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Kyle Marcrum
@KyleMarcrum
Unqualified philosopher and former tanker. Views are my own.
Joined June 2014
549 Following
137 Followers
164 Posts
The important question is not how long Taiwan can hold out without LNG, but how long the world can go without trade with Taiwan.
https://t.co/by4re4iQt6
Important story about Min Zin deserving some attention: https://t.co/22SrpJhuhA via @WSJ
A U.S. citizen, Min Zin, was invited to a conference in the People's Republic of China (PRC), and the Ministry of State Security (MSS) arrested him on espionage-related charges. His so-called "crime" appears to be researching Beijing's activities in Southeast Asia, especially Burma. A couple of points worth noting:
1. Min Zin was arrested for activities legal both in the United States and Thailand, where his research organization was based, conducted entirely outside of the PRC. This is a concrete example of how the PRC in recent years has criminalized research work that might have negative consequences for the PRC, such as due diligence. Many of us have crossed this line (probably...?), but we do not get to know until we depart PRC territory.
2. It looks like the MSS lured Min Zin to the PRC for this purpose. Clearly some academics and researchers are allowed to go to the PRC without hassle, but the risks are fundamentally different if any work one has done has offended Beijing. Min Zin was no fool and had faced real risks as a young man protesting the regime in Burma. I doubt he would have gone had his contacts, the hosts, or friends had given him any inkling that he faced danger in the PRC. Min Zin had traveled there last year without incident.
3. Given the selectivity on who is allowed to visit the PRC and recent laws discussing academic exchange platforms, I think Beijing increasingly sees academic exchanges as tools to shape external thinking, i.e. a way to build discourse power.
It has been more than 100 days that Min Zin has been in detention. @StateDept has determined that he has been wrongfully detained and has added cautionary language to the PRC Travel Advisory about arbitrary detention. His case undoubtedly will be raised later this month.
The United States does not have a symmetric way to respond. De-linking these issues from the broader U.S.-PRC agenda gives Beijing carte blanche to keep doing it. We do not want to be a position of trading real criminals for hostages, because that would incentivize the PRC to keep doing this. That means significant responses that deter or punish such arbitrary detention almost certainly would need to disproportionate or asymmetric.
#FreeMinZin #WrongfulDetention
MIT published a brutally honest report on what AI is doing to students.
A committee of professors and students spent five months studying how AI changed learning on campus, and the findings read like a warning to every university on the planet.
Study groups are disappearing. Office hours are emptying out. Problem sets and take-home exams no longer prove anything, because AI can produce credible solutions to almost any written assignment in the undergraduate curriculum. Students who lean on chatbots lose mastery and confidence, and some slip into what the report calls cognitive surrender, reaching for AI at the first hint of struggle.
The numbers are rough. 46 percent of surveyed MIT undergrads use LLMs daily. 90 percent worry about their own overreliance. Undergrads who feel AI makes them replaceable now outnumber those who feel it makes them capable.
The committee's answer surprised me. They refused to fight AI with surveillance. The report calls AI detectors unreliable, says lockdown browsers feel like spying, and warns that policing students builds a classroom atmosphere of mutual distrust.
Instead, MIT wants to rebuild education around the things AI can't replace. That means oral exams, semester portfolios, in-person project work, and a required social component in every subject. The report even floats the idea of rethinking grades entirely, since without a GPA to optimize, much of the incentive to cheat with AI evaporates.
The committee warns professors against replacing undergrad research assistants with AI agents just because they're cheaper, because a university exists to grow people, not output.
The most famous tech school on earth admitted the machines broke its way of teaching. Its answer is more humans, not more software.
“You just said that 10% doesn’t seem an unreasonable estimate that AI could kill all humans”
“Yes”
“Wow… oh my God.”
@vicderbyshire speaks to Nobel Prize Winner and so-called ‘Godfather of AI’ Geoffrey Hinton about predictions by an Anthropic researcher that there’s a more than 10% chance AI could kill all humans within a decade.
#Newsnight
Who to follow
This video of the Philippine SecDef responding in real time to a note from Chinese interlocutors is worth watching in full.
All members of the 🇹🇼 Republic of China Army 137th Infantry Brigade’s first full-strength reservist recall were issued M4A1 rifles.
