Recommended Weekend Reads
China’s Space Station “Guard Dogs,” How China Gets Around US Tariffs, Why Canada May Be the Best Hope for Mineral Security, and How Smuggled US Fuel Funds Mexican Cartels
June 13 - 15, 2025
Below are some of the more intriguing analyses and insights we read this past week. We hope you find them useful. Please let us know if you or someone you know wants to be added to our distribution list.
China
China is arming its space station with ‘guard dogs.’ They have good reason for it Fast Company
China is developing robotic guards for its Tiangong space station. Equipped with small thrusters, these AI-powered robotic beasts are being developed to intercept and physically shove suspicious objects away from their orbital outpost. It’s a deceptively simple but ingenious step towards active space defense in an increasingly militarized domain. Rather than firing directed energy weapons like lasers or projectiles, which will turn the potential invader into a cloud of deadly shrapnel flying at 21 times the speed of sound, the Chinese have thought of a very Zen “reed that bends in the wind” kind of approach. The bots will grapple a threatening object and lightly push it out of harm’s way. Elegant space jiu-jitsu rather than brute kickboxing.
Axis, Rivalry, or Chaos? The US-China-Russia Equation with Michael McFaul China Considered Podcast
China expert Dr. Elizabeth Economy and Michael McFaul, the former US Ambassador to Russia and currently a Stanford Univeristy professor, sit down to discuss the relationship between the United States, China, and Russia, the history of US engagement with Russia, his experience as the United States Ambassador to Russia under President Barack Obama, and the increasing cooperation between China and Russia. McFaul begins by discussing early engagement with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during the early Obama years, namely the signing of comprehensive multilateral sanctions with Iran, along with his role in crafting the Obama administration’s Russia policy. The two scholars then shift to a conversation about how Russia and China, namely Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, are attempting to reshape the international order, how the war in Ukraine has already changed this relationship, and whether a “reverse Kissinger” is possible from the perspective of the United States.
Will China Force a Rethink of Biological Warfare? War on the Rocks
Is the Defense Department still preparing to fight biological warfare as if it’s 1970? When preparing for biological warfare, most nations picture scenarios in which an enemy openly sprays traditional agents over wide areas to kill their adversaries. However, revolutionary capabilities in the life sciences and biotechnology have transformed the threat. China’s approach to warfare, combined with these emerging technologies, reveals new vulnerabilities among Western forces that, to date, have not been fully acknowledged. Although Western attention has focused on the rapid expansion of China’s nuclear and conventional warfighting capabilities, one ought to expect equal analysis of China’s biological warfare potential. By examining China’s most recent efforts at biological research, this report puts forward that it has bypassed 20th-century Western concepts of biological warfare and has new capabilities that could be effective across the entire conflict spectrum. New approaches and new concepts will be necessary if the United States is to prepare itself for potentially new forms of biological warfare in the 21st century.
How China Gets Around US Tariffs Robin Brooks Substack
Brooks, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington and former Chief Economist at the Institute of International Finance, as well as former Chief FX Strategist at Goldman Sachs, details how China has circumvented US tariffs by transshipping goods to the US through various third countries. The charts below show China’s exports (black) and imports (blue) to and from various countries in Asia: Indonesia (top left), Malaysia (top right), Thailand (bottom left), and Vietnam (bottom right). In all cases, China’s exports in April 2025 - the month in which US tariffs on China briefly went to 150 percent - reached new all-time highs, while imports remained subdued. Much as in the case of Kyrgyzstan or Kazakhstan, it’s not like domestic demand in these places started to boom with the escalation of the US-China trade war. The opposite is the case. This is - in all likelihood - evidence of big transshipments that are seeking to circumvent US tariffs.
The Americas
·Canada May Be the United States’ Best Hope for Minerals Security Center for Strategic and International Studies
China’s recent export controls, especially of rare earth elements (REEs), have left Western companies reeling, with some firms allegedly considering shifting elements of production back to China just for access to the minerals. Indeed, the need for these minerals is so urgent that they took center stage in the recent U.S.-China negotiations in London, held in an effort to ease the trade war between the two countries. While the preliminary agreement to come out of these talks offers some respite, the United States needs to find reliable sources of REEs, and Canada could emerge as an alternative supplier to complement U.S. efforts to get domestic REE production back on its feet. However, this will require both countries to admit they still need each other, amidst the tension generated by President Donald Trump’ tariffs and talk of annexing Canada.
