Ukraine’s TurkStream pipeline attack sends a message to Europe – Asia Times

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Nine drones were dispatched by the Ukrainians to strike a healthy gas station in the southern Russian province of Krasnodar.

The TurkStream network included the blower place. Apparently, all the robots were shot over. There was some slight destruction, but the turbine place is operating normally.

The&nbsp, pipeline&nbsp, runs from Russia to&nbsp, Turkey. It starts from the Russkaya blower place near&nbsp, Anapa&nbsp, in Russia ‘s&nbsp, Krasnodar Region, crossing the&nbsp, Black Sea&nbsp, to the receiving switch at&nbsp, Kıyıkoy. Some gas flows forward to the&nbsp, European Union.

The network has two lines, each with a natural gas capacity of 1.11 trillion cubic feet. The second column supplies Turkey, and the second column expands the reach of healthy oil through South East and Central Europe.

The Western countries mainly receiving gas from the TurkStream network are Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Romania, with Hungary and Serbia being the primary recipients due to their close ties with Russia.

The TurkStream oil export network across the Black Sea begins at the Russkaya oil compression place in the Krasnodar region of Russia. Photo: Gazprom Transgaz Krasnodar

However, Kyiv refused to take into account a new offer after Russia’s agreement for the passage of its gasoline across Ukraine expired on December 31st, 2013. Ukraine’s decision was supported by the European Commission, even though the lost imports are equivalent to 5 % of European demand.

A&nbsp, key report&nbsp, says that” In 2024, Russian gas reached Europe via three routes: transit through Ukraine ( 30 % ), via Turkey and the Turkstream pipeline ( 31 % ) and as LNG ( 39 % )”.

LNG is mostly delivered from the US and Russia ( with Qatar reportedly joining in the pipeline soon ). To make up for the stoppage of travel through Ukraine, neither the US nor Russia may increase LNG sales. Had the Russian invasion on TurkStream been effective, over 60 % of Europe’s imported natural gas resources would have been cut off.

There are issues with transportation and transfer overland because LNG is more expensive than network fuel. Europe has also&nbsp, imposed gas regulations&nbsp, that may impact the use of natural oil and demand gas reduction technology that is not yet available.

The shutdown of Ukraine and the destruction of the majority of the Nord Stream pipelines ( three of the four destroyed ) could very well endanger Europe’s ability to keep its factories running and homes and businesses preheated.

Germany has already experienced a crisis as a result of the economic effects, which has also contributed to the collapse of the Olaf Scholz partnership government. Germany even attempted to count on renewable energy and by burning more coal, despite the country’s commitment to step out coal-fired electricity generation by 2035. It also tried to do so.

Poto: Julian Stratenschulte/dpa/picture-alliance/Newscom

What is difficult to comprehend is what Ukraine is attempting to accomplish. They have repeatedly attacked nuclear power stations, including on their own country, that, if prosperous, could have sent energy poison wafting through Ukraine and Europe, as well as pieces of Russia.

The Masters of Kyiv may be trying to show to the Europeans that they should help them bail out Ukraine or that they should attack the pipes that supply Europe, but cutting off gas shipments and attacking pipelines may plunge Europe into a death spiral.

There hasn’t been a single look or boo from the EU or Euro-capitals thus far; either way, they are dismissive of the risk or afraid to say something. Truly, the EU was responsible in the Russian gas limit, but no opposition, at least nothing in public.

Washington, for its part, can benefit from selling LNG, but those sales doesn’t provide sufficient to compensate for the shutdowns, real and possible, and blowback from it was fracture NATO even faster than the Ukraine war.

Stephen Bryen is a former US assistant secretary of defense for plan and a special correspondent for Asia Times. This post, which previously appeared on his Substack newsletter&nbsp, Weapons and Strategy, is republished with permission.

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Surveillance tech is changing our behavior – and our brains – Asia Times

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Surveillance systems is present everywhere, from self-service tills to venues to public streets. In the name of safety and security, this widespread tracking is frequently justified.

But our new investigation, published in Neuroscience of Consciousness, reveals a troubling side impact. Surveillance isn’t really changing our habits – it’s altering how our brains process details, operating mostly outside our attention.

Our research demonstrates that being aware of other people’s gaze is unintentionally increase our awareness. These observations have potential long-term effects on social interaction and emotional health.

They even call for a thorough analysis of how continual monitoring might affect us, both subconsciously and subconsciously.

Gently amplifying an old survival mechanism

Humans have the essential ability to recognize another person’s eye in order to manage social settings. This helps us distinguish between friends, view thoughts, and comprehend intentions.

Our brains may be on high alert for social cues as surveillance does gently amplify this traditional survival system.

54 people, all of whom were academic individuals, took part in our review overall. They performed a physical activity while being subjected to surveillance cameras. A control team performed the similar process without security.

Pictures of eyes that either were looking straight at or away from the participants in both groups were shown to the participants.

These faces were temporarily invisible by being presented to one eye only and with a rapidly flashing pattern ( a visual mask ) to the other eye using a technique known as continuous flash suppression.

Under these circumstances, how our brains approach this information before we become aware of it helps to understand how long it takes for a student to file the experience.

Surveillance camera overlooking a large crowd of people in front of a historical building.
Surveillance alters how we act and the way our brains process knowledge. Image: Frippitaun / Shutterstock via The Talk

improvement of our cultural radars in mind

Individuals in both groups were able to identify direct-gazing encounters more swiftly overall, but those who were aware of them developed hyper-awareness about a minute faster than the control group.

This perception improvement occurred without the members ‘ knowledge. When individuals viewed negative images like mathematical configurations, the faster reaction to visual stimuli was not observed structurally.

This focus on faces highlights the importance of tracking tapping into a more basic neural circuit developed for social processing. It’s not just a matter of increased awareness, it’s a precise development of our social sensor.

This ostensibly simple shift in perspective may have profound effects. A hyper-awareness of eye is a hallmark of many mental health conditions, including social anxiety disorder and schizophrenia.

People who are affected by these conditions frequently experience intense scrutiny, which causes greater fear and stress.

Our results suggest that widespread checking might lead to further escalation of these tendencies. It might increase the stress level in daily life and possibly lead to broader mental health issues.

Furthermore, our review revealed a connect between informed experience and the body’s reaction. Despite the fact that their brains were evidently aware of the security, some participants reported feeling surprisingly unconcerned about being monitored.

This disconnection highlights how quickly we accept frequent observation as a ingrained quality of modern life and normalize it. We hardly ever acknowledge the presence of devices. Our neurons are subtly adjusting to their appearance and gently shaping our opinions as a result.

Circular brick building with dome roof.
The Koepelgevangenis, a former jail in the Netherlands, is one of three Panopticon-style prison in the country. Photo: Milos Ruzicka / Shutterstock via The Talk

Striking a compromise

Our findings are particularly timely in light of recent pronouncements by leaders in the technology sector to increase monitoring. For instance, Larry Ellison, the country’s second richest man and CEO of computer engineering firm Oracle, has pitched his eyesight for an always-on, AI-powered surveillance state.

Concerning the balance between individual freedom and security are major concerns raised by this vision.

According to research, people behave more different when they believe they are being watched. For instance, they become more good and less likely to indulge in antisocial habits.

Our recent study’s findings highlight the potential unintended cost of regular tracking: a subtle but widespread change in how our brains perceive and interact with the world.

The 18th century scientist, Jeremy Bentham, proposed the Panopticon as a prison style where the bare possibility of study encourages self-regulation.

However, a significant body of internal research conducted over the past 50 years has demonstrated that the difference between an observer’s implied social presence and their actual presence is crucial to behavioral changes.

