China building world’s biggest military base in prep for US war – Asia Times

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China’s People’s Liberation Army ( PLA ) is reportedly building a new command center in the capital, Beijing, that, upon completion, will be at least 10 times larger than the US Pentagon.

Financial Times&nbsp, said&nbsp, that the design of the mega-sized service, which has been widely reported in&nbsp, mainstream&nbsp, advertising, has raised concern among American intelligence firms, which think Beijing is preparing for a large-scale or perhaps nuclear conflict. &nbsp,

The initiative under development is on a 1, 500-acre page 30 kilometers south of Beijing, according to the FT report, newly-analyzed dish images revealed. The photographs showed at least 100 crane operating over a five-square-kilometer place.

According to the report, military experts believe the facility will house high-level bunkers to protect the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s ( CPP ) leaders in the event of a major conflict. It claimed that midway through the 20th century the hospital had been constructed.

According to some, the project’s name,” Beijing Military City,” may eventually become the largest military command centre in the world. &nbsp,

FT reported that security guards blocked writers who attempted to travel near the building site. The blog is a military-related place, according to a local business owner. &nbsp,

The document coincided with US President Donald Trump’s contact for building an wide, next-generation” Iron Dome” missile defence weapon for the island US. The weapon, which will cover many more ground than Israel’s, may be designed to deflect intercontinental ballistic missiles and hypersonic missiles. &nbsp,

As China observes the Chinese New Year on January 28 through February 4, the country’s Foreign Ministry has yet to respond to the FT review and Trump’s Iron Dome system. &nbsp,

It is no mystery, however, that China now has nuclear tanks and underwater military command centers. In 2017, China Central TV reported that the PLA’s control office in Xishan in west Beijing is 100 feet beneath. According to the statement, PLA soldiers have been directing military exercises that since 2013.

” Our land adopts an active security strategy”, Qian Qihu, a Taiwanese military expert, told CCTV in an interview in August 2022. ” As we don’t fire the first shot, we need to protect ourselves from our enemy’s first attack, then we can fight back”.

” Our corporate arms must be fully protected. We may be able to keep ourselves safe from any of the enemy’s problems, including nuclear hits”, Qian said. ” As the army’s methods of attacks continue to evolve, our protection techniques also need to develop. And we shouldn’t rely on just one security tactic.

After graduating from Harbin Engineering University in 1961, Qian was transferred to the Soviet Union’s Kuybyshev Military Engineering Academy, which is now known as the Combined Arms Academy of the Russian Federation, to analyze military architecture and geography.

In Kuybyshev ( also known as Samara before 1935 and after 1991 ), Qian learned how the Soviet Union constructed a vault in 1942 for its supreme leader Joseph Stalin.

The service, 37 meters below the surface, was aimed to get Stalin’s other military command offices. However, it was never used by Stalin, and it even served as a 1990s visitor attraction.

After China successfully tested its first hydrogen weapon in June 1967 with the help of the Soviet Union, Qian led China’s growth of nuclear-resistant properties. &nbsp,

As the West developed large artillery projectiles ( MOP) capable of destroying targets hundreds of meters below the surface, Qian led a team of researchers to style underground tanks in the 1980s.

Today, the United States ‘ GBU-57A/B MOP may reach 60-meter-thick plaster and as far as 200 feet underground. &nbsp, &nbsp,

Hsu Yen-chi, a researcher for the Taipei-based Council on Strategic and Wargaming Studies, told the media that the Beijing construction project is more like an operational body or a sizable training facility than a radioactive basement.

In fact, the Army has previously located a location close to where it would build its atomic basement. &nbsp,

In January 2018, Qin Dajun, a lieutenant scientist at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, told the South China Morning Post that Chinese analysts found a solutional bunker suitable for building a nuclear-resistant basement.

He said the large stone cave, located at the Xishan Forest Park, 20 km southwest of Beijing, has a healthy water supply. He said the grotto is 2, 000 feet beneath, compared with the degree of 2, 200 feet of Krubera Cave in Georgia.

Qin made his remarks after North Korea defied Beijing’s orders to examine its nuclear weapons in 2017. &nbsp,

Even if the CCP has the resources and a heavy cave to construct a nuclear basement, according to some observers, it would not be wise to cover all gathering leaders in a single location during a war. &nbsp,

Canada-based Chinese critic Wen Zhao&nbsp, says&nbsp, on his YouTube channel that when a war breaks out, CCP officials may disguise in different areas to improve their success chances. He claims that a mega-military command center will trigger more enemy military assaults than usual. &nbsp,

In fact, some other observers predicted that CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping would relocate to Xian in Shaanxi during the war because the city’s high mountains and missile systems make it safe for the city. &nbsp,

In 1900, when the troops of the Eight-Nation Alliance, led by the US, France and Germany, marched into Beijing, Qing Empress Cixi fled to Xian, where she claimed to enjoy hunting, and stayed there for a year.

Yong Jian contributes to the Asia Times. He is a Chinese journalist who specializes in Chinese technology, economy and politics. &nbsp,

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Will DeepSeek deep-six the US economy? – Asia Times

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By selling technology companies to immigrants, America has financed a current account deficit that soared to US$ 1.2 trillion in 2024. Tech stocks, however, are trading at valuations not seen since 2000, when the NASDAQ Composite began a descent that wiped out 75 % of its market capitalization by 2002.

If expectations deteriorate regarding synthetic intelligence’s ability to generate revenue, was a technology crash lead to a financing crisis for the United States? The question of the January 27 collision in AI-related stocks in response to less expensive and more effective Chinese rivals still lingers. Every capital investment in the world pays close attention to these issues.

Graphic: Asia Times

Europeans stopped buying US debts of all kinds – Treasury, loan, and business – after the post-Covid prices of 2021 and the Federal Reserve’s subsequent rise in interest rates. That signaled the end of a 40-year bulls industry in US securities. From a 1981 peak of 15 %, the US 30-year bond yield fell in a nearly straight line to an August 2020 low of just 1.41 %.

The inflationary wave of 2021-2022 put an end to this bull work. In March 2022, moreover, the US and its allies seized half of Russia’s$ 600 billion in foreign exchange reserves, prompting other central banks to shift away from US Treasury securities to gold and other assets.

However, the world’s appetite for American tech stocks has been stagnant for the past ten years, which was rekindled by the development of Large Language Models ( LLMs) last year. Are raised valuations for AI-related shares justified? Which two aspects affect how quickly and which industries are most likely to make money from AI?

China’s DeepSeek R1 type appears to have made a model performance discovery: tale layout and related improvements reduce the amount of processing required by one or two orders of magnitude.

DeepSeek, also, offers its unit at a small fraction of the price that its US competitors then charge. That is not always detrimental to the overall US tech sector. If China has a better systems, US companies may choose it speedily, and lower costs for AI simulation does benefit the users of AI models.

