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Independent researcher/writer based in Hong Kong since 1997. Reformed academic. My long-form, analytical articles are collected here https://laura-ruggeri.medium.com/ email: lauraru852@yandex.ru
Do you recognize this metro map in its Chinese translation? 😉
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Bangladesh forbids tourist travel to St Martin’s, a coral-rich island where the US has long wanted to build a military base. Saint Martin is a strategic island off the coast of Bangladesh, near Myanmar. The previous PM Sheikh Hasina had refused to hand over the island and was toppled by a colour revolution and replaced by US-WEF puppet Muhammad Yunus last August. The country hasn't held elections yet.
@LauraRuHK
Fyodor Lukyanov: Trump’s presidency embodies the logic of a changing world order.
"Trump’s ultimate goal is American supremacy – but not the liberal global leadership championed by his predecessors. His version of supremacy is transactional and utilitarian.
Alliances, institutions, and relationships are only valuable if they benefit the US materially. Those that demand sacrifices without offering returns are liabilities to be discarded.
Trump’s America is not interested in moral authority, global stability, or solving the world’s problems. It is focused on extracting the maximum benefit from every interaction, whether in economics, security, or politics. If others refuse Trump’s ‘deal’, coercion quickly becomes his preferred strategy.
While Trump champions a tough, combative approach, he is reluctant to engage in armed conflict. This is not due to pacifism but practicality. Trump the developer views war as wasteful and counterproductive. Destruction does not align with his instincts to build and acquire assets. For him, conflict is best resolved through negotiation, merger, or purchase – not devastation.
This aversion to military conflict explains his preference for economic warfare. Trade wars and aggressive negotiations are his tools of choice, often targeting close US allies rather than adversaries. This approach unnerves traditional partners and challenges the post-Cold War ‘rules-based’ international system, where alliances are valued for their collective stability. Trump sees no inherent value in these alliances unless they provide tangible benefits to the US. [...]
However, Trump’s approach remains deeply flawed. He is uninterested in addressing the root causes of conflicts. In Ukraine, for example, his goal is not a comprehensive resolution but a simple cessation of hostilities. A stable ceasefire along existing lines would suffice for him, leaving the deeper security issues for Western Europe or others to resolve. For Russia, this falls short. Moscow seeks a long-term solution that addresses the imbalance in European security – a concern Trump is unlikely to prioritize. [...]
Trump’s presidency embodies the logic of a changing world order. As traditional alliances and institutions falter, new dynamics emerge, driven by national interests and pragmatic calculations. Whether this shift leads to greater stability or heightened tensions remains to be seen. One thing is certain: The era of ‘global leadership’ as we knew it is over, and Trump is its most prominent symbol."
The European Union is convening a meeting of 27 EU leaders, who will be joined by British Prime Minister Starmer and NATO Secretary General Rutte. The meeting, quaintly described as an "informal retreat" in the official invitation sent out to members of the European Council, will take place on 3 February in the cozy Château de Limont, close to Brussels, and is dedicated to "European defence and security."
In keeping with the Orwellian rhetoric that characterizes EU statements, the invitation sets the tone for what sounds like a war cabinet meeting -
Peace in Europe depends on Ukraine winning a comprehensive, just and lasting peace. The purpose of this meeting is to prepare the ground for the decisions we will have to take and to provide guidance to the Commission and the High Representative as they prepare a white paper on the future of European defence, which will cover joint defence initiatives and the resources necessary to develop them. [...] Substantial additional defence investments are required in order to replenish stocks, upgrade our defence readiness for a broad spectrum of threats – focusing on strategic priorities and critical capability gaps – and strengthen the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base accordingly.
Trump administration backpedals on last week's executive order to suspend foreign aid programs during their review. Trump had claimed that the US “foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values.” On Tuesday his administration partially retreated from the order, allowing new exceptions besides Israel and Egypt. The gravy train to Ukraine will continue to run. A memo from Secretary of State Marco Rubio to federal agencies and aid recipients obtained by the NYT said that such programs “should continue or resume work if they have stopped.”
@LauraRuHK
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/01/28/us/trump-news-executive-orders?smid=url-share#404febfc-1fd4-59fb-945d-0ec055d6b58c
Politico reports that the EU will not attempt to fully ban Russian liquefied natural gas purchases in its latest sanctions package, defying Baltic chihuahuas' pressure to outlaw imports of the fuel.
The European Commission is set to formally present its 16th sanctions package against Russia to EU capitals on Wednesday, according to two diplomats, who were granted anonymity to speak freely.
