Think Civics

🧠 Think Civics
• Politics • Science • Humanity
#ThinkCivics #IndiaFirst

[UnveiledChina @Unveiled_ChinaX]

Xi Jinping’s "partners, not rivals" speech in the Great Hall of the People is a masterclass in CCP theater. While the video shows him calling for a "historic landmark year" and a "new chapter," history tells a much grimmer story. Behind the smiles and the floral arrangements lies a decades-long trail of broken treaties and shredded promises. To understand the CCP, you must ignore the teleprompter and look at the track record.

The evidence of Beijing’s diplomacy by deception is overwhelming. Here is why the world should be skeptical of every word spoken at the 2026 summit:

The Phase One Trade Deal (2020): China promised to purchase an additional $200 billion in US goods. They never even came close, failing to meet nearly 40% of the target. They used the deal to stall for time while continuing the same subsidies and IP theft they promised to stop.

The Hong Kong Betrayal: The 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration was a legally binding treaty promising Hong Kong high autonomy for 50 years. The CCP unilaterally declared it a historical document with no practical significance and crushed the city’s freedoms 27 years early.

Militarizing the South China Sea: In 2015, Xi stood in the Rose Garden and promised the US he would not militarize the Spratly Islands. Today, those islands are high-tech military fortresses bristling with missiles and runways, used to bully neighboring nations.

WTO Entry Commitments: Since joining in 2001, China has systematically ignored the rules on state-owned enterprises and market access. They used the "developing nation" status to gut Western manufacturing while keeping their own markets locked behind a "Great Wall" of regulations.

IP Theft and Fentanyl: Despite repeated handshake deals to stop state-sponsored cyber espionage and the flow of fentanyl precursors, both remain at crisis levels. To the CCP, a signed agreement is simply a tactical pause to regroup, not a commitment to change.

Xi’s "partnership" is a one-way street where the US cooperates and the CCP gains. He talks about steering the giant ship, but his goal is to make sure the US is the one in the lifeboats. Watching what he does, not what he says, is not just skepticism. It is a survival strategy.

#UnveiledChina #TrumpXiSummit #CCPDeception #TradeWar #BrokenPromises #Geopolitics #Beijing2026

[Sandeep Manudhane @sandeep_PT]

Indian IT majors had a golden opportunity to become AI majors, in the same league or even higher than China's.

But from 2012 till 2024, they invested zero R&D dollars in pure AI research and productization, content with their low cost IT outsourcing models.

All these IT bosses, called visionaries, displayed exactly zero vision. Their dinosaur brains were stuck on 70 hrs workweeks. Not innovation. Anyone who boldly wanted to make it happen, was fired and removed. (Sikka)

The government too let the era-defining AI Revolution just pass India by. Woke up too late. Too late.

Net result - India is now the consumer playground of US AI majors and open source Chinese ones. Minor Indian resistance here and there. But no big league world beating game. Yes they'll adapt and all that, but you know what that means.

That's our simple story.

Consume. Be happy. And very proud.

Future will be very challenging for us at a strategic and sovereign level.

[Dr. Maalouf ‏ @realMaalouf]

This video has 174k likes.

174,000 people believe there was a snowstorm in Gaza.

The lowest-IQ movement on Earth.

[Rep. Mike Levin @RepMikeLevin]

This should be on the front page of every newspaper in America.

A Syrian billionaire needed U.S. sanctions lifted so he could cash in on $12 billion in reconstruction contracts.

In an attempt to influence American foreign policy, he proposed a Trump-branded golf course, cut Jared Kushner & Ivanka Trump into a multibillion-dollar real estate deal for a resort in Albania, and had someone physically deliver a stone engraved with the Trump family crest to a Republican Member of Congress with instructions to take it to the White House to get the President's attention.

Trump threw his weight behind repealing the sanctions. They were lifted. The contracts are moving, the Trump family’s deals are expanding, and not a single Washington Republican is willing to say a word about any of it.

This is a corruption of everything the office of the presidency is supposed to stand for, and the American people deserve to know about it.
https://t.co/A4lQE3ktoG

[Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63]

Today's Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day commemorates not only the first genocide of the 20th century, but also the first modern government-sponsored one, and that inspired the Nazi horrors. "Never Again" must not ring hollow.

[Vikas Vij @TheClubJunto]

Bernstein: India’s Ambitions are Hollow Without R&D Investments

1. No nation in history became a developed economy with R&D @ 0.65% of GDP

2. Labor Arbitrage Economy: Demand broken as wages stagnate for 10 yrs. You raise wages, you can’t compete. AI dents it further.

