Trying to imagine me five years ago fathoming an insane headline like this www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-ne...

Like when China sent forces to the Arafura Sea off Northern Australia, and they started harassing Australian Coast Guard planes with powerful lasers for no reason. www.defence.gov.au/news-events/...

Notably, when foreign vessels/planes simply sail or fly in international spaces near China, China gets very angry. But when China goes to international waters near other countries (which it is absolutely allowed to), it sometimes harasses them there and seems to think this is fine.

China has broken last year's record with a month still to go in 2025. Such an extreme trade imbalance (a record in all of history) is a major disruption to the entire global economy.

Yes, even bigger than the US's surpluses in the years after WW2 when adjusted for inflation, when the US dominated global manufacturing due to the utter devastation of other manufacturing centres in the war while its remained untouched.

this just makes the fact that they've arrested someone for sedition because they petitioned for an inquiry all the more absurd

December 2025's China quarrel thread begins here, to keep track of the various arguments, incidents & threats being made by & against China. November 2025's thread below. bsky.app/profile/nine...

State-backed Hong Kong newspaper Ta Kung Pao has taken down an investigative report published on 28 Nov which cited industry sources saying building maintenance works effectively controlled by cartel, rife with corrupt practices in tender process, widespread cost and corner-cutting in materials.

Because OF COURSE that's how this government will respond to any request for them to actually do their job in the wake of a massive deadly event - arrest anyone who asks!

I was going to use a Times of India article for this story, until I noticed that this was the image that came up along with the link (and is in their article). This kind of AI slop adds nothing (at least they put a note to say it's AI generated, in case it wasn't already obvious to some).

One huge problem with HK in the "new era", is that it focuses massive resources on finding & punishing things like standing near a protest while wearing black, throwing a pair of sunglasses etc., giving years in jail for such things, while issuing only empty warnings for life-endangering practices.

(In expressing her desire to see the renovation go on unimpeded in spite of this criticism, Wong also uses the unfortunate idiom 「如火如荼」, literally saying that the works should “proceed like a raging fire.”)

This 2024 post from the DAB’s Peggy Wong is quickly becoming infamous. In it, the pro-Beijing district councillor dismisses fire safety concerns about the Wang Fuk work as malicious rumours misleading the public, and accuses the Democratic Party of “provocatively live-streaming “ from the scene.

Oh, you mean he was manipulated by and took the side of a dictator? How unprecedented... www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

Feeling very reassured that this is just a silly conspiracy theory.

Hope you haven't gotten too excited about the Epstein Bill. It will compel the release of all UNCLASSIFIED information. The President has the power to decide what is or isn't "classified". So good luck getting the important stuff.

This AI article comes from one of Pakistan's biggest newspapers, Dawn Let's be fair tho, MAYBE Pakistan has so few people and the people who are there are so well off, that they can't find a human to do the job at a reasonable cost?

Japan, one of the safest countries on Earth, says something about Taiwan. HK govt, screaming in panic: "OH MY GOD DON'T GO TO JAPAN IT'S SO DANGEROUS YOU WILL GET ATTACKED BY THE PEOPLE AND BEARS AND PROBABLY DIE HORRIBLY!!!"

The Boys season 3, from 2022, does an amazing job of parodying the Trump admin of 2025.

Another example. This time a before/after that just gives a small hint (or reminder) about what happened.

I love how quickly the Wikipedia grammar police must have swarmed this article about the Hongqi Bridge, which opened in April. And, er... has suddenly "closed". (you can see video & photos of its "closure" here: www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-as...)

Snippets of history are sometimes found in Google Street View.

TBF, I seriously doubt he will hit the necessary targets: Over a decade, he must deliver 20m Tesla electric vehicles to buyers, sell 10m active full self-driving subscriptions, develop & sell 1m humanoid robots & deploy 1m robotaxis in commercial service...

