War on China News Update May 11-18 2025
Week in Review
War on China is pleased to announce an interview with the good people at the Regime Radio podcast. The interview should be made available later this week. You can find Regime Radio at:
https://x.com/RegimeRadio
War on China will make a separate post providing the link to the episode in question once it is released.
For War on China’s other coverage of the Liberation Day debacle:
Liberation Day saw a yet another US defeat recently, with the US being forced to concede to Chinese demands on the removal of tariffs before negotiations proceed, with a 90 day pause on the tariffs now in place. The overall thrust of the situation has been covered elsewhere on this substack, but suffice to say the US has been forced to wave the white flag thanks to dependence on Chinese imports. US officials are despairingly admitting defeat in private, seeing the whole Liberation Day scheme as an enormous flop that massively damaged the US’s global position. US firms are already hastily rushing to place massive orders with Chinese factories while the pause remains in place. US stores like Walmart are still taking the opportunity to hike prices though, citing tariff turmoil and remaining rates as reason for price gouging. For some reason though the Trump administration has apparently decided that it has not had enough of the gigantic mess it has caused for itself, and is preparing letters to various countries announcing new tariff rates again. This kind of behavior has been part of a pattern throughout the Trump administration, with tariff policies undergoing substantial revision or total reversal more than 50 times since Trump took officer 4 months ago. With the total US retreat in the face of Chinese intransigence, it is doubtful whether this US campaign will even come close to succeeding. Already US satellites like Japan or India are already digging in their heels further and preparing retaliatory measures against the US with the knowledge that the US is a paper tiger. US efforts to reach a deal with other countries have not been helped by Trump comments opposing the so called “friendshoring” towards countries like India, with Trump instead demanding factories be moved to the highly uneconomical US.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-12/xi-defiance-pays-off-as-trump-meets-most-chinese-trade-demands
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-12/us-and-china-agree-to-major-reductions-in-tariffs-for-90-days
https://x.com/burgessev/status/1922410372721455303?t=XcTQEAmVq56cJu9IKvdPKg
https://x.com/newswire_us/status/1922982441481887959?s=46&t=XcTQEAmVq56cJu9IKvdPKg
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1923438160635113510?t=XcTQEAmVq56cJu9IKvdPKg
https://x.com/josephpolitano/status/1922784694053003699?t=XcTQEAmVq56cJu9IKvdPKg
https://x.com/spencerhakimian/status/1922701759279137119?t=XcTQEAmVq56cJu9IKvdPKg
https://x.com/beijingdai/status/1922247360668958723?t=XcTQEAmVq56cJu9IKvdPKg
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/15/trump-told-tim-cook-he-doesnt-want-apple-building-iphones-in-india.html
The US bond market somehow continues its serious troubles. The bond rate has continued to be unstable and generally trend upwards, not helped by US congressional bickering over the big Republican spending package and Trump admin proposals for an effective default on some US debt by forcing debtholders to take 100 year bonds with no coupon payouts. This and other factors has led to Moody’s downgrading the US credit rating for the first time in its history, following other major credit rating agencies who downgraded the US over previous years. The UK is still stupid enough though, as they have bought enough US treasuries to now be the world’s second largest foreign holder of them. China was historically the largest foreign holder of treasuries but has been gradually moving away from the dollar, allowing Japan to take first place and now the UK to take second place.
