Andy Mok - China | Frontier Tech | Governance

September 2025 may go down as the hinge month in China-U.S. relations. Three shocks made it clear: Sept 3: China stepped fully into daylight—parading not just weapons, but systems—while pushing ahead in AI and compute. Sept 11: The assassination of Charlie Kirk exposed America’s domestic fragility at the very moment it needed steadiness. Early Sept: A lethal U.S. strike on a drug boat signaled a doctrinal pivot toward hemispheric priorities, even as China strengthens in Asia. Now in Madrid, Washington negotiates not how to stop China’s rise, but how to manage its exposure to it. That is the hinge: the U.S. lost the contest to block Beijing’s ascent. What remains is bargaining over how to live with it. Full article in link below #China #US #Trade #Geopolitics #AI #NationalSecurity #Strategy

@grok @SuperMAGA17 @SputnikInt @grok what is the latest on this?

Iran's proposed 10-point plan (per their Supreme National Security Council via state media) demands: 1. US commitment to non-aggression 2. Iranian control over Strait of Hormuz 3. Acceptance of Iran's uranium enrichment 4. Lifting all primary sanctions 5. Lifting all secondary sanctions 6. Termination of UN Security Council resolutions 7. Termination of IAEA Board resolutions 8. Payment of compensation to Iran 9. Withdrawal of US combat forces from region 10. Cessation of war on all fronts, incl. vs. resistance forces in Lebanon Trump called it a "significant step" but "not good enough"—no acceptance yet, per US officials. Talks ongoing via Pakistan.

🚨 Iran's 'historic victory' sees US agree to 10 Iranian terms Iran has outlined a 10-point plan proposed by Tehran and accepted in principle by Washington, according to the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, cited by Tasnim News Agency. 📄 According to the Council, the US has agreed to the following Iranian conditions: 🔸 Commitment to non-aggression 🔸 Continued Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz 🔸 Acceptance of Iran’s uranium enrichment 🔸 Lifting of all primary sanctions 🔸 Lifting of all secondary sanctions 🔸 Termination of UN Security Council resolutions 🔸 Termination of IAEA Board of Governors resolutions 🔸 Payment of compensation to Iran 🔸 Withdrawal of US combat forces from the region 🔸 Cessation of war on all fronts, including against resistance forces in Lebanon 💬 The Council described the outcome as an “undeniable, historic, and crushing defeat” for the enemy.

Truth 👇👇👇

@ShaykhSulaiman Araghchi's taunt is textbook @kendricklamar. I just published a piece arguing the entire US-Iran war maps onto the Drake-Kendrick rap beef — same strategic logic, same mistakes by the dominant power, same prepared underdog. We're at the Meet the Grahams phase. The question is whether Iran gets its Not Like Us. Thought it might interest you: linkedin.com/pulse/drop-giv…

BREAKING: IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER ABBAS ARAGCHI GOADS TRUMP TO SEND GROUND TROOPS "You must send your soldiers to Iran, as you said, to open the Strait of Hormuz if you are brave and stand by your word. Don't talk so much, just send your powerful soldiers to Iran."

In May 2024, Drake released what he thought was a devastating counter-attack against Kendrick Lamar. Kendrick buried it in twenty minutes. What Drake didn't know: the next missile was already loaded. It had been for months. — What does the most explosive rap beef in hip-hop history have to do with the US-Iran war? Everything. Same structure. Same mistake. Same outcome taking shape. In my new piece, I map the Drake-Kendrick battle onto the current conflict beat by beat — from the Cold War simmering, to the betrayal at the negotiating table, to the 72-hour blitz, to where we are now. The thesis: preparation beats improvisation. Intelligence beats assumption. And the side that violated the rules of engagement during a moment of good faith handed its opponent both the moral high ground and the motivation to fight harder. Drake handed Kendrick the culture. The United States may have handed Iran the world. 📖 Full piece in the link below. Would love to hear your thoughts. #Geopolitics #Iran #MiddleEast #HipHop #Strategy #KendrickLamar linkedin.com/pulse/drop-giv… via @LinkedIn

Washington struck Iran mid-negotiation, left its Gulf allies absorbing missile strikes they never consented to, and handed Kim Jong Un his best argument in decades. The Iran war didn't just reshape the Middle East. It published a manual. Six conclusions every adversary is already acting on. Link below. linkedin.com/pulse/washingt… via @LinkedIn

@Derek_Econ @ruima @TechBuzzChina @grok Do you think Tesla Optimus has any shot at competing here?

