New [Ab]Normal
At the Asia Global Institute forum in Hong Kong on navigating the tariff war earlier this month, the consensus was that no one is immune to structural uncertainty where everything is happening all at once, no one knowing what exactly comes next.
Multipolarity makes understanding mandatory: the West can no longer afford the luxury of misunderstanding China. The cost has become too high.
The collapse of the US’s “soft power” apparatus (USAID, etc.): hundreds of millions in US funding for global media just evaporated, that’s got to have some effect.
So-called “Trump Derangement Syndrome” which is undeniably real in some media, with a corresponding the “enemy of my enemy” effect for China All, of course, paired with the genuine achievements of China, without which positive coverage just wouldn’t be possible (and without which multipolarity, the most important driving factor, wouldn’t have happened anyhow). within less than 24 hours after Trump left Southeast Asia, the region collectively upgraded its free trade pact with China, in order to - according to Singapore’s Prime Minister - “reduce trade barriers and strengthen supply chain connectivity.” Now [when it typing and landed in your inbox mail], Trump already in South Korea [no longer Japan] for Busan APEC.
When Trump in Kuala Lumpur, the U.S. finalizes trade deals [ONLY] with Cambodia and Malaysia, but failed to get a [new] deal with Indonesia, even though Indonesia buy 50 Boeing[s]. So Indonesia started raising money in Yuan instead of dollars, issuing its first ever so-called “dim-sum bonds” in Yuan and raising the equivalent of $842 million. It happened only less 60 hours before crucial summit-meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping in Busan. A reminiscing Biden attempt to meet face-to-face physically Xi Jinping in Bali [2022, sideline of G20] and in California [2033, the U.S. as APEC host].
The political ground is shifting TOO FAST you can smell it on the ground. It’s a little chaotic right now. A lot of Taiwan supporters in the west are gonna be caught unawares. Major parties establishments scrambling hard as sentiments just suddenly went fluid. Polls older than a few weeks now useless. The SCMP reporting on a My Formosa poll showing a major drop in willingness to fight unification, majority favoring resuming government-to-government talks and more people-to-people exchange.
Navigation is about planning and executing a journey, but you need maps, compasses and point of reference to know where you are and where you are going. Journeys across time and space need sound navigation, especially in troubled waters. Sailing is all about teamwork, but in today’s “nano-speed” changes, getting anything done is like repairing an airplane mid-flight: Any mistake could end up in a crash. Some fundamental trends may guide us on the rules to navigate these uncertainties.
First, the United States-China rivalry that prompted the tariff war is a long-term trend that will not disappear soon. We all must be prepared for the weaponization of everything in this rivalry, from trade, money and talent to chips and technology.
Assuming that the big powers are sensible enough to avoid mutually assured destruction from nuclear war, we can assume that all kinds of proxy wars or more conventional warfare will be experimented with in the current march to folly. Second, consultants use the acronyms PEST (political, economic, social and technology) to assess the operating context and operating environment.
They also use SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) to evaluate preparedness for competition, while former US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld famously introduced his Known-Unknown matrix. Known unknowns are risks that can be anticipated. Chess grand masters have super memories and remember all games played, but an artificial intelligence computer can beat a grand master because it can play games that no one has played before. A
N AI computer fills in gaps that humans know exists, arising from rules that humans framed. If humans themselves do not know such unknowns, I doubt that AI models can yet explore the uncharted territory of unknown unknowns.
Theory and existing knowledge can only carry you so far. It is only through action and risk-taking that the unknown unknowns are revealed to humans taking risks in going where no man has gone before, like Capt. James Kirk of the Starship Enterprise. Chinese reformer Deng Xiaoping famously called it “crossing the river by feeling the stones”, meaning you have to take risks to reveal new information. Since the future is an unknown unknown, humanity advances through experimentation, innovation, entrepreneurship and risk-taking.
Failure is the precondition of success. The fourth rule is that technology as the solution to all human and climate change challenges may not add up. Technology is a necessary but not sufficient condition for long-term resilience or survival. It is right to invest in technology, but not all technology will yield results. The unfolding tech or AI bubble is an example of this euphoria that technology will be worth billions for some but not necessarily for all.
Based on the huge boom in AI technology usage across almost all sectors, AI chip designer Nvidia has reached US$4.4 trillion in market valuation, investing $100 billion in unlisted ChatGPT maker OpenAI so it can build data centers using Nvidia chips. OpenAI also made a similar deal with Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., better known as AMD, pushing its own valuation to $500 billion.
