Pramit Pal Chaudhuri @PramitWorld

Chinese govt's irate over this new @PIIE paper arguing that China's economic model isn't just hurting developed economies (i.e. "China Shock") but also squeezing developing countries, foreclosing the latter's path to development. So, we should all read it: piie.com/publications/w…

Worrying trend! Govt tightens #ISRO exit rules as 120 scientists quit in a year. By @Chethan_Dash

New Pew Research on international perception of China and the U.S.. Most countries’ public opinion is more favorable to China.

China is quietly rethinking India. The debate in Beijing is no longer only about managing a rival—it is increasingly about understanding a rising power. Chinese scholars are moving beyond older strategic assumptions to study India’s democracy, federal system, economy, society, and civilizational identity on their own terms. There is growing recognition that India is too large and complex to be understood only through the lens of competition. The rivalry, however, remains real. The unresolved border dispute, competition in the Indo-Pacific, India’s growing partnership with the United States, and China’s close strategic partnership with Pakistan all shape Beijing’s calculations. Pakistan remains important to China because of geography, security interests, and economic connectivity through projects such as CPEC. Yet China’s India strategy cannot be reduced to balancing India through Pakistan; it increasingly requires a deeper understanding of India itself. The deeper shift is intellectual. Great powers often miscalculate not because they lack power, but because they misunderstand each other. The future of China–India relations—and the wider Asian balance of power—will depend not only on military strength and economic competition, but also on knowledge, realism, and the ability to see rivals as they are rather than as they are imagined.

🎀 Thanks to IWT, 250+ million cubic metres of silt that accumulated over decades will now be flushed into Pakistan. Long-time treaty restrictions turned Salal into a massive silt trap; its reservoir capacity collapsed from 284 MCM to a mere 9 MCM! Reopening the 6 plugged gates could restore up to 100 MCM of storage, improve power generation & give India the needed operational control over Chenab flows.

Reading BIS June quarterly bulletin and this is a good infographic of central banks lending facilities and OMO.

China data dump just came out and GDP is 4.3%YoY in Q2 vs estimate of 4.5%. Retail sales remain low at 1% vs negative growth in May. H1 investment falls -5.7%. Given the data, the economy is obviously super K-shaped with consumption very weak and falling on a real basis and investment contracting. Exports remain the key driver to growth.

The only country that has “strategic autonomy” as a middle power right now is India. To expect that European powers like France or Germany, or even Canada, would develop such “middle power strategy” is ludicrous and it unfortunately creates the wrong expectations in citizens.

Gideon Rachman @gideonrachman

2 days ago

Why do you think this might be happening, Bridge? I agree a middle power strategy is difficult and sub-optimal. But the US has threatened the territory and sovereignty of its allies. What do you expect us to do?

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The last major bayonet charge in American history was led by a man who once deserted the Army for the crime of being too eager to go to war. Lewis Millett, called Red for his hair and his temper, was a born fighter in the best and strangest sense. Back before Pearl Harbor, when he was a young American soldier and it looked like the United States might sit out the fight against the Nazis, he could not stand it. So he did something almost nobody would believe. He walked away from the US Army, crossed into Canada, and joined the Canadian forces just so he could get into the war sooner. He ended up fighting anyway in North Africa and Italy. The Army eventually caught up with the paperwork and actually court martialed him for desertion, fined him a few dollars, and then, because the man could obviously fight, turned right around and made him an officer. Only Red Millett could get punished for deserting toward the enemy and promoted for it in the same breath. Ten years later he was a captain in Korea, commanding Easy Company of the 27th Infantry, the outfit they called the Wolfhounds. On February 7, 1951, his men ran into a dug in enemy force on a hill near Soam-ni and one of his platoons got pinned down flat under heavy fire. Millett did not call for artillery and wait. He grabbed a second platoon, pushed forward to the pinned men, pulled them all together, and gave an order most soldiers in that war never heard. Fix bayonets. Then he stood up and led them straight up the hill on foot, screaming at them to follow, running into the enemy with cold steel. He bayoneted men. He clubbed them. He threw grenades and kept climbing, roaring encouragement the whole way, dragging his company up the slope by sheer force of will. Grenade fragments tore into his leg and he refused to stop, refused to be carried off, until the hill was taken. When it was over, of the enemy dead on that hill, around twenty had been killed by bayonet. A military historian who studied it called it the most complete bayonet charge by American troops since the Civil War. The place got a new name that stuck. Bayonet Hill. President Truman hung the Medal of Honor around his neck that summer. Red Millett went on soldiering for decades and lived a long life, the man who led America's last great bayonet charge, who had loved the fight so much he once deserted just to find it.

The world is not waiting to find out who controls Hormuz. It is building around it. Goldman Sachs tracked 7 pipeline and export projects now under construction or planned across the Gulf. 1. By end of 2027, over 45% of pre-war Gulf exports could bypass Hormuz entirely. 2. By end of 2028, that rises past 60%. 3. Median Gulf pipeline construction time: 2.5 years, faster for disruption driven projects. 7 to 9 million barrels a day will still need Hormuz no matter what gets built. Qatar's LNG has no alternative route at all. The era of Hormuz as irreplaceable is ending. It is not ending fast enough to matter this year. source @MarioNawfal

Years ago, we at @GPFutures predicted that the United States would try to reduce its involvement in the Eastern Hemisphere. Aside from his actions in Iran, President Donald Trump has largely moved in that direction, as in our model any president would. The Eastern Hemisphere must now face a new reality, one with less U.S. involvement and thus one that necessitates new alliances. Though alliance-making is happening slowly and painfully in Europe, it is taking place more fluidly in Asia. Japan has significantly increased its military power, and Australia is doing likewise, often in collaboration with Japan. Their intent is to be able to defend against potential Chinese attacks without having to rely on the United States. Other nations such as Indonesia, New Zealand and even Vietnam have followed suit. This is a rational response to American disengagement. Crucially, this process has expanded to India. This month alone, the Japanese prime minister has visited New Delhi, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra #Modi has visited Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand. He reached agreements on economic cooperation and, more importantly, on defense cooperation during each of these visits. Several months ago, the Vietnamese president visited #India to discuss similar matters and strengthen existing security ties.

