Image is sourced from this article depicting the 28th ASEAN Plus Three Summit, which took place at the same time as the 47th ASEAN Summit.

Last week concluded the 47th summit of ASEAN in Malaysia as well as a swathe of concurrent summits surrounding ASEAN. For those unfamiliar, formally, China is not a member of ASEAN, but is part of the ASEAN Plus Three (as part of the “Three”, alongside Japan and Occupied Southern Korea). And while not really ASEAN, there is also a yet wider organization, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which tacks on Australia and New Zealand to the group of countries that are currently in ASEAN (which is the single largest trade bloc on the planet). At the summit, Timor-Leste was officially introduced into ASEAN, making it the 11th country to do and the first since Cambodia in 1999.

Many important figures throughout Asia, as well as Trump, Ramaphosa, and Lula, attended the event. As you can imagine, Trump’s appearance was not exactly positive - signing four rather coerced bilateral deals there, including with Malaysia, which forced those countries to buy American goods in exchange for certain exemptions from Trump’s high tariff regime. The US is currently in a bit of a panic due to China restricting access to rare earths, a critical component of many weapons technologies (and electronics in general) and is looking around for countries to help supply them. After the summit, the US and China signed a deal related to tariffs and rare earths, but it seems very unlikely that this is the end of the saga; the US politically, economically, and militarily cannot tolerate China’s existence as a sovereign actor and will try to overcome them until the American Empire topples.

Meanwhile, China did as they ordinarily do, and urged higher regional integration and trade without high tariffs, as well as adherence to the Global Governance Initiative (which, as we here never tire of noting, is an interesting thing to try and encourage while the US only more feverishly violates the sovereignty of nations everywhere). One hopes they’re supplying a bit more than just speeches to Venezuela, Cuba, and beyond, as the US prepares to start bombing.

Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

Please check out the RedAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine

If you have evidence of Zionist crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.

English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.

English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Sources:

Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.

Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.

Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:

Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.

https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.

Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:

Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.

  • xiaohongshu [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    50·
    16 days ago

    Don’t let the Nexperia incident become a stain on Europe’s market economy: Global Times editorial

    The Nexperia incident has come to this point, far exceeding the scope of a single company and a single dispute. It has instead become a barometer for global investors to gauge Europe’s institutional credibility. The Dutch government has successively placed Nexperia under de facto control, bypassed the rights of Chinese shareholders in corporate governance, and unilaterally halted wafer supplies to Nexperia China. While claiming “national security” as its justification, the move is in reality an improper intervention in the company’s internal affairs. It severely undermines the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises, and has also put a “question mark” on Europe’s market economy system among global capital. Frankly, this was a “robbery” that took place in front of the whole world.

    Business environments and institutional credibility are hard-won assets, accumulated over time as precious scarce resources. The Dutch government’s actions have almost destroyed the protection of property rights - the very bedrock of the Dutch and European market economy system. Not only does it show a complete lack of contractual integrity, but it also raises doubts about its motives.

    According to classical economics, when public power arbitrarily rewrites equity structures and corporate governance rules, market players have no choice but to include a higher “institutional risk premium” in their decisions. Uncertainty surrounding property rights will notably raise both transaction costs and risk premiums, deterring long-term capital.

    Should the belief that “companies may be seized at will” become established, Chinese investors will rethink their presence in the Netherlands and Europe, and businesses worldwide will also ask: “If it’s Nexperia today, who’s next tomorrow?”

    lmao. Chinese libs really positioning themselves to become the true defender of private property rights and neoliberal free trade order.

    The greatest irony of the recent turn of events is the BRICS reacting to Western imperialists transitioning away from neoliberalism into protectionism by doubling down on asserting themselves as true defenders of the neoliberal status quo, instead of taking the initiative to transition into an international socialist bloc ahead of and away from Western imperialists.

    • deathtoreddit@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
      15·
      15 days ago

      instead of taking the initiative to transition into an international socialist bloc ahead of and away from Western imperialists.

      To be fair, while their lacking of an organized Global South alternative is to be criticized - I don’t think there’s a major socialist bloc left to be made, when, besides China, which one can say is a bit neoliberalized and compromised, there’s not much than a handful of socialist nation-states to count on in BRICS - I mean, ffs, Brasil, Russia, India and South Africa, the main members there of BRICS, are not socialist countries to begin with

      I’m not sad the pipeline to possibly socialist multipolarity is prolly lessening in possibility.

      I’m just disappointed the goal of an organized multipolarity has been, perse, delayed to an inexplicable amount of time, even in the freefall of western unipolarity, thus that socialist pipeline will delayed to maybe - a long time - unless the Global North and its compradors fuck up so heavily and the Global South socialists and its allies in the Global North pick up the slack

      • xiaohongshu [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
        16·
        15 days ago

        I agree, although a socialist bloc (perhaps a different name is needed but I can’t think of one) need not have those countries to be socialist at all.

        BRICS simply has to show that it offers an alternative economic, financial and trade model that is different from the current neoliberal free trade regime pioneered by the Washington consensus.

        It can offer a new framework for how external debt denominated in foreign currency can be resolved, and how trade imbalances between the countries can be lessened. Resolving these issues can significantly alter the ability of many developing countries to assert economic sovereignty and impose new economic policies that are beneficial to their domestic economy.

        So far, most countries have invested so much in the export-led growth model that it is very difficult for them to shift away from their export industries. China can play a crucial role here by reducing its ridiculous $1 trillion annual trade surplus, but that would require it to have already built a robust domestic consumer market to do so. And doing so requires them to sustain full employment by running up the deficit, and this in turn requires a break from the ideological stranglehold of neoclassical economic theory, and a willingness to redistribute the industrial capacity to the other developing countries in the Global South.

        The world is at a critical juncture where neoliberalism is fast reaching its terminal phase, and there is no point hanging on to a failed model. The irony, as I have pointed out, is that the US empire seems to be the one most willing to break from the old world and crashing itself, as clumsily as it seems, into a new stage and likely a worse form of capitalism. Some sort of technofeudalism.

      • Boise_Idaho [null/void, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        7·
        15 days ago

        I mean, BRICS was never going to be the next Comintern. It’s shaping up to be better than the NAM but worse than the Comintern. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

      • xiaohongshu [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
        7·
        15 days ago

        Global Times are the so-called establishment (建制派) mouthpiece, meaning that they go with whatever is in favor by the establishment.

        And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the establishment has turned increasingly liberal since last September. Xi has practically abandoned and even reversed his decade long effort to curb private capital by the beginning of this year.