US and China compete in seven distinct subcategories of AI uses. China leads most of them, and its Artificial skills are likely to strengthen it. They are

  1. Manufacturing: China has poured huge resources into stock technology. One test is the number of companies outfitted with devoted 5G systems, which support AI applications. China claims 10, 000 for installations, while the US has only a few hundred, concentrated in the automobile industry. The benefit is enormously advantageous for China, and breakthroughs in AI are likely to help. However, US production has had a small influence on equity valuations.
  2. Internet of Things: China is back in simplifying vehicles and warehousing, with entirely mechanical stores now in operation.
  3. China is now a major manufacturer of professional computers, installing more industrial computers each year than the rest of the world combined.
  4. China leads the so-called low level market, which was first cited by federal planners in a December 2024 working papers. Drone taxis, drone deliveries, and other applications are currently a$ 100 billion industry in China, and they are projected to double by 2026.
  5. Autonomous cars: We’ll call this a toss-up between the US and China, although China now has autonomous car companies operating on a smaller scale.
  6. Huge Language Models: afterwards, a toss-up. The Philippines ‘$ 40 billion call center business, which saw the most potential gain from AI systems, includes the gains made by LLMs. However, at this point, there are no guarantees that Bachelor applications will be approved for all of their possibilities because they are so varied and extensive.
  7. Biotech: The US has a distinctive advantage with a powerful medical development system. China has a direct in health statistics, but America’s advanced of large pharmaceutical companies, businesses and venture entrepreneurs give it an edge.

The big question is about LLM’s timing. Although the payoff might be significant, it may not be as quick as anticipated.

LLM deployment in the enterprise still has little to do with organizational performance and human adaptation ( management buy-in, workflow adjustments, etc. ). seems to be years away. Cost savings for specific categories of expenses, such as call centers or repetitive coding tasks, may be easily realized. However, the development of AI for higher-skill work is still in its infancy.

What does this mean for Nvidia’s chipmakers? On the assumption that Nvidia GPUs will provide a lot of this activity, one could argue a bullish case for Nvidia based on all of the AI sectors listed above. However, this hypothesis requires closer scrutiny of Nvidia’s competitive advantages.

Nvidia has a greater advantage in computation when training language and vision models, but less so when inference ( running the resulting models to get useful results ) is at its disposal. Notably, Huawei’s Ascend AI chips already perform fairly well with the new DeepSeek models, with comparable or even better cost performance than the weakened Nvidia H800s ( the weakened Nvidia chip that was cleared for export to China ) &nbsp.

Additionally, the case that the top US tech companies ( the so-called Magnificent Seven ) will control equity returns going forward is much weaker than the market is currently perceptive of it. If we are right, and tech market valuations shrink to some significant extent, what are the macroeconomic implications? Key capital flows are more dependent on a small number of very large companies than at any other time in US history.

Let’s say foreigners reduced their purchases of tech stocks as the value of the stocks declines. The United States would need to sell more bonds to both domestic and foreign investors to pay off its current account deficit and federal budget deficit. The chart below shows the amount of new Treasury debt bought by US banks, US households, foreign official institutions, and foreign private investors, respectively.

Banks stepped in and reabsorbed the$ 4 trillion in Covid subsidies that were funded by the Treasury debt, but by 2023 they had exhausted their savings deposits. Households, who were drawn to the higher interest rates on Treasuries, saw the biggest increase in new investment in Treasury securities. Additionally, foreign private investors decreased their Treasury holdings. &nbsp,

A full-blown financial crisis is most unlikely. The cash-burning dotcoms of 2000 have been replaced by cash-rich monopolies like Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon and Meta. By offering higher bond yields to domestic and international investors, the United States can adjust to an air-pocket in the demand for its tech stocks.

However, the DeepSeek shock exposes flaws in Big Tech’s core strategies as well as in the stratospheric valuation of its best-performing stocks. The outcome is likely to be a combination of persistently higher interest rates, slower growth, a decline in wealth, and strong economic headwinds.

Graphic: Asia Times

The S&amp, P’s technology sector, correspondingly, trades at a P/E of 37, compared to an overall P/E for the S&amp, P 500 of 26. That accounts for the largest portion of the difference between the lofty valuations of American stocks and those of European, Japanese, and Chinese stocks.

Graphic: Asia Times

A brass-tacks gauge of equity valuation is the free cash flow (FCF ) yield, namely the ratio of cash income to market price. Investors accept less current income because they anticipate higher income in the future, the higher the FCF is expected to be. For the S&amp, P 500 as a whole, FCF is below 3, a level not seen since the eve of the tech stock crash of 2000.

Graphic: Asia Times

For a monopoly like Microsoft, the free cash flow yield has fallen to just 2, the lowest on record.

Graphic: Asia Times

Between 2020 and 2024, Big Tech invested more than double in capital expenditures, and it is still investing heavily in AI-supporting data centers. The DeepSeek shock raises questions about the viability of these plans economically: If Chinese developers can create cutting-edge models using innovative model architecture designs, the raw computing power under development could be significantly overvalued.

Graphic: Asia Times
Graphic: Asia Times

To entice price-sensitive buyers into the Treasury market, the US government—still running a record peacetime non-recession deficit of 6 % to 7 % of GDP—probably will have to offer higher yields. That’s a problem for the economy and also a problem for the Treasury, which is already paying$ 1 trillion a year in interest, nearly quadruple the service cost of America’s national debt in 2020.

It also puts a headwind in front of the US economy for interest-sensitive activity, particularly housing. Longer-term, the US runs the risk of an Italian-style spiral, in which the rising cost of debt service eats away at the budget and limits what the federal government can do to support the economy.

Steve Hsu is professor of theoretical physics and of computational mathematics, science, and engineering at Michigan State University, and the founder of several AI startups. Follow him on X at @hsu_steve. David P. Goldman serves as Asia Times ‘ deputy editor. Follow him on X at @davidpgoldman

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The profundity of DeepSeek’s challenge to America – Asia Times

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The DeepSeek artificial intelligence ( AI ) system from China poses a significant challenge for America, which raises questions about the US’s overall strategy in dealing with China. DeepSeek offers creative alternatives that begin from a strong point of origin.

America believed that by monopolizing the use and development of complex computers, it would always ruin China’s technological progress. In fact, it did not happen. The creative and resourceful Chinese discovered engineering solutions to cross British restrictions.

It set a law and something to consider. We will see why it may happen with any upcoming American technologies. That said, American tech remains the opener, the force that opens fresh borders and perspectives. &nbsp,

Difficult straight competitions

The issue is rooted in the modern “race.” If the contest is purely a straight game of modern catch-up between the US and China, the Chinese—with their brilliance and vast resources — may maintain an almost overwhelming benefit.

For instance, China produces nearly four million engineering graduates annually, which is nearly twice as many as the rest of the world combined, and has a large, semi-planned economy that you concentrate resources on pressing needs in a way that America can’t even compare. &nbsp,

Beijing has thousands of engineers and billions of dollars to spend without the need for quick financial results (unlike US businesses that have market-driven responsibilities and expectations ). Therefore, China will probably always catch up to and overtake the latest National improvements. It does near the technology gap that the US creates. &nbsp,

Beijing is not required to look for advances anywhere in the world or use resources to promote development. In America, all the empirical work and economic spend have already been completed.

