Xi at the core
China, Ukraine, Russia, the UK, Israel, Palestine, and Tunisia.
Hello,
Here are the five things you need to know today:
CHINA. There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent.
UKRAINE. RUSSIA. Claims of progress are belied by exhaustion.
BRITAIN. Epstein looks set to take down his first world leader.
ISRAEL. PALESTINE. As one door opens, another closes.
TUNISIA. A dictatorship on Europe’s edge tightens its grip.
Geopolitical Dispatch is a daily strategic briefing for business leaders and investors, based on the US Presidential Daily Brief. Covering five top global developments at 5 am Eastern Time, Geopolitical Dispatch gives you visibility of events in context.
CHINA. Common currency
There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent.
Xi Jinping held separate calls with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin Wednesday. Trump described relations with Beijing as “very positive” and Putin as “exemplary”. A 2024 speech, calling for the yuan to be a reserve currency, was published.
INTELLIGENCE. In asserting his authority at home while building leverage abroad, Xi is combining Mao’s dictum on revolution with Deng’s “hide and bide” strategy. He is also harking back to a millennia-old tradition of China as the “Middle Kingdom”. While Trump is on centre stage, directing daily narrative turns, Xi is increasingly at the centre of gravity, directing long-term strategic shifts. Trump and Putin are both expected to visit him over the next five months.
FOR BUSINESS. China has many challenges, not least sputtering consumer growth and a plunging birth rate, but seldom has one man had unfettered control of an economy as powerful as China’s. Unique among other leaders, he has avoided reacting to Trump. And while that has created the appearance of passivity on Iran and Venezuela, it has also projected stability. This will be key to the RMB’s purported ambitions, assuming capital controls will be lifted.
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UKRAINE. RUSSIA. Productivity paradox
Claims of progress are belied by exhaustion.
Talks with American and Russian officials in Abu Dhabi were "productive", Kyiv said Wednesday. Volodymyr Zelensky contradicted Trump over Moscow's breaking of a ceasefire. Emmanuel Macron's foreign adviser visited the Kremlin.
INTELLIGENCE. Ukraine and its backers continue to put on a brave face, but Russia