INSIGHTS:

R&D Intensity (% of GDP)

2000s
Korea: 3.12%
Taiwan: 2.7%
China: 1.32%
India: 0.82%

2010s
Korea: 4.29%
Taiwan: 3.3%
China: 2.11%
India: 0.75%

2020-25
Korea: 5.21%
Taiwan: 4.0%
China: 2.8%
India: 0.65%

Widening Innovation Gap: China’s GDP is 5X of India. Its R&D budget is 4X in % of GDP. So, in dollar terms, China is 5x4 = 20X of India’s R&D every year.

Labourers vs. Innovators

a. India’s Top 10 Companies: Combined R&D Expense 2025 (Thinking in Quarters): Below $1B

b. China Companies R&D Expense 2025 (Thinking in Decades): BYD $8B; Huawei $14B; Xiaomi $5B

c. Korea: In 1970s, private to government R&D share was 20:80. In 1990s, the ratio became 80:20. Korean government forced private sector to invest in R&D, reject short-termism, and massively incentivized firms with export credits and R&D tax credits.

d. Taiwan: In 1980s, the government funded research labs for semiconductors. The “seed” was sown by the government; the “scale” was led by private sector. Today a single company TSMC controls 70% world market share in semiconductor pure-play, driven by AI demand.

e. China: In 1980s, India and China had similar R&D investments. China realized that technology was their only guarantee of national survival. The government and private sector formed a combined “war machine” to become the “IP owner” and not just the “world’s factory” for tech goods.

India’s Scarcity Mindset

a. While Korean and Chinese companies operate in a culture that rewards global innovation, Indian companies operate in a culture that rewards bowing down before bureaucrats and ministers.

b. To grow in India, you don’t need to build world-beating products. You just need to operate in those areas of the domestic economy where government policy favours Indians over foreign businesses.

c. Think of a student whose father owns the school, and no other students are allowed to sit in the exam. What will be his capability? While other countries demand global dominance as a point of national pride, Tata, Reliance, and Adani cannot even make a candy that sells in the world market.

d. Curse of Cheap Labor: Indian IT companies realized that when you can make 20% margin by selling cheap labor, why build a semiconductor factory that requires $20 billion CapEx? They kept distributing lakhs of crores in dividends (mainly to promoters) while the world invested in AI and chips.

e. The GCC Paradox: India now has over 50% of the world's Global Capability Centers (GCCs). From Google to Walmart to Mercedes, the world’s best tech innovation and research is happening in India, but the Intellectual Property (IP) belongs to other countries. So, we remain only “cheap labour” for others.

Low Wages; Broken Consumption

a. Labour arbitrage economies enjoy GDP growth till wages keep rising. But wage growth stalls when other poor economies like Bangladesh or Philippines catch up with lower wages. That’s when their dream of becoming a “developed economy” gets a reality check.

b. From 2015 to 2025, real wages in India have stagnated. Rural wages have seen a negligible CAGR of 0.1%, and entry-level IT salaries have famously remained stuck at ₹3.5 LPA. China’s real wages (inflation-adjusted wages) have grown at 8 to 9% CAGR during the same period.

c. Indian companies continue to operate in low-complexity, me-too product/service segments where low wages are a competitive advantage. But now AI is the new emerging threat to IT sector and GCCs.

Endpiece

In absence of an urgency to shift from Labour Arbitrage to Innovation Premium, India risks falling into the Middle Income Trap. India’s demographic dividend is ending by 2040. Without investing patient capital in R&D, India will squander its opportunity to achieve a developed nation status by 2047.

@arabicatrader

[Select Committee on China @ChinaSelect]

Cute toy, ugly truth.

Independent testing found Xinjiang cotton in 16 out of 20 Labubu dolls examined, including products sold through major platforms like @amazon, @SHEIN_Official, and @AliExpress_EN.

Under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, any goods made in whole or in part with materials from Xinjiang are banned unless companies can prove otherwise.

@POPMARTGlobal must provide full transparency, and @CBP must enforce the law.

https://t.co/FLiN0LBwWC

[Dr. Maalouf ‏ @realMaalouf]

Karbala, Iraq

A young boy is assaulted by an older man inside the Imam Husayn Shrine, one of the holiest mosques in Shia Islam.

This is where a cleric recently stated: “young beautiful boys are better than girls.”

Other men in the mosque don’t seem to care. Disgusting culture!