The Chinese you see what works in the US and invest money and top talent in specific projects while putting a rational bet on minor improvements. Even without taking into account potential industrial espionage, Chinese innovation will take care of the rest. &nbsp,

China will always have to get up, though America may continue to be the inventor of new discoveries. The US might complain,” Our technology is superior” ( for whatever reason ), but the price-performance ratio of Chinese products could keep winning market share. This could lead to a push on US businesses ‘ markets, and America could find itself struggling to compete as a whole, even to the point of losing. &nbsp,

It is not a comfortable situation, one that might just change drastically on either side. In horizontal terms, there is already a “more smash for the buck” active, similar to what caused the USSR to fail in the 1980s. Nowadays, however, the US dangers being cornered into the same hard place the USSR when faced. &nbsp,

In this framework, easy modern “delinking” does not suffice. It does not suggest that the US should abandon its delinking guidelines, but something more detailed might be required. &nbsp,

Tried technology detachment&nbsp,

In other words, the concept of natural and straightforward scientific detachment may not work. America and the West are more in need of China. There must be a 360-degree, defined strategy by the US and its friends toward the world—one that incorporates China under certain circumstances. &nbsp,

If America succeeds in crafting such a technique, we may see a medium-to-long-term platform to avoid the risk of another world battle. &nbsp,

China has perfected the Japanese&nbsp, kaizen&nbsp, type of progressive, marginal changes to existing systems. Through&nbsp, kaizen&nbsp, in the 1980s, Japan hoped to beat America. Due to poor business choices and Japan’s firm development model, it failed. But with China, the story may vary.

China is no Japan. It is larger ( with a population four times that of the US, whereas Japan’s was one-third of America’s ) and more closed. The Japanese yen was fully convertible ( though kept artificially low by Tokyo’s central bank’s intervention ) while China’s present RMB is not.

But the historical parallels are impressive: both Japan in the 1980s and China now have Earnings about two-thirds of America’s. Also, Japan was a US military alliance and an open society, while nowadays China is both.

For the US, a distinct effort is then required. To expand world markets and proper spaces, which are the focus of US-China conflict, it may create integrated alliances. China now recognizes the value of bilateral and international space, in contrast to Japan’s 40 years ago. Beijing is attempting to establish its own ally with the BRICS.

While it struggles with it for many causes and having an alternative to the US dollar global position is farfetched, Beijing’s new global focus—compared to its history and Japan’s experience—cannot get ignored. &nbsp,

A new, included growth model that expands the population and workforce are in line with the United States may be proposed by the US. It may strengthen connectivity with allied nations to create a area “outside” China—not obviously angry but distinct, porous to China only if it adheres to clear, clear rules. &nbsp,

This wider scope would help counteract America’s socioeconomic and human resource imbalances, increase British power in general, and foster international cohesion.

It may change the individual and financial resources used to support the current technological race, influencing its outcome in the end. &nbsp,

Bismarck inspiration&nbsp,

For China, there is another traditional law —Wilhelmine Germany, devised by Bismarck, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Back then, Germany imitated Britain, surpassed it, and turned” Made in Germany” from a mark of shame into a symbol of value.

Germany became more educated, free, forgiving, democratic—and even more intense than Britain. Without the anger that precipitated the demise of Wilhelmine Germany, China had the freedom to choose this course. &nbsp,

Does it? Is Beijing prepared to be more accepting and open-minded than the US? In theory, this could allow China to beat America as a modern greeting. However, for a design clashes with China’s traditional legacy. The Chinese empire has a tradition of” conformity” that it struggles to escape. &nbsp,

Is the US bring friends closer together without alienating them, in the US’s case? In principle, this way aligns with America’s advantages, but concealed problems exist. The American dynasty now feels betrayed by the globe, particularly Europe, and reopening relationships under new guidelines is complicated. A revolution president like Donald Trump might want to try it. Did he? &nbsp,

The US, China, or both must change in this manner for the sake of peace. If the US unites the world around itself, China may be isolated, dried up and turn inside, ceasing to be a danger without damaging battle. If China opens up and democratizes, a core reason for the US-China conflict dissolves.

If both reform, a new global order could emerge through negotiation. &nbsp,

This article was originally published on Appia Institute, and it is now licensed for resale. Read the original here.

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Trump’s meme coin is a boldfaced cash grab – Asia Times

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Donald Trump unveiled a video gold, a type of crypto whose value is fueled by social media and internet tradition rather than any form of functionality or intrinsic value, just days before his inauguration as president.

The coin, which is officially known as$ Trump, briefly climbed into the top 15 cryptocurrencies by market cap and attracted over a half-million investors.

A reporter asked Trump if he would remain selling items that would benefit him privately while serving as president in a press event on January 21, 2025, making reference to the penny.

” You made a lot of money ]on$ Trump], sir”, he told Trump, who seemed indifferent to its meteoric rise in value.

” How little”? Trump asked. ” Some billion dollars, it seems like, in the last few days”.

YouTube video

]embedded articles]

Donald Trump is questioned about the success of his brand-new image gold.

Over the following week, various publications claimed the meme coin had “ballooned]Trump’s ] net worth” making him a” crypto billionaire“.

Trump may have a lot of money from the image gold and his other crypto ventures, but the claims that he himself make a lot of money off of it are exaggerated.

Interesting wealth or purloin?

Meme cash gained popularity in 2013 with the release of Dogecoin, which its authors intended as a prank and parodied the numerous different apparently pointless cryptocurrencies that were popping up at the time. It was never supposed to be a common purchase. The creators also made an effort to make it as unattractive as possible to make sure it wouldn’t.

It is still among the top ten cryptocurrencies a year later and has inspired the release of thousands of different image coins.

In 2025, it’s cheaper and easier than ever to build and industry these currencies. For instance, all it takes to create a fresh gold on the website Pump. enjoyment is a brand, ticker symbol, information, image and the equivalent of about US$ 5 worth of cryptocurrency.

Moonshot, the blockchain change that Trump’s image gold site roads interested buyers to, allows users to sign up in as little as 10 days. The Trump penny and a number of other image coins are then available to them.

The majority of new image currencies are questioned. Some are outright ripoffs. For example, in August 2024 the Instagram accounts of McDonald’s was compromised to sell a joke gold named$ Grimace in a smile to the fast-food company’s colored symbol. The coin’s authors cashed out near to$ 700,000 after deliberately increasing the price.

There are numerous different scam pennies that fly under the radar by utilizing the same formula: create excitement, pump the cost, and dump on buyers.

Looking under the helmet

So how much does Trump and his affiliates really benefit from his new image gold and, more broadly, the “free-for-all” approach his administration is taking toward the crypto business?

I dig deeper into the Trump image coin and examine the gray area between involvement and abuse in bitcoin markets.

A joke gold offering’s” tokenomics,” which describes the predetermined number of units of its source, how that provide is distributed, and how much of it the inventor receives keeps, can be used to determine whether it is a fraud. The makers can sell for more money the higher the share of the source is allocated to them.

Creater currencies were originally intended for developers to fund their startups, according to media studies expert Lana Swartz. However, with meme coins, which generally don’t make any claims about building anything, they do exist to benefit their creators and, possibly, fund continued marketing of the coin.

The majority of Trump tokens are distributed to its creators on a three-year distribution plan, in contrast to Dogecoin, which adopted a” fair start” strategy, meaning that its creators didn’t give a percentage of the first coins to themselves before allowing others to trade it.

In fact, 80 % of the coin supply will be distributed to the coin’s creators over the course of three years. In other words, the tokenomics of the Trump meme coin were created so that its creators could gradually sell off their substantial supply without significantly affecting its value. They can do it slowly rather than quickly lift the rug from under investors ‘ feet.

None of this is hidden because the Trump meme coin’s tokenomics are prominently displayed on the coin’s website.

