spectroscopy_geek

Science! PhD in chemistry, spectroscopy; Pro-china and pro-USA dependent on which one is being demonized.
A global citizen (22/20 years in China/USA).

[spectroscopy_geek @sfgchen]

Western anti-China propaganda has been successful in alienating many people who has no first-hand experience with China. if China doesn't up its public relationship communication, only people who can afford to visit China will know the truth. Good read! @ArynovZhanibek

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

Eric Schmidt saying the quiet part out loud: "What I don't like about [China's AI] is that it's all open source which means it's largely uncontrolled and not controlled in any way by us."

He adds, "if that makes you feel any better," that only 2 or 3 countries can be independent AI powers.

In other words, it's all about hegemony: the ideal scenario is a world where AI is controlled by the US - and the fewer countries that can resist that, the better.

Src for the video: https://t.co/Gk5iAMtBqa

[Cyrus Janssen @thecyrusjanssen]

China is emerging as a winner in the World Cup despite not having a team in the tournament 👇

Mexico is co-hosting the World Cup and doing so because of amazing Chinese technology. For this year's games China has provided Mexico with:

- 115 Light Rail Trains
- 1,000 New Energy Buses
- Chinese Built Train line in Monterrey
- Tencent Cloud providing Live-Streaming Services
- Lenovo provides AI for Match Analysis

The World Cup is made possible because of Chinese tech and it's awesome to see Mexican fans enjoy a better World Cup experience because of 🇨🇳

Full Article👇
https://t.co/ophs4qf5wO

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

Fascinating argument by Bloomberg's top energy analyst Javier Blas 👇: he argues that China effectively saved the world economy during the Iran war by absorbing the brunt of the global oil supply shock on its own, without visible economic damage.

According to his calculations, China "cut its average daily waterborne oil imports by the same amount as the combined oil consumption of Germany, France and the UK."

And, still according to Blas, they "did so without suffering economic harm" because they could rely on many levers: their huge strategic petroleum reserve, a massive surge in EV usage, their remaining coal-fired electricity capacity, and coal-to-chemicals replacing lost feedstocks.

Had China not been ready to absorb that blow, a good argument can be made that the economic damage to the West, and the world at large, would have spiraled far beyond what we saw.

Effectively, China's energy strategy at all levels (petroleum reserves, EVs, etc.) and its ability to withstand huge supply shocks paid off for everyone, not just for them.

It sounds awfully familiar: in 2008 too it was China's stimulus package and continuous buying of US Treasuries that averted a complete breakdown of the global financial system.

So twice in 20 years the country the West loves to present as a "threat" to the global economy effectively saved it from a US-made global economic disaster 🤷

[Cyrus Janssen @thecyrusjanssen]

Trump was outsmarted and outplayed by Iran, but luckily for him the MAGA base is too stupid to understand this

[Giokielicious @jokieliu]

So basically now we have America accusing China of using slaves to pick cotton, Japanese saying China is populist and militarist, Canadians saying China oppresses indigenous people, and Indians saying China has a caste system.

So basically China is a mirror.

[Medea Benjamin @medeabenjamin]

Is it just me, or does the spectacle of people fighting in a cage on the White House lawn strike you as something surreal—and very creepy? Doesn't turning the seat of government into an arena for gladiator entertainment feels like a scene from a dystopian movie?

[Cyrus Janssen @thecyrusjanssen]

It's amazing the 180 degree pivot you've made on Trump. Deep down you know this is complete BS but you lie to yourself and the American people because it helps your own political career. The US is in a weaker position today because our politicians don't have a spine and you are living proof of this. Incredibly sad to see

[Cyrus Janssen @thecyrusjanssen]

I’m so sick and tired of these so called “China experts” who go off every day about defending liberal democracies but yet don’t have the guts to call out Trump and what he is doing in the United States.

Instead of trying to defend her points @BethanyAllenEbr does the only thing she can do, block and ignore. If you aren’t brave enough to call out Trump and speak about what he has done to the United States global reputation then you can’t call out other countries. Simple as that 👇

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

If you understand this story, you’ve understood much there is to understand about geopolitics around Taiwan.

The current DPP government is quite literally cheering its own carve-up - as long as it annoys Beijing.

