West

The big winner of the Hormuz blockade is the country that the West has tried to suffocate for years: Russia

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The script was written and the West was already celebrating the definitive economic strangulation of Russia. However, geopolitics has a bad habit of blowing up office plans. Today, the world is witnessing a historical paradox: the United States has just opened the back door to Vladimir Putin’s oil to try to stop a global energy collapse. The war between the United States and Israel against Iran has set the markets on fire, pushing up barrel prices above 100 dollars. Faced with the abyss of an unprecedented crisis, diplomacy has had to surrender to the stubborn reality of infrastructure. The “digital fog” and an emergency rescue. To understand the magnitude of the paralysis you have to look at the maritime traffic monitors. As detailed Bloombergthe Strait of Hormuz has become a “digital fog.” The few ships that dare to sail do so by turning off their location transponders (AIS) and suffering constant interference and GPS spoofing (spoofing) fruit of electronic warfare. In this scenario of physical suffocation, India was on the brink of collapse. The Asian giant is heavily dependent on imports from the Middle East, and the closure of Hormuz has cut off its rennet supplies. Reuters reported last week that state refineries like MRPL (Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd.) have been forced to close entire processing units due to the simple and simple shortage of crude oil. The unexpected lifesaver? In a turn of events, the US administration has had to swallow its own sanctions. As confirmed The Moscow Times and it is observed in the official OFAC document (the Treasury Department’s General License 133), the United States has issued a temporary 30-day waiver, valid until April 4, 2026, allowing Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil loaded on vessels by March 5. Paradoxically, how to explain BloombergIndia had drastically reduced its purchases from Moscow at the beginning of the year after facing the threat of punitive 50% tariffs from Trump himself. Now, cornered by the crisis, dozens of Russian oil tankers that were wandering aimlessly are changing their coordinates on the high seas to come to the rescue of Indian ports. The political story versus the reality of the market. Officially, Washington tries to minimize the impact of this capitulation. In statements collected by The Kyiv Independentthe US Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, assured that “there is no change in policy towards Russia” and that the exemption is only a “pragmatic decision.” For his part, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended that this measure “will not provide significant financial benefits to the Russian government” as it is applied only to crude oil stranded at sea. But the reality of the markets tells a very different story. According to CNBCRussian crude oil of the Ural variety has gone from being sold with humiliating discounts of between 10 and 20 dollars, to being traded at a historical premium of between 2 and 4 dollars above the barrel of Brent in its deliveries to India. This injection of capital to Moscow has unleashed an internal political storm. The Democrats They have demanded Trump to immediately reverse the exemption, accusing him of strengthening an adversary. From the humanitarian field, the NGO Global Witness, cited by Guardian, has been blunt, accusing the White House of “feeding Putin’s war machine” to cover up a price crisis that the United States itself has unleashed. Putin rubs his hands. To understand the magnitude of the Russian victory, you have to look at where they were just a month ago. Bloomberg, in your market analysishighlights that Russian exports were under unprecedented pressure. The Kremlin had nearly 140 million barrels stuck in the sea (65% more than usual), and was forced into a suicidal price war against Iran to try to place its surpluses in the limited Chinese refineries. Overnight, the Hormuz blockade removed all of its Middle Eastern competition from the equation. The crisis has been a gift from heaven. From Moscow they don’t even hide. How to collect CNBCKremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov publicly boasted to the press: “We are seeing a significant increase in demand for Russian energy resources in connection with the war in Iran,” reminding the world that Russia “remains a reliable supplier.” Hurt pride and a sea of ​​uncertainty. As Russian ships sail south, the battle of public perception rages in India. Although in the BBC estimates that the country It barely has crude oil reserves for about 25 days, the Indian government is trying to project absolute calm. As reported Mashable Indiaauthorities insist that “there is no shortage in the world.” However, on social networks the narrative is one of deep sovereignist indignation. Politicians like Rajiv Shukla cried out on social network X against American paternalism: “Who is the United States to dictate to us that we can only buy oil from Russia for a month?” Added to this is the harsh reality that there are no easy alternatives. Although Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates They have pipelines to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, its maximum capacity barely covers a fraction of the 20 million barrels per day that the world has just lost. The laws of thermodynamics do not understand sanctions. This whole scenario returns us to a conclusion that We already analyzed in the recent crisis of the Druzhba pipeline in Europe. The West has spent years writing laws, imposing price caps and signing embargoes on elegant offices to isolate Russia. But geopolitics always ends up submitting to mathematics and thermodynamics. While China watches the crisis calmly, with its reserves filled to the brim after years of silent strategic purchases, the European Union and the United States have had to swallow their own sanctions in record time to avoid collapse. The energy embargo on Russia has proven to be a gigantic house of cards; It only took someone to cut off the passage through the Strait of Hormuz for everything to collapse. Image | Coded and kremlin.ru Xataka | The EU has a perfect plan to suffocate Russia. The … Read more