The proposal will not include a blanket prohibition of LNG imports, as EU hawks have been urging. Instead, it would only stop Russian LNG from going to EU terminals not connected to the EU’s gas system — a restriction that won’t affect the majority of LNG imports. Separate from LNG, the sanctions package will propose penalties on more aging oil-exporting tankers operating as part of Russia's so-called shadow fleet, the diplomats added. The EU will target 74 new vessels, two other EU diplomats said.
Additionally, the new offering will push to restrict Moscow's aluminum exports, according to the three diplomats. The EU still relies on Russia for around 6 percent of its aluminum imports.
Finally, the package will target video game equipment, like Microsoft's Xbox. @LauraRuHK https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-lets-russian-gas-slip-again-in-new-sanctions-package/
Based on satellite images, Reuters reports that China has completed construction of the world's largest nuclear fusion research center. The publication emphasizes that Beijing will now have new capabilities in both peaceful nuclear energy and nuclear weapons development.
Work at the site near the city of Mianyang in Sichuan province has reportedly been underway since 2010.
Satellite images show four outer "arms" that will house laser bays and a central experimental bay that will house a target chamber containing hydrogen isotopes that powerful lasers will fuse to produce energy.
The publication emphasizes that the complex is similar to the National Fusion Facility (NIF) located in California. At the same time, the Chinese center is 50% larger than the American one.
Any country with a NIF-type facility can and probably will increase confidence and improve existing weapons designs, and facilitate the development of future bomb designs without testing the bombs themselves, Reuters speculated.
At the same time, the news agency reassured its Western readers by reporting the quantitative superiority of the United States over China in the area of nuclear weapons. The publication recalls that the United States has conducted over 1000 different tests and has more than five thousand nuclear warheads. China, in turn, has conducted only 45 corresponding tests and has about 500 nuclear charges. (Source: Reuters) @LauraRuHK
Kung Hei Fat Choy! Gong Xi Fa Cai! Happy Chinese New Year! The Snake year, imbued with the qualities of wisdom, intuition, and transformation, beckons us to seek deeper understanding and embrace change. In ancient Chinese mythology snakes are associated with themes of creation and procreation. One widely circulated story was recorded in the Chu Silk Manuscript, which dates back to the first century BCE - in the chaos before the formation of heaven and earth, there were two deities, Fuxi and Nüwa. From their union four sons were born - the deities representing the four seasons.
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Professor Sergey Karaganov's latest article is VERY important.
"Now, together with our colleagues, we are preparing a large-scale study and situational analysis devoted to the development of recommendations regarding Russia's policy towards the West. I will not predict the results of the discussion, but I will simply share some preliminary considerations [...] The Trump administration now has no serious reasons to negotiate with us on the terms that we have set. The war is economically beneficial to the United States, since it allows it to rob allies with redoubled energy, update the military-industrial complex, and impose its economic interests through systemic sanctions on dozens of countries around the world.[...] For the current European elites, the Euro-integrators, the war is urgently needed. Not only because of the hope to undermine the traditional geopolitical rival, to take revenge for the defeats of the last three centuries, but also because of Russophobia. These elites and their European bureaucracy are failing in almost all directions. The European project is bursting at the seams. The use of Russia as a bogeyman, and now a real enemy, which has been going on for more than a decade, is the main tool for legitimizing their project and preserving power. In addition, "strategic parasitism" – the absence of fear of war – has grown much stronger in Europe than in the United States. Europeans not only do not want, but also no longer know how to think. Since Soviet times and based on the experience of working with de Gaulle, Mitterrand, Brandt, Schroeder and the like, we have been accustomed to considering the Americans as the main instigators of confrontation and militarization of politics in the West. This is not entirely true, and now it is not at all true. It was Churchill, when it seemed to him advantageous, who dragged the United States into the Cold War. It was European strategists (they still existed then), and not the Americans, who initiated the missile crisis of the 1970s. Now the European elites are the main sponsors of the Kiev junta. They, forgetting that it was their predecessors who unleashed two world wars, are pushing Europe and the world towards a third. Sending Ukrainian cannon fodder for slaughter, they are preparing a new one - Eastern Europeans from a number of Balkan states, Romania and Poland. We have begun to deploy mobile bases, where contingents of potential landsknechts are trained. They will try to continue the war not only to the "last Ukrainian", but soon to the "last Eastern European". NATO and Brussels anti-Russian propaganda is already superior to Hitler's. Even personal human ties with Russia are being systematically broken. Those who advocate normal relationships are poisoned, chased out of work. In fact, a totalitarian liberal ideology is being imposed. They even forget about the claims to democracy, although they still squeal about it. The latest example is the annulment of the results of the presidential elections in Romania, which were not won by a pro-Brussels candidate.