From Sachi Ghosh Dastidar, “46 Hindu students killed at Dhaka University: At the capital’s premier Dhaka University one of the first attacks by the Army was to Jagannath Hall. Jagannath Hall is a dormitory traditionally reserved for Hindu (non-Muslim) students and their staff members. A survivor, Dr. Pal Chaudhury, a Hindu physician, narrated to a researcher: “I heard the sound of indiscriminate firing and screaming of the boys. Some people jumped into the garden from the windows and roof of the building. They were shot at point blank range. We lived upstairs. We heard the boots. The Army’s Hindu killers were going from floor to floor and shooting at anyone they found on their way. We heard the soldiers break the door of the apartment next to ours, and firing into the room. We hid under the bed asking for the blessing of mother kali, the Savior. As they approached our room, miraculously the killer squad’s officer-in-charge called for them from downstairs. There must have been a group of two to four soldiers. They were talking in Urdu. As they entered our room, the commanding officer asked for other killers to come to the room. They discussed amongst themselves, and then for unknown reasons they left to go downstairs. There was moaning and groaning from some of the seriously injured, but we couldn’t go out for fear of those killers. I think we were under the bed for quite some time. We were holding our breath for a long, long time. Once it was all quiet, my wife, son and daughter came out to treat the wounded. “ (Dastidar, p 152, 153). A memorial in front of the Hall lists 46 names of people murdered in cold blood, all Hindu. Of the ten eminent professors murdered at the Dhaka University campus, three were Hindu. Mrs. Basanti Guha Thakurta’s book Ekattorer Smriti (Memories of 1971), describes in detail the process of killing of the professors, students and employees of Dhaka University. Mrs. Guha Thakurta is the widow of the murdered professor Dr. Jyotirmoy Guha Thakurta, a Hindu. then Provost of Jagannath Hall, who was dragged right in front of her and shot at point blank range in cold blood by the soldiers of Army of Islamic Republic of Pakistan. (Dastidar, p, 153). The memorial tablet at Jagannath Hall (boy’s dormitory) read : Reference Sachi G. Dastidar. (2008). Empire’s Last Casualty. Firma KLM Private Ltd. Kolkata, India.

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Today Chinese dominance in car exports is threatening global giants. They exporter more than a million cars in June. As recently as before the pandemic China & India had a similar share in car exports!

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A friendly reminder: 2 weeks ago I said Indian refiners would step up and capture the margin gap left by Russia's export ban and the Middle East disruption. India's product exports are now on track to hit 1.4 million barrels a day in July, the highest since September. That is roughly 20% higher than a year ago, and nearly 50% more than May, per Kpler. The world's 4th largest refining hub is filling the hole other refiners cannot.

"Open borders and infinite genders were the mood of the day...But the DSA also comes across as anti-American, which does not play well in the heartlands. It is also hard to figure out which they disdain more, Trump or the Democratic Party. In the storied tradition of left sectarianism, the suspicion is that Trump is the lesser of the two evils." @EdwardGLuce Latest op-ed is very on-point and so come 2028 people will have to pick between DSA and MAGA. The issue of our time is that the center is perceived as far right and the left has become, well, the DSA or progressives, who are anything but. ft.com/content/bd5f39…

Can the Indus Waters Treaty still work when its procedures point in different directions and the trust needed to sustain cooperation has collapsed ?

Good morning, Reading the UNCTAD Global FDI report on data in 2025 and it is wild that Vietnam and India trend so closely given the fact that India is so much bigger than Vietnam in population and also economic size, stock market, etc. It means that while FDI has trended upward for India, it continues to punch below its weight.

Trinh @Trinhnomics

2 days ago

Casually reading page 9 of the Financial Times today @TonyTassell

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Insane and horrific story not getting attention: Youlin Chen, an American seismologist who published critical research on methods to detect North Korean nuclear tests, is being held hostage in China on false charges of espionage. He's been detained for two years, but it just went public yesterday. Rubio designated Chen as wrongfully detained in March, but the Trump admin withheld a public announcement. Trump allegedly brought up Chen's detention to Xi directly in May, but the Chinese leader took no action afterwards. The details of his detention are horrific: "At the beginning of his detention, said Rong, Chen was subjected to “harsh conditions,” including being forced to sit all day on a hard stool without being allowed to stand, read or exercise, and was unable to obtain medications for his diabetes and other health problems. Since then, she said, it has been difficult to learn the conditions of his confinement, but she added that he has lost 30 to 40 pounds (13.6 to 18.1 kg), is given insufficient food ⁠with little protein, fruits or vegetables, and receives only poor-quality medications."

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NEW from us: China's traffic-related air pollution levels dropped sharply after the Hormuz crisis, as fuel consumption fell and EV use surged. This is more evidence that the fall in China's oil import isn't just inventory drawdown but real consumption cuts. 🧵

There is a great deal of hubbub about a collective “middle powers”strategy these days. At DoW, we are not concerned that this is a serious possibility. Rather, we are more concerned that a few allies and partners will *think it is* and waste valuable time, money, and political capital on a distraction. 1/