The Chinese engineer is one of the most thankless heros of Central Asia. The more I look into economics of Central Asia the more I get blackpilled that Chinese prosperity is the only hope for this region.

DeepSeek is hiking prices: Under new pricing, peak hour costs for its V4 Pro will rose to 12 yuan (US$1.77) for every million output tokens from the standard rate of 6 yuan during non-peak time Doing this so fast after its 75% price cut in May signals major market share gains

Russia’s fuel crisis is creating an opening for Chinese EV makers. A Moscow dealership says it is now selling two to three Chinese electric vehicles per day, up from just two to three per month weeks ago.

Lately, Japanese netizens’ new favorite way of coping is watching Chinese movies about imperial Japan’s war crimes. They keep praising how insanely cool the Japanese Imperial Army looks and begging China to make more. These posts are going massively viral. To be honest, this could spark some self-reflection on how some of the over-the-top dramas are shot, that they made the imperial Japanese army too stylish to make them seem stronger. but I don’t want to go there right now. After all, Nazi troops are also glamorized and made to look extremely stylish in countless Western films, yet you’ll never see Germans dare to openly say “Nazis are so badass lolllll”. Not that they don’t way to, they don’t dare to. I’m just pointing out the obvious double standard.

The biggest myth of economic history is that rich countries developed by embracing free trade. The truth is that rich countries relied heavily on state intervention. Then, they told the rest of the world to embrace free trade, kicking away the ladder they had climbed up. We are now witnessing, once again, rich countries turning to state intervention and protectionism. In fact, they are actively dismantling the ideology of free trade they pushed onto the rest of the world. Why? The answer is simple: they now need protectionism again to compete with countries that “accidentally” caught up.

The Economist: “Brazilians are going gaga for Chinese brands…Affluent Brazilians drive cars made by BYD, use phones made by Huawei, watch televisions produced by Hisense, order meals with 99Food, a delivery app, and shop online at Shopee.”

Huawei is selling Ascend 950DT systems bundled with DeepSeek's V4 model to customers in the Middle East and Central Asia. US export controls aimed to limit Chinese AI chip capability. An unintended consequence: they may be creating demand for Chinese AI infrastructure in countries that also face restricted Nvidia access. Full analysis of what this means for the chip landscape.

It is funny that producing virtually anything in China is good business (THE BEST business even, the entire West was gleefully doing that for decades), but letting *the Chinese* to produce anything in the West (or merely let VW do this) is suicidal. It's funny because it's true.