@ruima @TechBuzzChina Do you think Tesla Optimus has any shot at competing here?

Incredible, lol, robot maker Unitree just filed for IPO and not only do they make money, their adjusted net margin is 35%, putting it on par with software companies. Humanoid fever is only going to increase from here I think :) At @TechBuzzChina we have some new special projects in this area we are announcing soon! Some stats: - Unitree’s STAR Market (Shanghai) IPO has been accepted, with a planned raise of RMB 4.2 billion (US$611 million) and an implied initial post-money valuation of at least RMB 42 billion (US$6.1 billion) - 2025 revenue reached RMB 1.71 billion (US$248 million), - up 335% YoY, while adjusted net profit exceeded RMB 600 million (US$87 million), up 674% YoY. - In the first 9 months of 25, humanoid robot revenue reached RMB 595 million (US$86 million), surpassing quadruped robot revenue of RMB 488 million (US$71 million) for the first time. - Unitree shipped over 5,500 units last year, occupying 32.4% of the global humanoid market - Of the IPO proceeds, the biggest chunk, RMB 2.02 billion (US$294 million), will go toward robot model R&D, followed by RMB 1.11 billion (US$161 million) for robot body R&D. Another RMB 445 million (US$65 million) is earmarked for new product development and RMB 624 million (US$91 million) for a manufacturing base.

Terence Tao has won every award mathematics can give a human being. Fields Medal. Breakthrough Prize. MacArthur Genius Grant. He is widely regarded as the greatest living mathematician. Not one of. The greatest. He just said something that should terrify every university on Earth. Tao: “We live in a particularly unpredictable era. I think things that we’ve taken for granted for centuries may not hold anymore.” Not years. Not decades. Centuries. The assumptions governing who gets to contribute to knowledge have been in place longer than most nations have existed. Tao just told you those assumptions are dissolving. Tao: “The way we do everything, not just mathematics, will change.” This is not a man who deals in hyperbole. He builds arguments the way he builds proofs. Piece by piece. Nothing unverified. When he says everything, he means everything. Tao: “In math, you previously had to basically go through years and years of education, be a math PhD before you could contribute to the frontier of math research.” That was the contract. You give a decade of your life to an institution. You grind through coursework, committees, dissertation reviews, postdoc rotations. Then maybe you get to touch the boundary of what’s known. The entire system was built on that bottleneck. Time was the gate. Credentials were the key. Tao: “Now it’s quite possible at the high school level that you could get involved in a math project and actually make a real contribution because of all these AI tools.” A high schooler. Contributing to frontier mathematics. The same frontier that used to require a decade of institutional obedience to even approach. He said this about math. He already told you this applies to everything. AI didn’t just speed up the path. It removed the path entirely. The university sold you a ten-year toll road. AI just paved around it overnight. The toll booth operators haven’t realized yet that no one’s coming. Tao: “In many ways, I would prefer the much more boring, quiet era where things are much the same as they were ten years ago, 20 years ago.” This is the line that should haunt you. The smartest mathematician on the planet would rather this wasn’t happening. He is not selling this. He is not positioning himself for a funding round. The acceleration is so violent that even the mind best equipped to process it would prefer it stopped. If Tao is uncomfortable, you should be paying very close attention to your own assumptions about what’s coming. Tao: “The things that you study, some of them may become obsolete or revolutionized, but some things will be retained.” That word “some” is doing enormous work in that sentence. It means the rest won’t be. Entire fields that people spent their careers building will collapse. Not slowly. Not politely. And Tao is telling you he can’t predict which ones survive. Tao: “You should be open to very, very different ways of doing science, some of which don’t exist yet.” Most people will scroll past this. It’s the most important line in the entire clip. He’s not saying learn new tools. He’s not saying adapt your workflow. He’s saying the methods themselves haven’t been invented yet. The frameworks don’t exist. You cannot prepare for what hasn’t been created. You can only build the kind of mind that doesn’t break when the ground shifts beneath it. Tao: “It’s a scary time, but also very exciting.” He said scary first. Every tech founder says exciting first and mentions risk as a footnote. Tao reversed it. When the most brilliant mind of a generation leads with fear and follows with possibility, that is not optimism. That is a man telling you the truth about what’s coming while still choosing to walk toward it. The people who survive the next decade won’t be the ones with the best credentials. They’ll be the ones who stopped mourning the world that was and started building for the one that doesn’t exist yet.