Here is what happened.

So recently, May 28th, Japanese PM Takaichi and Philippines President Marcos Jr. issued a joint statement (https://t.co/T3HUFO3oDI) announcing they would open negotiations to delimit their overlapping EEZ and continental-shelf boundaries.

As a reminder, an EEZ - Exclusive Economic Zone - is the area extending 200 nautical miles from a country's coastline within which that country has exclusive rights to exploit all natural resources.

Small problem: their EEZs directly overlap with China's, both from Beijing’s standpoint and Taipei’s, as they are less than 200 nautical miles from Taiwan’s coastline.

In effect, what Japan and the Philippines are announcing here is that they're agreeing bilaterally - without Beijing or Taipei at the table - to split between themselves waters that belong, in part, to someone else.

Unsurprisingly, that didn't sit well with Beijing. They issued a statement the day after - 29th of May - where they "strongly deplore and firmly oppose the so-called maritime delimitation talks between Japan and the Philippines" (https://t.co/d9mLwvTcpI).

Any rational person would have expected Taipei to issue a similar statement because, whatever you think of Beijing's claims, it's the EEZ around Taiwan we're speaking about here: surely they'd object to other countries carving up the resource rights off their coastline.

It's actually one thing Beijing and Taipei have aligned interests on: neither wants its maritime entitlements carved up by third parties.

As a reminder Taipei rejected the infamous 2016 Hague arbitration ruling on the South China Sea - siding with Beijing against Manila - for the same reasons: because the tribunal downgraded Taiping (Itu Aba), the largest feature in the Spratlys that Taipei occupies, from an “island” to a “rock,” which would have stripped it of its 200-nautical-mile EEZ.

In other words, defending their own EEZ is normally sacrosanct for Taipei.

Except... not this time. Taipei issued an angry statement, yes, but where the anger was entirely directed at Beijing. The statement (https://t.co/HXekJR7fvi) explicitly “commend[ed] Japan and the Philippines for working to resolve maritime differences”, reserving its sharp language to China because it "has no right to comment on the territory and appertaining waters of the Republic of China (Taiwan)."

Think for a moment about what it says about Taipei’s current DPP independentist government: the party that claims to champion Taiwan's sovereignty literally celebrated, as its first instinct, two countries announcing they'd carve up Taiwan's maritime territory between themselves. All because Beijing opposed it.

This caused quite a stir in Taiwanese politics, with the KMT calling the statement “humiliating,” warning that cheering the talks without seeking a seat in negotiations over the overlapping EEZs could seriously hurt Taiwanese fishermen's livelihoods in the future (https://t.co/5T2jW4HQb5).

So much so that Taipei’s MOFA had to issue a new statement on June 2 specifying that the Japan-Philippines talks "should not impair our country's rights", with MOFA spokesperson Hsiao Kuang-wei finally acknowledging the delimitation waters “highly overlap” with Taipei's EEZ.

But then, confusingly, 2 days after - June 4 - Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung undercut his own ministry’s correction entirely (https://t.co/hgAu7Quj1H). The Japan-Philippines talks, he explained, are “aimed at China” and therefore, fundamentally good - Taipei's EEZ being carved up in the process being, apparently, a minor detail.

China protesting the talks, he said, is “getting cause and effect backwards” and he branded “the handful distorting the issue and shifting the focus” - i.e. anyone pointing out that Taiwan's EEZ is being carved up - as “falling into a trap and letting China benefit.”

So the same ministry, within 48 hours, both (a) asked Tokyo and Manila to guard against a danger to Taiwan's EEZ, and (b) declared that danger nonexistent and smeared anyone naming it as a Beijing stooge. Go figure 🤷

But this is actually just one part of a much bigger story - one about colonial nostalgia, about the three competing visions at play for Taiwan, and about why the West champions the one party in Taiwan that does NOT actually defend sovereignty and democracy.

I wrote it all up here: https://t.co/tWqeM8xpX8

[spectroscopy_geek @sfgchen]

@SecRubio bring Renee Goode back!

[Angelica 🌐⚛️🇹🇼🇨🇳🇺🇸 @AngelicaOung]

Hey Jeremiah, when I went to Kashgar I was in a Uyghur restaurant eating the best lamb skewers of my life. We were the only Han table. Everyone was speaking Uyghur and the menu was bilingual.

