Image is from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ recent article on Kashmir.
It looks like the spat between India and Pakistan could be dying down, due to a new ceasefire. As of the time of me writing this paragraph, it seems both sides want to maintain it (despite some reports of violations here and there).
Both sides have declared victory, which is completely expected given their mutual political parties and nationalist histories. It’s a little harder to say which side has actually won, as both sides seem to have managed to shoot down aircraft and hit military bases. India has, in my opinion, had the more embarrassing moments, but international conflicts aren’t cringe compilations. I feel no good-will towards Pakistan’s comprador government, but it is at least nice to see Modi knocked down a few pegs. Regardless of the final technical victor, it’s obvious that - if the ceasefire is maintained - who won are the hundreds of millions of people who won’t have to live in fear of dying in nuclear hellfire.
This conflict is a good example of what multipolarity will truly entail. Countries that have been previously limited in their nationalist ambitions by American pressure will now take opportunities to revolt, sometimes against America itself, and sometimes against other countries in their regional neighbourhood. It’s also why, as communists, our goals do not stop at multipolarity; it is merely the establishing act of a new era of agitation against peripheral and semi-peripheral capitalist countries that are forming powerful national bourgeoisie classes as the international American capitalists are forced away.
Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
https://xcancel.com/kyleichan/status/1922323213440233817
https://www.ipsos.com/en/ipsos-ai-monitor-2024-changing-attitudes-and-feelings-about-ai-and-future-it-will-bring
I think on some level Americans know that AI will only be used to replace their jobs and increase profits for capital.
A bit of a tangent, but the funniest part to me is that nobody (important) in China gave a shit about DeepSeek until prestigious universities in the West like MIT talked about how much of an innovation it was.
Only then did the government realized “oh wow we have something good in our hands (approved by prestigious Western academics!)” and began to roll out this whole initiative about economic transformation with AI.
If the West hadn’t freaked out about DeepSeek, the paper would probably have passed unnoticed amidst hundreds of AI papers published every month, and the government most likely wouldn’t have given a damn thought about it.
This is a serious problem with the Chinese leadership and the elite class, to be honest. A lot of emphasis is being placed on whether Westerners approve of us or not.
And honestly this is nothing new. The same happened with the EV industry too. BYD began its EV production back in 2008 (same year as Tesla), and there had been some initiatives by the government to promote EV as early as 2009 with tax credits. But for the most part, nobody gave much of a damn about BYD or EVs as a whole.
Do you know why the Chinese government suddenly turned its attention to EV and decided to place a big bet on it?
It wasn’t BYD, it wasn’t any Chinese company. It was Elon Musk lol!
To understand this part, we need to go slightly back in time. By the early 2010s, a lot of internet companies in China had accumulated vast amount of capital, and they were looking for new avenues to invest in as their new business ventures. These are your typical techbro companies where their CEOs and employees alike worship Elon Musk.
Tesla delivered the first batch of Model S to Shanghai, China in 2014, to the first dozen of their owners - most of them CEOs from tech companies like Sina, Xiaomi etc. It was also Elon Musk’s first visit to China and was given enthusiastic reception as he passed over the keys to the new owners.
The Chinese leaders were so enamored with Elon Musk that it was in 2014, the EV industry was set to become a national project. They really believed that Elon Musk is some kind of a visionary genius that just showed them a vision of the future lol.
It is not at all controversial to say (I actually read this on Chinese internet) that “Elon Musk is the grandfather of Chinese EV industry.” You can even make the argument that Elon Musk arguably was one of the most important persons who defined the next national priority of the Chinese economy in the 2010s.
Immediately afterwards, at least 300 EV companies were registered in 2014-2015. A lot of them wouldn’t survive the take off, but the traction never stopped and by 2018, at least 500 EV companies existed in China! (Today, less than 50 survived, and it is estimated that the price war would cull off the rest of them to the last 5 or so).
Tesla became the only automobile company in China that is fully autonomous and did not have to partner up with a local company. It is no secret that the Shanghai Municipal government has a lot of affection for Elon Musk that they gave Tesla all kinds of benefits and tax exemptions.
In 2019, the Tesla Shanghai megafactory opened, boasting a “same year construction, same year production” achievement. This acted as a catalyst for the entire Chinese EV industry and it was then, starting in 2020, that the Chinese EV industry really took off, and would surpass Tesla itself in just a few years.
I guess the point I wanted to make is that these leaders really need to stop looking up to Westerners for their approval.
Maybe because the release of their Deepseek’s actual “Groundbreaking” new model that stirred up a storm in the west and the stormed stirred up in the west, the “deepseek” moment lets say, all happened within what 1-2 weeks at most? How quickly would you possibly expect the CPC, which isnt known for rushing onto news and trends and outward narrative changes fast, to start adopting and promoting Deepseek. Its pretty crazy to go on one of your rants when the simple and obvious answer is that we cant possibly know how and how quickly China and the CPC would have reacted to Deepseek without the west losing their shit first simply because the West lost their shit almost immediately on arival. And its not indicative of anything that China and Chinese officials, seeing their western counterparts and the relevant big players and media in that field along with relevant market indicators, being extremely shook and vocal about Deepseek within days sped up the “looking into it” thing from higher ups.
Also you actualy believe the chinese wouldnt have caught up and recognize they have produced domesticaly an industry leading product and made a huge leap in a high tech sector that they actualy have had specific focus on? That it would have gone unnoticed or ignored for months without the west freaking out about it? Come on now
That’s because you don’t understand the Chinese academic culture.
Without doxxing myself, I run in these circles. Prestige is extremely important, where you did your PhD or postdoctoral training, and if you don’t have top tier journal publications like Nature/Science, or if you don’t graduate from some of the most prestigious schools/labs in the US, chances are they won’t even pay attention to you. For the record, in the US/Europe, while important, you still get considered for academic positions even if you don’t have super amazing CVs. The competition is much much more intense within China.
There are 250k Chinese students who went to study in the US every year (half of which are in STEM field), and that’s not including postdoctoral trainees in some of the best labs in the US. The competition is that fierce. The DeepSeek team was mostly local graduates from the highest ranking schools in China.
崇洋媚外 runs deep in the Shanghai neoliberal clique (I hope I’m using that chengyu correctly)
You used it correctly haha. Not just that, a large part of the academic circle as well. The mentality is slowly changing since Trump, but the academic/institutional culture will move slower for sure.
it’s because they’ve seen new technologies sometimes get applied to help people instead of an unbroken litany of enhanced profit extraction