As a result of the latest summit of the G7 countries in Hiroshima, the US, Canada, the UK and the EU adopted yet another, 11th to be precise, package of anti-Russian sanctions. The package includes more than 90 companies from all over the world, which, according to Brussels, allegedly violated the restrictive measures and continue supplying Russia with sanctioned goods (including companies in Armenia, Iran, UAE, Syria and others). At the same time, eight out of these 90 companies operate in China.
In this regard, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in an interview with the German TV channel ZDF, referring to China (whose companies were sanctioned for the first time since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian military and political crisis), emphasized the need to find an alternative to the Chinese megaproject One Belt, One Road.
As you know, given the leap in the Chinese economy at the beginning of the 21st century, Chinese President Xi Jinping first proposed in 2013 a global international project One Belt, One Road as a kind of revival of the historical Silk Road. The essence of Beijing’s initiative is to intensify multilateral trade and investment projects with the participation of more countries and the use of Chinese and foreign capital. For the past 10 years, 152 countries and more than 30 international organizations have joined this project.
Naturally, such initiatives are not born out of nothing and pursue the far-reaching strategic interests of the initiating country. Accordingly, the dynamics of economic development (first of all, modern high-tech industrial production) and high demography of China have created objective conditions for the export of Chinese goods to world markets, GDP growth, strengthening of the national currency yuan and systematic access to new markets and regions (countries).
Taking into account geographical distances and objective need in modernization of logistics (especially land trade communications – roads and railroads), and also taking into account high financial opportunities of the European market China works on new projects on development of multilateral (first of all, trade and investment) relations with different countries to form diverse and alternative trade communications within the One Belt, One Road initiative.
Among such alternative international routes to the west, China has already developed three options:
1) the “Russian corridor,” that is, through the territory of Russia and on to Europe (but now, for obvious reasons of the West’s anti-Russian sanctions regime, this route toward the EU countries may be temporarily suspended);
2) “the middle corridor” (conditionally also called “the Turanian corridor,” because its main beneficiaries are mainly the Turkic world or the members of the Organization of Turkic States), involving a line through Pakistan, the post-Soviet Central Asian countries, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia (possibly the Armenian Zangezur Corridor), Turkey and the EU;
3) “Iranian-Turkish corridor,” including post-Soviet Central Asian countries, Iran, Turkey and the EU.......more below
China has suspended several 2025 export controls on strategic materials — including rare earths, superhard materials, and lithium batteries – for a year. Is this a concession to the US, or a move in a far more complex game?
"The first aim of China’s export controls was to consolidate its leverage in negotiations. The second was to establish a long-term framework for managing such controls," says Yana Leksyutina, deputy director at the Institute of China and Contemporary Asia, Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS).
Сhina could activate this mechanism at any moment, and now everyone knows it’s a lever it holds, she explains to Sputnik.
Balancing the Mineral Market
"The moratorium on export bans to the US essentially resets the rare earth market to where it was previously," Jeff J. Brown, author of 'The China Trilogy' and founder of Seek Truth From Facts Foundation, tells Sputnik.
In the meantime, there will be a global rush by the US and its NATO allies to acquire as many rare earth ...
The Israeli regime has reportedly signed contracts worth millions of dollars in recent months to sway American public opinion as part of attempts to launder the occupying entity’s genocidal war crimes against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Friday that the multimillion-dollar campaign aimed to reshape US public opinion, both online and offline, through coordinated influence operations combining digital marketing, AI, geotagging, and religious messaging.
The contracts, signed between the Israeli regime and firms linked to US President Donald Trump, reveal a “hasbara [propaganda] campaign” and schemes to target millions of US churchgoers, deploy bots, hire influencers, and try to make ChatGPT more pro-Israel.
The largest contract, worth $6 million, was signed with Clock Tower X, owned by Trump’s former digital campaign chief Brad Parscale, to produce and distribute roughly 100 core pieces of pro-Israel content per month and thousands......
