"Biz as usual"? Are you even reading the news ? China has ordered the closure of Israel's Chengdu consulate on July 1st. Imports from Israel have plummeted by 40% since 2023. Starting january 2024, state-owned shipping companies have stopped using the port of Eilat, causing its bankrupcy and closure. Since October 7th 2023 there are dozens of speeches at the UN by the Chinese representative condemning Israel, in words no Western diplomat would ever dare to use. Same for USrael attacks on Iran. Unlike Western countries, China has dispatched a special envoy to the region to try and bring everybody back to the negotiation table. Western outrage is about China never taking the bait and not becoming another empire dropping bombs or sanctioning countries around the world to "protect its values".

Angelo spot on again on this issue. Too many so-called "critics of the West" or "critics of Israel" are trying to ragebait China into picking a side and bring down the hammer, JUST LIKE the US does. That would validate the theory of their neocon friends who say that China is just like any other nascent empire before it : once rich it becomes assertive first, then aggressive, and finally expansive, and thus China needs to be stopped now. The "policeman of the world" is a Western concept in which China does not believe. It won't fall into that trap, no matter how you frame it : stroke Chinese ego or criticize its moral compass. Get used to it, keep your defective moral standards to yourself, and don't ask China to take out your garbage. Nobody in Russia or China is coming to save you.

There are two kinds of geopolitical analysis accounts on X that we should beware of : the grifters and the virgins. A common tactic from some big X accounts to deceive their audience is to take this example of the US re-positioning its last aircraft carrier out of East Asia, and claim that this is proof the US is "disengaging from Asia", is "slowly learning to live in a multipolar world" (yes, someone actually said that with a straight face !) and "is giving up its pivot to Asia". Nothing can further from reality on the ground. Many serious analysts, and there are plenty out there, have been saying for years that aircraft carriers are sitting ducks in the age of hypersonic missiles and drone warfare. Any aircraft carrier engaged against China or Russia would be turned instantly into a floating ashtray. So it makes little sense to keep them in the Pacific. The same serious analysts have described to great length how the US is arming to the gills its regional proxies for a conventional and hybrid warfare against China. The US engagement in East Asia is being strengthened, streamlined, made more nimble, and taking US troops out of harm's way by replacing them with locals. Reorganizing, repositioning and repurposing is not an indication of giving up. Follow these big geopolitical X accounts at your own risk. Many of them are only good at pandering to other big accounts, at playing the algo, at engagement farming. Because informing you is not their objective. What they are is either AI-charged teamwork outfits who gather the crowd and corral them back to a pro-empire narrative (you can call them controlled opposition), or AI-charged egocentric geopolitical virgins with naive takes, due to their inexperience in international affairs, Asian politics, ignorance of local languages (no access to primary human sources), etc. They either try to deceive you, or line their pockets with your engagement. Stay informed, not entertained !

It's fascinating to watch the president of the Philippines declare yesterday that he foresees a joint development of oil and gas fields in the South China Sea with China happen "before the end of his term". In January 2023, weeks after he got elected on his predecessor Duterte's exact same platform of a balancing act between the US and China, Marcos went to Beijing on an official visit. There, USD 201.8 million worth of contracts were co-signed by Export-Import Bank of China (China Eximbank), bringing the total loans from China to the Philippines to over a billion USD. The joint statement was one of best developments that had happened in the bilateral relationship in decades : "On oil and gas cooperation, both sides agreed to bear in mind the spirit of the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation on Oil and Gas Development between the Government of the People’s Republic of China and the Government of the Republic of Philippines signed in 2018, and agreed to resume discussions on oil and gas development at an early date, building upon the outcomes of the previous talks, with a view of benefiting the two countries and their peoples." A couple of weeks later, the head of the Pentagone, Lloyd Austin, invited himself to Manila and all talks of cooperation with China were buried, to make way to a renewed American iron grip on the archipelago. So Marcos mentioning it again three and a half years later, now that his country is in a deep energy crisis because of its master's reckless actions in the Strait of Hormuz sounds a bit ironic. Marcos Jr., who likes to say that he should be judged on his actions and not on his ancestry (his father was deposed by the people of the Philippines because of his brutal and corrupt grip on the country, backed by the US), can not establish a fruitful relationship with China even if he was sincere about it. He is in the hand of Washington D.C., where his father's ill-gotten gains are still stashed, and the extra-territorial judicial arm of the US "justice system" could catch him anywhere he goes. Because of that, just three years into the job, he has made the Philippines wide-opened to the US Army, in proportions that were not attained before : re-occupation, enlargement and refurbishment of Clarke Airbase and Subic Bay naval base, free and unrestricted access to 10 other military bases, positioning of mid-range Typhon missiles, constant joint military drills with the US, Japan, Australia (and even with France), etc. Under Marcos Jr., the Philippines are becoming a de facto Asian member of NATO, and after all the recent Philippines Navy's provocations in the region, Marcos expects China to joint develop oil fields in the South China Sea, which will provide jet fuel to attack China... I wonder, will it work ?

Thank you. There is no shortage of talents and patriots in France, but they are not allowed to rise to the top : they get no media access, and are criminalized if they become too successful on their own. The game is rigged by external hostile forces that have expelled De Gaulle from power in 1968. It's been downhill from then on. What's allowed to rise to the top are those who claim De Gaulle's heritage for themselves, stick French flags everywhere in their communication for show, but are just paying lip service to sovereignty. They have no intention to challenge those in power now and reclaim power. They claim, and want voters to believe, that "patriots" will grab power and re-establish sovereignty through the ballot box. They actually claim that power is going to be handed over back to the sovereignists through elections ! They all have one thing in common : they claim that China is as much a danger to France's sovereignty as the US. China is the piñata they can beat without any consequence, and look patriotic while doing it. Which tells us that they are not even planning to leave the US orbit and end the US occupation, which they have no means to do anyway. Them saying that "we also don't want to end up in China's orbit" is a diversion away from what the real question is : "how do you plan exactly to get France out of EU, NATO and the imperial sphere of influence?". They will never answer that question publicly. So to your point, there might be one or two de Gaulles out there, but they won't be allowed to get popular in the current environment, not to mention rise to the top and bring France back to its past greatness.