The economic lessons from Ukraine's spectacular drone success
On June 1st Ukraine took military raiding into the 21st century. It did so with little more than ingenuity and 117 drones, which emerged from trucks across Russia—everywhere from Siberia to the Chinese border—and destroyed a dozen or so planes in Vladimir Putin's long-range air fleet. The raid came amid the Russian president's relentless bombardment of Ukraine. On June 9th he launched his biggest drone strike of the war, sending 479 machines to hit Ukrainian airfields, cities and factories.
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New Statesman
3 hours ago
- New Statesman
Fang Fang's acts of resistance
Photo by David Levenson / Getty Images The Running Flame is a gripping, heart-wrenching read. In this novel by the Chinese author Fang Fang, first published in the writer's home country in 2001 and now in English, we follow Yingzhi, a teenager from a rural village. When she unexpectedly gets pregnant, she enters into a marriage she wouldn't otherwise have chosen. Her husband, Guiqing, is a lazy, entitled man whose negligence of his adult responsibilities soon turns to sheer callousness towards Yingzhi. Guiqing becomes violent. His parents have no sympathy for Yingzhi. Ever audacious, she argues with her in-laws about how society has changed since they were young: 'Haven't you heard that we have gender equality these days?' Later, when Guiqing is arrested on suspicion of raping another woman, it is Yingzhi who takes the blame: 'Guiqing left his wife at home to go screw around with some other woman. And you claim that isn't your fault!' her father-in-law says. 'It's your job to keep him happy… If my son picks up some dirty STD out there, I will hold you 100 per cent responsible!' All this is framed by an opening chapter in which Yingzhi is waiting on death row for an as-yet undetermined crime. From then on, Fang Fang's narrative hurtles towards a shockingly violent end. Wang Fang was born in Nanjing, eastern China, in 1955. Under her pen name Fang Fang she is the lauded yet controversial author of poetry, several novels and the online blog Wuhan Diary, which she wrote between January and March 2020 to document the lockdown in her city, then the centre of the Covid-19 outbreak. Her posts were quickly deleted by authorities, as she called for the end of internet censorship. Set in the 1990s and based on interviews the author conducted with female death-row inmates, The Running Flame is a powerful reckoning with China's brutal patriarchy – which continues today, as shown in the case of the tennis player Peng Shuai, who disappeared in 2021 after accusing a senior politician of sexual assault. The book won four major literary awards in China. Fang Fang's 2016 novel Soft Burial, also now available in English, received critical acclaim and prizes. Then, within the space of a few months, it was denounced and removed from bookshops. The novel's setting of China's violent Land Reform Campaign of the 1940s threatened premier Xi Jinping's propaganda drive of 'telling China's story well' – meaning not criticising the nation's past. Soft Burial is a knottier tale than The Running Flame – though no less affecting. During the land reform campaign, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of land-owners and their families were killed by the Communist Party and the peasants they inspired under a movement to redistribute land. Our central character is Ding Zitao. When her son Qinglin moves her into a comfortable home for her retirement, she becomes psychologically ill, and he sets out to investigate the past she has always hidden. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Ding Zitao was a member of a landlord family: when it became clear their lives were threatened by the campaign, her parents encouraged her to speak against them at a village denunciation meeting in order to save herself. Fang Fang does not spare us any details: Ding Zitao's relatives chose suicide instead of facing murder by their tenants, and she buried them herself before escaping alone. A soft burial, a character named Happy Lu tells us, 'is when you bury someone's body directly in the dirt without any casket or wrapping. The local elders say that someone who will die with lingering anger or regret and doesn't want to be reincarnated can decide to have a soft burial.' This trauma haunts Ding Zitao for the rest of her life. 'The way they hid their past spoke to a deep mistrust they have harboured toward everyone around them,' Qinglin thinks as he uncovers the truth. The Chinese authorities feared Fang Fang's book because it revealed the horror of a time that remains unspoken, and because it encouraged that mistrust to fall on the government, rather than one's fellow citizens. In California-based scholar Michael Berry's translations, the narratives of both books can feel stilted. In Soft Burial, the dialogue is at times contrived, resulting in scenes that are unnatural and lack nuance. But the style is superseded by the unflinching stories. Given the challenges facing Fang Fang at home, the widening of these books' audiences to include Anglophone readers is a matter of urgent resistance. The Running Flame by Fang Fang, translated by Michael Berry Columbia University Press, 208pp, £16.99 Soft Burial by Fang Fang, translated by Michael Berry Columbia University Press, 416pp, £20 [See also: English literature's last stand] Related
BBC News
9 hours ago
- BBC News
Trump vowed to make the world safer - has he?