[Terence Shen @Terenceshen]

Now some in China are fantasizing about CCP troops marching through the streets of Taipei on CCTV news. AI-generated images seem to be doing a great job providing psychological comfort and fueling wishful thinking.

[Dr. Maalouf ‏ @realMaalouf]

Today is Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.

Over 3 million Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Yazidis, and Maronites were killed by the Ottoman Turks.

This is what an actual genocide looks like. Not whatever people are calling a genocide today.

[Smirkley @Smirkley]

Germany just released 2025 crime data.

Overall, Algerian nationals commit crime at 18x the rate of Germans and nearly 100x the rate of Japanese nationals. 1/11

[Abduweli Ayup @AbduwelA]

Uyghur writing is disappearing.
First, the Uyghur language was banned in schools.
Then in 2017, it was removed from public services.
From 2026, Uyghur letters on streets, signs, and public places were taken away.
However, tombs are still kept in Uyghurland to attract tourists

[Anand Ranganathan @ARanganathan72]

Facing an imposing supreme court bench, Senior Advocate @jsaideepak takes us on an incredible journey in constitutional law to bolster his case for overturning Sabarimala judgment. He is fighting ferociously for dharma, armed with nothing but his intellect.

Watch, and be amazed:

[Director Michael Kratsios @mkratsios47]

The U.S. has evidence that foreign entities, primarily in China, are running industrial-scale distillation campaigns to steal American AI. We will be taking action to protect American innovation.

These foreign entities are using tens of thousands of proxies and jailbreaking techniques in coordinated campaigns to systematically extract American breakthroughs. Foreign entities who build on such fragile foundations should have little confidence in the integrity and reliability of the models they produce.

The U.S. government is committed to the free and fair development of AI technologies across a competitive ecosystem, from open-source to proprietary models.

Read the memo: https://t.co/w0BWxJdaLn

[Think Civics @ThinkCivics]

The difference for India now? Solar, wind and battery storage are now cheap and scalable.
India's solar and wind generation per capita are already five times higher than China's were at the same GDP per capita level.

[Think Civics @ThinkCivics]

India's GDP per capita reached $10,000 in 2025. China was roughly at the same point 15 years ago. In China, a massive expansion of demand an coal generation followed (although that is coming to an end now as well).

[Think Civics @ThinkCivics]

The PRC very likely pressured three African countries to close their airspace to Taiwanese President William Lai Ching-te to prevent his planned visit to Eswatini, one of Taiwan’s 12 remaining diplomatic allies. #Taiwán #china

[Institute for the Study of War @TheStudyofWar]

NEW: The PRC very likely pressured three African countries to close their airspace to Taiwanese President William Lai Ching-te to prevent his planned visit to Eswatini, one of Taiwan’s 12 remaining diplomatic allies. This is an escalation of PRC efforts to disrupt Taiwan’s international engagement and erode its sovereignty. (1/2)

Other Key Takeaways:

PRC espionage operations are exploiting financial instability among Taiwanese military personnel to acquire military secrets and weaken Taiwan’s confidence in its military.

The PLA may be prioritizing metrics of loyalty and ideological orthodoxy over material improvements in its military modernization, amid expansive military purges. Emphasizing political and ideological standards instead of operational competence could impede the PLA’s military readiness and lead to miscalculation.

[WarrenVsCCP | 🇺🇸🇹🇼🇺🇸 @WarrenVsCCP]

Real video of Tiananmen Square on June 4th.

After watching it, you will no longer believe the CCP's lies!

Apart from the People's Liberation Army of China 🇨🇳, no other country's army in the world would drive a column of tanks into the square of its capital and open fire on its thousands of college students.

[Daniel P. Gross @daniel_p_gross]

Perhaps useful to point out that history rhymes: this is effectively what happened with telephone operators, 100 years ago. Young, entry-level operators, whose work was mainly connecting local calls--the simplest version of the job--and not much else, were wiped out by automatic call switching. More senior operators, who had a wider range of tasks and did more complicated work like information service, emergency service, and long distance calls, were not as affected. Even when local telephone operators were effectively eliminated across AT&T's network, the others remained. Much had to do with the complexity of the work and how entangled it was with the rest of the organization.

Extended discussion in work with @jamesfeigenbaum in @QJEHarvard and Management Science: https://t.co/ZKkH3DyuiR, https://t.co/EJTBbX0nkp

Lots of credit to @joshgans for helping us sharpen some of these ideas in this work as editor of the ManSci paper