Steppe and Stones

BREAKING: 🇺🇸🇮🇷 President Trump announces the U.S. Navy will start escorting maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz

NEW: 🇩🇪🇨🇳 German Chancellor Merz says Germans need to work more in order to match China: “We are simply no longer productive enough. Each individual may say, “I already do quite a lot.” And that may be true. But when you return from China, ladies and gentlemen, you see things more clearly. With work-life balance and a four-day week, long-term prosperity in our country cannot be maintained. We will simply have to do a bit more.”

Reposted from Jacob Markell on LinkedIn: *** Mitch’s Comment —an excellent primer on China’s partnership model, which operates on fundamentally different logic than Western alliances.*** —- “What does it really mean to be “partners” with China? I’ve explored China’s partnership diplomacy at length before – last time I checked, China had 97 strategic partnerships, 53 of them Comprehensive, and 7 of them “all-weather” or equivalent. With the exception of North Korea, Beijing does not “do” alliances – instead it forms flexible, commitment-light “partnerships”, organised according to a complex, hierarchical taxonomy. This is even explicitly articulated as a policy of “partnership, not alliance.” But what does a “partnership” get you? As Maduro’s example set out, it certainly doesn’t provide security guarantees and it doesn’t really amount to any sort of meaningful diplomatic support. Where are China’s red lines? Chinese commentators have long noted with admiration and fear the strength of America’s alliances, but what, as China’s power grows and America’s unipolar moment fades, is Beijing truly willing to stake in order to protect its own friends? We’re starting to see these questions surface. It’s not the first time. Yan Xuetong was arguing back in 2011 that China should reconsider its non-alignment strategy. But that line of argument became conspicuously muted during the Xi-era. More recently, Jin Canrong, a prominent hawk, has argued that China’s foreign policy warrants recalibration. He makes the argument carefully, aware he is on politically shaky ground, but he makes it nevertheless. Since Jin’s piece, which Sinification published in a newsletter today, we have noted a few other similar arguments. Some of these are included in our monthly digest, which I’m delighted and proud to say we published yesterday in collaboration with a keystone of the China watching world – Bill Bishop's Sinocism. I’ll link both Jin’s piece and the digest in the comments. Nobody knows what goes on in Xi Jinping’s head, but Sinification exists because we consider intellectual discourse a meaningful proxy and indicator of Chinese policy thinking. If prominent Chinese academics are mulling over these questions – and are allowed to voice them – they’re probably not alone. The question going forward is: what does all-weather partnership+ look like for China? Jin advocates for “a blend of kingly and hegemonic approaches” – nicely phrased, but essentially just a call on Beijing to get tougher. In concrete terms, no-one really has an answer yet, just as the Global Governance Initiative is just so much hot air. Whether China will ever meaningfully alter its diplomatic posture is a big question mark, not just for China, but for the world. Note on graphic: based on my own subjective interpretation of China’s partnership taxonomy and not fully fact-checked, so please don’t reproduce without a disclaimer. Converted from my database to a map with Claude Opus 4.5.”

From the "Crimson Digest" Telegram channel: This statement by Mr. Peskov, in response to RBK asking him to comment on a claim in The Economist about "a deal with the US for 12 trillion dollars on the condition of lifting sanctions" is a signal -- but not for Russians, not for Washington, and certainly not for Kiev or London. Peskov: "We maintain our interest in resuming trade, economic, and investment cooperation with the US. It could truly be mutually beneficial." This is a signal to our most beloved, wonderful, incredible, boundlessly friendly, strategic, wise, and red-bannered Chinese elder brothers and partners from Beijing -- a signal that Russia, even under the conditions of the SMO, has still retained a certain amount of self-respect, memory, and the ability to draw conclusions. Indonesia places bonds in yuan and receives billions of yuan from Chinese investors through Hong Kong at 3–4%, yet we are not allowed to place federal loan bonds in yuan in Chinese infrastructure, and haven't been since 2017, despite all requests. We have to place them at around 7% among "our own" on the Moscow Exchange. Meanwhile, we're supposedly friends and allies, while Indonesia has American "training" naval bases being built there. Okaaay. Noted. The idea of replacing Venezuelan oil with Russian oil didn't go through, because the Chinese preferred to sign a strategic energy cooperation agreement with Canadian PM Carney and buy Canadian oil at full price (and even buy more of it than Russian oil, slightly reducing the demanded discount) -- because Canadians are sexy and prestigious, while we're bast-shoe peasants. And we don't have any options, anyway, right? Only the Chinese? Okaaay. Noted. Regarding the unwillingness of our Chinese partners to sell us modern machine tools (at any price) -- there are plenty of complaints about this both publicly and in the corridors of the agencies that handle import substitution. Okay. We noted that, too. Well, if you keep all that in mind, you can recall various other interesting words. For example, "multi-vector policy". A useful word. Though many don't appreciate it.

