Microsoft removed Huawei laptops from the Microsoft online store last weekend, likely in response to the US government blacklisting Huawei.

Huawei laptops are still being sold in physical Microsoft stores that still have the computers in stock, according to The Verge.

Microsoft hasn't made an official statement regarding its relationship with Huawei. Business Insider has asked Microsoft for comment, but the company didn't immediately reply. Other outlets have also requested comment from the company to no avail.

Talk about a graphic display of soft power: Beijing this week hosted the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations.

Organized under the direct supervision of President Xi Jinping it took place amid an “Asian Culture Carnival.” Sure, there were dubious, kitschy and syrupy overtones, but what really mattered was what Xi himself had to say to China and all of Asia.

In his keynote speech, the Chinese leader essentially stressed that one civilization forcing itself upon another is “foolish” and “disastrous.” In Xi’s concept of a dialogue of civilizations, he referred to the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), as programs that “have expanded the channels for communication exchanges.”

Xi’s composure and rationality present a stark, contrasting message to US President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign.

It’s geopolitical, geoeconomic war. Cold, so far, but now about to descend to deep freeze. The US National Security Strategy unmistakably spells it out. China is a strategic competitor and must be contained, no holds barred, on all fronts: economic, military and most of all, technological.

Enter the current, concerted offensive across the spectrum, from 5G and AI to moves attempting to prevent the coming of globalization 2.0. Add to it maximum pressure all over the world to prevent nations from joining the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the organizing foreign policy concept for China in the foreseeable future and the strategic road map for Eurasian integration up to 2049.

It’s all interconnected; the Trump administration’s trade war, Google blocking Huawei from the enhanced Android OS, the demonization of Belt and Road. It’s all about control of global supply chains and technological infrastructure.

China has developed a new portable laser weapon that can zap a target from nearly a kilometre away, according to researchers involved in the project.

The ZKZM-500 laser assault rifle is classified as being “non-lethal” but produces an energy beam that cannot be seen by the naked eye but can pass through windows and cause the “instant carbonisation” of human skin and tissues.

Ten years ago its capabilities would have been the preserve of sci-fi films, but one laser weapons scientist said the new device is able to “burn through clothes in a split second … If the fabric is flammable, the whole person will be set on fire”.

On May 5, Donald Trump announced a devastating 25% tariff on Chinese commodity imports valued at 200 billion dollars.

According to Trump:

“China is cheating the system”.

“Dirty Bureaucrats in Washington have allowed China to take advantage of our great Nation for far too long”.

How has Beijing responded?

Forget soybeans, auto imports, iPhones, crude oil, and cheap Chinese gadgets. Also forget tariffs, duties, and subsidies. Even forget weapons.

The real reason behind the US-China "trade" war has little to do with actual trade, and everything to do with what China's president, Xi Jinping, said when he visited a memory chip plant in the city of Wuhan in early 2018. In a white lab coat, he made an unexpectedly sentimental remark, comparing a computer chip to a human heart: “No matter how big a person is, he or she can never be strong without a sound and strong heart”.

In response to the widening gap between Washington and Beijing, a major Chinese TV broadcaster has pulled Hollywood films and Chinese films with scenes shot in the US from its schedules, replacing them with classic Chinese war films showing Chinese troops defeating Americans.

China Movie Channel, better known as CCTV-6, has begun filling its prime evening slots with classic anti-American Chinese war films. "Heroic Sons and Daughters" (1964), "Battle on Shangganling Mountain" (1954) and "Surprise Attack" (1960) will all be featured from May 17 to 19, What's on Weibo reported.

A US Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyer sailed next to a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, ignoring repeated warnings from Beijing to stay clear of the region amid rising tensions between the two economic superpowers.

On Sunday, the USS Preble (DDG-88), armed with Tomahawk missiles, sailed along the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea in order to “challenge” the Asian giant’s claim to the area. Washington has repeatedly refused to acquiesce to Chinese protests over its incursions into the sea, citing the principle of “freedom of navigation.”