Notably, the coin’s creators won’t start receiving any of the supply until March 2025. The amount of profit they can expect will be determined by future prices. At the time of this writing, the Trump meme coin was down roughly 60 % from its peak.

Who are these creators anyway? The various layers of limited liability companies behind the project are obscuring which individuals stand to gain, as detailed in fine print on the$ Trump meme website.

Presuming Trump is one of these creators, the president technically doesn’t have an allotment of the supply to cash out – not until March, at least. So, no, Trump didn’t make billions from the coin. However, he still has the potential to steal millions of dollars from unintentional investors.

Judging by the spike in crypto exchange downloads over the weekend of the Trump coin’s launch, it attracted many new, and likely novice, speculators. Coins like these, which can significantly devalue in a matter of hours, can be agonizing introductions to the world of investing.

This isn’t the first time Trump has tried to make a killing on crypto, either. Since 2022, he has already made millions off the sales of five nonfungible token launches, which are essentially digital trading cards.

Have fun!

The final words of Trump’s meme coin announcement on Truth Social on his social media platform Truth Social sum up how his administration will approach the crypto industry over the coming four years:” Have fun!”

Trump signed an executive order on January 23 that included a number of decrees intended to make the United States the” crypto capital of the world.”

Venture capitalist David Sacks has been appointed as the group tasked with reforming the stringent rules governing the crypto industry. Sacks has made adage about his personal crypto investments on his podcast, and he has invested in various crypto-focused businesses.

In a recent Fox Business interview, Sacks was asked if he thought Trump’s meme coin was a conflict of interest. He said no, suggesting that the coins should be thought of as” collectibles” akin to” a baseball card or a stamp”.

YouTube video

]embedded articles]

David Sacks, Donald Trump’s crypto czar, sees little issue with Trump’s crypto investments.

Notably, the$ Trump website also refers to the tokens as” cards” and “memes”, rather than coins. They may be used as tokens of pure amusement rather than as serious investment vehicles with hopes of profit as a result of this attempt to avoid legal trouble.

However, a number of Congressmembers have already requested an investigation into the Trump meme.

One thing is unmistakable no matter how you define Trump: The coin’s structure has been set up to smuggle money from retail investors for at least the next three years. As long as the value of it is maintained, regular speculators can still make money off of it. That’s basically a gamble.

Trump could benefit enormously from a looser regulatory framework as he begins to accumulate a stockpile of various cryptocurrencies through his other venture, World Liberty Financial.

Fun indeed.

Maximilian Brichta is doctoral student of communication, University of Southern California

This article was republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Fretful of Trump, Philippines floats missile compromise with China – Asia Times

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Manila is at the middle of a political wind where shifting alliances and great-power rationality could make or break its regional interests due to the Philippines ‘ high-stakes bargain of offering to reduce US medium-range missiles in trade for China’s restraint in contested waterways.

In response to last month’s reports from various media sources, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had suggested a quid pro quo arrangement with China to get rid of the US Typhon missile system if China stopped its anger in the South China Sea.

Marcos Jr, responding to Chinese requirements for the projectile system’s removal, highlighted China’s weapon features, emphasizing that China’s army far surpasses the Philippines ‘.

He claimed that he would give the Mod missiles to the US if China stopped its territorial claims, harassment of Asian fishermen, and sea battles, including ramming, water cannoning, and laser-targeting Philippine vessels.

Prior to mutual training, the Philippines will receive training with the US Typhon weapon system. A new squad from the Philippine Army Artillery Regiment will be trained in the program during the course of the training.

In 2024, the US conducted joint martial exercises, but the Typhon program has remained in the Philippines as a result of rising tensions with China. The technique, which was recently relocated to an unknown location, includes Tomahawk and Standard Missile-6 weapons that can strike pieces of island China.

China has criticized its appearance and accused the Philippines of promoting local unrest and waging an arms race. Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro dismissed China’s complaints, calling them meddling in regional affairs.

The Philippines must balance asserting its sovereignty with maintaining its alliance with the US, with Marcos Jr’s striking position. It’s uncertain whether China will take a constructive approach to Marcos ‘ present.

The Philippines is at the centre of a two-level political game, one that involves territorial disputes with China and the other that is affected by internal social rivalries, due to the endless deployment of the US Typhon missile system.

China views the rollout as a weakening walk in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, while the US views it as part of its missile walls isolation approach against China.

However, the Marcos-Duterte conflict threatens to destroy the Philippines ‘ pro-US tilt. China reportedly supports the Trump political clan, which was supported by Vice President Sara Duterte and former president Rodrigo Duterte, to weaken Marcos Jr.’s administration, potentially jeopardizing upcoming US military exercises there.

For solid statements may only serve to mask fears of US abandonment under the following Trump administration, despite Marcos Jr’s latest strong rhetoric against China.

Given that the Philippines perhaps lose US$ 500 million in military help, Asian defence officials and experts in international policy are eagerly awaiting the Trump administration’s place on China. Their positions range from a more assertive protection, a wait-and-see strategy, and diversifying collaborations to a negative view of the US selling the Philippines to China.

The Trump government’s attempt to delay US international support for 90 days, pending a review to decide whether such initiatives make the US safer, stronger, and rich, presents a significant challenge for continued US aid to the Philippines.

The Philippines ‘ poor economic performance raises questions about whether it can finance expensive military equipment like multi-role fighters ( MRF ) or submarines, which have been on its wish list for decades, or even fulfill its ambitious plans to purchase the US Typhon missile system.

The Philippines ‘ justification for declaring its intentions to purchase Typhon may be to increase its strategic value to Trump-affiliated players in the US defense-industrial base, keeping the Philippines on the US’ radar. However, the US typically restricts the sale of the multimillion-dollar-per-unit Tomahawk and Standard Missile-6 to higher-tier allies such as the UK, Japan and Australia.

It is also doubtful that the Philippines ‘ alternative defense partners, such as Japan and Australia, have the diplomatic, economic and military clout, much less the willingness, to confront China over the Philippines ‘ South China Sea claims.

While US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has assured the Philippines of its “ironclad” support of the US-Philippines 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty ( MDT), the statement sounds more like boilerplate to calm Philippine fears while maintaining the US’s non-committal attitude about publicly supporting the latter’s South China Sea position.

In a commentary for the Cato Institute in December 2021, Doug Bradlow asserts that the Philippines is irrelevant when it comes to the US’s defense and that its attempts to evade US security guarantees are of little use to US strategic interests.

In contrast to Bradlow’s assertions, Raymond Powell in the South China Morning Post (SCMP ) argues for continued US military support for the Philippines, which is a treaty ally and a key component of US efforts to contain China in the First Island Chain.

Bradlow points out that while US military access to Philippine bases is always beneficial, no Philippine president would permit the use of the nation’s territory for US military operations against China, aside from in the event of an improbable attack on the Philippine archipelago.

According to Bradlow, the Philippines would become a permanent adversary of China’s geographical proximity. He also mentions the Philippines ‘ political unreliability and its military prowess as reasons to support US forces.

Donald Trump’s softer words toward China in his first term may suggest that he has become more pragmatic and focused on upholding US supremacy while avoiding a conflict with the rival superpower.