If you weren’t convinced yet that the US technology sanctions on China hurt the US more than they did China, please read this incredible report by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the world’s leading think tank for science and technology policy. They studied in depth the attempt by the US to kill Huawei and their overall conclusion is that “sanctioning Huawei and attempting to cripple the company has proven to be hubristic and self-defeating” as “the only outcome was to weaken U.S. technology companies and strengthen Huawei and China’s innovation.”
Among other things they found that:
- The sanctions had zero impact on Huawei’s global market share: “it remains the world’s largest telecom equipment manufacturer, with a 34 percent global market share in 2024, up 2 percentage points from 2018.”
- The sanctions hurt US companies first and foremost as “restrictions on doing business with Huawei caused U.S. companies to lose at least $33 billion in sales between 2021 and 2024.” It also led Huawei to “successfully launch its in-house OS, HarmonyOS, which is now being rolled out on mobile devices, tablets, and laptops
- potentially threatening U.S. firms’ market share in these sectors.” Last sentence of the report’s conclusion: “the United States needs a realistic, not hubristic, policy approach [to China].”
Fear of missing out (FOMO) is causing every country to buy into their own data centers, which is why the stock market thinks the AI phenomenon is not a bubble and still has quite a ways to run. The leading AI models are all financed by tech giants, because it costs a lot to build and test these models. The leading AI players are Grok (xAI), Gemini (Google), Llama (Meta), ChatGPT (OpenAI), Claude (Anthropic), Copilot (Microsoft), Qwen (Alibaba) and DeepSeek; the latter two being Chinese platforms.
The law of market competition means that not every model will be winners at the consumer level because ultimately, it will be the mass market rather than specialist users (such as governments for military or national security reasons) that will determine their success in revenue and market valuation.
The fifth rule, therefore, is trust that for technology to succeed, you must have a good narrative, execution plan and ability to deliver what the market wants. There is no doubt that AI itself is a game changer, but some will be big losers when the game changes with no technology or innovation.
The sixth rule is that in this war of elephants or giants, the smaller players, businesses or emerging economies must be nimble, adaptive and able to pivot at speed. Geopolitical conflict means that self-preservation will be the name of the game. The slower player will be the loser in this fast-changing game. The new normal is abnormal. Be prepared for all contingencies.
================
If you feel powerless to help Gaza, you still has a choice: donate. When so much of what exists is false, authenticity is a powerful weapon we can wield that the state never could. So if you feel lost, hopeless, depressed, angry and afraid, I implore you to return - again - again - and again - to the feeling of love that exists within you that brought you here in the first place. It is only through this that we can remake the world. To redress Gaza’s famine, displacement, and destruction, independent and impartial humanitarian organizations - UN agencies, international and national NGOs - must be allowed to deliver relief at scale. To salvage Gaza’s people from the devastation inflicted by Israel, it must be unified with the West Bank to form an independent and sovereign Palestinian State, not to be parceled and colonized by the former.
Meanwhile, children continue to be shredded by US bombs, and the starvation reaches new depths of hellish collective punishment. If both parties are going to continue to support an ongoing genocide, at least they can both be honest about doing so, rather than having one openly bloodthirsty party, and another—unconvincingly—playing the role of powerless, bumbling humanitarian.
Please keep donate Gaza especially if you, as reader, has [background] International Relation [whatever universities]. IR Graduate means [you must, at least] get some semester [about] studying Middle East [in macro, not specifically Gaza].
We need more people to share fundraisers instead of only talking about Gaza. Some people think that those in Gaza don’t need money but that’s wrong. Almost everyone lost their source of income while essentials, food & medicine get sold for astronomical prices. So I put my attempt in all social media as I can, in twitter / X, in substack [since October 2023 I put link donation], in bluesky or bsky, in threads, in instagram.
Link to donate World Food Programme - Palestine appeal: click here
[Daniel Brühl]
Most campaign shared or circulated in social media are for REAL people in Gaza. They’re legit. There are a lot of small campaigns for struggling families. This is their only lifeline. By donating & sharing, you are literally making history and alleviating part of their pain
Please do not rely on me alone for sharing your campaign. I’m only 1 person and sometimes I’m not online which is unreliable. I never ignore anybody on purpose but I have a very limited capacity & very little energy and time.
[Refaat Rafiq Alareer IF I MUST DIE] Refaat Rafiq Alareer was extremely hungry, November 2023, days before Refaat killed by Israel airstrike. If November 2023 already [one-by-one Gazan] extremely famine, extremely hungry, imagine October 2025 or 2 years Israel’s Genocide in Gaza.
Thanks for reading Prada’s Newsletter.