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security sent out an alert on Monday warning U.S. firms and government agencies of a potential data risk from Chinese-made drones.

The notice titled 'Chinese Manufactured Unmanned Aircraft Systems' warns that sensitive flight data might be sent to their manufacturers in China, where it can be accessed by the government.

It goes on to say that U.S. officials have 'strong concerns about any technology product that takes American data into the territory of an authoritarian state that permits its intelligence services to have unfettered access to that data or otherwise abuses that access.'

Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg asked a crowd of supporters packed into an Iowa brewery this weekend whether the United States has a plan to win the ongoing trade war with China.

“Nooo,” was the response.

The world’s two largest economies have been locked in a 10-month trade war that has roiled global supply chains and rattled financial markets. U.S. farmers, who helped carry Trump to his surprise 2016 election win, have been among the hardest-hit as China has imposed tariffs on imports of U.S. agricultural products, including soybeans, pork and grain sorghum in response to U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods.

Authored by Janine Jackson via Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting,

The Washington Post editorial’s headline (5/14/19) had the US “drifting” toward war with Iran—another example, as analyst Nima Shirazi quipped, of the “world’s superpower somehow having no agency over its own imperialism.”
If we can still call things “surreal,” that would describe watching corporate media do the same things they did in the run-up to the Iraq War, things they later disavowed: the credulous repetition of administration claims about the supposed threat; the reliance, for interpretation of “intelligence,” on officials with well known records for manipulating intelligence; the stenographic reporting of ‘troubling’ actions by the enemy state, that later have to be walked back.

SOURCE: PEPE ESCOBAR VIA THE SAKER

Talk about a graphic display of soft power: Beijing this week hosted the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations.

Organized under the direct supervision of President Xi Jinping it took place amid an “Asian Culture Carnival.” Sure, there were dubious, kitschy and syrupy overtones, but what really mattered was what Xi himself had to say to China and all of Asia.

In his keynote speech, the Chinese leader essentially stressed that one civilization forcing itself upon another is “foolish” and “disastrous.” In Xi’s concept of a dialogue of civilizations, he referred to the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), as programs that “have expanded the channels for communication exchanges.”

Xi’s composure and rationality present a stark, contrasting message to US President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign.

WEST VS EAST AND SOUTH

SOURCE: MIKE MISH SHEDLOCK
China produces 80% of the world's rare earth elements. They are used in weapons, cell phones, hybrid cars, and magnets.

China does not have the means to match the US in the total number or amount of tariffs. But China can strike back in other ways. One critical way would be to cut off the US supply of rare earth elements.

Bloomberg reports Xi’s Trip to Rare-Earths Plant Stokes Talk of Trade Retaliation

Shares in JL MAG Rare-Earth Co. surged by their daily limit Monday after state news agency Xinhua said the Chinese president had stopped by the company in Jiangxi. Official news outlets give regular updates on the whereabouts of top leaders, sometimes leading to share spikes on the belief that companies have been handed official backing.

The U.S. is putting pressure on its many partners across the world to follow its lead and ban Huawei from their national telecommunications networks, with the Trump Administration channeling the Bush one in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks by strongly implying that they are “either with us or against us.”

Unlike back then, however, few countries are going along with the U.S. pressure; probably because they understand the huge difference between joining an anti-terrorist military coalition and an anti-Chinese trading one.

Building off of that observation, Huawei’s services are inexpensive and high-quality, which is the exact opposite of what the competition is providing, whether American or otherwise, and it makes sense for countries to purchase its technology in order to help them modernize their telecommunications infrastructure in preparation for the global 5G revolution.

Speaking at China’s second Belt and Road conference in Beijing featuring 37 heads of state, Russia President Vladimir Putin unveiled the intention to unite Russia’s Northern Sea Route with China’s Maritime Silk Road. This announcement should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to the close strategic friendship between both countries since the 2015 announcement of an alliance between the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union and Belt and Road Initiative. This extension of the Maritime Silk Road represents a powerful force to transform the last unexplored frontier on the Earth, converting the Arctic from a geopolitical zone of conflict towards a new paradigm of mutual cooperation and development.