Andrew Byers and J Tyler make reference to the Trump administration’s transactional and pragmatic stance in a December 2024 article in the peer-reviewed journal Survival that the US might start to” cooperation spiral” with China by reducing its military and weapons presence in the Philippines and allowing the China Coast Guard (CCG) to reduce operations near disputed Philippine territory in the South China Sea.

Andreas Kluth mentions in an opinion piece for Bloomberg that Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Trump all have an imperialistic streak driven by “might make right” logic rather than conflicting ideologies.

According to Kluth, if the US, China, and Russia disagree on how to divide the world into spheres of influence, as they did at the 1945 Yalta Conference, it will undoubtedly lead to war and end smaller nations like the Philippines that are caught in the middle.

In a world like this, the US might decide to sell out the Philippines once it realizes that expanding its sphere of influence to China’s doorstep is not worth a major conflict, especially not over the Philippines, which, despite sharing some democratic values, is arguably of little strategic value to US interests.

Should that happen, the Philippines could revert to its Duterte administration-era appeasement stance toward China at the expense of its territorial integrity, writes Jenny Balboa for East Asia Forum.

According to Balboa, such a scenario could sever Marcos Jr.’s political fortunes and dynasty. She mentions that Marcos Jr.’s goal is to persuade Trump that both Trump and the Philippines would benefit from supporting the Philippines and standing up for China.

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Trump, Putin and Xi as co-architects of brave new multipolar world – Asia Times

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The Soviet Union’s decline and America’s current collapse have amazing connections. The Soviet Union was a failure because it marginalized the business community. Due to the ruling class’s marginalization of the working class, which has caused serious financial disparity and political polarization, the United States is faltering.

In his first name, Donald Trump resembled Boris Yeltsin, the destroyer of the ancient purchase. Trump may imitate Vladimir Putin’s playbook, a nationalist developer focused on home matters and rebuilding its business center, in his second term.

You Trump and Putin, along with China’s Xi Jinping, become the co-architects of a new multipolar world get?

Russia and the United States have more in popular than they would like to say. Both nations were born from revolutions against European empires and were founded on humanitarian political ideals ( freedom and social equality, respectively ), as American futurist Lawrence Taub noted in the 1980s. And both expanded by retaking control of the land by aboriginal peoples in the 19th century.

Additionally, both the US and Russia both have federated political systems and are generally European in origin. Although both have multiethnic populations, they are dominated by a single group ( WASPs in the US, Russians in Russia ) culturally, economically, and politically.

Cowboys and Russian

Alexis de Tocqueville and, more recently, Paul Dukes, in his book” The Emergence of the Super-Powers” ( 1970 ), also drew parallels between Russia and the United States.

According to Dukes, they had until recently held the view that it had a present life, a global goal, and that the other was the main impediment to its accomplishment. Also, they had the Cowboy/Cossack mystery and a connected inclination to see all political and religious issues in straightforward, black-and-white terms.

Both locations are powers with power attitudes. They are huge in size, close in people, and related in culture, temperate zone location and terrain. Both countries have substantial arms stockpiles and have decades of space exploration experience.

In the 1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev visited China under Deng Xiaoping. Deng successfully incorporated bourgeois concepts into the socialist system of China, promoting economic growth while preserving the Communist Party’s position of authority.

Gorbachev aimed for a similar transformation through perestroika ( economic restructuring ) and glasnost ( political openness ). He lacked the political will and administrative balance to carry out his vision, though.

His laws, in contrast to supervised reform, accelerated social fragmentation and economic decline, which led to the Soviet Union’s abolition in 1991.

In 1989, Mikhail Gorbachev and Deng Xiaoping pose with the Great Hall of the People. Image: Public Domain

The reforms that were carried out by Gorbachev opened the door for Yeltsin, a nationalist who capitalized on popular unpopularity with socialist rule. Alternatively of refining communism, Yeltsin dismantled it.

By scrapping Communist Party power, Yeltsin aimed to change Russia to a Western-style politics and marketplace economy. The end result was widespread corruption, common poverty, and the unregulated increase of elites, who consolidated their wealth at the expense of the Russian people.

It paved the way for a president who reimposed attempt and reclaimed Russia’s independence.

Putin’s fresh get

Clinton permitted the oligarchs to rule Russian scheme, but Vladimir Putin reined them and established state control. His method combined nationalism, financial control and, specifically, national independence, which had been under risk during the Yeltsin years.

Russia reaffirmed its position on the global stage under Putin, utilizing its military and energy resources to challenge European dominance. Although his autocratic strategies were contentious, he helped to restore Russia’s post-Soviet state’s standing as a powerful force.

Lenin speaks from atop a Russian tank in front of the pro-Trump protesters occupying Washington’s Capital on January 6, 2021, challenging the status quo. Image: Public Domain

In contrast to the Soviet Union, there is no such person as Gorbachev, a powerful leader who is valiant enough to press for structural reform.

In the midst of the 2008 financial crisis, Barack Obama had the chance to apply reform. But, rather than pushing architectural changes, Obama bailed out Wall Street. This choice exacerbated the economic inequality and fueled the nationalist uprising that precipitated Trump’s ascendancy.

Trump’s first president bore resemblance to Yeltsin’s career. Both officials disrupted the political creation, challenged entrenched leaders and thrived on nationalist rhetoric.

Trump’s second expression was marred by chaos, administrative collapse, and an emphasis on restoring the old order. His policies—such as trade war, deregulation and a target on nationalism—reflected a broader dismissal of the post-Cold War crony discussion.

Trump is now attempting to impose himself on the state machinery in his next term, much like Putin did in Russia.

Despite their similarities, but, Trump and Putin are different in their interactions with the super-rich. Putin, upon consolidating energy, curbed the effect of Russia’s elites, ensuring that the condition remained strong.

By comparison, Trump aligned himself with America’s wealthiest leaders, securing help from the super-rich who benefited from his tax laws and reform plan. The construction of the American political system—where corporate effect is greatly entrenched—makes a fundamental change doubtful.

Putin was able to organize energy in a way that Trump, constrained by British institutions and legal systems, may get difficult to replicate.

Toward a unipolar universe

A walk beyond superpower conflict and toward a unipolar world has become all but inevitable for many reasons, among them the conflict in Ukraine, the formation of BRICS, the US president’s unsustainable debt and China’s growing economic, scientific and political clout.

China is the world’s largest industrial producer and trading center. Red imports from China are more common than those from Germany or the US. Map created by&nbsp, reddit user creeper321448

When Trump and Putin solve the Ukrainian crisis, they will have an opportunity, in consultation with China, to go down in history as the co-architects of a multipolar world. The three countries could create a 21st-century-appropriate global order.

Capitalist and socialist ideologies, the two main political ideologies of the 20th century, are unique in China. The nation arguably lifted a billion people out of poverty by using 10, 20, and even 50-year plans, took the lead in most of the Industry 4.0 technologies that will shape the 21st century, and became the world’s indispensable industrial and trading nation.

With the Deng reforms of the 1970s, the Chinese rediscovered their 2, 500-year-old tradition of reconciling (yin-yang ) opposites, the basis of the Confucian Middle Way. Xi Jinping, the premier of China, will be able to serve as a mediator between Trump and Putin by presenting Confucian wisdom that has been updated for the twenty-first century.

Don’t be a capitalist or collectivist, be both

Don’t be a nationalist or globalist, be both

Don’t be a realist or idealist, be both.