https://x.com/kathleen_tyson_/status/1922526267909239022?t=XcTQEAmVq56cJu9IKvdPKg
https://x.com/disclosetv/status/1923486698664525994
https://x.com/firstsquawk/status/1923469194869326098?t=XcTQEAmVq56cJu9IKvdPKg
China held a major summit with CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States). A steady stream of foreign officials and business leaders streamed into Beijing for major discussions and dealmaking. President Xi Jinping spoke before the gathering and pledged to deepen ties to Latin America and the Caribbean, increasing investments and imports, expanding technological cooperation, aiding local police agencies, and offering visa-free travel. These efforts will build further long term cooperation between China and the Americas, and represent an explicit repudiation of the US’s dictatorial “Monroe Doctrine”. Latin American officials themselves have been enthusiastic about cooperation with China, concluding various new agreements to deepen cooperation and friendship. Colombia has joined the Belt and Road Initiative, and Brazil pledging to challenge US dominance in distillers dried grains production with major exports to China.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202505/1333899.shtml
https://x.com/piqsuite/status/1922125214835708123?t=XcTQEAmVq56cJu9IKvdPKg
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202505/1334039.shtml
https://x.com/mayadeenenglish/status/1922129968907375001?t=XcTQEAmVq56cJu9IKvdPKg
https://x.com/piqsuite/status/1922270138893795544?t=XcTQEAmVq56cJu9IKvdPKg
The Europeans meanwhile do not seem to have a good idea on where their China policy should go. German Chancellor and former financier Friedrich Merz is reportedly planning to pursue an anti-China policy, despite his country’s dependence on Chinese markets, even more so amidst abysmal economic prospects brought about by its involvement in the Ukraine crisis. The UK on the other hand issued formal statements that its recent framework trade memo with the US is not designed to prejudice its economic relations with China. European officials are also meeting more with their Chinese counterparts, with EU and Chinese officials meeting on financial subjects as part of an EU-China working group, while the Danish foreign minister traveling to Beijing for a state visit
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3310378/germanys-new-chancellor-pursue-strategic-de-risking-china
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202505/1334121.shtml
https://x.com/globaltimesnews/status/1922619203569492310?t=XcTQEAmVq56cJu9IKvdPKg
https://x.com/globaltimesnews/status/1922913658981470567?t=XcTQEAmVq56cJu9IKvdPKg
The India-Pakistan conflict is still smoldering, though the worst of it is at least on hold thanks to a ceasefire agreement. Trump claimed that he threatened economic measures against both countries if they did not agree to end hostilities and come to the table, but various sources have pushed back against this and other US claims to importance in the negotiations. Indian media and officials have sabre rattled about resuming hostilities with their delusional assertions of a massive victory over Pakistan. China meanwhile is sitting pretty amidst a good performance by Chinese arms sold to Pakistan, with even western sources admitting that Chinese equipment got the better of India’s military in the recent hostilities. Chinese arms exports are expected to increase in the wake of this positive outcome, and Chinese arms companies have seen a rise in stock prices.
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/donald-trump-india-pakistan-ceasefire-nuclear-conflict-trade-9998410/
https://x.com/bdutt/status/1924146653151347123?t=XcTQEAmVq56cJu9IKvdPKg
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-05-15/china-s-defense-industry-is-getting-a-deepseek-moment
The Middle East crisis continues to evolve in new and exciting ways. Trump was recently in the region for his first state visit, traveling to several of the wealthy Gulf Arab monarchies. During his time there Trump worked to conclude a US-Saudi bilateral deal on defense, nuclear, and other policies, effectively repudiating the Abraham Accords and the attempt to assemble a Gulf-Israel-US anti Iran anti China alliance. Trump also promised sanctions relief to the new jihadi Syrian govt at Saudi request. In return, the Gulf Arabs promised vaporware investments in the US several times their own GDP, which will almost certainly fall substantially when it comes time to actually collect. Gulf officials will be traveling to a GCC-ASEAN-China summit in Malaysia later this month, along with Chinese premier Li Qiang. The Gulf states are likely to continue their US-China balancing act for the forseeable future, avoiding excessively committing to either. Simultaneously, the Iranian nuclear talks have proceeded with mixed results, with Iran demanding to retain an indepedent civilian nuclear program and with the US blowing hot and cold towards this. Some Trump officials like Rubio have firmly opposed this in an attempt to derail negotiations and move towards war, while others have floated an effective return to the Obama-era JCPOA deal of inspections and sanctions relief. New revelations emerged with regard to the total failure of the US war against Yemen this week, with US officials revealing that Yemeni forces repeatedly came close to hitting not just 4th generation US fighters and US naval vessels, but the 5th generation stealth F-35. The failures of the US against a country as impoverished as Yemen does not exactly bode well for their planned China war, for which the brought the Yemen war to a close in order to try and save their ammunition.