European elites are clearly preparing their populations and countries for war. Even calling approximate dates.
Hmm, who could possibly launch a cyberattack on a Chinese company that pricked US inflated ego and rapidly inflating financial bubble? Read more here 👉 /channel/LauraRuHK/9643
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January 27, 2024 marks 80 years since the end of the siege of Leningrad.
The siege lasted from September 8, 1941 to January 27, 1944 and was one of the most monstrous crimes of nazism. Vladimir Putin compared it to the Holocaust after laying flowers at the grave of his brother, who died in the blockade of Leningrad. Nazi Germany's siege of Russia’s Northern capital claimed the lives of up to a million civilians and about half-a-million soldiers. @LauraRuHK
Trump will be playing the "good cop" while his China-hawk national security team, his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, will play the role of "bad cop." When Trump says he intends to pull 20,000 US troops out of Europe - approximately 100,000 US troops are stationed in the continent - force NATO countries to pay more for "protection" and buy more American weapons, rest assured that he will not bring the troops back home. They will be deployed where Washington sees fit, most likely the Asia Pacific.Trump has raised questions over how supportive of Taiwan he will be after saying on the campaign trail that Taiwan "stole our chip business" and needed to "pay us for defense."
He suggested that Taiwan increase defense spending to 10 percent of its GDP. At the same time he is playing footsie with Beijing, promising concessions in an attempt to drive a wedge between China and Russia. This strategy is bound to fail - any overtures Trump makes to Xi or Putin hinge on short-term gains while the Sino-Russian partnership is part of an irreversible historical process - the end of US hegemony and the rise of a multipolar world order. @LauraRuHK
Slovakia will expel “foreign instructors” allegedly involved in destabilizing the country and aiming to orchestrate a Ukraine-style Maidan coup, Prime Minister Robert Fico announced on Friday. He accused foreign operatives, opposition groups, and foreign-funded NGOs of undermining his government. ▪️Fico’s announcement follows a wave of anti-government protests and a series of cyberattacks on key Slovak institutions. Last week, the national information system suffered a major cyberattack, which Fico said was linked to another one targeting the state-owned General Health Insurance company on Friday. He described the attacks as part of a “textbook model” used to remove governments that dissent from Western policies.▪️Fico blamed foreign operatives for the attacks, and alleged they had ties to Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan protests, which led to the ousting of President Viktor Yanukovich, and recent anti-government demonstrations in Georgia. (Source: RT) @LauraRuHK
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France is calling for a major reworking of European regulations, starting with ESG rules, as the bloc struggles to revive its competitiveness against a backdrop of sweeping deregulation across the Atlantic driven by Donald Trump.
The simplification process must start with “a massive regulatory pause,” the government said in a 22-page document seen by Bloomberg. In addition, recent legislation must be reexamined and revised as it becomes clear the laws are “ill adapted to the new context of exacerbated international competition and to the uncooperative policies of our main international competitors.” ▪️Meanwhile, a leaked draft of the European Commission’s competitiveness compass — an economic doctrine to guide the EU executive’s work for the coming five years — reveled plans for deregulation targeting the European Green Deal in particular. @LauraRuHK
The European Parliament made green legislation more ambitious thanks to the lobbying efforts of NGOs funded by...the European Commission! 😅 This modus operandi is by no means confined to the green agenda. For instance, the European Endowment for Democracy finances organizations that advance their causes by lobbying members of the European parliament. @LauraRuHK https://brusselssignal.eu/2025/01/ec-paid-shadow-lobby-to-promote-own-green-policies-dutch-newspaper-claims/
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China will file a lawsuit in the World Trade Organization (WTO) in response to US tariffs and will take retaliatory measures, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said. @LauraRuHK
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The White House confirmed that the Trump administration will impose 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada on Saturday, along with a 10% import tax on Chinese goods, and that's just the start. Many expect the tariffs will boost inflation and slam GDP growth. Though Trump acknowledged there could be "short-term disruption," he told reporters that "tariffs don't cause inflation, they cause success." He likely meant that higher prices on imports will lead to more domestic production. But that's not something that will happen any time soon. The "short-term disruption" could last years.
▪️Tariffs have historically served a key role in the trade policy of the US. Protectionism has been the rule rather than the exception for most of the country's existence. In the 1980s and 1990s, the White House was faced with a powerful Asian economic power, Japan. Washington’s response was to put 100% tariffs on electronics, force voluntary restrictions on Japanese auto, steel, and machine industries. For approximately a decade, Japan and the US engaged in a trade war. The US achieved a tactical victory in the war with the 1985 Plaza Accord. The result was that Japan entered the bubble economy, which ultimately led to a period of economic stagnation known as the Lost Decade. ▪️Some of Trump’s first forays into politics involved railing against Japan during the 1980s and early 1990s. During that time, he started calling for the use of tariffs as a trade weapon.