Contrarian Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu, who criticized the dangers of being firmly reliant on a fixed identity, belief, or worldview, could be quoted by Xi.

Without praises, without curses,

Now a dragon, now a snake, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp,

You transform with the times.

And never give in to being by one thing.

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Too late, US Commerce nominee calls DeepSeek a technology ‘thief’ – Asia Times

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Howard Lutnick, the candidate for the US Commerce Secretary, has accused DeepSeek, an AI company based in Hangzhou, of stealing US technology and bypassing US export controls to receive expensive Nvidia chips. &nbsp,

Lutnick claimed that because it had access to a sizable supply of Nvidia chips and could take data from Meta’s open system, DeepSeek may make its AI models “dirt inexpensive” during the election hearing with the US Senate on January 29. &nbsp,

” I take a really jaded view of China”, he said. They only consider themselves and attempt to harm us, so we must defend ourselves. We need to pull our creativity, and we need to cease helping them. DeepSeek can rely on Meta’s empty platform because it is available. Nvidia’s cards – which they bought lots of, and they found their way around ]export handles ] – drive their DeepSeek design. It’s got to stop”.

Lutnick promised to coordinate and give the Bureau of Industry and Security ( BIS )’s export controls authority to stop China from using American tools in a US market place.

Beijing is celebrating the Chinese New Year from January 28 to February 4, but it has so far no responded to Lutnick’s responses. &nbsp,

Former PayPal CEO David Sacks, an expert on AI and cryptocurrency issues for the White House, claimed there was” substantial information” that DeepSeek drew data from Microsoft’s OpenAI designs for its own use. &nbsp,

IT specialists said “distillation” or&nbsp, “knowledge distillation” is widely used in Artificial education. It is a method by which output from a larger AI unit are used to teach and enhance a smaller one.

DeepSeek, in this process, can be understood as a student who keeps asking questions to a competent teacher, for instance ChatGPT, and uses the responses to fine-tune its logic. At some point, DeepSeek will be as bright as ChatGPT. &nbsp,

The “distillation” process requires far less processing power than what OpenAI has used to teach ChatGPT. &nbsp,

According to OpenAI, it had seen some proof that DeepSeek may have accessed its information through “distillation,” according to the Financial Times. It criticized DeepSeek for breaking its intellectual property.

Some Chinese IT experts agree that DeepSeek was created through “distillation” .&nbsp,

Wang Zhiyuan, a Beijing-based IT journalist, writes in an essay that it’s clear DeepSeek V-3, released on December 26, 2024, had used the “distillation” approach in education. He claims that he came to that conclusion after examining the DeepSeek features. &nbsp,

He claims that many other Chinese AI types have used distilled information from the released on September 12th, 2013, ChatGPT o1. He claims that a group of Chinese experts published an academic report on November 25, 2024, that has already thoroughly described the extraction process and its performance.

He claims that a distilled data AI model may not be able to answer quite challenging questions but is sufficient to solve high school-level issues. In his opinion, all little AI models may develop distilled information before entering the market.

” Don’t laugh at those who took a short-cut”! Wang says. ” DeepSeek employed a unique approach to conserve computing power. After all, its education value is just US$ 5.58 million, 1.1 % of US$ 500 million of Meta’s Llama 3.1″.

A group of DeepSeek experts published a report on January 22 after the release of the DeepSeek-R1 on January 20, 2025, in which they claimed its most recent AI design achieves performance similar to ChatGPT-o1.

They said the training of DeepSeek-R1 used the distilled data from Alibaba’s Tongyi Qianwen ( Qwen ) and Meta’s Llama. They said the DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen type outperforms ChatGPT-4o. &nbsp,

50, 000 H100 cards? &nbsp,

DeepSeek said it used just 2, 000 models of Nvidia’s H800 cards to teach its AI design. Before the US outlawed the export of the cards to China in October 2022, its caregiver High Flyer, a Taiwanese hedge fund, claimed it had amassed a swarm of 10,000 A100 cards. &nbsp,

But then Lutnick suspects that DeepSeek bypassed the US trade controls by importing high-end Nvidia cards via third-countries, such as Singapore. &nbsp,

The Wall Street Journal reported last July that some shady establishments in Singapore paid Chinese pupils to take the A100 bits back to China. &nbsp,

Without providing any evidence, Alexandr Wang, chief executive of the US-based Scale AI, told CNBC that DeepSeek has 50, 000 models of H100 bits, the most advanced Nvidia cards on the market.

Xiang Zhiping, a Hubei-based IT poet, finds that realistic. ” It’s no surprise if DeepSeek has 50, 000 H100 cards. Xiang claims that any Taiwanese internet company may have accumulated a lot of Nvidia cards. &nbsp,

Even if DeepSeek has a lot of chips, he claims, it will still use technology and modern IT frameworks to win the game rather than relying on outdated hardware to increase technology power indefinitely. &nbsp,

The US banned the export of A100 and H100 cards to China in October 2022, and then the slower A800 and H800 cards in October 2023. After this, Nvidia tailor-made the even-slower H20 cards for the Foreign businesses.

The Biden presidency made a regulatory framework known on January 14, 2025, that would enact a ban on imports of American AI devices and designs. The foundation became effective on January 31. &nbsp,

Some observers claim that the device ban’s gradual increasing gave China too much time to build premium AI cards.

Yong Jian contributes to the Asia Times. He is a Chinese columnist who specializes in Chinese technologies, economy and politics. &nbsp,

Read: Beijing calls Biden a’ phony’ and says dear to Trump

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Real murders behind hit novel Butter exposed Japan’s media misogyny – Asia Times

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Japan, 2009. It is a sunday in August. A person is spotted lying in the back seats of a rental car in a parking lot in Saitama, a provincial capital, about 30 kilometers north of Tokyo. Yoshiyuki Oide is his brand. It turns out that he’s not having a rapid sleep – he’s dying.

His suicide is primarily thought to be a murder, and the produce is carbon monoxide poisoning. But the officers are no convinced, but they knock on the door of the female Oide had been dating, 35-year-old Kanae Kijima. The research into what had come to be known in the internet as the” Konkatsu killer” situation has just begun. The name derives from konkatsu, meaning relationship looking.

Data from the investigation led to the discovery that Kijima may have killed three people she met on dating websites. Initial reports of suicide were false, but all three murders were later determined to be fabricated. Kijima, who has always maintained her innocence, was found criminal in 2012 on the basis of what was commonly accepted to be anecdotal evidence, mostly due to the court’s agreement. She was sentenced to death. The decision was upheld in successive panders, and she is now on death row awaiting murder.

Kijima’s circumstance was equivalent to that of Chisako Kakehi, who died in prison on December 26, 2024, while under sentence of death. After a court determined that she had entrapped and swindled money from three men ( including her husband ), she had been found guilty of murder and fraud, and she had been sentenced to the death penalty. She had also been found guilty of murder and fraud.

But there was also a unique feature to Kijima’s case. Numerous media outlets have been paying attention to the defendant’s appearance since the beginning rather than the terrible nature of the crime. How could a girl described as “ugly and overweight” maintain to draw these people, according to versions on the same problem in common boards, newspapers, and magazines?

There was a rumor that her success was due to her “homely” traits, which are thought to be the myth of plump women as being cheery, nurturing, and excellent cooks. It was suggested that men may choose for a woman’s comfort and kindness over a fashionable woman’s “air of superiority”.