We must pay attention to both its intended effects and its delicate, unconscious effect on our thoughts and functioning as monitoring becomes more and more integrated into the fabric of our life.

Roger Koenig is a senior research fellow at the Graduate School of Health, University of Technology Sydney, and Kiley Seymour is associate professor of neuroscience and actions.

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

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In defense of Chinese deflation – Asia Times

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And it don’t get money, don’t get popularity
Don’t have no credit cards to drive this train

&nbsp, – Huey Lewis and the Information

” What’s so awful about depreciation”? President Xi Jinping said, according to the Wall Street Journal. ” Don’t people like it when things are cheaper”?

This ( possibly apocryphal ) nugget has been popular on social media and in the media as fears of Japanification have once more piqued the imaginations of even highly educated economists and pundits.

As President Xi has but evidently demonstrated level financial knowledge, old tropes and buzzwords are being flung with gleeful abandon. These include balance sheet recession, negative spiral, lost decade. &nbsp,

Or has he? Han Feizi even asks the same problem,” What’s so awful about deflation”? and may go so far as to say,” People surely like it when items are cheaper”!

Every economist ought to be asking this question as China continues to expand its manufacturing sector, which, according to the UN, is on track to account for 45 % of the world’s total by 2030 (up from 30 % in 2022 ).

No, China is no turning Japanese. Depreciation in China’s event is no equivalent to what Japan saw in the mid-1990s, but is, in reality, its general reverse.

Japan’s recession was brought on by a bad demand shock, which caused its bubble economy to burst. At the time, Japan was the world’s most expensive business, topping the Economics ‘ Big Mac index, among other measures. The desire curve was shifted in by the bubble’s burst, leading to lower overall demand and lower prices.

Due to a good supply shock, China’s current deflation is the result of credit being diverted from the property sector to more sophisticated manufacturing. The lowest rates in the world are already attained in China. Higher overall supply and lower prices have been attributed to technology and advanced manufacturing, which has caused a downward trend in supply curve shifts.

China’s automobile industry is the poster boy for this growth as soaring funding and fierce opposition among new EV participants flood the marketplace with whizzbang designs with possibly higher efficiency and more creative features. &nbsp,

In 2024, the average new car sales price in China was about RMB180, 000 ( ~US$ 25, 000 ), which bought a mid-level trimmed BYD Han large sedan. In 2020, the average new car sales price in China was RMB150, 000 ( ~$ 22, 000 ), which was good for a compact Toyota Corolla. The BYD Han was also introduced in 2020 with an entry-level price of RMB233, 000 ( ~$ 34, 000 ).

Although both ASPs and device sales have increased since 2020, the biggest gain for consumers was deflation. In 2024, Chinese customers were paying substantially higher prices for somewhat more cars. However, they were able to purchase larger, more expensive models with better performance and more advanced functions.

Chinese EVs are then expected to perform group tricks like cylinder change, map change around one vehicle, crab move ( Google it ), or jump over potholes– Knight Rider” Turbo Boost” style. In recent years, price/performance/feature wars have gotten out of hand. &nbsp,

Glenn Luk, a Chinese analyst, has monitored the features and prices of BYD’s Qin Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle ( PHEV ) at its lowest level. Over a period of 16 years, BYD has cut Qin prices by more than half ( ~$ 14, 000 ) while quadrupling range and power.

The only instance of a true deflationary spiral to come to mind is the US Great Depression, which is incredibly uncommon. Deflation is typically self-limiting for the simple reason that prices can’t fall below zero and frequently quickly crash into underlying costs, as opposed to inflation, which has no upside cap.

Even Japan, which experienced a couple of lost decades of economic growth, did not experience a decline in living standards as deflation lowered prices, delivering higher-end goods and services as the Japanese became even more meticulous about their attention to detail and quality. &nbsp, &nbsp, &nbsp,

Economic experts say that a modest level of inflation is optimal for the operation of the Keynesian economy. According to Keynes, the idea behind the concept of” the paradox of thrift” is that falling prices encourage consumers to delay purchases in order to wait for better deals.

Although this paradox may be true, modern consumers should be aware that replacement cycles are naturally deflationary and are frequently challenging for any reasonable amount of inflation to overcome, especially those with a technology component.

In 40 years, we went from shoulder-carried JVC boom-boxes to Sony Walkmans to Discmans to Apple iPods to smartphones with wireless earbuds. With “hedonic” adjustments to inflation data, whose accuracy is at best open for debate, economists attempt to make these improvements work.

Consumer goods in China are experiencing a revolution in “hedonic” improvements, not just in the auto sector. It is absurd to give hedonic improvements just a few percentage points for improvements in products and services from cars to electronics to smartphones to appliances to restaurant services to boutique hotels. Han Feizi has written on this before ( here, here and here ).

We can safely assume that growth in the medium term will be fueled more by shifting the supply curve than the demand curve, increasing aggregate supply while watching prices decline, given the apparent ascendancy of the Industrial Party faction within the Communist Party of China.

More expensive goods of higher quality are the definition of deflation in good condition. Deflation is also present in its bad form in many products of declining quality at lower prices.

Although it would be nice to see demand curve shifts, China’s leadership seems unwilling to use policy tools to accomplish that. In order to push out the demand curve, the Western economic Covid playbook recommended that consumers be given checks, which would run the risk of inflation and the loss of purchasing power.

While China has implemented targeted consumption stimulus like trade-in subsidies for EVs and discount vouchers on appliances and mobile phones, stimulus measures have largely been directed towards the supply side – fixing local government balance sheets, installing digital/smart city infrastructure and directed lending to advanced manufacturing ( e. g. EVs, solar, batteries, semiconductors, automation, etc ). China’s strategy runs the risk of deflation and unprofitable investment leading to stagnant growth.

Some analysts contend that the weak demand is to blame for China’s deflation. For the most part, this analysis stems from confusion.

Economists have never really seen supply-driven deflation in their lifetimes. Deflationary moments in recent memory have all been demand shock events – post-bubble Japan, the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, the 2008 global financial crisis, etc. China’s moribund property market provides a superficial veneer of similarity.

The glorious post-Civil War economy of the US from 1873 to 1899 was the last to experience prolonged supply-driven deflation. After bloodily settling America’s family business in favor of the North, industrialization was pursued with a vengeance. Investments in railways, steel production and manufacturing resulted in extraordinary increases in output and, subsequently, falling prices.

The likelihood of China experiencing two decades of supply-driven deflation should not be dismissed given the largely successful Made in China 2025 project, the ascendancy of the Industrial Party, and a projected tripling of China’s STEM workforce in the next two decades.

In fact, that kind of productivity increase – 20 years of deflation – may be the only way to industrialize the Global South, which needs capital and capital goods ( i. e., solar, electrical systems, infrastructure, vehicles, etc ) far more than it needs market access ( see here ).

So” What’s so bad about deflation”? we ask again. The level of economic ignorance it engenders appears to be the worst aspect of deflation.

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South Korea in no political condition to deal with Trump – Asia Times

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SEOUL – South Korea’s social conflict, sparked by President Yoon Suk Yeol’s momentary declaration of martial law and his following impeachment by congress, has shaken the government’s standing away of US President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20.

That raises the possibility that Seoul’s ability to negotiate with the coming American chief, who previously demanded more money for US soldiers stationed there, may be hampered at a critical moment for diplomatic ties and the balance of power on the Korean Peninsula. &nbsp,

According to Lee Chung-min, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,” the current political crisis simply dilates South Korea’s ability to build more resilient international laws and alleviate exceptional national security risks.”