Taiwan received the rifles through Presidential Drawdown Administration during the Biden administration.
(China Times)
I love how TSA rules are different at every airport and they look at you like you're a fucking idiot when you don't speak their regional dialect of security theater.
An unexpected flood meme surfaced on Chinese social media this week after a famous scenic site in Jing County, Anhui, was flooded, partially submerging the statues of Tang dynasty poet Li Bai (李白) and his friend Wang Lun (汪伦). It's an especially noteworthy scene because Li Bai wrote one of China's most famous poems after departing from the area at Peach Blossom Pond (桃花潭), where he had come to meet and drink with Wang Lun. As Li Bai was about to leave by boat, Wang Lun and the villagers came to the shore to sing him farewell.
The poem goes: "Li Bai is about to leave by boat / Suddenly, he hears singing on the shore / The Peach Blossom Pool is a thousand feet deep / However, not as deep as Wang Lun's love for me!"* (李白乘舟将欲行/忽闻岸上踏歌声/桃花潭水深千尺/不及汪伦送我情.)
Now, netizens are having fun rewriting the poem to match the current situation. One commenter wrote:
"Li Bai boarded his boat about to depart / The water is a thousand feet deep over his head." (李白乘舟将欲行，水淹头顶千尺深.) As another commenter put it:
"This generation of netizens has both a sense of humor and literary talent."
Other memes compare the statues before and after the flooding. In one, Li Bai is depicted as saying: "The waters of the great river come down from Heaven", a famous line from his poem Bring in the Wine (将进酒). In the flooded version, an almost-submerged Wang Lun responds: "Brother Li... that's enough! That's enough!"
*Translation by Peter Harris & C. H. Liu
"The stock market and economy seem out of sync," per CNBC
China claiming Batanes pretty much signals to the Philippines that Beijing won't be stopping at an annexation of Taiwan.
A rural Arkansas school district was hemorrhaging $250,000 a year and couldn't keep teachers. So residents voted to take out a $5.4 million bond, upgrade every building in the district, and install 1,400 solar panels.
Three years later, the deficit flipped to a $1.8 million surplus.
The project wasn't just solar. Energy efficiency upgrades across all six schools, new lighting, HVAC systems, windows, and thermostats cut energy consumption by 1.6 million kilowatts annually.
The panels, some installed as a canopy at the school entrance and some on unused district land, generated enough excess electricity that the district started selling it back to the grid. Monthly utility bills dropped from $17,000 to $4,000.
The school board voted to put the savings into paychecks. Teachers saw raises averaging $2,000 to $3,000 a year, with some receiving up to $15,000 depending on tenure.
Batesville went from one of the lowest-paying districts in Arkansas to one of the highest-paying in its county. Resignations slowed and applications went up.
Taxpayers funded the upfront cost through the bond. The savings paid it back and then some. "Batesville has reduced the checks they write to utilities," said the energy company that managed the project, "and increased the checks they write to teachers."
At least 20 nearby districts have since copied the model. Nine thousand schools across the US now run on solar. Batesville was the first to route the savings directly into teacher salaries.
Running a gas leaf blower for 30 minutes produces roughly the same hydrocarbon pollution as driving a car 1,100 miles and shreds next summer's insects.
That's before you get to what the air does to the yard itself. Leaf blower air exits the nozzle at up to 200 miles per hour. That's enough to shred caterpillars, strip butterfly eggs off leaves, and fling overwintering fireflies, ladybugs, and ground beetles into the street.
The leaf litter being blown to the curb is where next summer's insects were waiting out the winter. A chickadee pair needs 6,000 to 9,000 caterpillars to raise one brood. Most of those overwinter in exactly the debris being removed.
California banned gas-powered leaf blowers. So did Washington DC and a growing number of cities. Germany's environment ministry advised citizens to avoid them unless "indispensable," which is a very German way of saying please stop.
The leaves can be raked into beds as mulch, mowed over and left as nutrients, or just left alone. Any of those options take roughly the same time and produce approximately zero hydrocarbon pollution and zero shredded caterpillars.
The leaf blower is loud, bad for air quality, and running a massacre on the insects that feed your birds. Is it time to ban them entirely?