For War on China’s other coverage of the Middle East crisis:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-syria-sanctions-reversal-treasury-surprise/
https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1923704304768253979#m
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinese-premier-visit-malaysia-key-asean-gulf-summit-sources-say-2025-05-08/
https://x.com/abasaslani/status/1923366514024997048?t=XcTQEAmVq56cJu9IKvdPKg
https://www.twz.com/air/how-the-houthis-rickety-air-defenses-can-threaten-the-stealthy-f-35
China’s State Council has released a new white paper on national security. The paper aims to explain and assess China’s national security approach, Chinese contributions to global stability, reinforcement of development and modernization, promoting common security through the Global Security Initiative and other measures, and improving China’s national security system. In particular China aims to further shield itself from foreign aggression of all kinds while improving its capacity for retaliation.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2025-05-12/China-releases-white-paper-on-national-security-1Djv8Sx3N3a/p.html
Chinese chip technology continues to improve substantially. On the eve of Huawei’s new Ascend chips being released to the public, Microsoft founder Bill Gates has publicly acknowledged that the US measures to hobble Chinese technical development have been a complete failure. Nevertheless, the US has chosen to try and double down, attempting to illegally ban foreign countries from purchasing Huawei Ascend chips and from using US chips to run Chinese models like Deepseek, threatening further sanctions. The US is also aiming to prevent iPhones within China from integrating Chinese AI products. The US techno monopolist perverts are once again feeling the heat from Chinese competition which has undermined their plans for monopoly profits and domination.
https://x.com/globaltimesnews/status/1921958294974820816?t=XcTQEAmVq56cJu9IKvdPKg
https://x.com/nuryvittachi/status/1922468530848706851?s=46&t=XcTQEAmVq56cJu9IKvdPKg
https://x.com/kyleichan/status/1923937986011422894?t=XcTQEAmVq56cJu9IKvdPKg
China has made major strides in green energy. China recently conducted its first cross-provincial green electricity sale, with solar energy from Xinjiang being transfered to Beijing for use. This marks a major step towards nationwide green energy intergration. These and other moves have already begun bearing fruit, as Chinese carbon emissions recently went into reverse for the first time, dropping 1% despite a surge in energy demand. Western media meanwhile have falsely accused Chinese solar panels of containing a kill switch, a new reprise of the equally moronic and false previous claims of Chinese spying through electronics exports.
https://x.com/tphuang/status/1922832250657239235?t=XcTQEAmVq56cJu9IKvdPKg
https://x.com/CarbonBrief/status/1922789438582661436?t=MIE91CN2DzHNu8zEyy6XIg
https://x.com/TheInsiderPaper/status/1922627204162236451
China’s space program continues to proceed quickly. China has launched the first of 12 satellites in the Three-Body Computing Constellation, which when completed will be the world’s first orbital supercomputer. With orbital solar energy and the low temperatures of space, the system will be substantially more efficient than planetside supercomputers. China and Russia have also signed a deal to build a nuclear power plant on the moon as part of their joint lunar research base in the future.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3310506/china-launches-satellites-start-building-worlds-first-supercomputer-orbit
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3310315/china-and-russia-sign-nuclear-reactor-deal-fuel-lunar-research-station
The Yoon faction in South Korea remains in turmoil amidst the upcoming ROK special presidential election. The Yoonite People’s Power Party has successfully pressured Yoon to resign in a flailing attempt to resuscitate their moribund political prospects. Meanwhile, opposition frontrunner Lee Jae-myung has announced a proposal for sweeping constitutional reforms aimed at curtailing presidential authority, improving the electoral system, clamping down on corruption, and other measures.
For War on China’s other coverage of the ROK political crisis:
https://x.com/globaltimesnews/status/1923546426199638527?t=XcTQEAmVq56cJu9IKvdPKg
https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20250518013100001?section=election2025/news&site=topnews02
The idiots in Taipei have managed to reach a new level of liberal stupidity. On an official govt website controlled by the DPP, the Han supermajority of 90%+ of the island was erased and replaced with categorization as “other”, instead listing minisule minority groups in the lead. The mainland’s Taiwan Affairs Office has publicly condemned the move. Meanwhile, the US media continues to fearmonger about an attack from the mainland on the non existent 2027 Chinese deadline, and hype up the incompetent and poorly equipped armed forces on the island. This kind of nonsensical fearmongering has gotten to the point where a wealthy DPP supporter has bankrolled the creation of a major movie fearmongering on the subject slated to be released ahead of the legislative elections on Taiwan later this year. All involved would be far better served by ceasing this dangerous and moronic provocation.
For War on China’s overview of the Taiwan issue:
https://x.com/globaltimesnews/status/1922515757411533276?t=XcTQEAmVq56cJu9IKvdPKg
https://x.com/21aar_show/status/1924116162570600866?t=XcTQEAmVq56cJu9IKvdPKg