In what some consider to be an emerging political pump, South Korea faces significant challenges as a result of Trump’s threatened business war with China, North Korea, and Russia, as well as the rising regional security threat.

Trump’s” America First” plan and new persuasive stoke toward potential US expansionism have once again highlighted the nationalist leader’s preference for interest-based guidelines over conventional alliances.

Some experts and observers believe that Trump will scrap a political strategy that forces allies to spend more money on defense, allowing the US to reduce its military expenditures abroad, despite his unwavering statements regarding his intentions for South Korea in the second term.

In October, the US and South Korea agreed on a new five-year cost-sharing plan to maintain 28, 500 American troops in South Korea, stationed to deter nuclear-armed North Korea, that raised defense costs by 8.3 % to 1.52 won ( US$ 1.13 billion ) by 2026. Seoul agreed to raise its contribution by 13.9 %, its largest annual increase in nearly 20 years, before Biden.

Trump made the suggestion on the campaign road that he would force South Korea to spend a lot more. ” If I were there now, ]South Korea ] would be paying us$ 10 billion a year, and you know what? Trump said in a statement to the Economic Club of Chicago on October 15, 2024,” They’d be happy to do it.” ” It’s a money machine. South Korea”.

During his first term ( 2016-2020 ), Trump accused South Korea of “free-riding” on US military might during his previous presidency and demanded Seoul pay$ 5 billion annually for the US deployment.

South Korea is now concerned that it might also stoke the Trump deal war’s fire. Trump’s implementation of a threatened 10-20 % blanket tariff and rollback of Biden-era subsidies would be detrimental to South Korea’s trade-geared economy, which sent$ 127.8 billion worth of exports to the US in 2024.

South Korea’s now-robust trade surplus with the US could fall by as much as$ 15.2 billion if Trump imposes a low-end 10 % blanket tariff, according to the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy, a think tank.

However, if Trump, a vocal defender of Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act and Inflation Reduction Act, repeals these payment plans, South Korean companies like Samsung, Hyundai Motor Group, LG Energy Solution and SK Hynix does suffer major losses in the US market.

LG Energy Solution logged a second-quarter operating profit of$ 195.3 billion in 2024, according to regulatory filings. However, without the$ 447.8 billion US tax cut, this profit would reverse to a$ 252.5 billion net loss.

” Currently, it is uncertain if Trump will provide the subsidies. That is because Trump does not always honor previous commitments”, said Lee Jae-mook, a political science professor at the Seoul-based Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. ” Trump does not always play by the rules”, Lee added.

Lee also raised concerns that Trump might choose to avoid South Korea when negotiating with Pyongyang due to Seoul’s current political vacuum.

” To Trump, what is important is not South Korea’s interests or the interests of his allies, but rather, it is the interest of the US, including diminishing North Korea’s nuclear threat”, Lee said.

When the US and North Korea negotiate, South Korea has a lot of room to leverage its interests, especially if there is an area where Seoul’s interests align with those of Washington. However, the lack of proper leadership here means that there could be a risk of ‘ Korea passing,'” Lee added.

During Trump’s first presidency, then-South Korea President Moon Jae-in facilitated Trump’s meetings with North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. South Korea was granted an inter-Korean military deal that lasted until 2024 thanks to those overtures.

Meanwhile, the National Intelligence Service of South Korea announced on January 13 that it has a rumor that Trump will meet with Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea.

It also projected the possibility of a” small deal” which could include “nuclear freeze and disarmament”. However, South Korea’s role in brokering such a deal would likely be slim, according to Hankuk University’s Lee.

” Frankly, the Constitutional Court could uphold President Yoon Suk Yeol’s impeachment, but it could also reinstate Yoon. From Trump’s perspective, it is unclear who his counterpart in Seoul is”, Lee said. ” As of now, we are the bigger uncertainty than Trump”.

South Korea’s acting-President Choi Sang-mok said he would curb such uncertainties during a January 13 cabinet meeting.

” After the new US administration is launched ,]South Korea ] will mobilize all methods to communicate and coordinate with]the ] US ‘ new government”, said Choi, who assumed the national leadership role on December 27, 2024, after his predecessor, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, was also impeached after just 13 days in office.

” We will focus on alleviating the current uncertainties and managing the country’s economic stability”, Choi added.

Choi’s ability to bring stability is uncertain, especially given the politicized allegations that he is preventing Yoon’s arrest after he failed to appear at his first impeachment hearing on January 14 at the Constitutional Court.

As acting president of an interim government, Choi’s decision-making authority is limited, adding to the sense of political paralysis in Seoul.

” It is challenging for Choi to assert himself in terms of politics or security,” Lee said. The best he can do is carry on the status quo, he says.

In light of the political unrest, different strategies have been suggested to prepare for Trump’s presidency. Heo Yoon, an expert on international trade, suggested that Seoul collaborate with regional conglomerates to informally approach Trump.

Heo, who spoke with the local Herald Business newspaper about the influence some Korean big businesses have on the US economy, prefers a” top-down summit diplomacy,” which South Korea currently lacks, said Trump.

Others have suggested that the legislature should play a more active part in diplomacy. Former deputy foreign affairs minister Choi Jong-gun called on South Korea to send a special envoy to explain our diplomatic policies in the name of the National Assembly Speaker.

Whether Yoon or the opposition prevails in the current chaos, Lee, the professor, said it is crucial to send a signal to the US that there will be no change in the US-South Korean alliance. He thinks the legislative chamber should be the source of this information.

” We must demonstrate that it is irrelevant whether the court upholds Yoon’s impeachment.” ]South Korea’s ] internal stance on the economic and security relationship with the US will not change”, said Lee.

For instance, leaders of the ruling and opposition parties could issue a joint statement urging both sides to say that the US-Korea alliance is strong and that we can speak out loud about North Korea’s security threats.” We must actively proclaim that our conflict is only a domestic issue.”

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Should more economists be reading Marx? – Asia Times

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Ben Golub, an economics professor at Northwestern University, tweeted the following the other day:

Mount Holyoke English teacher Alex Moskowitz responded to the discovery that most economists don’t learn Smith and Marx by&nbsp, calling finance “fake”, &nbsp, declaring&nbsp, that it “hasn’t effectively historicized its own techniques of knowledge creation”:

Moskowitz is correct, correct? If economists all be required to learn, “work through”, and know Adam Smith and Karl Marx? Because the majority of people haven’t done this, is the skill “fake”?

First of all, it’s important to point out that studying history of thought isn’t usually helpful. Just as physicists typically don’t read Isaac Newton’s works of art or study John Nash’s unique documents to know game hypothesis, doctors typically don’t study the functions of Galen.

The most important concepts in scientific remain single, divorced from the thought procedure of their progenitors. Everyone can simply pick up Newton’s Laws or Nash Equilibrium and use them to solve real-world problems, without knowing where those instruments came from. This is why they’re but effective.

Think you’re an analyst working for Amazon, using sport theory to layout online markets. Now imagine that an English teacher at a liberal arts college tells you that your entire area is “fake” because you haven’t read Marx. I imagine that practice would be a little strange.

Let’s leave off the topic of whether and when economists should study the history of financial idea and point out that they do examine it as well, just not in the manner that Alex Moskowitz may want.

When I was an economics PhD student, I was assigned a whole bunch of old foundational papers that were influential in framing modern economic thinking. To illustrate what the economics canon actually entails, I’ll give four examples:

1. Paul Samuelson’s ( 1958 )” An Exact Consumption-Loan Model of Interest with or without the Social Contrivance of Money.”