While the West debates what to do with AI in schools, in China there are already schools turning it into a child tutor

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Anyone who has been a child or a parent knows the scene: the flexo light on, an incomprehensible math problem on the table, tears falling from the frustration of not understanding a lesson or not being able to pronounce a foreign language, and a parent losing patience after explaining the same thing for the fifth time. In China they have found a way to turn it around, parents frustrated and exhausted by their workdays are delegating the academic supervision of their children to artificial intelligence. While in different countries there is a strong debate and fear about whether AI erodes critical thinking of students, the opposite is true in China: a 2025 survey led by KPMG revealed that more than 90% of the Chinese are optimistic about this technology. The phenomenon came to light and sparked debate on social media when a mother in Shandong province discovered her husband playing on his mobile phone while letting her Kimi AIa chatbot capable of processing two million characters, did his son’s homework. But this father is not an isolated case. Many adults are using AI not just to teach, but to do the dreaded “parenting chores.” Mr. Zhang, for example, admitted to using the chatbot Doubao to generate summaries of the Aesop’s Fables and print step-by-step images for your third grader’s craft projects. The market has responded with an avalanche of gadgets. Zheng Wenqi, a working mother, bought for about 375 dollars the “Native Language Star”, a device composed of a mask that muffles your voice in Chinese and a speaker that translates it into English to converse with your children. Others, like university professor Wu Ling, They invested $1,170 in AlphaDoga robot dog powered by the DeepSeek model that practices English, dances and keeps his only son company. There are even parents who have gone one step further by becoming creators. This is the case of Yin Xingyu, a mother from Shenzhen who does not know how to program, but who uses the technique of vibecoding with DeepSeek to create interactive English word games for her 6-year-old daughter, as well as generate personalized comics using the Nano Banana Pro imaging model. For the purist parents, devices have emerged such as the “Youdao AI Q&A Pen”, a smart pen designed from “asceticism”: it has no browser or games, it only guides the child step by step in their mathematical reasoning without giving them the direct answer. A multi-million dollar business in a gray area All this enthusiasm has fueled a runaway educational technology market valued at more than $43 billion. Outsourcing has left the homes to take to the streets and, until July 2024, The opening of about 50,000 was estimated “AI study rooms” across the country. In these establishments, children sit in cubicles in front of standardized tablets; They cannot leave until the indicators on the screen turn from red (errors) to green (correct answers). As detailed on CCTVthe “teachers” in these rooms do not teach, they are prohibited from explaining the subject and they act as mere supervisors and commissioned salespeople. To cope with the monotony of 6 to 8 hours answering questions, some children learn to play Go or Gomoku secretly on the same machines, often with the supervisors’ blind eye. However, former employees and parents report that in many of these centers, “artificial intelligence” is just a marketing façade to charge more, and children simply consume pre-recorded lessons on basic tablets. Behind these study rooms hides a business survival tactic. Many of these centers operate in a gray zone to avoid the strict “double reduction” policy. imposed by the government in 2021which banned for-profit tutoring to relieve financial and academic pressure on families. By arguing that “it is AI that teaches and not a human,” these companies dodge education regulators, registering under names of “cultural media” and avoiding words like “enrollment” or “classes.” Franchises are strategically expanding into peri-urban areas and small towns, where rents are low and parents are equally willing to pay for a place to leave their children. This mass adoption is no accident; is backed by a clear state directive. The Chinese government is promoting the integration of AI in education as part of a national strategy to accelerate its technological progress against global competitors such as the United States. The regulations are already on the table. Starting with the fall 2025 semester, Beijing will require a minimum of eight hours per year of AI education in all primary and secondary schools. The transition has been rapid and planned, with higher education leading the way: 99% of university students and teachers in China already use generative tools, and elite universities such as Zhejiang or Fudan have made AI courses mandatory and transversal subjects. Science supports this dive. An empirical study conducted with high school students in H city showed that the duration of daily use of AI tools significantly and positively influences students’ AI knowledge and algorithmic thinking. That is, constant exposure is already shaping your cognitive and technological abilities. The debate is served The families’ opinions are drastically divided. For many, AI democratizes education. Mothers like Li Linyun celebrate that the Doubao chatbot be a “24-hour, knowledgeable and extremely patient teacher,” which has saved him hundreds of dollars on human tutors and improved his relationship with his daughter. On the other hand, technological dependence terrifies educators and a faction of parents, who criticize that children are becoming lazy and losing the ability to think independently. In study halls, proctors notice that students, desperate to turn the screen green, resort to tactical memorization: repeatedly choosing incorrect answers by discard until the system approves them, without actually learning the concept. Added to this is the “AI illusion” and its hallucinations. Su Xiao, mother of a ninth grader, discovered that the general models They could invent historical data with complete confidence and fluency, or omit crucial data in mathematical problems, offering logically impeccable but erroneous results. This forced her to become a “cyber quality inspector,” … Read more

