🧐So it looks like Beijing won’t directly pay for the new🇷🇺🇨🇳pipeline but will help Russia pay for the project by allowing it to purchase “panda bonds” which have not been available to Russian companies since 2017. This shift in🇨🇳policy reflects deepening Russian dependence on China. 1/ 2/ Beijing offers the first Russian corporate fundraising since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Note to European leaders—Please stop🛑asking Xi to use his influence on Putin to end war in Ukraine. 🇨🇳Supports Russia by buying their energy, exporting dual use goods to keep🇷🇺military machine moving & now offers🇷🇺companies to fundraise by offering them access to purchase panda bonds.

Must read essay by ⁦@TimothyDSnyder⁩ Putin is a cynical man, the founder of the post-truth politics in which Trump flourishes. But at the bottom of the deepest cynicism can often be found one very naive idea. Putin’s is that Russia has … 1/ on.ft.com/4oQTLhx 2/ … “an ancient, unbroken and holy past that includes Ukraine. The Tale, a hodgepodge assembled by medieval Kyiv monks, became for him a kind of prophecy.

1/ European Union summoned the Chinese ambassador following an incident in which China's military allegedly targeted a German aircraft with a laser during an EU security mission. China has denied the accusation. 2/ According to Germany, a Chinese warship used a laser to target a German patrol aircraft taking part in Operation ASPIDES, the EU-led mission tasked with protecting commercial vessels from Houthi rebel attacks. The incident reportedly occurred in early July during a routine flight, with no prior warning or communication from the Chinese vessel.

“Massive ‘Typhoon’ cyberattacks on U.S. infrastructure and telecoms sought to lay groundwork for potential conflict with Beijing, as intruders gathered data and got in position to impede response and sow chaos” 1/ “The message from President Biden’s national security adviser was startling.

Chinese hackers had gained the ability to shut down dozens of U.S. ports, power grids and other infrastructure targets at will, Jake Sullivan told telecommunications and technology executives at a secret meeting at the White House in the fall of 2023.” 2/

A Chinese man in🇫🇷posts a video online criticizing Xi-it only had 80 views.Nevertheless,same day he received a call from🇨🇳Embassy & they want to forcibly…francetvinfo.fr/replay-magazin… 2/ send him back to🇨🇳. He contacted a journalist for help who filmed the incident at the airport.🇨🇳diplomat refused to return passport.Dissident’s family in🇨🇳. Will Xi get cooperation from Macron to return man?

The guided weapons are commonly referred to as “glide bombs”& consist of decades-old projectiles that would typically be dropped from Su-34 & Su-35 warplanes directly over targets. By adding cheap pop-out wings & a satellite navigation system,these former “dumb bombs” can… 1/ 2/ …these former “dumb bombs” can now be launched by Russian bombers deep behind the front line and out of reach of Ukraine’s air-defence systems.

‘Insane’: Xi’s call for ethnic Chinese to tell Beijing’s story stirs anger.
"Chan encouraged ethnic Chinese from across the world to unite, and with the help of Chinese officials, to work together to spread positive messages about communist-ruled China."
via @AJEnglishaje.io/6f96r7 2/ Telling the Chinese Communist Party's story well has long been the work of United Front Groups:
"In 2023, Chan attended Beijing’s annual session of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in and said that “we should put more effort in mobilising righteous individuals overseas” and “expose the hypocrisy of fake news from the West”.

Hmm, wonder why these documents were leaked now? 🤔

“Criteria for a potential nuclear response range from an enemy incursion on Russian territory to more specific triggers, such as the destruction of 20% of Russia’s strategic ballistic missile submarines.” 2/ “The cache consists of 29 secret Russian military files drawn up between 2008 and 2014, including scenarios for war-gaming and presentations for naval officers, which discuss operating principles for the use of nuclear weapons.”

1/ Over 20yrs later, a look at US wish casting that having🇨🇳join WTO before it was actually ready would help speed up the process in which 🇨🇳would become more like the US. No other country in history helped strengthen a peer competitor while simultaneously eroding their own production base which contributed to rust belts across swathes of the US, disgruntled workers, & the rise of populism.

Great read by @JKynge and Keith Fray. 2/ From the very beginning, Beijing had a vy different view of US motivation for having🇨🇳join the WTO.

“Bill Clinton, the then US president, hailed China’s membership as “removing [Beijing’s] government from vast areas of people’s lives” and promoting political reform. Jiang Zemin, China’s then leader, had a different take. He warned that America’s real motive was to “westernise and divide Socialist countries”.

Finally, Beijing’s useful idiots hiding in plain sight in Brussels are being exposed. About time! You can bet there are a lot of very nervous folks in Brussels today after this long term research on Beijing's lucrative influence activities.

VW employees are disgusted by this joke of an audit in Xinjiang.