In economics, there’s an important kind of model called the “overlapping generations” or&nbsp, OLG model, which is basically a model of how old people, young people, and middle-aged people interact in the economy. In terms of those generational interactions, you can think about a lot of economic phenomena.

For example, young people generally have to borrow to get started in life — student loans, starter homes, cars, and such. People work and save when they’re middle-aged and young, and then have to spend down their wealth when they retire. This creates some interesting interactions because the old people can only consume by selling their accumulated assets — houses, stocks, etc. — to the younger and middle-aged population.

Paul Samuelson wasn’t the first to think about this, but he was the first to formulate it in a really simple mathematical model that a lot of people could work with — and which is still&nbsp, commonly used today. He demonstrated in this paper that if there was rapid population growth, problems could arise because there were so many young people who needed to borrow more than the younger generation could lend. In this case, the best thing to do would be to transfer money from each young generation to each old generation in turn, so they’d have enough money to lend each other.

You might be able to identify this as the fundamental tenet of Social Security.

2. Paul Samuelson’s” The Pure Theory of Public Expenditure” ( 1954 ) is the author of.

One of the most important concepts in public economics is the idea of a&nbsp, public good&nbsp, — something that the private sector won’t provide enough of on its own, and so which the government ought to provide ( if it can ). Paul Samuelson was not the first to consider this broad concept, either, but like with the OLG model in the previous example, he was the first to provide a mathematical illustration of how this might operate.

In this paper, he shows that if something is&nbsp, “nonrival” &nbsp, ( if one person using something doesn’t stop someone else from using it ) and&nbsp, “nonexcludable” &nbsp, ( if you can’t prevent people from using it )— then the private sector won’t build enough of it. A lighthouse is a classic example, because using one ship doesn’t necessarily mean stopping others from using it because everyone can see the light and you can’t really stop any particular ship from using it. So building a lighthouse is a dicey investment for any private company— you’re basically encouraging a whole bunch of free riders.

The economics profession debates the solution, and whether it’s to have the government step in and build the lighthouse or whether there’s a private arrangement that could work just as well. And whether you actually need both nonrivalry and nonexcludability in order to get some of the key features of public goods is another open question. However, Samuelson’s original paper essentially predominated the literature on public goods, so its influence is difficult to overstate.

3. George Akerlof’s ( 1970 ) book” The market for lemons” is a good example.

Anyone who has bought a new car knows that when you drive it off the lot, the resale price instantly drops far below the purchase price. Why? It’s the same car that it was an hour ago! People will assume something is wrong with a car if you try to sell it right away after buying it, according to the most likely response.

This insight was the basis for Akerlof’s paper. It’s about how markets can naturally deflate as a result of asymmetric information, which sellers are aware of but buyers are not. In the case of used cars, the process is called “adverse selection” — meaning that sellers want to sell low-quality stuff for more than it’s really worth by concealing how crappy it is.

Akerlof demonstrated how a buyer’s refusal to accept full payment for a used car may lead to a “lemon,” which is why used car dealers keep their high-quality vehicles completely off the market. He used some simple mathematical examples to illustrate this.

How do you solve the lemon problem? Paying for mechanics to check whether a car is in good condition is one option, but that also costs money. Another way might be for the government to pass laws requiring used car dealers to tell prospective buyers important information about a car’s quality.

There is a clear use for health insurance as well. Adverse selection can also happen when a buyer conceals information from a seller, insurance customers will naturally try to hide how sick they are from an insurer, in order to get a lower premium.

This results in healthy people having to pay too high premiums, which keeps them off the market. Laws like the Affordable Care Act ( Obamacare ) that penalize people for not buying health insurance are aimed at preventing the exit of healthy people from the market, based on exactly the kind of principle Akerlof talks about in his paper.

4. ” Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care”, by Kenneth Arrow ( 1963 )

This one is intriguing because, despite the author’s fame for mathematical economics, this paper essentially consists of no math; rather, it’s just an essay making various logical arguments. Arrow is trying to explain why health care — including health insurance — isn’t like other markets. He basically just gives a number of reasons why health care is different. These reasons include:

  • People with more insurance may be more reckless, but there are also information asymmetry, the aforementioned adverse selection, and “moral hazard” ( i .e., people with more insurance may be more reckless ).
  • Health care involves&nbsp, extreme risks, including the risk of death. Arrow implies, but doesn’t specify, that both patients and providers may not be competent to make wise decisions in that kind of extreme uncertainty.
  • Humans have strong&nbsp, moral norms&nbsp, around health care — we tend to believe that basic medical care is a universal a human right, that doctors shouldn’t act like profit-seeking businesspeople, a moral disgust at the idea of forcing people to pay for health care before they receive it, and so on.
  • Externalities and causes like communicable diseases put another person in danger if one person becomes ill.
  • Increasing returns to scale&nbsp, and&nbsp, restrictions on the entry&nbsp, of new healthcare suppliers create barriers to entry and inhibit competition.
  • Medical professionals regularly engage in price discrimination, charging customers different prices based on their ability to pay.

All of these factors make the market for health care an absolute mess compared to most markets, which is why the industry tends to be so heavily regulated, and is probably why so many rich countries just go ahead and nationalize their health insurance systems.

Anyway, here are four examples of the fundamental economic ideas that are prevalent ( mostly ) everywhere. PhD students in modern econ departments will be assigned. Reading papers like these is how economists “historicize their methods of knowledge production,” according to Moskowitz, meaning they produced both ideas and methods that are still relevant to economics research today.

This is in contrast to the ideas of Karl Marx, which have mostly fallen by the wayside.

Is this because contemporary economists are neoliberal advocates of the free market who oppose government intervention in favor of the power of markets? No, of course not. Every single article I just mentioned addresses the issues with government intervention in the wake of market failures.

The papers don’t rely on Marxist concepts like the labor theory of value, alienation, exploitation, commodity fetishism, or the inevitable collapse of capitalism. There are many issues with markets that Marx never even considered, but the world of economic ideas is not governed by a one-dimensional axis between Marxism and neoliberalism.

I don’t know how much economics Alex Moskowitz has studied, but my bet is that he doesn’t actually know a great deal about the foundational economic thought of Paul Samuelson, Kenneth Arrow, or George Akerlof— or about modern econ research in general. So why does he think he is qualified to say that Marx belongs in the discipline’s foundational canon?

Part of the reason, of course, is that Moskowitz personally&nbsp, likes and values&nbsp, Marx’s ideas. He has conducted research on Marx’s ideas and links them to those of other leftist philosophers, and he also teaches classes on Marx‘s ideas. It’s natural that Moskowitz would want economists to study a thinker he likes.

I like Ursula K LeGuin, so I might suggest to English professors to view her as one of their founding intellectuals. In fact, my suggestion might be justified, and some English profs&nbsp, do &nbsp, teach LeGuin.

However, my suggestion would be that of an amateur outsider because I haven’t done an English PhD or existed inside of humanities academia. ( And I would probably make the suggestion with a little more playfulness and a little less aggression than Moskowitz uses in his comments about economics. )

Because Marx wrote in a literary, discursive, non-mathematical style that Moskowitz, a humanities scholar, is able to understand ( or at least, more easily persuade himself that he understands ), Moskowitz might ask that economists include him in their canon.

Samuelson, Arrow, and Akerlof expressed many of their ideas in the language of mathematics, which Moskowitz, given&nbsp, his educational background, probably doesn’t understand very well. A natural response to something is to prioritize research until you are prepared to comprehend it over something that is opaque to you, but it’s also a form of&nbsp, the streetlight problem.

So I think the salient question here isn’t” Should Marx be part of the foundational economics canon”?, but rather,” Why should an English professor feel qualified to decide who should be part of the foundational economics canon”?.