Someone who has been given the death penalty in Japan typically vanishes from the public attention. However, Kijima kept a site where she detailed her lifestyle and relationships, and continued to blog entries that during and after the trial, perhaps through her attorneys. She continues to write about a variety of topics, including the types of cookies that are available in the confinement facility and the conditions on the death row. She also offers nutritional advice and reflections on the lay judge experiment in Chinese legal procedure.

Kijima pushed up, but the media eagerly mined her posts to dispel myths about gender roles and look. She has used her thoughts to highlight these biases in her analysis of the legal evidence in her sharp criticism of the emphasis on her looks and sex.

Telling the story

Cover of Butter by Asako Yusuki
The case’s fictionalized accounts raises questions about Japanese women’s stereotypes. google/books

For her book Butter, author Asako Yuzuki used Kijima’s event as inspiration to create a hypothetical tale. A journalist who is covering the case of a lady murderer is sucked into her swirling fascination with butter and generous food, exposing sexism and fat-phobia in Asian society.

Kijima, who has published both a narrative and a debut novel, wrote on her blog to express her profound dissatisfaction with the publication of the book, writing,” What Yuzuki and the editor are doing is nothing short of fraud. They are complicit in murder if they violate external communication rights, not only thieves. I truly believe this book is crass because they continue to use my title without permission.

But, when I interviewed her, artist Yuzuki insisted that, more than the details of the crime, she was interested in the relevance of Kijima’s circumstance, in how the Chinese media frequently sensationalize tales.

Chinese media frequently reflect the viewpoint of strong men. … This discovery was pivotal for me. Prior to that, I hadn’t really considered elections or discrimination in the internet or had much questioned it. However, it hit a muscle when it came to something I adore – eating.

Stereotypes and societal objectives

In her guide, Yuzuki queries some deep-seated Chinese stereotypes – especially around people and eating. She says that the concept of “marriage looking” is also popular in Japan, and women who love cooking are generally labelled as “domestic” or “obedient”.

But, in her practice, people excited about eating is far from obedient. Cooking is potent, in contrast, and a person experienced in the kitchen could just as quickly hurt someone as she could hydrate them. ” There’s a fine line between caring and risky precision”, she told me.

Social media have grown to be a powerful tool for protesters and poets like Yuzuki to interact with others and increase their voice. She has joined other writers in advocating for marginalised groups, including physical immigrants, highlighting the intersectionality of problems such as gender, class, and criminal justice.

Through the writings of writers including Yuzuki and through the Kijima event, the Kijima event offers a strong representation on the impact of political expectations regarding sex and demeanor. Through the facts, Kijima’s blog posts from prison, and through the work of writers including Yuzuki, the Kijima case is a rich source of inspiration. Beyond the question of guilt or innocence, it demonstrates how female criminals are criticized for their deeds as well as for breaking the rules of femininity.

This dual scrutiny coincides with historical biases in Japan, where women who challenge societal norms are frequently portrayed as dangerous outliers. Kijima’s portrayal as an unconventional femme fatale evokes the 19th-century trope of “poison women” – dofuku. This portrays women as obliterating forces that ruin the lives of those who live there.

The death penalty was only used once in 2022 and not at all in 2023, so it appears to be a method of exemplary justice. Many Japanese people believed she had murdered many people while disobeying conventional expectations for femininity.

The case has reinforced the idea that her crimes extended beyond the courtroom to the realm of societal betrayal.

Martina Baradel is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford on the Marie Curie.

The Conversation has republished this article under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Three reasons why gold’s record run is different – Asia Times

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Gold opened in London January 31 at an all-time history of$ 2.845 an ounce. Platinum is a form of protection from political and financial disasters. More specifically, it has become a special insurance coverage against systemic risk, breaking apart from other resources it used to record – foreign assets and other metals, for instance, as well as inflation-linked Treasuries.

That may worry politicians in Washington.

Trump declared during his election plan,” I may end the war in Ukraine, I will stop the panic in the Middle East, and I will stop World War III from occurring,” adding,” You have no idea how near we are.” Trump vowed to put an end to the Ukraine War within a time of taking office, but peace is still not in view. The West didn’t accept Russia’s primary need for Ukrainian neutrality. Nevertheless, Russia continues to crush out regular gains.

What will the US would if Russia wins the military in a significant way over Ukraine? No single knows, and the price of end-of-the-world healthcare continues to rise.

Gold’s document work is distinctive in three ways.

First, gold stopped trading with other metals, including gold, copper and various professional metal. That partnership lasted from 2007 until the close of 2023. Gold has increased significantly over the past year, while another metal have not.

Next – as we have noted usually – gold traded in combination with the supply of inflation-protected US Treasuries, or TIPS. Both are types of protection against sudden inflation and serious dollar depreciation. However, after the US and its allies seize$ 300 billion of Russian foreign exchange reserves in March 2022, gold became decoupled from TIPS provides. A plan of insurance that the insurer may seize at will is less appealing than gold in a central bank vault.

Third: Different currencies used to indicate a wall against the dollar. The Japanese renminbi, an alternative to the penny, was almost tracked by the silver price. However, in 2022, this marriage ended. For one thing, Japan’s government debt is now 250 % of GDP ( twice the US figure of 120 % ), and the central bank owns more than half of that debt. Japan’s inflation has crept up, eroding consumer purchasing power and weakening the region’s political organizations. The japanese is no longer a haven for foreign currency investors. The Euro, which has the bag of fragile and depressed markets like France and Italy, is not.

The United States must sell more than a trillion dollars of assets to the rest of the world annually with a trade deficit of$ 1.2 trillion and a net international investment position of negative$ 25 trillion. Five years ago, foreign investors stopped purchasing US bill, and since then, the country has been selling tech companies to foreigners to help it balance its trade deficit. A stock market selloff may have negative effects on the US dollar.

During his confirmation hearings, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pointed out that the US federal deficit, which ranges between 6 % and 7 %, is unprecedented for a time without war or recession. As I wrote December 20 in Asia Times, the gap may be Trump’s rival. American businesses now have the ability to cover the majority of the US government’s gap since 2020 as a result of foreign central banks ‘ reductions in their investments of US Treasuries. However, to get interest-sensitive personal investors, it will require either lower interest rates to help banks purchases of Treasuries, which are expansionary, or higher yields on government loan.

Both the global financial picture and the geopolitical balance are becoming more dangerous. Gold’s cost run provides a disturbing measure of risk perceptions, and it has evolved into a unique hedge against both types of risk.

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Western private equity firms return to Japan – Asia Times

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They’re again. After a break earlier in the new millennium, American private equity firms are increasingly&nbsp, targeting Japan for their Eastern investment techniques. And the Chinese government and regulators have taken bold steps to welcome them and help make Tokyo Tokyo the world’s first global financial hub.

Back in the late 1990s and early&nbsp, 2000s&nbsp, Japan was a favored destination for European alternative property managers. In 1999, for example, Newbridge Capital, co-founded by Texas Pacific Group ( then TPG), took a lot interest in&nbsp, the online service provider&nbsp, Livedoor. &nbsp,

And, in 2000, J. Christopher Flowers and Ripplewood Holdings organized a consortium of investors to purchase Japan’s distressed Long Term Credit Bank, renaming it Shinsei ( translation: &nbsp, “rebirth” ). After Shinsei went public in 2004, the bargain was commonly regarded as one of the most successful private equity investments ever, both in Asia and in the early days of private equity investment. &nbsp,

Curiosity Waned&nbsp, &nbsp,

But by the time of the Great Financial Crisis, American businesses began to find other Asian nations, &nbsp, most notably&nbsp, China and South Korea, &nbsp, more open and welcoming –countries&nbsp, where owners could achieve greater financial returns with fewer regulation roadblocks.