When Donald Trump was sworn in as US president for a second time in January, he made a promise. "My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier," he told his audience at home and far a little more than a hundred days on, during his first foreign tour – which took him to three wealthy Arab states – he boasted that he was making good on that vow. "I will tell you that the world is a much safer place right now," he said in reference to Ukraine. "I think in two or three weeks we can have a much safer place."But how much progress is the self-styled "world's best peacemaker" really making? Is Trump turning the world into a safer, or a more dangerous, place?There are many angles to the is difficult to ignore the reality on the ground in perhaps the world's two most prominent Trump boasts that he is the only one who can reach a deal with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin - but Russia is now pounding Ukraine with the largest number of drones and missiles since its full-scale invasion in he has repeatedly called for a ceasefire in Gaza, but this week staff at the Red Cross Field Hospital say they are receiving the highest number of weapons-wounded patients since they established their clinic more than a year frantic peace brokering hints at what he really wantsTrump says rare earths deal 'done' with ChinaKremlin calls Trump 'emotional' over Ukraine commentsOn other fronts, however, there are some glimmers of light in the talks between the US and Iran are underway, pushed by an American president who insists that he wants to reach a good deal and avert a bad destructive war. The next round of those talks, mediated by Oman, is expected to take place on Sunday, although there is intense speculation that Israel may be preparing its own military strikes on has more of a fighting chance to tackle dangerous internal tensions, as well as deep poverty, after President Trump suddenly announced last month that punishing sanctions on the country would be lifted on the urging of his Saudi ally."It's the worst of times and the best of times," David Harland, executive director of the Geneva-based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, told me. "There are now more wars than ever in the world, but more conflicts are on the negotiating table and some are moving forward."There is truth in Trump's claim that only he can bring some players to talk peace. He is the only world leader that Putin and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, among others, know they need to listen to – or else."You bet, they're scared of him," said K. T. Mcfarland, Trump's former deputy national security adviser who will join a BBC World Service debate on whether the president is making the world safer or more dangerous that will be broadcast on motto "peace through strength" rests on his belief that his sheer force of personality, bold threats, and direct telephone calls can end wars. He even said he could end wars in a day – but clearly hasn't. Trump has, however, pushed Russian and Ukrainian officials back to the negotiating table, but there's been little progress beyond some important prisoner swaps. President Putin shows no signs he is ready to end this grievous threats of "hell to pay" ultimatums to Hamas, as well as pressure on Israel, helped get a Gaza ceasefire deal over the line in January, even before he was sworn into office on 20 January. But the truce, described by Trump as "epic", collapsed in March."He doesn't like to get into the detail," one Arab diplomat told me, underlining the president's preference for quick easy deals in what are deeply complex conflicts."We all want deals, but we know deals don't work or don't last, if they're not peace deals, as opposed to end-of-war deals," said Martin Griffiths, a former UN Under-Secretary General who is now the Executive Director of Mediation Group International. Trump, who prides himself on being the world's disruptor-in-chief, has also dissed the skills of seasoned career diplomats. "They may know the rivers, the mountains, the terrain, but they don't know how to do a deal," he his preference is to use the deal-makers of his own property world, most of all his golf buddy and former real estate lawyer and investor Steve Witkoff, who is juggling all the tortuous and tricky files on Ukraine, Gaza, Iran, and Trump's Make America Great Again crusade goes beyond individual deals. He has run roughshod through the rules-based world order that forged the foundation for global stability and security in the aftermath of World War repeated threats to seize control of the Panama Canal, buy Greenland, and turn Canada into the 51st US state have stunned - and scared - capitals the world steep tariffs imposed on both ally and adversary have unleashed retaliatory taxes and fears of a debilitating global trade war, while also straining age-old international he's also galvanised others, including in the NATO military alliance - whose own chief is now amplifying Washington's order for members to significantly step up their own military American president also