There are many indications that the United States and China are creeping towards a potential conflict in the South China Sea. When the motivations behind this war become clear the stakes become that much more serious.

While the world is drumming up a potential maritime showdown between the US and Iran (yet again), Western media is conveniently ignoring a potential looming conflict in the South China Sea, one that has been building up for years.

Former Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell in the George W. Bush administration, warns in a new The Real News interview with host Sharmini Peries that the United States government is driving down a “highway to war” with China — a war for which Wilkerson sees no sound justification.

The drive toward war is not undertaken in response to a real threat posed by China to the people of America. Instead, argues Wilkerson, the US government is moving toward war for reasons related to money for both the military and the broader military-industrial complex, as well to advance President Donald Trump’s domestic political goals.

The likelihood of a U.S. war with Iran is increasing, despite alternately isolationist and provocative messages coming from Trump administration officials.

The U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln is now sitting off the coast of Iran, and the U.S. has asked its non-emergency personnel to leave nearby Iraq. Meanwhile, there is a debate about images of what the New York Times described as “missiles on small boats in the Persian Gulf that were put on board by Iranian paramilitary forces.” Whether those missiles photographed were offensive or defensive is important in determining whether the U.S. is misrepresenting Iran’s actions as threatening.

A CHINESE defence firm has unveiled a terrifying new battle truck which can unleash a swarm of killer drones behind enemy lines.

The armoured war machine - based on a Russian Tigr vehicle - can direct the drones so they simultaneously converge on targets and detonate their explosive payloads.

In an interview with the German daily Zueddeutche Zeitung ahead of the European elections Chancellor Angela Merkel has urged Europe to unite and stand up to the US, Russia, and China. Amid the ongoing tussle with Washington over higher import tariffs and the US pulling out of the Iran deal, one of Europe’s most powerful politicians stated that “the old certainties of the postwar order no longer apply” expressing confidence that “Europe needs to reposition itself in a changed world”.

GERMAN Chancellor Angela Merkel has provocatively listed the USA under President Trump along with China and Russia as countries that Europe needs to unite to contain.

Germany, France and the Netherlands have said they will not block Huawei from participating in the expansion of national 5G networks. The US fears that China could use Huawei equipment for spying.

U.S. policy through the Bush and Obama administrations was to soft-pedal questionable Chinese trade practices, pirating technology and theft of intellectual property in return for cheap manufactured goods and China’s willingness to finance trillions of dollars of U.S. government debt.

Now Trump has changed the rules of the game. He’s said lost jobs in the U.S. are not worth the cheap goods and cheap financing. He bet that China had no alternative but to keep producing those goods and keep buying our debt, even if the U.S. imposes tariffs to help create manufacturing jobs here.

President Trump and President Xi had been on a collision course involving issues of trade, tariffs, and currency manipulation, which are coming to a head.

With Trump shutting down Huawei and China's entire telecom industry, it was only logical that China would at least try to retaliate, which it has done by formally breaching the US embargo on Iran oil exports. According to ship tracking data on Refinitiv Eikon (i.e. the old Reuters terminal), a tanker carrying Iranian fuel oil in violation of U.S. sanctions has unloaded the cargo into storage tanks near the Chinese city of Zhoushan.

A representative of the oil storage terminal confirmed that the tanker, Marshal Z, discharged nearly 130,000 tonnes of Iranian fuel oil; that marked the end of an odyssey for the cargo that began four months ago.

As Reuters reported on March 20, some Iranian fuel oil had managed to evade the United States’ sanctions on petroleum exports "by using ship-to-ship transfers involving four different ships, including the Marshal Z, and by using forged documents that masked the cargoes as originating from Iraq."

Having been well-managed all week, amid various headlines (and extreme hopium in US equities), something just snapped in the Chinese yuan...

As we just detailed, from Deutsche Bank, who worry that USD/CNY will break through 7...

