Peter Mattis

Graham Allison has incredible access. Met with Wang Huning again, reportedly said: “The judgment put forward by Pres. Xi Jinping that the world is undergoing great changes unseen in a century, and the three principles for developing China–U.S. relations, are highly instructive”

That last statement is generating what are IMO a lot of unwarranted headlines. No one who knows anything this topic really thinks the CCP wants to have to invade Taiwan to gain control over it. OF COURSE they'd rather not have to use force.

A small factory in China is producing civilian products requested by a client. The client was in such a hurry that they paid the full amount upfront.

Sen. Slotkin: “There's press reports that the Russians are helping target US ships and aircraft…If Russia is helping kill U.S. forces, we have crossed a Rubicon…We have to take decisive action on that, and instead, we're giving them breaks on oil.”

China Isn’t Competing. It’s Running a State-Backed War of Attrition China is not competing with market economies under anything resembling the same rules. Look at the news about solar underneath. An entire industry is bleeding, yet production keeps going. In any market system, firms losing money at this scale would shut down, consolidate, or be forced through bankruptcy. In China, the state keeps the machine running. That is the real distortion. If EU commits to solar deployment while keeping trade “fair” in the conventional sense, it is also committing to wipe out its own solar manufacturing base. No European government can or will subsidize every loss-making producer across an entire sector indefinitely. Beijing can. So Europe ends up in a trap: decarbonization requires solar, Chinese state-backed overcapacity crushes local producers, local industry dies, and dependence on China deepens. That is the vicious cycle market economies lock themselves into when they try to do “fair trade” with a system that is not playing by market rules at all. “Photovoltaic Industry-Wide Losses - The seven major photovoltaic companies are projected to collectively lose 39.2B yuan ($5.5B) in 2025. In 2024, two were still profitable; by 2025, not a single one will be. The total losses across all A-share photovoltaic firms are estimated to exceed 50 billion yuan ($7B). Polysilicon prices have plummeted by -94%. Module ex-factory prices have dropped from 2.1 yuan/W to 0.78 yuan/W—selling one piece means losing money on it. Yet capacity utilization remains around only 55%, with slow progress on capacity reduction.”

He continues: “He told me he had been contacted by a Chinese think tank based in Shanghai that advised President Xi on international relations. They wanted to set up a briefing in Hong Kong on attitudes towards China in the UK, and had asked him to bring another “expert” along too. “He asked me to go with him. It was an expenses-paid trip. It was taking place in Hong Kong rather than Shanghai because post-Covid restrictions were still in place on the Chinese mainland. I saw it as an interesting “jolly” and agreed to go.”

Only one of the ~20 Chinese research and surveillance ships I track that regularly broadcast AIS is in the Persian Gulf. Hai Yang Shi You 760 is a dual-use survey ship, operated by the state-owned CNOOC, which has close ties to the PLA. The PLA Navy maintains a rotational “naval escort task force” in the Middle East to support an ostensible anti-piracy mission, currently composed of: • CNS Tangshen (122); Type 052D/Luyang III (Mod) destroyer • CNS Daqing (576); Type 054A/Jiangkai II frigate • CNS Tai Hu (889); Type 903/Fuchi-class oiler Elements of the task force participated in drills off South Africa in January, but latest position is unknown.