Day: October 8, 2022

From Moscow to Tehran, a Crisis of Illiberalism

Chin@Strategy

The worldview behind Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine assumed the following premises: The West and America are declining, decaying and internally divided. The globalized world is becoming multipolar, with “civilization-states” re-emerging and competing to claim their spheres of influence. And Russia and China in particular represent potent alternatives to Western liberalism that stand ready to contend for global dominance. As badly as the war has gone for Putin, some of this analysis still holds up. The world has indeed responded to the Ukraine War along multipolar lines. Saudi Arabia’s snub…

China’s Communist Party Congress: What It Means for Business

Chin@Strategy

The DealBook newsletter delves into a single topic or theme every weekend, providing reporting and analysis that offer a better understanding of an important issue in business. If you don’t already receive the daily newsletter, sign up here. At a Communist Party congress starting in Beijing on Oct. 16, Xi Jinping is expected to be named to a third five-year term as the country’s top leader, paving the way for him to consolidate power to an extent not seen in decades. Under Mr. Xi, China has become the world’s dominant…

Hong Kong: five teenagers sentenced in first security case involving minors

Chin@Strategy

Five teenagers with a Hong Kong group advocating independence from Chinese rule have been ordered by a judge to serve up to three years in detention at a correctional facility, for urging an “armed revolution” in a national security case. The five, some of whom were aged between 15 and 18 at the time of the alleged offence, had pleaded guilty to “inciting others to subvert state power” through a group called Returning Valiant. Sentences for two more, aged 21 and 26, will be delivered at a later date. Justice…

Book Review: ‘Chip War’ by Chris Miller

Chin@Strategy

Europe’s failure to grasp the importance of transistors comes through in a great story about the French president Charles de Gaulle sniffing at a transistor radio — a gift from Hayato Ikeda, the prime minister of Japan, in 1962. De Gaulle apparently found the radio distasteful, a tacky gizmo for the petite bourgeoisie. Only much later, in the Netherlands, did Europe make its own breakthrough in chip engineering, with the invention of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, a heart-stoppingly precise technology that continued to shrink transistors when the progress of miniaturization…

A Distracted Russia Is Losing Its Grip on Its Old Soviet Sphere

Chin@Strategy

With the Kremlin distracted by its flagging war more than 1,500 miles away in Ukraine, Russia’s dominium over its old Soviet empire shows signs of unraveling. Moscow has lost its aura and its grip, creating a disorderly vacuum that previously obedient former Soviet satraps, as well as China, are moving to fill. On the mountain-flanked steppes of southwestern Kyrgyzstan, the result in just one remote village has been devastating: homes reduced to rubble, a burned-out school and a gut-wrenching stench emanating from the rotting carcasses of 24,000 dead chickens. All…