“The consultancy firm hired by Volkswagen to investigate allegations of forced labour in the carmaker’s Xinjiang plant in China is facing a staff rebellion after the report cleared the German company of human rights abuses, according to insiders.
All of Löning’s 20 employees, except the founder Markus Löning and another executive, have asked to make it clear they were not backing the conclusions of the audit. VW commissioned it earlier this year in response to complaints from investors over mounting evidence of rights violations in the region.” #Shame 2/ @VW #Shame “The controversy reflects an increasingly tight balancing act for many German companies such as VW, which depend on China for a large proportion of their profits and try to stay clear of upsetting Beijing or Chinese consumers, which have in the past boycotted brands that respond to reports of human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
Rushan Abbas, a Uyghur American activist whose sister has been imprisoned by Chinese authorities, said in her view, the audit of VW’s plant in Xinjiang was “aiding and abetting the Chinese government’s crimes against humanity”.
“To think that such a sham was executed against the advice and vehement opposition of his own experts is not just irresponsible, it’s morally bankrupt,” she added. @FT

This is quite a different take from Finnish Presidential candidate @alexstubb who asserted on Tues at European Ideas Forum that🇷🇺&🇨🇳interests weren't close. A rather surprising position from a country w/ a border w/ Russia. @politico What troubled me most about Alex Stubb’s talk was that he declared that China was not an imperialist power. Afterwards,I said that the Tibetans & Uighurs would disagree w/ him. His response, which frankly shocked me, was as prickly as his cactus. “Don’t take the moral high ground with me!” Frankly, I was gobsmacked that a person running for president of Finland displayed no empathy.

Chinese Communist Party’s Lawfare and the SEC’s myopia. Matt Pottinger gives the best quote: “If the SEC doesn’t challenge Beijing’s primacy,” Pottinger, a former US deputy national security adviser, “it will end up like an airport X-ray machine operator who is good at spotting nail clippers, but misses the suitcase bombs that could bring down planes.”
Beijing’s raft of new regulations has made any negative information about the Chinese economy radioactive. How can foreign companies investing or operating in the PRC carry out due diligence?

Foreigners are become as rare as hen's teeth in China. "The drop in foreign investment and arrivals comes as China’s economy stagnates, with a depressed housing market, youth unemployment at record highs and widening fears the country could be slipping into deflation. The… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… "In June, the U.S. government issued a travel advisory warning Americans to reconsider travel to mainland China due to what it called “the arbitrary enforcement of local laws,” including exit bans and the possibility of wrongful detentions." 2/

"The Biden administration is hunting for malicious computer code it believes China has hidden deep inside the networks controlling power grids, communications systems and water supplies that feed military bases in the United States and around the world, according to American… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… "first public hints of the malware campaign began to emerge in late May, when Microsoft said it had detected mysterious computer code in telecommunications systems in Guam, the Pacific island with a vast American air base, and elsewhere in the United States.

More than a dozen… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Former German fighter pilots work as trainers in China. They earn “salaries that would normally be reserved for professional athletes or top executives of multinational corporations.” Are they also sharing w/ the PLA what they learned from NATO exercises? spiegel.de/international/…… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… “German security officials believe it is very possible that the pilots have passed on military expertise and confidential operational tactics, and even practiced attack scenarios, such as an offensive against #Taiwan.” @derspiegel

Amsterdam-based ING is claiming $170mn in damages from Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, alleging it breached contract terms by releasing export documents for copper transactions w/o collecting payment, according to a Hong Kong court filing seen by the @FT.” New World Disorder:Maike’s financial troubles have added to concerns about the metals trading sector, which has been rocked by a series of frauds. Glencore and other global trading groups stopped supplying Chinese metals merchant Huludao Ruisheng last year after $500mn worth of… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

“We know [these tactics] from the Cold War, when the Soviets tried to influence and manipulate the antiwar movements,” said a senior German security official who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.” washingtonpost.com/world/2023/04/… Discord files: “The files indicate that on July 13, first Kremlin deputy chief of staff Sergei Kiriyenko assembled a group of Russian political strategists and told them that Germany was to become “the focus” of Moscow’s efforts to undermine support for Ukraine in Europe.”

China is building sophisticated cyber weapons to “seize control” of enemy satellites, rendering them useless for data signals or surveillance during wartime, according to a leaked US intelligence report.” Document dump: The US assesses that China’s push to develop capabilities to “deny, exploit or hijack” enemy satellites is a core part of its goal to control information, which Beijing considers to be a key “war-fighting domain”.

It’s called strategy and Beijing has one.

… “part of a global race for lithium, the alkali metal that is a key raw material for automotive batteries. Securing reliable lithium supply is one of the biggest challenges facing carmakers striving to produce more electric vehicles.” 🇨🇳”has built a dominant position in many of the minerals that are crucial for the energy transition, including cobalt, lithium and rare earth metals. The west is preparing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to try to catch up.”

Many policymakers were surprised by how far Chinese researchers penetrated research institutions. “In collaborations, China dominates its relationships with academic partners.”

Total share* (vertical axis) and proportion for top eight research collaborators with China @ft “Concern is a part of a wider breakdown of trust in some quarters between western institutions and Chinese ones, with some universities introducing background checks on Chinese academics amid fears of intellectual property theft.” @ft