While he has not referenced the historical US-Japan relationship during the recent China conflict, Washington’s success against Tokyo could influence his thinking on how to handle Beijing. One of his advisers on trade, Robert Lighthizer, also took part in Japan negotiations in the 1980s. ▪️But China isn't Japan. Beijing is far stronger both economically and politically than Tokyo was in the 1980s, with Japan militarily occupied by the US and less willing to risk Washington’s ire.
Most importantly, the Chinese authorities have studied that trade war and won't be repeating Japan's mistakes. @LauraRuHK
🇷🇺🇨🇳 New blow to US sanctions: Russia and China boost NVIDIA performance 800-fold
Scientists from the two countries have developed a breakthrough algorithm using information from reverse engineering video card accelerators. The algorithm allows gaming GPUs to be used for scientific computing.
The innovation was achieved by specialists from Shenzhen MSU-BIT University, co-founded by Lomonosov Moscow State University and Beijing Institute of Technology.
This enables Russia and China to reduce their reliance on NVIDIA GPUs, weakening the impact of US sanctions.
It also means that Russia and China need to buy less NVIDIA GPUs, which likely led to the collapse of NVIDIA stock price, Russoft association President Valentin Makarov told Sputnik.(Source: Sputnik) @LauraRuHK
Italy has long been a socio-political lab where US policies are tested. @LauraRuHK
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Chinese New Year greetings from Maria Zakharova, who lived and studied in Beijing in her childhood. /channel/MFARussia/23629
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Reports by US journalist Tucker Carlson about the former US administration’s plot to assassinate President Vladimir Putin need to be thoroughly investigated and those responsible need to be brought to justice, said Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the State Duma (the Russian parliament’s lower chamber).
🔺The plot itself and discussions on the subject constitute "a crime, a serious threat to global security, a direct path to nuclear war," he said. (Source: TASS) @LauraRuHK
Donald Trump channels his inner Reagan - Trump tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members to bring down oil prices in order to put pressure on Moscow and "force the Kremlin to negotiate an end to the war with Kiev". His plan echoes Ronald Reagan's. In 1986 Reagan allegedly convinced Saudi Arabia to rise oil production so to drop the prices and thus hurt the Soviet economy. But this is 2025, the balance of power has changed, and taking a leaf out of Reagan's playbook doesn't guarantee success. In another attempt to channel his inner Reagan, Trump signed an executive order to initiate the construction of the "Iron Dome" missile defense system in the United States. This new defense system brings to mind Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), derisively nicknamed the Star Wars program, which intended to create a space-based missile defense system designed to protect the US from aerial threats. The SDI was impractical, expensive and dangerous. It is mostly remembered as Reagan’s greatest triumph as an actor-storyteller. @LauraRuHK
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A lesson to Taiwan: It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal. Trump intends to impose tariffs on friends and foes alike, but while the most sanctioned countries are creating an alternative economic bloc (BRICS) to reduce their dependence on Western markets and financial systems, so-called US "allies" are going to bear the brunt of MAGA. ▪️On Monday the US president said he plans to impose tariffs on chips imported from Taiwan in an effort to get TSMC to make them in the United States. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is expanding semiconductor production in the US with a $65 billion investment in three factories in Arizona. The project received substantial backing from the US government, including $6.6 billion in grants under the CHIPS Act.
But despite the ambitious scale, TSMC has faced numerous challenges in the US. Regulatory and compliance hurdles have slowed progress, with permitting and construction processes taking at least twice as long as in Taiwan.
