev to bombing Cuba
Mar 11, 2021 8 tweets 2 min read
Thank goodness at least one mil analyst in DC has a sober appraisal of how Operation Taiwan would play out The simple facts of an operation, again, are that the ROCArf has to spread 15 combat brigades across defending ~3 landing zones, while those brigades can only move around quickly on ~6 major N-S highway axes cut by numerous water obstacles
Mar 9, 2021 6 tweets 2 min read
I read the report... mostly a rehash of older statements plus the rather tenuous accusation that China is engaging in mass executions of Uyghur men + giving elderly Uyghurs long jail sentences (which means they're directly killing people in the group) Brings to mind the "one-way ratchet" of ever-more-exaggerated rhetoric @Mont_Jiang and I spoke about - because once you get past mass sterilizations and work camps then the next accusation has to be mass executions and Treblinka
Mar 8, 2021 4 tweets 2 min read
By the way, remember when I posted about how the DPP was using enviro regs to crimp TSMC production and certain people accused me of making up conspiracy theories? Well, guess what Image Also been hearing that the Tsai regime is trying to get the US to give it a security guarantee and US troops on the island in return for TSMC expanding its fab in Arizona. China has indicated that move would cross a red line and trigger a war. We'll see where this goes...😆
Mar 8, 2021 5 tweets 2 min read
1/ I'll elaborate here. Asians are literally getting stabbed in the streets because of Sinophobia the US govt has engineered, and certain people who have both the following and real-name credibility to push back hard are holding back in order to preserve their future careers. 2/ That's why I'm not going to pull any punches when it comes to pushing those who claim to be "progressive" to condemn - without qualification or reservation - the Sinophobic rhetoric from the US govt and its supporters in the think tank world.
Mar 7, 2021 8 tweets 3 min read
1/ If you understand events being driven to create the kind of political environment outlined below, then the condition of Myanmar, Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan island, and other locations along China's periphery makes much more sense 2/ Myanmar: mildly pro-China elected govt --> military coup, mass demonstrations funded by NED, assets frozen in FRBNY
Thailand: neutral elected gov --> military coup done by pro-US military which forces local dem activists to turn to NED for help

...
Mar 6, 2021 4 tweets 1 min read
1/ This, so much. For the Asian diaspora, blood will always be thicker than whatever self-constructed gestalt you tirelessly try explaining to the societies you live in 2/ Once you understand this point, you can appropriately stack rank your internal normative hierarchy, and recognize what domestic and international sociopolitical shifts are truly desirable from your pov
Mar 6, 2021 7 tweets 2 min read
1/ FYI, conventional anti-ship missiles would be one thing, but those fixed US emplacements would likely be suppressed long before they could get a firing solution on ships (which move) in a conflict.... 2/ ...which means they'd be aimed at Chinese bases. Missiles are actually pretty bad at permanently knocking out bases, because they don't carry enough explosive weight compared to aircraft...
Mar 5, 2021 8 tweets 3 min read
Interesting - it seems China was quietly trying to help Myanmar's NLD resolve the Rohingya crisis this January, but Myanmar's military did not approve

@CollinSLKoh The linked article also does a good job of highlighting how the Tatmadaw is more wary of China (and the NLD is more friendly towards China) than appears from the outside
Mar 5, 2021 5 tweets 1 min read
@tianyuf this is what happens when people don't fight back or when they think virtue signaling will save them
Mar 4, 2021 4 tweets 2 min read
Dear Taiwan island: how are your dollar assets doing?

How does losing more than 20% of your GDP in 10 months to keep America happy feel?

How does lying to your own citizens about the financial position of your insurers, pension funds, and central bank let you sleep at night? ImageImage @timeswang this is what the average inhabitant of TW island should be really concerned with, because TW has dollar assets at 200% of GDP with minimal cross-border hedging, and both US interest rates + the USD/NTD have been going in the wrong direction for months on end