Check out my latest article: The Fastest Way Trump Can Lower Gas Prices—Tonight linkedin.com/pulse/fastest-… via @LinkedIn

Power isn’t tested when a war begins. It’s tested when someone needs to end it. The United States can escalate in the Gulf. But it cannot secure a credible cease-fire on its own. After Geneva, trust is gone. Tehran will not rely on U.S. assurances and that leaves a structural gap. Only one actor can fill it. China sits between force and belief—with ties to Iran, access to Washington, and the ability to underwrite an agreement without firing a shot. If Beijing can construct a credible asymmetric deterrent—one that makes a cease-fire stick—then the dynamic flips: The U.S. gets an exit. China sets the terms. And that is where leverage consolidates. Because in geopolitics, whoever controls the offramp controls the price. linkedin.com/pulse/american… via @LinkedIn

I’ve been thinking a lot about this idea called the “region-beta paradox.” I think it explains a scary amount of founder behavior.  The gist is simple: If something is mildly bad, you’re less likely to change it than if it’s truly terrible, because the discomfort never gets intense enough to kick you into action.  You tolerate the job that’s “fine.” You tolerate the product that’s “kinda working.”  You tolerate the life that’s “not that bad.” And people spend years in that holding pattern.  Long term, that can be worse than getting absolutely wiped out in 1 big, obvious failure.  A catastrophic loss might hurt more in the moment, but it forces you back to first principles.  What do I actually want?  What game am I actually playing?  What fundamentally needs to change in my life?  I’ve lived both sides of this.  If I’d cruised into Harvard, slid into a big-tech track, and ended up comfy as an I5 at Google, I’d probably be sitting on stock and optimizing for stability right now.  Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t think that’s a bad life by any means.  But I know myself well enough to know I’d be playing a proxy game, not the real one I care about.  Instead, my path has been messy.  - First-gen immigrant - Didn’t speak English until 11 - Got bullied in school - Lost my mom to cancer at 15 - Worked 80-hour weeks through a tier-2 school so my parents never had to pay a dime - Paid off my parents’ debt And now I’m supporting their retirement with the income from the dev shop.  None of that was comfortable.  But it pushed me into the lane I actually wanted to be in.

@Zecco9999 @Rory_Johnston @grok Would this actually work?

@Rory_Johnston I know we are talking human lives but,a 10 km strip with a B 52 carpet bomb mission would wipe out the majority of drone issues.

Everyone wants a Hormuz EZ-Pass but Tehran's primary leverage is keeping the Strait closed to *all* traffic. It's the total supply flow lost—not the destinations— that ultimately matters. And no guarantee that person with whom you're negotiating is controlling the drones.

How Energy Warfare Can Collapse Strategic Alliances Military dominance does not guarantee strategic control. In an age of interdependence, the decisive battles may unfold not on distant battlefields—but within the systems that sustain modern societies. A narrow maritime chokepoint. A spike in energy prices. A cascade through inflation, infrastructure, and financial networks. A political system forced to turn inward. The logic of asymmetric conflict is simple: you don’t need to defeat a superpower’s military if you can destabilize the systems its society depends on. This piece explores a hypothetical—but increasingly plausible—pathway through which a regional conflict could trigger a chain reaction that ultimately fractures even the most entrenched alliances. The first domino may fall thousands of miles away. But the cascade could end much closer to home. 👇 Full analysis below. linkedin.com/pulse/asymmetr… via @LinkedIn

