Want to know what happens next in the Iran-Israel conflict? Highly recommend this podcast with Emile Hokayem اميل الحكيّم who explains the calculations of both sides, how this relates to Gaza and the risk of a regional war ft.com/content/18b009… via @ft

Big fan of the China Talk podcast, not least now having recorded an episode on India with the great C. Raja Mohan, chaired as ever with huge enthusiasm by pod maestro Jordan Schneider. On a streaming platform near you soon, one imagines. 🇮🇳🇨🇳👊.

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/chi…

Progressive Realism will underpin The Labour Party's foreign policy approach.

It takes the world as it is. Not as we wish it to be. It is realist means for progressive ends.

Today I’ve published ‘The Case for Progressive Realism’ in Foreign Affairs 👇🏿
foreignaffairs.com/united-kingdom…

Chinese MFA announces upcoming visit by U.S. Secretary of State Blinken, saying China welcomes his visit. Antony Blinken Secretary Antony Blinken Spokesperson发言人办公室

Latest IISS News Japan pod /w Robert Ward, Veerle Nouwens 温丽玉, Alessio Patalano & Nick Childs was vg on this + many other things

Nick made the point that these multi-national flat-top ship exercises can be significant in deterrence terms.

Listen here 🇯🇵👇
iiss.org/en/podcasts/ja…

james crabtree Noah Barkin indeed. My attempt to avoid the disaster that James predicts. A long shot indeed: institutmontaigne.org/en/expressions…

Critical mineral supply-chain de-risking, not so much.

Striking chart from Bloomberg. 'What’s becoming clearer, though, is the European Union and China risk slow-walking into a trade war as Beijing resists requests to open up its economy, triggering .. defense measures. '

Just back from 🇨🇳 to discover waiting for me a preview copy of what I'm convinced will the most important book on 🇮🇳 for many years: 'The New India', by the formidably talented Rahul Bhatia.

Everything Rahul does is top class. Looking forward to reading very much 📚👊

Setting up nicely a potential in person meeting at SLD.

'Dong and Austin discussed US-China “defence relations and regional and global security issues” during their video call,

+ 'respect for high seas freedom of navigation' esp in SCS.

From the excellent Noah Barkin on linkedin. I'm bemused by this. After 2 weeks in China I'm pretty much convinced the mainstream European car industry is likely to be killed off by Chinese EV competition. maybe even the premium end too. probably isn't much we can do. Devastating.

Happy to finally meet james crabtree in person!

Heading out after a vg two weeks in 🇨🇳.

We hear less about it in the new era, but they do still have the Belt and Road Lane at the airport, to allow over-leveraged passengers to get quickly to their flights, so long as they agree to some kind of basic debt for equity swap.

Singapore in the house: all of Tsinghua awaits the arrival of Chesterman Laoshi!

Simon Chesterman 陈西文

A pleasure to meet Caroline Wilson 吴若兰 for tea and cakes here in Beijing. One of the true rock star ambassadors. Nice piece of UK in China 🇬🇧 downtown real estate too..... 🇨🇳🤝🇬🇧👍

Pleasure was all mine.

Pekingology is a little substack gem. Really useful for understanding china. Also free!

pekingnology.com

#Singapore : Rumour mill in overdrive regarding an imminent announcement on the timeline of the handover of power from PM Lee Hsien Loong to DPM Lawrence Wong. DPM Wong expected to be sworn in as Singapore's 4th PM in May.

Next time I go back to Shanghai, I'm definitely staying here.