"China is not ignoring the drone threat; it is engineering through it.... The physics of an open-ocean swim strip the Type-05 of legacy protection, forcing the PLA to pursue radical engineering and system-level alternatives." https://t.co/VD67dZNoAa
What did Taiwan actually think of the Cheng-Xi meeting?
This week, @poscwty & I have three reports at @BrookingsFP analyzing new survey data on how Taiwan saw the meeting, the 92 Consensus, defense spending, Trump, the US, and more.
Here is piece #1:
https://t.co/1kymeJkkKx
Taiwanese joke about the invasion.
https://t.co/0xzg8t5385
“China uses its navy to assert capability--what it can do by force. It uses its coast guard & other government ships as a paramilitary force to assert sovereignty--what it claims.” 🔥
🚨THE BASHI BREAKOUT: 🇨🇳#China has, for the first time, pushed a paramilitary sovereignty assertion past its own "10-dash line" & beyond the First Island Chain to challenge a maritime negotiation it isn't party to.
On May 28, 🇯🇵#Japan & the 🇵🇭#Philippines announced they would delimit their overlapping exclusive economic zones as prescribed by #UNCLOS. Beijing's answer was to send a flotilla through the Bashi Channel & into the open Pacific east of 🇹🇼#Taiwan, into waters that even its own most expansive maps don't (yet) claim.
The key is in which ships Beijing sent: China uses its navy to assert capability--what it can do by force. It uses its coast guard & other government ships as a paramilitary force to assert sovereignty--what it claims.
Not one ship in this flotilla was a warship, because this was a sovereignty claim.
That's what's really new here. For over a decade China used these same gray-zone tactics to assert sovereignty inside its South China Sea "nine-dash line". This week's action pushed somewhere new--going past even the 10th "dash" Beijing added to its 2023 map.
Beyond the First Island Chain.
This assertion was aimed not at Taiwan alone, but at two 🇺🇸US treaty allies. @China_MFA branded the Japan-Philippine talks "completely illegal and void", while a June 1 @globaltimesnews editorial called the idea "an extraordinary and almost unprecedented absurdity… akin to two neighbors sitting in your living room and discussing how to divide your backyard."
Note how China's "backyard" continues to expand. So, in fact, does its "living room".
What SeaLight's tracking shows:
🔹 From 1-5 June, CCG cutters Daishan (2502) & Baita (2304) ran the first clockwise patrol over 200nm east of Taiwan's easternmost island--well past the 10th "dash" on Beijing's 2023 map.
🔹 Late on June 7th, a second wave of 3 provincial Maritime Safety Administration cutters & a rescue tug pushed into the Bashi Channel. The formation entered Taiwan's restricted waters ~30nm off the southern tip, drew a 7-ship Taiwan Coast Guard standoff, then also pushed east.
Beijing's state media left no doubt about what it all meant, first with an official @XHNews/@globaltimesnews announcement, then a June 7 Global Times viewpoint column naming the operation "a sovereignty declaration with both legal significance and political signaling."
Taiwan's NSC chief @josephwutw named it "expansionism in disguise," Defense Minister Koo said it was "cognitive warfare." Both are quite correct.
But the deeper target is Tokyo, Manila & Washington DC, since if Beijing can run a paramilitary sovereignty assertion directly against two US allies' lawful EEZ talks in waters far beyond even its own claim lines, the real message is that China's maritime claims are not just expansive and ambiguous, they are unbounded.
📊 Tracking by @StarboardIntel
Tattoo culture meets Cold War history in Taipei.
A Sunday talk at Taiwan’s Contemporary Culture Lab brought together tattoo artist Jimmy Shy, photographer Chang Yu and historian Kuo Yen-po to explore sailor tattoos and their ties to US military bases across Asia, from Hong Kong to Japan.
The discussion is part of the exhibition WE Are Becoming, on view through August 16.
New @NavalWarCollege/@ChinaMaritime Report #53—“Filling the Ranks: #China’s #Military Recruiting System & the PLA Navy”
https://t.co/WRuA2MZDLC
From CMSI Director CAPT @ChrisHSharman, @USNavy (Ret.):
China Navy Watchers: As China’s Navy (PLAN) expands into a more technologically advanced force, can it recruit the personnel needed to operate & sustain an increasingly sophisticated fleet?