While American investors retreated, Eastern PE money continued to undertake to Japan. The Eastern PE large PAG continued to build its staff and&nbsp, investments&nbsp, in Tokyo. The company bought Universal Studios Japan in 2015 and reportedly exited three years later with&nbsp, a&nbsp, five-times&nbsp, return&nbsp, on&nbsp, their purchase. &nbsp, PAG ‘s&nbsp, most significant investment of late&nbsp, is&nbsp, the&nbsp, largest theme park by physical size, Nagasaki’s Huis Ten Bosch.

Nagasaki’s Huis Ten Bosch topic area. Photo: Japan Guide

One industry observer&nbsp, told Asia Times&nbsp, that&nbsp, while, about a decade ago, &nbsp, there were a few&nbsp, of&nbsp, what he calls&nbsp, one-off “predecessor transactions” &nbsp, by mega&nbsp, global&nbsp, funds &nbsp, including KKR and Bain, &nbsp, Western PE firms&nbsp, had&nbsp, largely&nbsp, remained circumspect&nbsp, about Japan&nbsp, – at least &nbsp, until recently&nbsp, when&nbsp, the country &nbsp, made a conscientious effort to win them back by committing to a series of sweeping&nbsp, regulatory initiatives. These included:

•&nbsp, Implementation of the Corporate Governance Code ( 2015, revisions in 2018 and 2021 ): &nbsp, Introduced to improve transparency, accountability, and decision-making in Japanese corporations, which aligns with international standards, the&nbsp, code encourages companies to have more independent directors&nbsp, to provide companies&nbsp, an outside perspective&nbsp, and&nbsp, commitment to shareholder&nbsp, rights, making Japanese companies more attractive to foreign investors, including PE firms.

The Stewardship Code’s implementation ( 2014, revised 2020 ): This code encourages institutional investors to work with the companies they invest in more, putting an emphasis on shareholder returns and sustainable growth. American PE firms discover working with shareholders that promote the implementation of value-adding techniques.

•&nbsp, Tokyo Stock Exchange&nbsp, market restructure ( 2022 ): &nbsp, This initiative simplified and restructured the TSE into three new segments: Prime, Standard, and Growth Markets. By highlighting encouraging growth sectors, the restructuring aims to define market dynamics, boost market visibility, and draw in foreign investors.

•&nbsp, Guidelines for Corporate Takeovers&nbsp, ( 2023 ): &nbsp, This bold action by The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry ( METI ) &nbsp, is designed&nbsp, to facilitate mergers and acquisitions ( including hostile takeovers ), recognizing them as critical to business revitalization and growth. The 2023 Guidelines aim to improve Chinese people M&amp, A practices by incorporating principles like shareholders ‘ intentions and the union’s fiduciary responsibility to make the Asian business manage business more visible to international clients. &nbsp, This directly benefits private equity firms, which&nbsp, are a major driver of email M&amp, A&nbsp, and as a” white hero” alternative to hostile protesters.

Business observers&nbsp, today&nbsp, say the governmental change toward&nbsp, encouraging&nbsp, greater foreign investment is also aided by a poor yen and persistently low interest rates.

Solid rise

The&nbsp, effect on&nbsp, offer growth has been&nbsp, remarkable. &nbsp, The&nbsp, Japanese&nbsp, Private Equity Association and the Japanese Venture Capital Association &nbsp, track the number of&nbsp, private equity&nbsp, offers in the country as well as the price of&nbsp, those&nbsp, purchases. In 2020, &nbsp, there were 96 personal equity&nbsp, deals valued at&nbsp, 1.2&nbsp, trillion renminbi. By 2023, &nbsp, the&nbsp, deal&nbsp, figures and length had jumped to 125 private equity deals valued at 5.9&nbsp, trillion renminbi.

Expediting the re-entry of&nbsp, western&nbsp, secret equity&nbsp, firms&nbsp, has fallen mostly to FinCity Tokyo, founded in 2019. FinCity Tokyo, &nbsp, a public-private&nbsp, engagement, &nbsp, was created to support &nbsp, owners understand and improve value in the novel regulatory environment. &nbsp, Its&nbsp, stated aim is&nbsp, making&nbsp, Japan’s capital&nbsp, an “international monetary centre”.

To do so, &nbsp, FinCity Tokyo&nbsp, coordinates with the government of Japan, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government&nbsp, and 57&nbsp, part companies including business associations, major financial institutions, international investors&nbsp, and&nbsp, service&nbsp, services. The&nbsp, organization&nbsp, also&nbsp, provides proper assistance to&nbsp, financial&nbsp, firms&nbsp, seeking to&nbsp, enter and&nbsp, operate smoothly&nbsp, in Japan. Since 2022, it has helped nine global companies, with goods of almost$ 1.3 trillion, &nbsp, to successfully activate and engage in Japan. &nbsp, &nbsp,

FinCity Tokyo ‘s&nbsp, Executive Director Keiichi Aritomo&nbsp, says one of its tasks is helping international investors secure workers in a tight labour market. The company even covers the costs of hiring new PE investors in search of qualified workers.

Accepting non-family control

The failure of&nbsp, Japanese business owners&nbsp, to establish family succession&nbsp, plans&nbsp, used to strike Western investors as a stigma, &nbsp, but owners now&nbsp, have come to&nbsp, welcome&nbsp, external ownership and professional management by Western buyers. Or, as Aritomo of FinCity Tokyo writes, “private equity firms provide the experience to offset labor shortage with skilled management and productivity gains.”

Bain &amp, Company, in a report published last spring, &nbsp, said&nbsp, that Japan was the leading deal market in Asia-Pacific in 2023&nbsp, with private deals as the dominant strategy, noting “more companies are preferring to go private”. And&nbsp, the&nbsp, capital&nbsp, needed&nbsp, to complete deals via limited partnerships is plentiful. ” There is increasing LP appetite for Japan”, noted Sebastien Lamy, co-head of Bain &amp, Company’s Tokyo-based Asia Pacific PE practice.

PE firm&nbsp, Carlyle, based in Washinton, DC, with investments and operations&nbsp, globally, &nbsp, is&nbsp, also focused on&nbsp, Japan. &nbsp, In a report last September, the firm pointed to the positive regulatory changes, the attractive valuations, the stable political climate and the continued investment opportunities. ” We are seeing many overseas GPs]general partners ] establish offices in Japan for the first time” ,&nbsp, the firm said.

And, in an analysis last year, &nbsp, the management consulting firm, &nbsp, McKinsey&nbsp, &amp, Company, &nbsp, noted that, &nbsp, while&nbsp, Japanese&nbsp, private equity&nbsp, is&nbsp, a growing presence in the financial landscape, the industry still has &nbsp, more room&nbsp, to grow.

Increasingly, western private equity players&nbsp, have gotten&nbsp, the message.

Owen Blicksilver is a private equity-focused public relations executive in New York.

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