a.k.a. Peter Lee. China-watching pessimist. Not Chinese. Peter Lee's China Threat Report on Patreon. RT not endorsement. Some RT = Holy sh*t, look @ that!
Apr 23, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
"US may have some leverage. ...it gave South Korean companies with chip fabrication facilities in China waivers to allow them to export from the country." ignorant trash. Dimi obviously doesn't read his own paper. ft.com/content/4fe91d…
The real play is denying Hynix permission to import EUV machines to keep its Wuxi plant (intended to be a world scale plant) technologically up to date. There are good reasons Micron is getting targeted. Described here patreon.com/posts/open-to-…
Apr 22, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
well I'm not too sure about that. For its peace plan to work PRC has to thread the needle to legalize the alienation of Crimea/east Ukraine from Ukraine without establishing a precedent for Taiwan. So maybe there's some legal strategizing going on.
emergence of ssrs as independent states was confused enuf that there might be a pathway. Here's the complete interview. French speakers welcome to tease out whether this was just blabberai by some guy getting pressured for 44 minutes or something more tf1info.fr/international/…
Feb 8, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
remarkably rewarding documentary on sophie tucker amazon.com/Outrageous-Sop… provides info on J. Edgar Hoover's interest in women's clothing. Tucker and Hoover had a close relationship over many years, which included Hoover & Tolson coming over to socialize.
A family friend of Tucker's said he was present at a get together when Hoover leaned over and said quietly, "By the way, Soph, when you're done with that dress, can I have it?" For context, Tucker was built like a beer keg & relied on lavish gowns for a glamorous appearance
Feb 6, 2023 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
a quick google search reveals why usg is confident the balloon had military application: because US is already doing it. Stratosphere is considered a domain between airplane land and satellite land to be exploited for coms & surveillance. US program is COLD STAR; the inevitable
"shoot down balloon" project is TRIPPWIRE. Guess it wasn't quite ready. sacyr.com/en/-/globos-es… These things are intended as cheap, high endurance loitering platforms for surveillance and coms & yes the key issue is how to get them to stay in one place.
Dec 28, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Giving Ely Ratner the keys to the Pentagon policy machine was a big tell. Don't need Michelle Flournoy at the top if he's calling the shots. Note the big goal is trying to get the Philippines sign on to hosting US operations in Taiwan war. Wonder how they'll manage that.
Remember that Michelle Flournoy wargame on NBC? cnas.org/publications/v… featured US warplanes flying out of the Philippines. Seems I'm the only civvy noticing this stuff. Question is if & how US & Phil military can armtwist Bongbong enuf to sign on.
Dec 26, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
‘A sea change’: Biden reverses decades of Chinese trade policy politi.co/3WFLXAo via @politico useful deep dive--actually coming out party, courtesy of Politico--of us economic warfare agenda vis a vis PRC.
noting that biotech the next technological blockade item on the agenda after semicon. I chalk this up to US fears that PRC scientists might do a Sputnik moment on Uncle Sam with something terrible like curing cancer.
Dec 15, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
ref the jessica weiss pushback, the hoariest of warhawk chestnuts is "engagement is impossible because there are no moderates in positions of influence on the PRC side". Always trotted out when hawks have the upper hand and peaceniks threaten to ruin their fun.
Applied to Iraq, Iran, DPRK, Cuba, Russia, and now, of course China. We had several designated areas of us-prc engagement--dprk nukes, climate, world health, etc.--and they've all been nicely f*cked up. Not by China.
Dec 10, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
this is the most insane news of the day? week? month? year? but it passes with barely a murmur. US wants to keep this war going no matter
direct attacks on opposing superpower's homeland used to be a red line. even half *ssed superpowers. macarthur lost his job for trying to widen the korean war into the prc. No incursions into PRC for Vietnam or USSR for Afghanistan.
Dec 10, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Second China-Made mRNA Covid Shot Approved Overseas caixinglobal.com/2022-12-10/sec… mRNA in the house! In Laos! but prc approval in the cards. time to prep those "but not as good as BioNtech" pieces, scribes!
interesting thing is scholz/xi agreed to reciprocal approval of Sinovac/BioNTech for foreigners in their countries. Guessing BioNTech will enter the PRC mix now that it won't have the mRNA field to itself. My guess is the olds get preferential access to mRNA.
Dec 10, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
thing that makes this work is that prc doesn't run a huge deficit w/ ksa on current account so ksa doesn't have to sweat a massive buildup in yuan. in 2020 prc managed to buy $34 billion in petro while selling $31 in goods.
popularity of yuan clearance relies on maintaining a trade balance iow tweaking of trade terms w/ various partners. The US hack for favorable trade terms is selling lotsa arms to ME (one reason the perpetual security crisis there makes Uncle Sam happy).