The young people in Xinjiang are overwhelmingly secular. Unlike the previous generation, they speak fantastic mandarin. They believe that along with the right to faith, there must be also the right to no faith. The young ladies of Xinjiang are not clamoring to be veiled. The young men of Xinjiang are not upset that they study mainly in mandarin at school…how else are they going to ace the highly-competitive Gaokao exams? Uyghurs and other minorities do get some affirmative action, but it is still very competitive.

The Uyghurs and other minorities in China are living the Chinese dream and blessed compared to the populations of say American allies Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, still effectively monarchies.

As an American citizen I find it sad that we are still doing the moral indignation as statescraft schtick. It’s not working post covid. YOU can go to Xinjiang and see for yourself but you wanna sit in DC and spout propaganda.

[spectroscopy_geek @sfgchen]

@SenRickScott someone is committing genocide in your brain.

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

It always astonishes me how there is virtually ZERO public debate - or even public awareness - in Europe about the decisions that will most shape ordinary people's lives.

These days, the EU is drafting a new anti-China legal framework where - quite literally - the more affordable and competitive Chinese products are, the more illegal they'd become.

You'd think EU citizens would want to be informed about such things - as it couldn't be more consequential for their prosperity.

Yet I bet virtually no EU citizen is even aware of it, beyond a vague sense that there is some sort of trade dispute going on.

So what's going on exactly? It all centers around a new legal instrument the EU is drafting called the "overcapacity instrument" (https://t.co/mNpCMudYyS).

First of all, the very notion of "overcapacity" is pretty ridiculous to begin with, especially the way it's being defined by the EU, as it basically means being competitive enough to export.

By this definition of "overcapacity," pretty much every European industry that's ever run a trade surplus - German cars, French wine, Italian fashion - has been guilty of "overcapacity."

I'm not even exaggerating: if you read this study by the EU Parliament on "Industrial overcapacities, with a focus on China" (https://t.co/TcwEBoL8mD), they define "overcapacity" as building more capacity than your domestic market can absorb. So the moment you build capacity to export abroad, you're in "overcapacity."

Utterly ridiculous.

And what this "overcapacity instrument" is about is creating a permanent legal mechanism for the EU to block Chinese competition across whole sectors of the economy, if they happen to be in "overcapacity."

In effect, this means that if China is competitive globally in a given sector in such a way that it exports a lot, that's proof of overcapacity, and legally it'd mean that the entire sector can be restricted from the EU market.

Which means it really, factually, is a legal framework where the more affordable and competitive your products are, the more illegal they become.

Which is a CRAZY economic concept! 🤦‍♂️

Please note that it's different from the anti-subsidy legal instrument, which the EU has already put in place in 2023 (the "Foreign Subsidies Regulation": https://t.co/SvPKFyN0zo).

This "overcapacity instrument" would be above and beyond this: it wouldn't even matter if a particular sector was subsidized by the Chinese government or not, the mere fact of its competitiveness in exports would be grounds for restrictions in the EU.

It doesn't take a genius to understand how badly this could impact everyday people: this is European consumers being forced to pay more for worse products by law, so that uncompetitive European firms don't have to improve.

Politicians frame it as avoiding a "China shock 2.0" but really this is choosing an even steeper self-inflicted decline than is already the case, where EU citizens would subsidize mediocre EU companies that would have even less pressure to catch up. It's a hidden tax: subsidies for uncompetitive firms paid by consumers instead of governments, which in turn makes them less incentivized to become competitive.

The first "China shock" did de-industrialize Europe somewhat, but at least it made things cheaper for European consumers. If this becomes Europe's response to a second "China shock" not only it'd make everything more expensive but it'd do nothing for EU industry: you don't become competitive by banning the competition...

Look at China itself: the way it industrialized was NOT by banning Western firms but on the contrary by welcoming them strategically and learning from them. You learn to compete by... competing, duh!

What I find most shocking in all of this isn't even the policy itself - you can make arguments for and against protectionism, and reasonable people can disagree.

What's shocking is that virtually no European media outlet is explaining any of this to the public. This is unarguably one of the single most consequential economic decisions the EU will make this decade, affecting the price of everything, and it's being drafted in near-total silence.