Huawei has had half the West against it for six years. Your answer is the Mate 80 Pro

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The market had been warning for some time: Huawei was going to return. Google’s veto United States ostracized to a Chinese company that was taken as a scapegoat at the dawn of the current trade war. What was initially a blow has ended in a big comeback leading he domestic market with more than 18% share. and he Huawei Mate 80 Pro It is another example that the brand does not want us to forget about its mobile phones outside of China. There are a couple of very important asterisks. In short. We told it a few days ago: Huawei’s best feature has been neither its technological innovation nor its investment to give wings to the Chinese foundry. His best quality has been resilience. That translates to 880 billion yuan (about $127 billion). registered in 2025. Put in context, it is the company’s second best year after the glorious 2020 in which it hugged Samsung and Apple and in which it achieved 891,000 million yuan (129,000 million dollars). And it has achieved this by looking at the local market, building an ecosystem under the name of HarmonyOS (something that is very popular in China, and Xiaomi is an example of this) and managing to be in all parts of the business. Huawei was no longer just consumer technology: it was home automation and even cars. The Western blow pushed not the reinvention of a company that was already on that path, but rather to seek that goal more ardently. And it seems that they are moving, again, outside their borders. Mate 80 Pro. In Spain we have continued receiving Huawei devices. For example, smart watches are some of the best you can buy – we just published our review of the Huawei Watch GT Runner 2-, in headphones they have models as interesting as the FreeClip 2 and we have continued receiving tablets and some mobile phones like the Huawei Pure 80 or the Mate X7a foldable. However, not all of them arrived and the Mate 80 Pro, the company’s spearhead, seemed trapped in China. In a recent presentation that we were able to attend in Madrid, Huawei has shown a slide in which it confirms the price in euros of the Huawei Mate 80 Pro, a mobile phone with a 6.75-inch OLED screen, with 8,000 nits of brightnesswith its own Kirin 9030 processor and a triplet of cameras made up of: 50 Mpx main with variable aperture from f/1.4 to f/4.0. 40 Mpx wide angle. 48 Mpx 4x telephoto with an impressive f/2.1 aperture. They have not talked about markets, yes. No concessions. The price? 1,299 euros that are a declaration of intentions. In the analysis of the Huawei Mate X7 we have seen that the performance of that chip is more similar to that of a mid-range than that of a TOP range. It is commendable that they have managed to develop it without being able to access the resources of the West – of ASMLmainly-, but it is not a processor for a 1,300 euro mobile. It also doesn’t have 5G at this point. However, in the rest of the sections in which they can innovate and grow as they did before the veto, they are doing so. 100 W charging, cameras that promise a lot, good storage speed and screens to match. It’s a “here we are, we continue making high-end mobile phones”, a declaration of intent and a kind of “because I can”. The reality: it’s complicated. However, there is no denying the elephant in the room: the Huawei Mate 80 Pro, no matter how good it looks, still cannot natively access Google mobile services. It is no longer not being able to install your apps, but others that depend on those GMS They won’t work on the phone. It’s a huge concession for many users, but it may not sound so bad to others. We are in a time in which many Europeans are beginning to resonate with the idea of ​​abandoning American technology and softwareand that’s where Google comes in. In hardware there are proposals such as Fairphone 6 and every time more alternatives appear of software so as not to have to depend on those American programs. Who had… retained? As I say, it is undeniable that Huawei’s position by sneaking a mobile phone for 1,300 euros with so many concessions is complex and optimistic, but it is still an interesting approach: they are gaining confidence thanks to rising like foam in the local market and they know that they have good foundations and, at least, a name that continues to sound good in the heads of many who have good memories of beasts like the P30 Pro. At the moment, we don’t know where this Mate 80 Pro will end up being released. Perhaps that announcement of the price of 1,299 euros is putting its foot in to test the temperature of the water, but although they know that they are competing at a disadvantage, a mobile phone of that price is a better thermometer of how the European market vibrates than a 2,100 euro foldable like the X7. In Xataka | Chinese mobile phones conquered the market by dividing into a thousand different brands. Now they are doing just the opposite.