When oil markets tighten, the world does not behave like a polite marketplace. It behaves like a scramble. Economists often say the world draws from the same bathtub of oil. When supply shrinks, everyone pays more. But the real question in a geopolitical shock isn’t who imports the most oil. It’s who can endure the price spike the longest. A prolonged crisis in the Persian Gulf could turn the global energy system into a brutal race in economic resilience. And because the U.S. economy remains structurally more oil-intensive than China’s, the political pressure from a sustained price surge may arrive sooner in Washington than in Beijing. In other words, this is not just about barrels. It’s about time, leverage, and endurance. As the old proverb warns: When the race begins, the devil takes the hindmost. 👇 Full piece below. linkedin.com/pulse/oils-bru… via @LinkedIn

When water becomes a weapon, the global energy system changes overnight. The recent Iranian strike on a desalination plant in Bahrain marks a dangerous escalation in the Gulf conflict. For decades, wars in the region targeted oil infrastructure. But desalination plants are different. Across the Gulf, they provide most of the drinking water that keeps modern cities alive. This raises a deeper question that markets are only beginning to confront: What happens to the global energy system if water infrastructure becomes a target? In a new piece, I examine three overlooked implications: • Why attacks on desalination threaten both oil and natural gas systems, not just water supplies • Why Gulf infrastructure is far more interconnected than most analysts realize • And why China’s long-term energy strategy—often criticized—may prove unexpectedly resilient in this scenario China still imports large amounts of crude. But its power system runs primarily on domestic coal and rapidly expanding renewable electricity, not imported hydrocarbons. That distinction matters. If instability in the Gulf begins to threaten the hydrocarbon export system itself, countries whose economies depend most heavily on imported fossil fuels may discover that energy security is really about system design. The events unfolding now may reveal that China’s energy planning was not simply industrial policy. It was geopolitical foresight. Full analysis below. #EnergySecurity #Geopolitics #China #OilMarkets #MiddleEast #GlobalEnergy linkedin.com/pulse/when-wat… via @LinkedIn

China is combining advanced technology with large-scale industrial deployment to drive sustainable growth. Analyst Andy Mok @andymok calls it an "innovation machine” and explains how it works. #Heat #China #CGTN2sessions

Beyond Geology: The Structural Chasm in Rare Earths In my latest piece, I explore why the focus on rare earth mining is a strategic distraction. The real lever of influence is the NdFeB magnet industry. We are seeing a "Shahed Dynamic" play out globally: expensive systems being burned through by cheap threats, while the replenishment of those systems remains tethered to Chinese industrial output. Modern conflict has no ideology; it only has equations. And right now, the math is shifting. Explore the full breakdownhttps://www.linkedin.com/pulse/chinas-rare-earth-magnets-noose-us-tightening-andy-mok-duv8f via @LinkedIn

The "Magnet Embargo" of 2026: Why Tokyo’s Crisis is a Masterclass in Strategic Attrition While many view Beijing’s latest restrictions on 40 Japanese companies as a standard trade response, the reality is far more profound. We are witnessing the onset of a "Strategic Stalemate." By leveraging the logic of Mao’s On Protracted War, Beijing is moving beyond technical defensive measures and into a trial of political and spiritual stamina. As titans like Mitsubishi and Subaru face a resource drought, the "jig-saw" of global supply chains is being weaponized in ways we haven't seen in decades. In my latest post, I break down: Why the "Quick Victory" logic of technology containment is failing. The "Reverse Embargo" irony and the end of Seikei Bunri. Likely implications for Japanese industrial autonomy and the road to 2027. The past isn’t dead—it’s the blueprint for the current Indo-Pacific power struggle. linkedin.com/pulse/magnet-e… via @LinkedIn

Clausewitz is treated as theory. Thomas Schelling is treated as theory. Mao is treated as history. That distinction has always been more cultural than analytical. As competition becomes longer, indirect, and structural, On Protracted War reads less like ideology and more like strategy. If time is now the decisive variable, perhaps it’s time to reread Mao.linkedin.com/pulse/who-gets… via @LinkedIn

Seedance made this MV ft. Kayne West. It’s so well made that it’s going viral on Chinese internet.

⚓️ The Not-So-Mighty US Navy I was just reviewing this week's USNI Fleet Tracker update, and it includes a very revealing chart. The US Navy, on paper, boasts 233 warships. Of these, only 40 (<17%) are currently at sea in a state of combat readiness. news.usni.org/2026/02/09/usn…