This is the guy who has repeatedly accused the entire nation of Ukraine of being greedy for wanting less than this to defend themselves against invasion. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Image 1: Wikipedia section on space debris from the page about China's 2007 anti-satellite missile test & how it will endanger space missions for decades to come. Image 2: November 2026 - "Return of Chinese astronauts delayed after spacecraft struck by debris"

November 2025's China quarrel thread begins here, to keep track of the various arguments, incidents & threats being made by & against China. October 2025's thread below. bsky.app/profile/nine...

"Yeah, it never came up. Not once. But he did assure me that he wouldn't take any action. Very firm, clear assurances. Trust me. But also, it never came up."

One of the really weird things about this is that the Nigerian government have been battling Islamic militants for years and would genuinely LOVE American help (weapons, training, intelligence, MAYBE even SF) in defeating them. But instead of offering any of that, he just threatens them.

When I hear Trump say that "Taiwan never came up" in his meeting with Xi, I initially think "oh good, so he hasn't sold them out" followed swiftly by "Taiwan probably did come up & he totally sold them out as he's given this exact kind of report on a meeting before where it turns out he's lying".

2/2 Economic Affairs Commission. He did not mention an exact percentage." Unfortunately, growing at a what they think a "reasonable" range and "significantly" raising the household consumption share of GDP are likely to be incompatible exercises. carnegieendowment.org/posts/2024/0...

As China's 4th plenum ended, Han Wenxiu, a senior party official in financial and economic policy, said: "There is always opportunity in crisis and crisis can be turned into opportunity." Here's a photo of that moment:

🚽🚽🚽 www.europeancleaningjournal.com/magazine/art...

Because markets are dumb sometimes.

I read something years ago about con artists being surprisingly easy to con, more so than the average person. The main reason was that they see themselves as the predator, not as potential prey, so they never see it coming, never expect to be the victim. Anyway... www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Well, that was 1 month of light relief at least.

His new name:

Next Trump-Putin meeting in Budapest: Putin: "I've got a great deal for you - I'll give you nothing, and in exchange, you give them nothing. Deal?" Trump: "Well that sounds like an equal and fair exchange. What an honorable man you are. Agreed!"

Value for money!

One other reason China has a population decline problem that is rarely discussed is that it has persistent negative net migration (image 1) on top of low & dropping birth rates. Japan by contrast has persistent positive net migration (image 2).

Xi Jinping just lectured world leaders about the need to include more women in government. If only there was someone who could influence such a change in the Chinese government eh? www.reuters.com/world/china/...

Unlike earlier this year, this round of the trade conflict seems like it was started by China. They did suddenly impose major restrictions out of the blue after things had calmed down significantly.

"Russia has won" "Ukrainian army has collapsed". Jan 2025. Been seeing this since literally the opening hours of the war but it's over 3.5 years now...

The signs are everywhere, people just refuse to look at them.

Looking forward to cells made up ENTIRELY of undercover agents all trying to convince the others to carry out acts of terror while coming up with excuses why not to do it themselves.

October 2025's China quarrel thread begins here, to keep track of the various arguments, incidents & threats being made by & against China. September 2025's thread below. bsky.app/profile/nine...

Videos show panic among onlookers in China’s Liuyang city after a drone show malfunction sent burning embers to the ground, igniting fires.

From Radio Free Asia: "Hong Kong plans big AI-powered surveillance boost" tinyurl.com/c5n9hr5w #HongKong #NSL

Here’s a link to that page: www.rthk.hk/copyright/in... (h/t @tomgrundy.hongkongfp.com)

White House Deputy Press Secretary seen here posting data showing how much more prevalent right wing domestic terrorism is than left wing domestic terrorism... while thinking she's showing the reverse. Apparently she can only read headlines, but not the actual graph with the data.

Deeply senile old man re-posts clearly fake video of himself promoting a clearly nonsense idea linked to a whacko conspiracy theory, thinking it's real. And still the media won't discuss his glaring mental decline.