We have been reading philosophers from the West and Asia for centuries in search of the secret of happiness. Turns out the Aztecs had it

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Each course Lynn Sebastian Purcell, philosophy professor, repeat the same experiment. After reviewing the passage from the ‘Odyssey’ in which Ulysses renounces an eternal life of pleasures with the nymph Calypso to search for his wife and son, the teacher presents a dilemma to his students: How many would do the same as the king of Ithaca? “How many of you would reject immortality and a pleasant existence on the condition that you never see your family and loved ones again?” defiant spear Purcell to the classroom. The answer is always the same: nobody. The ‘Odyssey’ is an epic poem that connects with the Greco-Latin tradition, but in reality that particular passage about Ulysses summarizes well the vital philosophy of a civilization that lived thousands of kilometers from the Ionian Sea: the aztec. Goal: happiness. I don’t know exactly who you are, but it’s quite likely that you, me and the more than 8 billion Of people who share this world, we agree that it is desirable to have a happy life. Logical, right? Happiness is one of those golden nuggets that philosophy has been searching for for centuries. I did it in times of Epicurus and he does it in our days. In fact one of the most famous treatises of Bertrand Russella famous philosopher of the 20th century, is titled with a phrase that is quite a proclamation: “The conquest of happiness”. The lesson of Ulysses. However, it is one thing to aspire to happiness and another to decide how to achieve it or even what exactly happiness is. This is where the passage from the ‘Odyssey’ of the nymph Calypso. If it’s just about seeking happiness, Ulysses already had it, right? If we agree that the goal is to be happy (just like that), isn’t it a good idea to spend an eternal life, free of illness and deprivation, living with a goddess on a distant paradise island? Why does Ulysses decide to return to the sea… and his hardships? “Let it be worth it”. Ulysses’ attitude (like that of Purcell’s students) connects fully with a philosophical ethic that for decades has gone unnoticed in the West: that of the pre-Columbian Aztecs. For them, remember the teacherwhat humanity really seeks is not so much a life full of happiness and pleasures as “an existence that is worthwhile.” That’s the goal. The texts that are preserved and tell us about how the Aztecs saw the world show that for them humanity faced “an existential problem,” In Purcell’s words: a brief, fickle existence, during which it is impossible to control everything just as it is not to skate in a quagmire. “Slippery is the land”. “What they wanted to say is that, despite our best intentions, our life is prone to error, failure in our objectives and, therefore, to ‘fall’, as if we were going to end up in the mud. Furthermore, this earth is a place where joy comes mixed with pain and setbacks,” explains the professor in an article published by the Philosophy Association (APA). In it he remembers that this entire conception of the world can be summarized in a popular saying: “Slippery, slick is the earth”“slippery, slippery is the earth.” Wait, Aztec philosophy? Exact. It has not been easy to survive and in the West we may not have paid enough attention to it, but that does not mean that the pre-Columbian Aztecs created a valuable philosophical corpus, with different currents and treatises. “We have many volumes of his texts recorded in his native language, Nahuatl,” claims Purcell at the BBC. “While few of the pre-colonial hieroglyphic-type books survived the Spanish burnings, our main sources of knowledge derive from the records made by Catholic priests until the early 17th century.” A different vision. Thanks to them we preserve codices with sayings, exhortations, poems, dialogues… different manifestations that essentially tell us about the same thing: how the Aztecs who lived between the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th approached existence. Good example is the ‘Florentine Codex’a bilingual work by friar Bernardino de Sahagún on pre-Columbian knowledge. His legacy is not only interesting because of what he tells us, it is also interesting, Purcell claimsbecause it opens our eyes to “another pre-modern culture with an ethics of virtues”, one different from the legacy of Aristotle or even Confucius. “Place of joy with fatigue”. At this point the question is obvious… If the Aztecs believed that what humans really want are lives “worthwhile”, even more than joyful and pleasant existences, how to achieve it? How to face the passage through this world, “a place of joy with fatigue and pain”, as an Aztec passage says? The key is in a recipe with four ingredients, four “levels” that allow us to enjoy a rooted life, “neltiliztli”. Continuing with the metaphor of existence as a swampy terrain, full of mud, the idea is to take root to gain a foothold. And how to achieve it? To begin by ‘rooting’ in one’s own body. As Purcell explains, the figurines and descriptions we preserve of the Aztecs show us that they liked to exercise their bodies. In fact, they had a regimen of activities aimed at stretching and strengthening the body that is partly reminiscent of yoga. Rooted in the body, it had to be done at another level: the “psyche”, seeking a balance between the heart and the head, desires and judgment. “Only in the middle can you go, only in the middle can you live”, advises one of his works. Social creatures… and of the earth. In an article Published years ago in Aeon, the scholar of Latin American philosophy points out two more levels at which those who want to achieve a rooted life must work, “neltiliztli”, a term that is also used as “truth” and “goodness.” The first level is “rootedness in the community.” We live surrounded by people, in societies in which we play a role that connects us with others and activates the … Read more