The Hole in Mexico’s Security Strategy Will Freeman/Foreign Affairs
The defining dilemma of Claudia Sheinbaum’s presidency may be whether she is willing to alter the status quo with the cartels, raise the costs of collusion, and protect those who stand up to the cartels, instead. Since taking office in October 2024, Sheinbaum has taken a harder line on organized crime, increasing seizures of drugs and guns and arrests of suspected cartel operators. In February, when the Trump administration threatened tariffs on Mexico if it didn’t stop the flow of fentanyl across the border, Sheinbaum doubled down on her efforts, and the number of seizures and arrests has since grown substantially. But with their political and judicial protection networks still intact, any criminal groups that are weakened by the president’s current strategy may simply be replaced by new ones. Criminal-political networks will continue dividing the country into private fiefdoms, with politics, justice, and the legal economy reduced to arenas of lawless competition. Deadly drugs and insecurity will continue flowing north.
How smuggled US fuel funds Mexico’s cartels Financial Times
In this interactive report by the Financial Times, reporters and researchers have uncovered dozens of suspicious shipments to Mexico, with millions of barrels of fuel falsely declared as industrial lubricant and unloaded by hose to trucks. It reflects the massive and sophisticated smuggling operations funding Mexico’s cartels. As many as one in four vehicles in the country could be running on contraband fuel.
Mexico’s Historic 2025 Judicial Elections: Winners, Controversies, and Political Implications Moments in Mexico Substack
On June 1, Mexicans went to the polls to vote in the country’s first-ever judicial elections. 881 federal positions were up for election and nearly 3,400 candidates ran. Turnout was a record low – just 13% - but for President Claudia Sheinbaum’s ruling left-wing Morena Party, it secured significant control over the Supreme Court, further consolidating its political power. This excellent SubStack breaks down the elections and likely implications.
Once the World’s ‘Most Popular Politician,’ Lula Is Losing His Way in Brazil Bloomberg
Six months after emergency brain surgery and in his second stint as president, the 79-year-old Brazilian remains as energetic and ambitious as ever on the world stage. He met Emmanuel Macron in Paris last week, will host the BRICS summit of emerging market countries in July, and is putting on the United Nations’ annual climate conference in the Amazon rainforest later this year. But if that bravado once helped make him a global superstar — “the most popular politician on Earth,” Barack Obama called him in 2009 — it is now masking an ugly truth: Back home in Brazil, Lula is falling apart. Polls show his popularity is at the lowest level of his presidency and suggest he will lose to a right-wing challenger.
The Growing Marketplace for Critical Minerals
Building a New Market to Counter Chinese Mineral Market Manipulation Center for Strategic and International Studies
With China recently imposing export restrictions on rare earth elements—leading to U.S. automakers to halt production due to supply shortages—one of the most urgent issues is how to establish reliable Western supplies of essential critical minerals. A major challenge to achieving mineral security is China’s manipulation of global markets, whereby Chinese companies flood the market with excess supply, driving prices down to levels that force mining operations in countries like the United States and Australia to shut down. The United States and its allies cannot afford to act in isolation. Unilateral efforts—whether through tariffs, subsidies, or investment restrictions—will remain insufficient given the relatively small market share of individual countries. Instead, building a unified anchor market that aligns the policies of like-minded nations is the only realistic path to confronting China’s dominance. By harmonizing tariffs, establishing collective quotas, and coordinating investment protections, the anchor market can shift leverage away from Beijing and toward a more resilient, rules-based minerals ecosystem.
Much More Than Minerals: The US-Ukraine Minerals Agreement and its Geopolitical Implications CEPS
After months of tense negotiations, the US and Ukraine signed a minerals agreement in Washington D.C. on 30 April 2025. While centered on natural resources, it’s much more than a business deal on mining natural resources. The Agreement enshrines US support for peace, resilience, sovereignty and reconstruction in Ukraine. This CEPS Explainer breaks down the Agreement’s core provisions, its implications for all the parties involved and the necessary conditions needed for it to succeed.
From Extraction to Innovation: The EU and Taiwan in the Critical Minerals Value Chain ChinaObservers
As the European Union’s green transition gains momentum, ensuring the safe and sustainable supply of critical raw materials (CRMs) has become a strategic priority. Renewable energy and decarbonization technologies – such as electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar panels, and batteries – depend on critical minerals including lithium, cobalt, nickel, and different rare earth elements (REEs). The EU’s agenda, as outlined in the European Green Deal and the accompanying industrial policy, cannot be achieved without robust, dependable, and diversified mineral value chains.