Labour shortages have further complicated matters, prompting TSMC to relocate half of its workforce from Texas to Arizona. This has significantly increased costs due to relocation and accommodation expenses. Additionally, local supply chain gaps have hindered operations. For instance, the cost of sulfuric acid in the US is five times higher than in Taiwan, forcing TSMC to ship materials from Taiwan to Los Angeles and truck them to Arizona. The Arizona facility is producing slightly older chip technologies, such as the 4-nanometer chips now being supplied to Apple and Nvidia. (Sources: Reuters/Gizmochina) @LauraRuHK
Chinese New Year in Moscow. The 13-day festival starts today and is held for the second time as part of the 2024-25 Russian-Chinese Years of Culture. The large-scale celebration has gained great popularity - last year it attracted more than 700 thousand visitors. This year, an even richer program awaits Muscovites and tourists. The dragon parade starts at 17:00 on Tverskoy Boulevard and will end at 19:00 with a show on Manezhnaya Square. During the whole duration of the festival one can attend workshops to learn more about Chinese tea and calligraphy, how to make New Year's gifts, play Chinese board games, visit exhibitions of Chinese art, listen to traditional music etc. More than 120 restaurants located near the festival venues will offer a special menu, which includes Peking duck, dim sum, homemade noodles, hot pot and other delicacies. @LauraRuHK
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China's DeepSeek mobile app surges to the top of the iPhone’s download charts in the US... and US tech stocks crash. On Monday, the US market crashed, especially the Big Tech stocks such as Nvidia, which reported 17% fall, while the Nasdaq composite declined 5%. ▪️Shares of major US artificial intelligence and semiconductor companies slumped on a wave of fear that Chinese companies were poised to surpass them in the high-stakes battle for supremacy. DeepSeek, the Chinese AI startup just over a year old, offers better performance at a fraction of the cost. The success of DeepSeek carries far-reaching implications for the global tech industry and supply chain, as it contradicts the widespread belief that the future of AI will require ever-increasing amounts of capital, power and energy to develop.
How does DeepSeek R1 compare to OpenAI or Meta AI?
Though not fully detailed by the company, the cost of training and developing DeepSeek’s open-sourced models appears to be only a fraction of what’s required for OpenAI or Meta Platforms Inc.’s best products. The much better efficiency of the model puts into question the need for vast expenditures of capital to acquire the latest and most powerful AI accelerators from the likes of Nvidia Corp. US export curbs of such advanced semiconductors to China were intended to prevent a breakthrough of the sort that DeepSeek has already achieved.
DeepSeek’s progress suggests Chinese AI engineers have worked their way around the restrictions, focusing on greater efficiency with less resources. ▪️Donald Trump earlier talked up a joint venture investing up to $500 billion for infrastructure tied to artificial intelligence by Stargate, a new partnership formed by OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank.
Stargate plans to build data centers and the electricity generation needed for the further development of AI, its initial investment is expected to be $100 billion and the pyramid scheme was meant to reach five times that sum. DeepSeek, which has only taken two months to build at a cost of $6 million, has pricked that rapidly inflating financial bubble. ▪️Vivek Ramaswamy, recently sacked as co-head of Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), described the launch of Chinese AI model DeepSeek as a 'Sputnik moment'. @LauraRuHK
European gas prices are about five times as high as in the United States, versus twice as high before the pandemic. (Source: IMF) @LauraRuHK
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You know all the Trumpsters who swore blind nothing is worse than Biden? And we said it was delusional to think US tag team bipartisan foreign policy would change anything for the Palestinian people. Look at the ethnic cleansing ongoing in West Bank and now:
"I said to him I'd love you to take on more because I'm looking at the whole Gaza strip right now and it’s a mess, it's a real mess. I'd like him to take people," Trump, who took office on Jan. 20, said about his call on Saturday with Jordan's King Abdullah.
"I'd like Egypt to take people," Trump told reporters, adding he would speak to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Sunday.
"You’re talking about a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing," Trump said.
"It's literally a demolition site, almost everything is demolished and people are dying there, so I'd rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing at a different location where they can maybe live in peace for a change," Trump said.
Pete Hegseth narrowly secured enough votes on Friday to become the next U.S. defense secretary. /channel/LauraRuHK/9341
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio has sent an order to all U.S. diplomatic and consular posts to pause foreign aid grants for 90 days pending review by the secretary. The suspension affects foreign assistance programs funded by or through the Department of State and USAID. The message was in line with the executive order President Trump signed on Monday to reevaluate U.S. foreign aid. A waiver was issued for Israel and Egypt, but no other countries were specifically mentioned in the cable. ▪️Annual reviews of financial assistance to Kiev were attempted before but inspectors reported "significant challenges in conducting monitoring and evaluation because of security restrictions and the limited number of staff at the embassy." Sure. And the dog ate my homework. ▪️Despite the widespread corruption mentioned by inspectors, no one stopped the gravy train. The music has changed. NGOs and Ukraine's gov departments that depend on U.S. funding may experience a cash flow problem, and though Kiev hasn't officially responded to the suspension of financial assistance the mood is understandably somber. Washington provides direct budget support to central, regional and local government in Ukraine, business/trade assistance, energy security, etc. It also funds Ukrainian media and hundreds of NGOs that for over a decade have fed a corrupt system based on clientelism. @LauraRuHK
/channel/ForeignAgentIntel/13451
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Thursday urged the United States to keep supplying Ukraine with weapons and said he was sure Europe was ready to pay the bill. @LauraRuHK
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