2026 Issue 16

The Emerging Technology Observatory releases an important report detailing how the PRC military gains access to advanced AI chips which enable military applications, even as U.S. companies like Nvidia lobby hard to dismantle restrictions.

The Dutch intelligence chief comments on Chinese and Russian efforts to gain access to Western defense technologies and how they increasingly work together.

In what is a familiar pattern, the U.S. Government released evidence that the PRC is conducting large-scale industrial espionage and Beijing immediately denied it.  This pattern of evidence and outraged denial has been going on since at least the early 1990s.

The United States seized a cargo ship from the PRC and headed for Iranian ports that refused to stop, prompting President Trump to suggest that Xi Jinping is actively aiding the Iranians in their war with the United States.  At the same time, Beijing hails the African Governments who refused the democratically elected President of Taiwan the authorization to transit their airspace.

Tom Tugendhat, a Conservative member of the UK Parliament and Bod Lighthizer, the former U.S. Trade representative write some important commentary on the price Beijing pays for backing Iran and the future of the international trading system, respectively.