No newspaper is running the headline "EU plans to make Chinese goods illegal if they're too affordable" - even though that's essentially what's happening.

But that's what you call a "democracy" with "freedom of expression" these days apparently...

[Ryan Milton 弥瑞恩 @1860rm]

Interesting! 🤯

The WSJ Chief correspondent just blocked me—-didn’t try to debate me or correct me or engage me in ANY WAY—-me, a legit NOBODY—-who engaged in Citizen Diplomacy to go and SEE CHINA FOR MYSELF (April-May for 12 days).

I’ve seen how China 🇨🇳 operates, and now, rather than a good faith discussion, I was shut out because I questioned how Ms. Lingling is engaging in “controlling the narrative” on behalf of Wall Street controllers—- something she was tasked to claim about China!

Once again, mainstream media is guilty of the very behavior they are screeching and pointing out about China.

Imagine if more Americans 🇺🇸 went to China and then returned and just told the truth about what they saw (as awe inspiring as it is)?

🤯

[Angelica 🌐⚛️🇹🇼🇨🇳🇺🇸 @AngelicaOung]

“The Western world has been so used to being dominant and of patronizing the non-western world that when China made rapid strides, they found it psychologically difficult to accept. And there was an informational campaign to diminish China. The trouble is when you do that you deceive your own people. And for far too long there was an underestimation of China.

…and suddenly when the statistics break through the information war people got angry.” — George Yeo

A lot to reflect on all around. I’m am not tres fan of how the Chinese handles press, either internally or wrt correspondents. But the failing of the western press on China is even worse.

They didn’t show China as it was. They cleaved to their narrative. All the freedom they had in theory were wasted. And it is thanks to their failure that the west was collectively taken by surprise by Chinas rise.

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

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: https://t.co/9UnWyu63g8 Aired live yesterday 28th of May 2026.

[spectroscopy_geek @sfgchen]

@AndyBxxx @TMtonightNTD @GordonGChang how dare you! revealing such sensitive top-secret!?!?!?

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

This is absolutely fascinating: Jason Furman, one of the foremost economists in the U.S. and former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, explains why the so-called "China shock" is a myth.

According to him, "85 to 95% of Americans benefited" from trade with China, and "China has been part of helping [the US economy] work, not hurting it work."

In other words, the narrative that China "stole" American jobs and wages is the exact opposite of reality.

Furman's logic is pretty ironclad:

1) He points out, which is factual, that "the slowdown of wage growth and the rise of inequality began in the 1970s, when there basically was no trade with China." It then accelerated in the 1980s-90s when China trade was small, and **slowed down** after 2000. And "since about 2013," when trade with China was at its highest, "we've had pretty fast real wage growth," with "the fastest real wage growth for moderate income households."

In other words, the timing doesn't fit: if China was the cause, the problem should have gotten worse as trade with China increased. Instead, it got better.

2) A common narrative one hears about China is "who cares about affordable goods, we need well-paying jobs." But Furman points out it's actually one and the same thing: "the way we measure jobs is how much your wages can buy. If you improve purchasing power, you are making every single job in the economy better."

In very concrete terms, if salaries stay flat but Chinese imports make goods 10% cheaper, your purchasing power just went up 10%, as if you got a 10% wage hike. This makes every single job in the economy better.

In effect "jobs vs. cheap goods" is a false dichotomy: cheap goods ARE better jobs.

3) Furman also points out, rightly, that the majority of what U.S. imports from China isn't consumer goods: "more than half of what we import is actually inputs into the manufacturing process itself."

In other words, Chinese imports make U.S. manufacturing MORE competitive as it decreases their input costs. If you were to cut all Chinese imports, you'd cripple U.S. manufacturing as it would no longer be able to compete on price with anyone. And, as per point 2 above, you'd also destroy Americans' purchasing power, making every single U.S. worker worse off.

4) Last but not least, Furman says that the "China shock" literature is fundamentally flawed, as it "doesn't answer the most important question, which is what the net effect was." It "doesn't consider other causes for the job losses, doesn't look at all the places that gained jobs and wages, and doesn't integrate the consumer side."