Asia is the region we expect to suffer most from the renewed global headwinds. We argue that policymakers in China are now going to be more accepting of USD/CNY appreciation through 7: years of regulatory measures should make outflows more manageable, easier monetary policy will add upside pressure and a weakening FX is the natural means of offsetting tariffs.

The scare mongering about an attack on Iran continues. Bolton must be laughing his ass off how easy he can play the issue based on nothing. He simply counters any debunking of the alleged 'thread from Iran' by upping the ante. Yesterday a British general denied that any such threat exists in the area of his responsibility:

“No – there’s been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria,” Maj. Gen. Christopher Ghika, deputy commander of Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR), the coalition responsible for counter-terrorist operations against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, said in a video briefing, according to the Guardian.

Today Bolton countered that by again raising the noise level around the imaginary threat:

The U.S. Embassy in Iraq says the State Department has ordered all non-essential, non-emergency government staff to leave the country right away amid escalating tensions with Iran.

There is “no chance” President Donald Trump will back down in the U.S. trade war with China, former Trump advisor Steve Bannon told CNBC on Wednesday.

“China has been running an economic war against the industrial democracies for now 20 years,” said the hardline ex-White House chief strategist, who helped craft Trump’s nationalist message.

While market mood has shifted diametrically from yesterday, with stocks sharply higher on Tuesday following what has widely been interpreted as conciliatory comments from both president Trump and various members of China's ruling elite, one would be hard pressed to find any de-escalation amid the Chinese press commentaries written in the aftermath of the latest escalation in trade war between the US and China.

In a series of editorials and op-ed articles published Monday and Tuesday, Chinese state media slammed what it labeled the Trump administration's "greed and arrogance", called for a "people's war" targeting the US "with precision" as China begins a "fight for a new world."

"The most important thing is that in the China-US trade war, the US side fights for greed and arrogance ... and morale will break at any point. The Chinese side is fighting back to protect its legitimate interests," the nationalist, state-owned Global Times tabloid wrote .

Between Trump tweets and Chinese whispers via state-controlled media, it can be difficult to pinpoint precisely where things stand in the ongoing battle between the world’s two economic superpowers. Saxo's Christopher Dembik says the CNYUSD rate is the best proxy we have. Here’s why.

The fallout from the collapse of the trade deal with China has created some unlikely bedfellows among those who have publicly backed President Trump's decision to push for the "great" trade deal that he promised - or walk away.

That dynamic was on full display Wednesday morning when Steve Bannon appeared on CNBC to discuss the importance of Trump's trade fight, and guest host Tom Friedman - yes, that Tom Friedman - said he agreed with the entirety of Bannon's position.

Even Chuck Schumer has urged Trump not to capitulate and to make sure the US gets the best deal possible. Mitch McConnell, on the other hand, has stuck to somberly reminding the world that a trade war would produce 'no winners'.

The ‘play of the day’ above comes against a backdrop of markets trying to accentuate the positive in the latest US-China trade war deterioration. Indeed, Moody’s has declared a trade deal will still be done and a Bloomberg survey of US economists shows around two thirds think a deal will be signed by year-end, a fifth by 2020, and only 13% don’t see a deal for at least five years. Field Marshall, please take these men and women out and have them shot, there’s a good chap.

Donald Trump predicted Tuesday that the U.S. will notch a trade victory in what he described as 'a little squabble with China.'

Speaking to reporters as he left the White House, the president grinned as he asked: 'You want to know something? You want to know something? We always win.'

And Trump warned that he might stack even more tariffs on a growing pile of anti-China duties in order to put additional pressure on Beijing.

'We're looking at it very strongly,' Trump said.

'This has never happened to China before,' he said of the already painful tariff regime that shows no sign of letting up.

Wherever I look at US policy, foreign or domestic, I see only insanity, ignorance, and incompetence.

Take the issue of tariffs, which is Trump’s mistaken approach to bringing the jobs back home. The tariff “solution” overlooks that offshored US production counts as imports when US firms bring their goods into the US to be marketed.