Dec 10, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
nobody's talking "Parity". It's parallel. i think west friendly pundits feel compelled to set up this straw man. PRC setting up parallel transaction system w/ friendly nations to shield it from US economic warfare. Doesn't want to replace US$ as global currency.
A crucial Greek port will now fall under American control english.elpais.com/international/… via @elpaisinenglish Hey, we got another de facto base at Alexandropoulis! For force projection into black sea without the Turkish complication! @agitpapa
"“We are not going to hide that we have the support of the US government,” says Charalambakis, managing director of BlackSummit Financial Group. EL PAÍS has two sources claiming that American & European political representatives travelled to Greece to exert pressure on the deal."
Oct 22, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
watching josh 'n jeet venture into the Ukraine mil space rather amusing. interesting point: in the 1st iraq war us attacked infrastructure extensively & intentionally washingtonpost.com/archive/politi… in the 2nd we didn't...coz we wanted to keep it as intact as possible for the occupation
which is a data point that russia has resigned itself to the limited aim of securing the east. west will be rebuilt by EU/US not RF (presumably with confiscated Russian bux). The WaPo article is a must read by Barton Gellman. Reminder of a time when there was more reporting
Oct 17, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
heh "A diplomat from a European Paris Club member said that it was important for China to “take responsibility for its share of restructuring”, and that this would be discussed next week.“We are not a social service for China,” they said." actually, i suspect that prc is acting
as a social service for the Paris Club. Judging by Pakistan, the model is to squeeze extra money out of prc so blondie haircuts can be minimized. patreon.com/posts/debt-tra…
Oct 7, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
usual sh*t from the times when it relates to China coverage. Main problem for these countries is debt from west & they're held hostage until IMF & Co. force China to take a haircut. Listen to Wang Wenbin: "Western commercial creditors and multilateral institutions,
who hold the biggest share of debts, refused to be part of the effort,” There's been a 5 year war going on to use IMF workouts to put the screws to PRC abetted by maliciously distorted reported from NYT & eager economists. Ironic NYT quotes Deborah Brautigam coz she played a
Sep 25, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
one of the key tells for me that the HK protests were a western op was the Ayotzinapa massacre. Occurred same time as Umbrella movement. Zero coverage of 43 students getting ground into blood meal in a neighbor of the US. But tear gas against anti-PRC activists in HK...ooh!
now getting the multi-part radio show treatment revealnews.org/article/after-…
Sep 25, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
hmm. splitting the g77 into pro & anti prc blocs to gut its pro Kyoto solidarity was a key get for HRC at Copenhagen in 2009. don't think the climate change Humpty Dumpty gonna get put back together. Thanks, Tuvalu (the designated US stalking horse for the op)
I wrote the crime up as it happened (& libprog world was in its Obama-besotted phase). apjjf.org/-Eric-Johnston… Teaser! "the Philippines dropped their chief climate negotiator, Bernarditas de Castro Muller, who was one of the most aggressive and outspoken advocates for emissions
Sep 15, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
let's go! nicaragua was superior to panama as canal site, so history maybe gonna catch up. Some PRC developer had dibs to build the canal, wonder how that will play out. US absolutely hates this idea btw. Cue for one of my greatest piece chinamatters.blogspot.com/2015/10/a-man-…
"In 1902, the US government’s Isthmian Canal Commission, as expected, recommended the Nicaragua route. However, in a major surprise, Roosevelt met with the commissioners and told them to reverse themselves... Joseph Pulitzer’s papers pushed the story and
Sep 14, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
one of the most interesting things is the growth of gambling espec. online sports gambling forbes.com/sites/willyako… it seems gambling addiction increases proportionally latimes.com/world-nation/s…
the sports/entertainment industry apparently sees gambling as a route to heightened engagement/viewership/biz and promotion of online gambling just includes a mumbled disclaimer for degenerate gamblers at the end.
Sep 7, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Ccp sticking w two tough policies: making real estate market scream & zero COVID. See an off ramp for real estate: after shakeout PBOC goes into bailout mode for developers. Unclear on 0C: haven't seen indication of combo of vax + antiviral+ med capacity that wud end lockdowns
Popular opinion getting impatient and more inclined to accept "let it rip". Wonder if prc will try a controlled burn in some third tier city to gauge/demonstrate fallout from ditching zero covid
Aug 11, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Team Meat grinder claiming upper hand over the War is Hell crowd. So Kherson back on the menu. I'm guessing there was some debate that ended with screams of "Russia can never be allowed a W!!". Useful perspective on how wars roll in the real world as opposed to Thinktankistan
Prc probably paying attention to this angle: when things aren't going great on the ground guerre a la americaine usually opts for a spectacular escalation (in this case a high tech assault on Russian soil). Not just to buck up the home team but to ensure conflict is prolonged