And of course, politics is likely to be the answer. I don’t want to put words in Moskowitz’s mouth, of course, but he does seem like a sort of a leftist fellow:

In my opinion, non-STEM academia is seen by many leftist academicians in the humanities and social sciences as a single, cohesive enterprise, not a collection of efforts to advance knowledge in various fields, but a collective political struggle against capitalism, settler colonialism, white supremacy, and so on. In this cosmology, economists are acceptable if and only if they revere the econ-adjacent thinkers whose ideas most closely dovetail with the leftist activist struggle — e. g., Karl Marx.

And in fact, I believe that this is the most significant justification for economists to read Marx. His vision of history as a grand revolutionary struggle is a cautionary tale of what can happen when pseudo-economic thought is applied too cavalierly to political and historical questions.

Brad DeLong is an economist who has read Marx and given his writings a lot of thought. In a 2013 post, &nbsp, DeLong tried to explain&nbsp, what he thought Marx got right and what he got wrong in terms of his economic thought:

Marx the economist had six important things to say, some of which are still very valuable today after more than a century and a half, and some of which are not…

Marx…was among the very first to recognize that the fever-fits of financial crisis and depression that afflict modern market economies were not a passing phase or something that could be easily cured, but rather a deep disability of the system…

Karl Marx was one of the first to realize that the industrial revolution would allow for the existence of a society where we people could be lovers of wisdom without being supported by the labor of a large number of illiterates, brutalized, half-starved, and overworked slaves…

Marx the economist got a lot about the economic history of the development of modern capitalism in England right–not everything, but he is still very much worth grappling with as an economic historian of 1500-1850. His observations that the benefits of industrialization take a long time to begin, in my opinion, are the most significant.

] But ] Marx believed that capital is not a complement to but a substitute for labor… Hence the market system simply could not deliver a good or half-good society but only a combination of obscene luxury and mass poverty. This is a question that is empirical. Marx’s belief seems to me to be simply wrong …

Marx [thought ] that people should view their jobs as ways to achieve honor or professions that they were created or as ways to help others. This leads to a very risky path for societies that attempt to abolish the cash nexus in favor of public-spirited benevolence so that they do not end up in their happy place.

Marx believed that the capitalist market economy was incapable of delivering an acceptable distribution of income for anything but the briefest of historical intervals. But “incapable” is undoubtedly too strong. [S] ocial democracy, progressive income taxes, a very large and well-established safety net, public education to a high standard, upward mobility channels, and all the panoplies of the twenty-century social-democratic mixed-economy democratic state can dissuade Marx’s notion that great inequality and great misery must be accompanied by great inequality and great poverty.

This summary, which seems eminently fair to me, establishes Marx as a peripheral, mildly interesting economic thinker — a political philosopher who dabbled in economic ideas, perceiving some big trends but getting others badly wrong, and ultimately leaving little mark on the field’s overall methodology or basic concepts. ( See Brad ‘s s slides , s video , s other commentary. )

But it’s not actually for his economic ideas that we remember Marx — it’s for his political philosophy of class warfare and revolution. And in this regard, I believe DeLong has just enough vile words to say:

Large-scale prophecy of a glorious utopian future is bound to be false…The New Jerusalem does not descend from the clouds… But Marx clearly thought at some level that it would …

Marx believed that social democracy would inevitably collapse before an ideologically-based right-wing assault, that income inequality would rise, and that the system would eventually collapse or be overthrown…

Add to these the fact that Marx’s idea of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” was clearly not the brightest light on humanity’s tree of ideas, and I see very little in Marx the political activist that is worthwhile today.

Everywhere attempt has been made to implement Marx’s proletarian revolution in an epic human tragedy. Here ‘s&nbsp, what I wrote for Bloomberg&nbsp, back in 2018:

It’s difficult to forget the tens of millions of people who were starved to death in Cambodia’s killing fields, under Mao Zedong, and the tens of millions who were purged, starved, or sent to gulags by Joseph Stalin, or the millions who were murdered there. Even if Marx himself never advocated genocide, these stupendous atrocities and catastrophic economic blunders were all done in the name of Marxism…20th-century communism always seem to result in either crimes against humanity, grinding poverty or both. Venezuela, the most dramatic socialist experiment of the twenty-first century, is currently experiencing complete economic collapse.

This dramatic record of failure should make us wonder whether there was something inherently and terribly wrong with the German thinker’s core ideas. Marxists will claim that Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot were merely perverted caricatures of Marxism and that the real thing hasn’t been tried.

Others will cite Western interference or oil price fluctuations…Some will even cite China’s recent growth as a communist success story, conveniently ignoring the fact that the country only recovered from Mao after substantial economic reforms and a huge burst of private-sector activity.

All of these justifications sound hollow. There must be inherent flaws in the ideas that continue to lead countries like Venezuela over economic cliffs…The brutality and insanity of communist leaders might have been a historical fluke, but it also could have been rooted in]Marx’s ] preference for revolution over evolution…]O ] verthrowing the system has usually been a disaster.

Successful revolutions typically follow the American Revolution, which preserves largely intact local institutions. Violent social upheavals like the Russian Revolution or the Chinese Civil War have, more often than not, led both to ongoing social divisions and bitterness, and to the rise of opportunistic, megalomaniac leaders like Stalin and Mao.

The successful” socialism” that people cite, the modern-day Scandinavian societies, are actually social democracies, as I pointed out in that post. They achieved their&nbsp, mixed economies&nbsp, through a slow evolutionary process that was absolutely nothing like the revolutionary upheavals predicted and advocated by Marx.

Economists should read Marx, and they should read him with all of this history in mind. It’s a vivid reminder of how social science ideas, applied sweepingly and with maximal hubris to real-world politics and institutions, have the potential to do incredible harm. The biggest instance of social science malpractice that the human race has ever seen is probably Marxism.

This should serve as a warning to economists — a reminder of why although narrow theories about auctions or randomized controlled trials of anti-poverty policies might&nbsp, seem like small potatoes, they’re not going to end with&nbsp, the skulls of thousands of children smashed against trees.

Modern economics, with all of its mathematical formulae and statistical regressions, is a model for academic study, appropriately tamed, and anchored in the quotidian search for truth, hampered by guardrails of methodological humility.

The kind of academia that Alex Moskowitz represents, where the study of Great Books flowers almost instantly into sweeping historical theories and calls for revolution and war, embodies the true legacy of Marx— something still fanged and wild.

Notes

1. As it happens, I&nbsp, have &nbsp, read Marx ‘s&nbsp,” Das Kapital”. I wasn’t really thinking about it in terms of its relationship to contemporary economic theory, so it happened when I was an undergrad physics major. Also, like most German philosophy of the time, I found it both pointlessly dense and frustratingly vague.

This article was originally published on Noah Smith’s Noahpinion&nbsp, Substack, and is republished with kind permission. Become a Noahopinion&nbsp, subscriber&nbsp, here.

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Trump’s phony presidency is about to get real – Asia Times

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The fraudulent war is what researchers refer to as the time between September 1939 and May 1940, when words more than weapons were being used between Germany and its Western allies.

In the United States, we have been witnessing the sham president, as President-elect Trump and his friends have deployed phrases well ahead of being able to take action. Thanks to God, we may be pardoned for predicting that his fraudulent era will finish on January 20&nbsp with his inauguration and that we will begin to see the true presidency.

The thoughts, as always with the very media-savvy Trump, have been designed to get attention, both from the British government and from foreign institutions.