took credit for a ceasefire brokered between India and Pakistan after days of cross-border strikes between the neighbours last month. The US's belated intervention made a big difference, but many other players pitched business-oriented "America First" approach has also meant that other conflicts, including the terrible killing fields in Sudan, are not beeping loudly on his own warring sides in many regions are now courting him, wielding their mineral wealth and investment potential as a bargaining chip. The president's proposed security-for-minerals deal in war-torn Congo, for example, has provoked a chorus of concern that it doesn't tackle the root causes of the conflict."If you could use a mineral deal to end decades of war, then there are countries who would have fixed that already," International Crisis Group President Comfort Ero administration's cuts to UN aid agencies, and his dismantling of the American aid agency USAID, have also deepened the suffering of displaced and marginalised people in many regions and exacerbates after only a few months of his second presidency, Trump's frustration with intransigent actors has led him to issue threats to "take a pass" and walk away from conflicts like Ukraine."Deals take forever," Martin Griffiths, the former UN Under-Secretary General, told me. "You have to start and you have to stay." The BBC World Service Debate – Is Donald Trump making the world safer or more dangerous?The BBC World Service Debate considers the rapidly changing international landscape during Trump's presidency. Chief International Correspondent Lyse Doucet is joined by a panel of guests to discuss whether the new international order emerging will make the world a safer can watch the debate on the BBC News Channel at 21:00BST on Friday 13 June and it will be streamed on the BBC News website. It will air on BBC Radio 5Live and World Service radio on Saturday 14 June.
Reuters
12 hours ago
- Reuters
US says China's Huawei can't make more than 200,000 AI chips in 2025
WASHINGTON, June 12 (Reuters) - China's Huawei Technologies [RIC:RIC: is capable of producing no more than 200,000 advanced artificial intelligence chips in 2025, a top U.S. exports controls official told lawmakers on Thursday, warning that though the number is below the company's demand, China is quickly catching up to U.S. capabilities. Since 2019, a slew of U.S. export rules aimed at curbing China's technological and military advancements have limited access by Huawei and other Chinese firms to high-end U.S. chips and the equipment needed to produce them. The issue has become a flashpoint in U.S.-China relations. Facing those restrictions, Huawei aims to ship its Ascend 910C AI chips to Chinese customers as an alternative to those made by the United States' Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab, the global leader. "Our assessment is that Huawei Ascend chip production capacity for 2025 will be at or below 200,000 and we project that most or all of that will be delivered to companies within China," Jeffrey Kessler, Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security at the Commerce Department, told a congressional hearing. Kessler said that the U.S. should not take comfort in the figure. "China is investing huge amounts to increase its AI chip production, as well as the capabilities of the chips that it produces. So, it's critical for us not to have a false sense of security, to understand that China is catching up quickly," he told the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs South and Central Asia subcommittee. White House AI Czar David Sacks said on Tuesday that China was only 3-6 months behind the U.S. in AI. The White House later said he was referring to China's AI models, adding that Chinese AI chips are one to two years behind their U.S. counterparts. Huawei's CEO Ren Zhengfei told Chinese state media on Tuesday that the company's chips were a generation behind those of U.S. competitors, but that it invests more than $25 billion annually to improve performance. Nvidia's AI chips are more powerful than Huawei's but Washington's export controls on its most sophisticated chips have caused it to lose market share. The U.S. and China reached a tentative trade truce at talks in London this week after a previous agreement faltered over China's continued curbs on minerals exports. That prompted the Trump administration to apply additional export controls on shipments of semiconductor design software, jet engines for Chinese-made planes and other goods. Democratic Representative Greg Meeks expressed concern that the Trump administration had conflated U.S. exports controls with broader discussions on trade. "What I will say is export controls have been strong and I'm confident that they will remain strong," Kessler said. Kessler said he was not planning any immediate new restrictions on U.S. semiconductors sold to China, but that the Commerce Department will "remain active in this space." "It's a constantly evolving landscape, and we need to make sure that our controls remain effective," he said.