Chinese authorities recently confirmed that the fall armyworm has invaded 11 of China’s 31 provinces, destroying corn and other staple crops. They estimated on May 9 that the pest will expand to Hebei Province, Beijing, and all other regions of China by this summer.

The fall armyworm (FAW) is native to the Americas, and in its larval stage, can eat through and cause damage to crops such as corn, rice, wheat, sorghum, barley, sugarcane, cotton, soybeans, and peanuts.

There is currently no large-scale solution to get rid of the pest.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) published a foreign agriculture report on April 30 explaining that this crop-eating pest was first detected in China in late January, entering from nearby Burma. It does not have natural predators in China.

If China cannot stop the spread of the FAW, it may destroy this year’s harvests and threaten China’s food security.

The truce in the U.S.-China trade war is in tatters.

China said on May 13 that it will impose new tariffs on a range of American goods in retaliation for President Donald Trump’s decision to raise duties on US$200 billion in Chinese imports.

Although trade talks may continue, for now the trade war that Trump began in January 2018 is back on, which will mean more economic pain for companies and consumers in both the U.S. and China.

As an economist who focuses on international trade, I believe there are three reasons the conflict could continue for a long time.

The be-Muellered, bothered, and bewildered American public may find US-China trade talks about as interesting as a rain delay in an Orioles-Chisox game, but the Friday collapse of negotiations may be marked by historians as the day that the global economy died. The Big Box blue-light-special orgy of bargain shopping ran about thirty years, with China exuberantly pumping out cheap consumer goods to feed the US beast-of-Mammon. Americans happily payed for it all with IOUs based on long daisy chains of previous IOUs. Tom Friedman of The New York Times said it would last forever. Alas….

Today’s the first day in a long time financial markets appear willing to at least consider the reality of the geopolitical situation on the ground for what it is, as opposed to what most people would like it to be. As I’ve noted for months, the “trade war” is just one battle in a much larger, increasingly unstable struggle between the U.S. and China for global power and leverage to shape the next paradigm of world history.

As his limo carried him to work at the White House Monday, Larry Kudlow could not have been pleased with the headline in The Washington Post: "Kudlow Contradicts Trump on Tariffs."

The story began: "National Economic Council Director Lawrence Kudlow acknowledged Sunday that American consumers end up paying for the administration's tariffs on Chinese imports, contradicting President Trump's repeated inaccurate claim that the Chinese foot the bill."

President Donald Trump has said he will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin at next month’s G20 summit in Osaka, Japan.

Trump announced the pair of meetings to reporters in the Oval office on Monday afternoon.

“I’ll be meeting with him directly, President Xi. Yes, I will be meeting with President Putin also,” he said.

Earlier that morning, Russian newspaper Kommersant reported that Washington had requested a meeting with Putin, and was awaiting the Kremlin’s response.

A Kremlin spokesman responded to Trump’s statement on Monday by saying no preparations were underway for such a meeting.

Despite a flurry of meandering hot-then-cold trade war tweets from President Trump, US futures have been powering higher all morning. But then along came Axios to pour cold water all over the growing trade-deal optimism after the stock market's worst one-day selloff since January.

According to Axios, senior administration officials told senior White House reporter Jonathan Swan that a trade deal with China "isn't close" and that the US "could be in for a long trade war."

Swans' sources said the differences between the two sides "are so profound taut, based on his read of the situation, he can't see the fight getting resolved before the end of the year."

That's a much longer timeline than the three-four weeks Trump touted Monday night, who touted the possibility that the a meeting with President Xi at the G-20 in Japan next month could yield an agreement.

Soybean futures fell 25% in 50 weeks since the inception of President Trump's trade war early last summer.

CBOT Soybeans futures plunged to their lowest level in a decade as China on Monday said it would raise tariffs on $60 billion in US goods in retaliation for Trump's decision on Friday to raise duties on $200 billion in Chinese products to 25% from 10%. The deepening trade war has pushed American farmers onto the verge of disaster.

The U.S. prepared to hit China with new tariffs even as President Donald Trump said he’ll meet his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, at next month’s G-20 summit, an encounter that could prove pivotal in a deepening clash over trade.