During his first election battle in 2016, the person who was then his principal tech-billionaire ally, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk’s former classmate at PayPal, said vividly that with Trump the important thing was to get him” seriously but not absolutely”. Trump doesn’t imply to do everything he says, in other words– but he does, in Thiel’s watch, had significant purposes.

I believe that by combining what he said during the plan and what he has been saying throughout this false president since November 5, we can now draw the following five conclusions about his potential purposes.

Finish number one is that it would be erroneous to claim that Trump or his Republican Party are in favor of a return to the isolationism that characterized American politicians and international legislation in the 1930s, as some critics do. An separatist threatens both to enter Panama or Greenland nor to change Canada into America’s 51st&nbsp, position.

Trump and his” America First” movements are unilateralists who despise international obligations and disrespect friends, but they obviously have an international appeal and don’t want to cover at home. Also, if Panama and Greenland hold any real value in Trump’s thinking, it must be because he sees them as equipment in America’s conflict with Russia and China, no as stops in themselves.

Finish number two: Trump thinks he needs to appear strong if the American consumer wants to remain persuaded that he will “make America great once” but also that he needs to look strong and confident if he wants to succeed in his foreign policy objectives.

His controversial remarks about Canada, Greenland, and Panama were intended for both of those functions. In line with Thiel’s reply, he should not be taken practically in either case, but he does have a major goal to look and act like a bodybuilder.

This needs to be borne in mind when drawing the third conclusion, about Ukraine and Russia. Everyone, especially Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, knew that Trump’s claim to be able to end the war “in 24 hours” should not be taken literally.

But if he wants to end the conflict, he will now have to act and act strong, not against Zelensky but rather against Putin.

Soon after January 20, he and his chosen envoy, Retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, can be expected to look for ways to demonstrate this tough stance: almost certainly by continuing some military support for Ukraine, but also most likely by making it clear that Putin’s maximalist demands have no chance of being accepted. It is Putin’s demands that are preventing any serious peace talks, not Zelenskyy’s.

Trump will soon want to shove Putin off balance and make it clear what position America is adopting as he becomes the self-declared strongman president.

His choice of strategy for doing this will be the most crucial early indication of Trump’s intentions for foreign policy, as it will be watched for both Beijing and Tehran as well as Pyongyang because China, Iran, and North Korea are America’s other allies. He and his team for national security are certain that this choice and action will likely set the tone for the next four years. Its importance cannot be overestimated.

The trickiest contradiction to be identified among Trump’s proclamations is that the fourth one concerns America’s public finances. He and his Republican allies are known to want to raise US defense budgets and demonstrate to China that America intends to maintain its military superiority.

Given that the defense budget he is inheriting from President Joe Biden only amounts to 3.4 % of GDP, his calls for NATO members to set a new target for defense spending of 5 % of GDP, in contrast to the current 2 % target, have less credibility.

For example, for Italy to increase spending from its current 1.5 % of GDP to 5 % would plainly be impossible, given the fiscal constraints the Meloni government lives under.

However, it is also impossible for America to increase from 3.4 % of GDP to 5 % at a time when the US federal budget deficit is currently at 6.3 %, especially for a Trump administration that has promised to keep the income tax cuts that are scheduled to expire. America’s total public debt exceeds 120 % of GDP, which is not far short of Italy’s 138 %.

This also leads to the fifth and final conclusion: that the billionaires surrounding Trump, led by Elon Musk, are likely to be successful in pushing his administration to deregulate all sorts of business sectors, whether energy, social media or finance, but not in getting him to make major new public investments, including in defense. Deregulation costs the Treasury nothing, at least not directly, and brings the lure of faster economic growth, at least in the short term.

Let us just add one further conclusion. It is that anyone, including Argentina’s President Javier Milei or Musk, who thinks that there is now a libertarian and deregulatory axis linking Trump, Milei, Meloni and other European far-right parties doesn’t know anything about Italy. Musk and Milei will soon learn that the Meloni government may stand for a lot of things, but deregulation, libertarianism, and free speech are not just some of them.

This is the English translation of an article that La Stampa published in Italian, first published on Bill Emmott’s Global View. It is republished with permission.

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China plans to blow Starlink out of the sky in a Taiwan war – Asia Times

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The important part place would play in a Taiwan Strait conflict is highlighted by China’s strong moves to counter Starlink’s martial applications with cutting-edge satellite disruption methods.

This month, the South China Morning Post (SCMP ) reported that Chinese scientists have developed a method to target SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation. According to SCMP, the technique is used to simulate a space mission that could use 99 Chinese satellites to view nearly 1,400 Starlink satellites in less than 12 hours.

The study, led by Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics director Wu Yunhua, features Starlink’s martial applications as seen in the Ukraine conflict.

According to the Chinese team’s computer model, China could effectively monitor and control the functional status of Starlink satellites, which are equipped with lasers, microwaves, and other types of reconnaissance and tracking equipment. The SCMP report cites a fresh linear AI engine that was used to mimic the whale hunting strategy.

Wu’s team claims to have created an unheard technology that makes it possible for computers at the surface command center to create a detailed and trustworthy action strategy in less than two hours.

Additionally, it states that the Harbin Institute of Technology, which is also a member of the job, has received significant funding from the Foreign government and military.

China is officially developing anti-satellite systems to counteract the Starlink network’s perceived military threat, which has shown geopolitical utility in Ukraine by enabling real-time battle coordination.

Foreign researchers advocate” soft and hard remove methods” to destroy Starlink’s distributed star, which provides resilient connection through over 2, 300 satellites.

Targeting individual Starlink satellites is deemed inefficient, instead, China has explored disruptive technologies, including the Relativistic Klystron Amplifier ( RKA ), a high-power microwave weapon capable of disabling sensitive satellite electronics. But, deploying for techniques faces challenges, including dish heat and power demands.

China is also developing advanced directed-energy arms like solid-state laser mounted on spacecraft and is exploring the potential of X-ray beams, which are concepts from the US Strategic Defense Initiative ( SDI) to destroy some satellites simultaneously. This strategy aims to remedy the standard anti-satellite arms’ cost-exchange imbalance.

The logic for these programs stems from Starlink’s confirmed defense advantages, such as boosting US drones ‘ and cunning fighters’ data speeds by 100-fold, and its important role in Ukraine’s field successes, including the sinking of the Russian cruiser Moskva.

China’s rely on such technology reflects a broader strategy to mitigate Starlink’s features and maintain space superiority, especially in scenarios like a Taiwan issue.

Noting Starlink’s effectiveness in the Ukraine war, Juliana Suess mentions in a January 2023 article for the Royal United Service Institute ( RUSI) that Taiwan, inspired by Ukraine, is developing its Low-Earth orbit ( LEO ) satellite communications system.

According to Suess, the project was announced by the Taiwanese Space Agency in December 2022 and aims to give Taiwan a sovereign capability for independent communications in the event of a Chinese invasion.

She points out that the system is designed to protect Taiwan’s undersea cables, which currently serve as the backbone of its external communications, from potential attacks.

In a July 2024 report for the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, Charles Mok and Kenny Huang highlight the vulnerability of Taiwan’s undersea cables, which the island relies on for its internet connectivity.

Mok and Huang point out that Taiwan has 15 submarine cables that connect it to international digital networks and carry over 99 percent of the world’s data. The risk of unintentional or deliberate cable damage is increased, however, because its location in an earthquake-prone region and its proximity to geopolitical tensions.

They note recent incidents of severed cables near Taiwan, which are believed to be involving Chinese ships, have raised concerns about potential digital blockades. They point out that fixing undersea cables takes time, and that having a few global repair fleets adds to this.