The China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI) is pleased to publish China Maritime Report (CMR) #53, Filling the Ranks.
This CMR is the first publication resulting from our May 2025 conference at the #NavalWarCollege, “The People of China’s Navy & Other Maritime Forces.”
Drawing extensively on original Chinese-language primary sources, Dr. Erin Richter and Joshua Arostegui unpack the systems, institutions, and policies that underpin recruitment across the PLA, with particular attention to the PLAN’s growing demand for technically skilled manpower.
🎯 The report provides a rare look into how the PLAN recruits & assigns conscripts, officers, pilots, & civilian technical specialists through an increasingly sophisticated system of “precision recruitment.”
🎯 It highlights the CCP’s broader effort to professionalize military manpower as the PLAN transitions into a more technologically advanced & globally operating force. New initiatives—including twice-yearly conscription cycles, targeted training programs, military-civil educational partnerships, and data-driven recruiting systems—are designed to improve readiness while increasing the proportion of college-educated & technically skilled personnel entering the force.
🎯 Yet the PLAN’s manpower ambitions face significant headwinds. China’s economy continues to compete aggressively for top technical talent, recruiting officials remain overburdened, & physical fitness levels among potential recruits continue to generate concern.
CMR #53 is a stark reminder that assessing the future effectiveness of China’s navy requires more than evaluating shipbuilding output & weapons modernization.
The future of Chinese naval power will depend not only on ships & weapons, but on the PLAN’s ability to recruit, train, & retain the technically proficient personnel needed to fight & sustain a modern navy.
Main Findings:
⚓ The PLAN manages direct recruitment of some non-commissioned officers, officers, & civilian personnel. However, the recruitment, mobilization, & service assignment of conscripts is centrally managed by the PRC government.
⚓ Each year, the PRC establishes military conscription quotas for provincial-level governments to meet through recruitment. While compulsory conscription can be enforced, the government rarely compels individuals to enter military service due to China’s large population & high rates of volunteerism.
⚓ In 2021, the PLA shifted to a twice-a-year conscription cycle by distributing the flow of conscripts into & out of the force across 2 time periods rather than 1. This shift to spring & fall recruitment was designed to achieve higher average unit-manning levels year-round.
⚓ The majority of PLAN manpower requirements are filled through the general military conscription process, & while a conscript’s preferences may be taken into consideration, they are ultimately assigned based on their education, fitness, & military quota.
⚓ The PLAN conducts direct recruitment of specific professional & technical personnel through military & civilian cadre recruitment programs. The PLAN also has a special program to recruit pilots separate from the general conscription system, managed by the PLAN Recruitment Office.
⚓ In 2022, China instituted a new program for the targeted training of sergeants (定向培养军士). The program is designed to leverage vocational & technical colleges throughout China to train students to fill technical and professional jobs within the military after graduation.
⚓ The PLAN has 5 military academies that recruit high school students, as well as university & graduate students, to train to become commissioned officers. The National University of Defense Technology directly recruits high school graduates for the Navy, whereas the Army Special Operations Academy, responsible for training PLAN Marine Corps officers, admits only candidates who have completed 2 years at another PLA academy & successfully competed for selection.
⚓ Like other services, the PLAN also engages in the direct recruitment of officers from among recent college graduates. Applicants apply to fill specific positions & submit supporting materials to be reviewed by the Navy hiring organization.
⚓ PLA recruitment mechanisms are rapidly transitioning from traditional grassroots outreach to a precision recruitment system, by which recruiting offices prescreen potential conscripts, sergeants, & officers for suitability. These recruiting activities are complemented by an aggressive national defense education program & increasingly sophisticated recruitment propaganda drives.
⚓ In recent years, the PLA as a whole has greatly increased the proportion of new recruits with a college degree. The CMC, State Council, & provincial governments have rolled out a range of policy mechanisms to attract high-quality recruits & retain these individuals after their initial terms of service. These incentives include military pay and entitlements, education and job assistance, & retirement benefits.
⚓ Despite improvements in precision recruiting, pay, & benefits, & general outreach, several challenges continue to hamper efforts by the PLAN & other services to recruit the best possible candidates. These included overburdened recruiting officials, ineffectual support for military recruitment within China’s universities, & low physical fitness among potential recruits.
“There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”
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