The U.S. Trade Representative’s office Monday released a list of about $300 billion worth of Chinese goods including children’s clothing, toys, mobile phones and laptops that Trump has threatened to hit with a 25% tariff.

A tariff may be described as a sales or consumption tax the consumer pays, but tariffs are also a discretionary and an optional tax.

If you choose not to purchase Chinese goods and instead buy comparable goods made in other nations or the USA, then you do not pay the tariff.

China loses the sale. This is why Beijing, which runs $350 billion to $400 billion in annual trade surpluses at our expense is howling loudest. Should Donald Trump impose that 25% tariff on all $500 billion in Chinese exports to the USA, it would cripple China’s economy. Factories seeking assured access to the U.S. market would flee in panic from the Middle Kingdom.

President Donald Trump will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin when world leaders gather in Japan next month for the annual G-20 conclave, the president said Monday.

Trump's announcement comes amid an escalating trade war with China that has roiled markets as both the U.S. and Beijing have upped tariffs on each other's products. After trade talks fell apart last week, Trump raised tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods.

"I'll meet with them directly," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

Trump was widely criticized by members of his own party for his last formal meeting with Putin last year, in which the president contradicted his own intelligence officials by saying he saw no reason to believe Russia tried to influence the 2016 election. The president later sought to walk the comment back, saying he meant to say he saw no reason why they wouldn't have attempted to meddle in the election.

The escalated tariffs don't hit agricultural products directly, since most were already facing a 25% tariff imposed by China last year. But the news still sent commodity prices plummeting.

"The President of the United States owes farmers like myself some type of plan of action," John Wesley Boyd Jr., a soybean farmer in Baskerville, Virginia, told CNN's Brianna Keilar on Monday.

"Farmers were his base. They helped elect this president ... and now he's turning his back on America's farmers when we need him the most," he added.

Goldman Sachs said the cost of tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump last year against Chinese goods has fallen “entirely” on American businesses and households, with a greater impact on consumer prices than previously expected.

The bank said in a note that consumer prices are higher partly because Chinese exporters have not lowered their prices to better compete in the US market.

National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow admitted on Sunday that American importers and consumers would have to pay the tariffs on Chinese imports, completely contradicting President Trump's claims that China pays the duties.

On Fox News Sunday, two days after the US-China trade deal fell apart, anchor and political commentator Chris Wallace pressed Kudlow: "It's not China that pays the tariffs, it's the American importers, the American companies that pay what, is in fact, a tax increase."

After vowing over the weekend to "never surrender to external pressure", Beijing has defied President Trump's demands that it not resort to retaliatory tariffs and announced plans to slap new levies on $60 billion in US goods.

Trade negotiations between the US and China have ended without any deal, leading to President Trump further escalating the bilateral trade war. He announced substantial increases in US tariffs, to 25%, on $200 billion in Chinese imports.

In a series of Tweets cheering his own moves, Trump suggested that the sanctions might remain in place not only during future negotiations, but might never be eased at all. Trump claimed his relationship with China’s President Xi remains strong and talks will continue.

If they’re not careful, the U.S. and other developed nations could drive potential allies into Beijing’s arms.

The Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom, owned by top Trump donor Sheldon Adelson, has published in Hebrew a leaked draft of the Trump administration’s “Deal of the Century” for the Israel-Palestine conflict. The draft was given to the newspaper by an official from Israel’s Foreign Ministry, which is currently headed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The plan, which has been drafted by President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, is expected to be released this June after the conclusion of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, according to Mondoweiss.

As China and Russia modernize their militaries and restructure their forces, the U.S. military is wary that its traditional advantages may be negated in a potential war with either, or both, powers.

In the face of a rising China and resurgent Russia, some pundits point to the U.S. military’s surplus of combat experience and large-scale logistical expertise in massing forces as an overwhelming advantage.

But that may not actually help that much against a peer adversary capable of launching cyber attacks the minute mobilization orders are cut, according to retired Army Gen. Jack Keane, a former vice chief of staff for the U.S. Army.