Reposted from Jacob Markell on LinkedIn: *** Mitch’s Comment —an excellent primer on China’s partnership model, which operates on fundamentally different logic than Western alliances.*** —- “What does it really mean to be “partners” with China? I’ve explored China’s partnership diplomacy at length before – last time I checked, China had 97 strategic partnerships, 53 of them Comprehensive, and 7 of them “all-weather” or equivalent. With the exception of North Korea, Beijing does not “do” alliances – instead it forms flexible, commitment-light “partnerships”, organised according to a complex, hierarchical taxonomy. This is even explicitly articulated as a policy of “partnership, not alliance.” But what does a “partnership” get you? As Maduro’s example set out, it certainly doesn’t provide security guarantees and it doesn’t really amount to any sort of meaningful diplomatic support. Where are China’s red lines? Chinese commentators have long noted with admiration and fear the strength of America’s alliances, but what, as China’s power grows and America’s unipolar moment fades, is Beijing truly willing to stake in order to protect its own friends? We’re starting to see these questions surface. It’s not the first time. Yan Xuetong was arguing back in 2011 that China should reconsider its non-alignment strategy. But that line of argument became conspicuously muted during the Xi-era. More recently, Jin Canrong, a prominent hawk, has argued that China’s foreign policy warrants recalibration. He makes the argument carefully, aware he is on politically shaky ground, but he makes it nevertheless. Since Jin’s piece, which Sinification published in a newsletter today, we have noted a few other similar arguments. Some of these are included in our monthly digest, which I’m delighted and proud to say we published yesterday in collaboration with a keystone of the China watching world – Bill Bishop's Sinocism. I’ll link both Jin’s piece and the digest in the comments. Nobody knows what goes on in Xi Jinping’s head, but Sinification exists because we consider intellectual discourse a meaningful proxy and indicator of Chinese policy thinking. If prominent Chinese academics are mulling over these questions – and are allowed to voice them – they’re probably not alone. The question going forward is: what does all-weather partnership+ look like for China? Jin advocates for “a blend of kingly and hegemonic approaches” – nicely phrased, but essentially just a call on Beijing to get tougher. In concrete terms, no-one really has an answer yet, just as the Global Governance Initiative is just so much hot air. Whether China will ever meaningfully alter its diplomatic posture is a big question mark, not just for China, but for the world. Note on graphic: based on my own subjective interpretation of China’s partnership taxonomy and not fully fact-checked, so please don’t reproduce without a disclaimer. Converted from my database to a map with Claude Opus 4.5.”

George Kennan on our dangerous warmongering political-media establishment elites (1982): - “I find the view of the Soviet Union that prevails today in large portions of our governmental and journalistic establishments so extreme, so subjective, so far removed from what any sober scrutiny of external reality would reveal, that it is not only ineffective, but dangerous as a guide to political action... This endless series of distortions and oversimplifications; this systematic dehumanization of the leadership of another great country; this routine exaggeration of Moscow’s military capabilities and of the supposed iniquity of Soviet intentions... And we shall not be able to turn these things around as they should be turned, on the plane of military and nuclear rivalry, until we learn to correct these childish distortions — until we correct our tendency to see in the Soviet Union only a mirror in which we look for the reflection of our own virtue — until we consent to see there another great people, one of the world’s greatest, in all its complexity and variety, embracing the good with the bad, a people whose life, whose views, whose habits, whose fears and aspirations, whose successes and failures, are the products, just as ours are the products, not of any inherent iniquity but of the relentless discipline of history, tradition, and course in the nunational experience. If we insist on demonizing these Soviet leaders — on viewing them as total and incorrigible enemies, consumed only with their fear and hatred of us and dedicated to nothing other than our destruction — that, in the end, is the way we shall assuredly have them, if for no other reason than that our view of them allows for nothing else, either for them or for us"