In line with the vulnerabilities of Taiwan’s undersea cable infrastructure, The War Zone reported this month that Taiwanese authorities have accused a Chinese-owned vessel, the Shunxin-39, of severing an undersea communications cable near Keelung Harbor.

According to The War Zone, this incident is the most recent in a line of similar events affecting Taiwan’s underwater infrastructure. The Shunxin-39, which is registered in Cameroon but controlled by a Hong Kong company led by a Chinese national, was discovered to be operating under multiple identities, raising questions of deliberate sabotage.

According to the report, Taiwan’s coast guard attempted to intercept the vessel for investigation, but rough weather prevented boarding. The ship then mentions that it continued its journey to South Korea, where Taiwanese authorities requested assistance with the investigation.

According to The War Zone, the damaged cable from the Trans-Pacific Express network is essential for connecting East Asia to the US West Coast. The report says that although communication was rerouted with minimal disruption, the incident highlights the vulnerability of Taiwan’s undersea infrastructure.

Although satellites are immune from these flaws, Mok and Huang contend that undersea cables cannot be replaced due to their high cost and limited data storage.

Furthermore, Marc Julienne mentions in a November 2024 report for the French Institute of International Relations ( IFRI ) that while ambitious, Taiwan’s LEO satellite program faces several key challenges.

First, Julienne makes a note of the fact that the use of foreign partners for satellite launches highlights the lack of local launch capabilities, a significant impediment to achieving full space power status. Although autonomous launch vehicles are in the works, he claims that development is still slow, with test flights only scheduled for 2028.

Second, he claims that efforts to create a domestically controlled LEO broadband satellite constellation are hampered by the limited experience in space-based communications among Taiwan’s traditional space actors and the lack of satellite communication expertise within its industrial base.

Julienne says these challenges are compounded by Taiwan’s geographic and geopolitical vulnerabilities, such as reliance on submarine cables for internet connectivity, which are prone to natural disasters and potential sabotage by adversaries.

He makes the point that Taiwan’s efforts to improve” communication resilience” through satellite constellations are important but require significant financial and human capital investments. However, he says Taiwan’s burgeoning space sector struggles to attract and retain talent, with many engineers favoring higher-paying opportunities in semiconductors or working overseas.

Finally, Julienne says navigating the geopolitical sensitivities of space development, particularly in maintaining civilian oversight and avoiding provocative military applications, adds complexity to Taiwan’s ambitions.

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Time’s nearly up for TikTok – Asia Times

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One of the most intriguing National legends is about to come to an end. TikTok, a widely-used social media platform, has sometimes stop operating or be sold by January 19.

The US Supreme Court should reverse the law that makes this option, according to TikTok’s Chinese proprietor. According to the inquiries the magistrates made during oral arguments, the court appears to have the best chance of upholding the law in its place.

The Chinese landlord, ByteDance, has opposed selling. With legal options exhausted, although, it may feel it has no option but to buy. There are rumored to be potential consumers waiting in the wings.

President-elect Donald Trump, who was primarily on the side of shutting TikTok along, now says he would like to keep it. He requested a pause in the Supreme Court’s decision, but the court rejected him. However, it wouldn’t be surprising to discover him helping dealer a sale.

The TikTok account has always been interested. The US supports freedom of speech for American, but it hasn’t always given that right to foreigners, especially not to those from hostile countries. Needless to say, China prohibits the use of British social media sites like Facebook.

Almost a decade ago Congress greatly limited the ability of foreigners, actually green-card recipients, to own more than a majority interest in radio and television stations and sites. Even so, TikTok, which claims 170 million American viewers, which is much larger than any other American television channel, has been permitted to operate openly in the US for a while.

Finally, next April, Congress got around to passing the law requiring a purchase or a shutdown. That, also, was wondering, as I pointed out in a blog a few months ago.

For one thing it’s strange, if never unprecedented, for Congress to enact a business out of life. For another, Congress acted in disobedience of public-opinion surveys indicating the rules may be controversial.

Despite the lack of law and common support, it wasn’t a close contact. The policy passed the House 360-58 and the Senate 79-18. Big, bi-partisan majority in both houses were sufficiently concerned about a well-known social network having a Chinese user to complete an extraordinary law. Committees in both homes held sessions and heard expert testimony, not to mention the ballot was impulsive or hurty.

Why did legislators chose that TikTok posed a threat to national security after all of this? The company’s subjection to the Chinese authorities and the Chinese Communist Party led to two risks, both of which were made worse. One is the system’s ability to collect enormous amounts of information on Americans.

Another benefit is the ability to influence the content to China’s advantage, something TikTok claims is currently doing and may improve if tensions increase with the US.

A traditional New York Times journalist, David French, imagines a strained position in the Taiwan Strait where TikTok is carrying bogus requests for US soldiers and sailors. In eminent TikTok video, important TikTok video lambast the US for its involvement in world peace and label Taiwan as as many a part of China as Hawaii is.

” There’s no shooting war – yet – but the information war is underway, and the People’s Republic of China has an immense advantage”, French wrote. ” If it has the same degree of control over TikTok as the US government does, it has control over the social media feeds of about half the population,” the US government said.” It’s going to apply that power to sow as much confusion and division as it can.”

The reasoning for allowing ByteDance to possess TikTok offers concerns for First Amendment rights with the realization that much of what is on TikTok isn’t politically motivated. Though the First Amendment does not apply to Foreign nationals, it does defend the more than 100, 000 National “influencers” on TikTok, some of whom make their living that way.

The Supreme Court, then, may be weighing regional protection against freedom of speech. The magistrates appeared to want to follow Congress’s assessment of the risks during oral claims. But upsets are generally possible. The foundation of American independence is the First Amendment’s privileges.

Given the January 19 date, expect a determination any day now. Whichever way the prosecutor laws, TikTok may also continue to operate. If the legislation is overturned by the court, it will be with a Taiwanese owner. If the judge upholds the law, it will be with an operator that isn’t, in French’s terms,” controlled by a hostile foreign power”.

Previous longtime Wall Street Journal Asia journalist and editor&nbsp, Urban Lehner&nbsp, is writer professor of DTN/The Progressive Farmer.

This&nbsp, content, &nbsp, initially published on January 12&nbsp, by the latter news business and then republished by Asia Times with authority, is © Copyright 2025 DTN/The Progressive Farmer. All rights reserved. Follow&nbsp, Urban Lehner&nbsp, on&nbsp, X @urbanize&nbsp,

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China continues to shift exports to Global South – Asia Times

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China’s exports grew 10.7 % year-on-year in December, outpacing November’s 6.7 % gain and beating analyst forecast of 7.3 % growth. The main driver of Chinese exports remains the Global South, particularly to nations where China is building system, but restocking in anticipation of taxes accounted for a small portion of the gain. In 2023, China’s export to the Global South outpaced its supplies to all developed markets, and the trend toward developing countries is still there.

Exports to the US now comprise just 15 % of China’s total shipments, down from 20 % in 2018. In December, China sold$ 137 billion in goods to the Global South, compared with just$ 108 billion to all developed markets.

The biggest year-on-year get in December came from Indonesia, whose payments from China were off 50 % on the past December. In Southeast Asia’s largest nation, China is building high-speed road and telecom equipment.

The shift in full exports for 2024 compared to overall exports for 2023 is shown in the above chart. Brazil and Indonesia, which together have almost half a billion people, both rose by 18 % over the period, along with Vietnam. Kazakhstan, the largest market in Central Asia, also increased its payments from China by nearly 20 %. By contrast, increases in export to the US and Europe were little, and Japan showed a tiny drop.