All in all, he believes that if one were to actually calculate the net effect of trade with China on the U.S. economy, it'd show that "85 to 95% of Americans benefited." And even for the 5-15% who lost out, Furman says these people were failed by "our labor policies, our social safety net" - not by China.

What Furman is saying is more relevant than ever because, both in the U.S. and in Europe, this notion that China is somehow "stealing" Western jobs and prosperity has become the unquestioned premise of so many of today's policies.

Nobody even debates it anymore, it's almost universally assumed correct.

In my own country France, Macron keeps repeating it all the time, leading the charge in Europe to slap tariffs on Chinese imports, warning that China is "killing its own customers" and that it's a question of life or death for European industry (https://t.co/Auq9rvyEwk). He literally called last week for the EU to build its own version of America's Section 301 - the same protectionist tool Trump uses (https://t.co/yHJ6M43suw).

BUT, if Furman is right, and the data strongly suggests he is, France and Europe are about to inflict economic self-harm in the name of a problem that doesn't exist.

Much more affordable cars, for instance, would literally give every single European a big wage hike. It's Furman's argument on "85 to 95% benefiting" vs 5% to 15% losing out: the vast majority of Europeans would see their money go further, while a small number of jobs in legacy automakers would be disrupted. Instead of helping those workers transition, Europe wants to prevent making everyone better off.

Anyhow, please do watch the whole podcast, which has many other fascinating insights because Furman also debates with Justin Yifu Lin, the former Chief Economist of the World Bank and State Council Counsellor of China.

They're both interviewed by my friend @Hansong_Li - also a professor and an immensely smart man - in his excellent new podcast "worldviews" (imho one of the best new podcasts our there). The video is here: https://t.co/M7sVgk9v3a

[Colin Glassey - Author @cglassey_author]

Unlike 99.9% of Americans, I have traveled to the PRC three times over the last 12 years. I have relatives there so I don't go on guided tours nor do I have "minders". I travel where I wish. I stay in small hotels which Americans never visit. I see what I want to see.

My key assertions about the PRC are:

* The PRC is not a "shithole". It is the most developed nation on Earth, based on housing, transportation, and overall urban & rural life. Unless you have traveled across China within the last decade, you do NOT know what the PRC is like as of 2026.

* China is NOT expansionist. I can talk about China's history for days on end - I know it extremely well. The Qing were expansionist from 1690 to 1750 but the Manchu who ruled China were NOT Chinese. Neither the Ming nor the Song were interested in expanding Chinese territory. You have to go back to the early Tang (circa 680 AD) to find an expansionist Chinese government, and that was short-lived.

* The Chinese - as a rule - follow laws and treat one another with consideration. China is as safe as South Korea & Japan (and yes, I've traveled all over East Asia).

* The USA & the PRC are not allies but we are not enemies either. The CCP as an institution dislikes nearly every nation on Earth for various reasons but the nation they dislike the LEAST is the USA (Russia is a close second to the USA).

China has not had a real ally since 1125, when the Jin Kingdom stabbed them in the back. (Though one can say the Joseon were allied with the Ming against the Manchu in 1619).

The Chinese have not forgotten that the USA helped them fight against Japan from 1941-1945. They know that our victory over Japan ended the Japanese occupation over half of China, and this was something they could NOT have accomplished on their own.

That said, there are people & institutions in the PRC who are working to weaken & "sabotage" the US economy. I presume that we have organizations which are trying to do the same thing to them.

* China is a huge nation, and it's very difficult to grasp. If you haven't visited the PRC recently, you don't know China. This is the reality. China has changed so rapidly and so completely that you have to see it NOW to understand it. The past is gone.

China has real problems - which I may describe at some point - but I assert that EVERY nation has real problems.

[Lex Fridman @lexfridman]

I've been on a wild travel journey in China for several weeks, with only a backpack, making new friends and meeting & getting to know people from all walks of life. I've been truly humbled and inspired by everyone's kindness.

Next, I'm hopping over to Taiwan (first time for me) to hang out with Jensen, attend Computex, eat a bunch of street food, and just have fun talking to all kinds of folks around the city & beyond. After that, no plans, anything goes.

As always, please give travel suggestions or fill out coffee form if you want to hang out in Taiwain or anywhere else in the world. Love you all! ❤️