Another great example of everyday Chinese efficiency we just experienced. We got the RV stuck (again, see quoted post below 👇) but this time it's completely not our fault: at the end of a one-way road a height restriction barrier had collapsed. It was meant to block trucks over 3m in height but, due to it collapsing, it was standing at maybe 2m50 and our RV is 2m80 so 🤷‍♂️ And since it was a one way road we couldn't turn around and drive against traffic: forbidden and too dangerous. So we called the police. They arrived in exactly 3 minutes which they told us is actually their official KPI for time to intervention. I repeat: the official KPI for the police here in China is that when someone calls, they need to be on-site within a maximum of 3 minutes 🤯 They did two things: first, they immediately called the local village chief, which in the Chinese system is the person accountable to get the height restriction barrier fixed. The guy arrived in less than 2 minutes! Second, they escorted us to drive back on our one-way road, so we could pass by the bike lane on the side which was large enough for our RV and wasn't affected by the barrier (see 3rd video). To summarize: in the space of a mere 5 minutes after calling them, the police had arrived, the guy in charge of fixing the barrier was on-site, and we were safely escorted back on the road. Problem identified, accountability assigned, solution executed. Five minutes.

It reminded me of these monuments you often see in small rural villages in Southeastern China (photo by me in Fujian a couple of years ago) 👇 Each "spire" you see is dedicated to one youth of that village who succeeded at the old Keju imperial exam. When you go to villages in rural France the monuments you get is to honor the village's youths who died at war... Says an awful lot.

This is genuinely shocking, and says so much about our approach to China. I decided to check for independent reviews of the English version Xi Jinping's latest book, published a year ago, to see what people had to say about it since I hadn't read it myself. To my surprise, I couldn't find any: not a single thoughtful review about the book out there! Even on Amazon, check it for yourself ( the book has only 3 ratings, that's it. No matter where you stand on China, you’ve got to admit that’s pretty crazy: the sitting president of the world's rising superpower publishes a 700-page book explaining exactly what he's doing and why, and we don’t even care to look. If there ever was a fact that illustrates just how willfully ignorant we are about China, this is it. All the more because we then go spew the usual clichés around how secretive and impenetrable the Chinese system is: the book is on Amazon for $21 for crying out loud! Anyhow, this felt so wrong that I figured I'd fix it. I bought the book, read it attentively and wrote what I hope you'll agree is a thoughtful review of it. The book contains genuinely surprising passages, such as Xi writing that oversight of the Communist Party by "the judiciary, the public, and the media" was not just something the Party must “readily accept,” but something that he framed as historically decisive - an essential component to "escaping the historical cycle of rise and fall" that has doomed every dynasty in China's history. Other passage that I'm sure would surprise many: a common narrative out there is that China blames the West for the century of humiliation and is driven by revenge. Well, Xi explains that's not true at all: the century of humiliation was China's own mistake, originated in the Ming Dynasty's disastrous "policy of national seclusion" that "resulted in China missing out on the opportunities presented by the Industrial Revolution" and "led to China’s decline." All in all, the book is remarkably self-reflective and thoughtful. For instance Xi recognizes that his drive for “full and rigorous internal governance” - including to rid the Party of corruption - risked "instill[ing] fear and apprehension, or intimidate members into inaction.” He emphasizes the need for pragmatism in this regard, codified in a framework called the “Three Distinctions” that separates honest mistakes - made while experimenting, reforming, or operating without precedent - from deliberate violations committed for personal gain. And many other surprises still. I found it a genuinely fascinating read for anyone interested in how the Chinese system works and how Xi thinks - or anyone interested in governance, period, as so much of what he writes is pretty universally applicable. This is the link to my review of the book, an article I titled "The Book the West Refuses to Read":

This is genuinely incredible and says SO SO MUCH about the perception of China in the West. This is the #1# news show in France, and the host - David Pujadas - asks the pundits around the table (a sample of the top media figures in France) if they can name 3 living Chinese people. That's it: they just need to say the names of 3 living Chinese people, anyone. This should be extremely easy. Yet not of a single one of them can name a single Chinese beyond Xi Jinping. They do not know a single living Chinese person beyond the president. That's the level of ignorance of China we're dealing with in the West today, in 2026. This is the source for the video: Aired live yesterday 28th of May 2026.