The US in December took only 15 % of China’s exports, down from a peak of 20 % in 2018.

With China’s business shifting to the Global South, Washington has lost the ability to impose tariffs or other trade restrictions on the country.

Indonesia is a striking in China’s trade page. In the last four decades, China’s payments have increased by$ 9 billion per month, or$ 108 billion annually. The Carnegie Endowment wrote in December 2023,” Over the past century, China has made&nbsp, large investments&nbsp, in Indonesia through Belt and Road, spanning various&nbsp, sectors&nbsp, such as equipment and mine. The Public framework has solidified China’s status as one of Indonesia’s largest buying partners…. Chinese opportunities have the potential to boost Indonesia’s economic development, especially when directed toward system development”.

Chinese investments in Indonesia include the Jakarta-Bandung high frequency railroad, a nationwide 5G wifi networking, box ports and integrated warehouses. With a 5 % growth in GDP over the years, it was among the highest in the area.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative’s long-term practicality and the hopes for its trade deal with the Global South depend on whether its dealing colleagues can use exports to fuel future progress. There are any number of failures in the Belt and Road investment, but Indonesia appears to be succeeding.

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Trump’s Panama Canal canard obscures hard China truths – Asia Times

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Donald Trump, the newly elected US president, has frequently criticized what he perceives as China’s overstated dominance of the Panama Canal, a crucial sea corridor connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

On December 25, 2024, Trump fraudulently claimed that Taiwanese men were “operating” the Panama Canal, wishing them a “merry Christmas”.

Trump has also straight criticized the Filipino government, arguing that US fees for using the canal were excessive. He added that if his needs on river management were not met, the US may request that the property be “returned to us, in total, and without problem.” He even considered using defense force to seize the river.

Officials in the nation have been quick to point out that a lot of Trump’s statements regarding the Panama Canal are fake. There was no Foreign influence or involvement in the canal’s management, according to Panamanian President José Raul Mulino. However, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman disputed Trump’s claims while reiterating the canal’s independence.

What is the current level of US and Foreign control in Panama, besides social language? We conducted fieldwork in Panama as experts on US security cooperation for a new book on US military deployments globally. This included conversations with US military and diplomatic employees stationed in Panama in 2018 as well as government officials and journalists.

We think the picture that a nation was aware of the value of its most important political asset and eager to balance its own desire to run the canal without getting too much of a kick out of Washington or Beijing is what came next and continues to exist today.

Panama Canal’s narrative

Without having to go through the remainder of South America, the Panama Canal serves as a passing place for ships moving between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

King Carlos V of Spain explored the idea of a waterway through Panama for the first time in 1534. France began building the river in 1881, but it ceased because of its large financial and human costs, three centuries later.

After backing Filipino freedom from Colombia a year before as a way to safe the right to construct the river, the United States restarted the initiative in 1904.

The Panama Canal Zone, or 5 miles of Nicaraguan place on either side of the canal, was immediately under the control of the United States.

A major US military presence was present in the Canal Zone.

In 1964, a group of Filipino students attempted to raise the Filipino flag alongside the US symbol at the high class inside the Canal Zone, a human assembly that was failing to fly the flag alongside it in violation of a US-Panama deal.

Numerous Nicaraguan people were killed in a violent altercation with the families of the American learners. The day is still referred to as” Martyrs ‘ Day” in Panama.

Negotiations between Panama, which was under the military dictatorship of Omar Torrijos, and the United States, which were sparked by persistent conflicts and local protests.

In the end, it led to the signing of the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaties, which guaranteed that the river would continue to be accessible to ships of any and all nations, established a temporary percentage to oversee it, and secured the canal’s final return to Filipino jurisdiction on December 31, 1999.

This dispatch took position as planned. However, the US continues to be the main recipient of the path, with the majority of traffic passing through the river coming from or going to a US interface.

Foreign control in Panama

However, the river is of great importance to other nations as well, with 2.5 % of international commerce taking place in its waters on average each year. Panama has also grown to be a more significant country to Beijing as China has expanded its market over the past four years and begun to concentrate more on exports.

Trump’s claims that China is in charge of the river allegedly stem from the fact that Chinese businesses do own shares in the canal. The Balboa and Cristóbal slots, which are the canal’s entry and exit points, are now managed by the Panama Ports Company, a company of Hutchison Ports in Hong Kong. The company’s rent to handle these ports will be renewed until 2047.

The Panama Canal Authority, a branch of the Filipino authorities, maintains control over the slots and the waterway despite the Hong Kong firm’s management of these ports.

When conducting interviews in Panama, we asked government officials and citizens alike about Foreign control in Panama. At the time, during the summer of 2018, much of the conversation was about China’s plans to build a new embassy overlooking the entrance to the canal. Though the US eventually pressured the Panamanian government to not allow the construction, the population’s openness to China was clear.

In general, the persons we spoke to said views of China were good in Panama. The largest ethnic Chinese people in Central America is represented by a major ethnic Chinese population in Panama, many of whom are descended from Chinese refugees who came to the country in the 1800s.

Some Filipino officials who we spoke with claimed that the rise in Chinese investment in Panama has heightened US concerns about losing control to China. They even argued that the US was acting unfairly in response to the rise of foreign influence, such as in Brazil or in Europe.

One US official standard who we spoke with had concerns about Chinese purchase, claiming it could lead to fraud and reduced Panama’s economic opportunities.

At the same time, local leaders we interviewed didn’t fully believe China sometimes. They asserted that they were always concerned about the US or China being fair in their interactions with Panama.

The second ship to sail over the expanded Panama Canal was the vessel vehicle COSCO Shipping Panama from China COSCO Shipping Corporation Ltd, which made history on June 26, 2016. Photo: YouTube / New China News

How Panamanians view the US

According to both US and Nicaraguan officials who spoke with us, Panamanians typically have positive opinions of the US.

A Filipino journalist we spoke to referred to Troops as “gringueros” – meaning they have an affection for Americans. Some respondents noted that fewer and fewer Panamanians have powerful memories of the US controlling the Panama Canal Zone or the US invasion of Panama in 1989, despite there still be some anti-US attitude among younger and left-leaning parties.

While US ties with Panama are usually strong, they are not immune to problems. One former US ambassador to Panama asserted that the US government frequently didn’t get regular Panamanians ‘ concerns about US action seriously enough. He noted, for instance, that related local protests may turn into anti-American rallies if they occur at the same time as US military activities.

China has significantly increased its efforts to expand its influence worldwide over the past ten years. This has resulted in a dramatic rise in mortgages and Chinese-funded infrastructure projects to governments all over the world.

We spoke with US officials who were stationed in Latin America, and they had a lot of concerns about how Foreign investment is gaining ground there. US coverage analysts have long expressed concern about China’s “dual-use” tasks like those found in ports, where supposedly human projects can be easily adapted for military purposes.

At a time when, in the terms of one previous Nicaraguan authorities national we spoke with, the US “generally neglects Latin America, and neglects the demands of Panama, specifically”, China has seized the opportunity to expand its presence in the region.

One of the interviews we conducted was with a previous Panamanian leader who had been involved in the discussions of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties before he took business. He was pleased to say that Troops valued their independence and their independence very highly.

This attitude has only been strengthened by Trump’s subsequent responses. As Esmeralda Orobio, the daughter of one of those killed in the 1964 crime, told investigators during this year’s Martyrs ‘ Day remembrance:” The Panama Canal is theirs, and we are going to support it”.

Carla Martinez Machain is professor of political research, University at Buffalo, Michael A Allen is professor of political science, Boise State University, and Michael E Flynn is professor of political science, Kansas State University

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