The degree of projection in this paper is genuinely insane. Your regular reminder that Anthropic was the first AI frontier lab to actively work with the Pentagon and US intelligence agencies to help them with their global surveillance program. Back in 2024 already, they partnered with Palantir "to make Anthropic's Claude models available to U.S. intelligence and defense agencies" ( And remember the whole story earlier this year on how they refused that their AI be used for “mass domestic surveillance”? Notice something there? By definition it means that they agree with *NON-domestic* mass surveillance, meaning Anthropic has absolutely no problem with the U.S. military-industrial complex using their AI to surveil all 8 billion inhabitants on Earth, provided it excludes the 340 million Americans. And even the latter can be surveilled, just not in a “mass” way (whatever that means). Which, incidentally, is actually merely a restatement of U.S. law. Mass domestic surveillance of Americans is prohibited anyhow by the Fourth Amendment, and mass foreign surveillance is authorized under FISA Section 702 and Executive Order 12333 - the legal architecture Edward Snowden exposed in 2013. So Anthropic’s so-called “principled” stance is them actually supporting very same legal architecture that, back when the Snowden revelations broke in 2013, was rightly condemned as the most sweeping surveillance regime in the world (which it factually is). Which means that them warning that China's AI may be used for surveillance, and as such is dangerous, is literally them taking everyone for complete idiots. All the more due to the fact that, because China's AI is largely open source, you can use it in a way where you keep complete control of your data - unlike Anthropic 🤷‍♂️

This ( is, by any measure, an extraordinary article: Prince Turki Al-Faisal is a son of King Faisal and ran Saudi intelligence (the GID) for over two decades. He is writing that the plan of "the US-Israeli war on Iran" was "to ignite war between us [Saudi Arabia] and Iran," so that Israel could "impose its will on the region and remained the only actor in our surroundings." This further confirms that, contrary to what many have asserted, the notion that the Saudis were quietly backing the war on Iran was a myth (alongside the recent fact the Saudis denied the U.S. access to its bases and airspace: From the horse's mouth they're literally saying it was as much a war on them as it was on Iran! Pretty crazy when you think about it: this is Saudi Arabia saying that their real enemy in this war was the U.S. and Israel. Hard to overstate how significant a rupture this represents. Now of course they could be saying so because, seeing how the war turned out, they're trying to retroactively position themselves on the winning side (at least strategically, by saying they didn't take the bait), or trying to justify domestically why they absorbed hits from Iran without retaliating. And, of course, it's not like they're presenting Iran as some sort of ally here: Prince Turki explicitly calls them a "neighbor" that caused "pains." But still, the end result remains: the Saudi establishment is now committing, on the record and in plain language, to a framing in which, while Iran is a "painful neighbor", the U.S. and Israel represent the deeper strategic threat, having tried to engineer their destruction. If you had any lingering doubt that this war accelerated the collapse of U.S. influence in the region, this should settle it.

Every year, this has to be the one report I look forward to the most: the Democracy Perception Index, compiled by the Alliance of Democracies Foundation (in partnership with Nita Data). In fact, my yearly thread on the report is apparently such a tradition that, this year, its lead researcher personally sent me the report with this message: "every year, I look forward to your thread about it!". That's how you start wondering whether you tweet too much 😅 Why do I like this report so much? A few reasons: 1) The Alliance of Democracies Foundation, the organization behind the report, cannot even remotely be suspected of being some sort of anti-West outlet: it was started by an ex-NATO Secretary General (Anders Fogh Rasmussen) and its stated purpose is "to unite world democracies" 2) It's surprisingly honest and the methodology is actually democratic. Unlike other reports on democracy the scoring isn't done by the report's authors (like the report by Freedom House or The Economist's "Democracy Index"). It simply asks people what they think and, when it comes to democracy, that's kind of the point 🤷‍♂️ 3) I love the expression "perception is reality" because, like it or not, what people believe about their system is what determines its legitimacy. A democracy that nobody actually experiences as one can't credibly claim to be one. And conversely, a so-called "autocracy" that its people overwhelmingly believe is actually a democracy might... actually be a democracy. Anyhow, this year's edition did not disappoint. The data is absolutely fascinating and frankly, a little terrifying. So here you go: my thread on the 2026 Democracy Perception Index 🧵

When the Iran war started I wrote - in response to claims it was all about cutting China's energy supply - that, on the contrary, it'd prove to be the best advertising campaign ever for China's green energy platform (my article: It's now a fact 👇