depends on the West more than it admits

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China has managed to become the giant we know today: controls the processing of critical minerals, leads battery manufacturing and builds 74% of renewable energy of the planet. However, behind this imposing façade of self-sufficiency, the Asian giant hides an Achilles heel that its propaganda tries to silence: a critical dependence on the technology, machinery and intellectual property of the West it is trying to displace. The paradox of Chinese dominance. For decades, the West operated under a mirage. As analyst Gillian Tett explains in it Financial TimesWestern elites assumed that making things was low-margin “dirty work” that could be outsourced. While the world became obsessed with software and code, China was quietly building the physical infrastructure of the 21st century. Today, Beijing owns what investor Craig Tindale called “processing sovereignty”: controls the 98% of galliumhe 90% of rare earths and the 95% polysilicon. But this domain is incomplete and vulnerable. The recent failure of the Chinese company Defu Technology in his attempt to acquire the Luxembourg-based Circuit Foil for $204 million—blocked by the Luxembourg government—has shown that China is not self-sufficient in high-precision components. Despite its trade balance reaching a record surplus, Beijing was forced to import $1.3 billion worth of advanced copper foil last year alone, a discrete but vital input so its next-generation electric vehicles can even start. The “brain” is still foreign. The dependency is deeper than it seems. A report from Tsinghua University reveals devastating data: The Chinese wind industry still imports 60% of its rotor bearings, 70% of the transistor modules for the electrical grid and, most surprisingly, 100% of the logic modules that control the turbines in real time. Aware of this “bottleneck,” President Xi Jinping has personally pressured its manufacturers to “master key technologies.” The effort is bearing fruit—state media They report that the national production of bearings rose to 60% in record time—but the gap in high-end electronics continues to be the great handbrake. Even in cutting-edge sectors like green hydrogen, where Beijing has massive plans, a study published in International Journal of Hydrogen Energy underlines that Chinese industry is struggling to abandon its dependence on foreign-made proton exchange membranes. Beijing has the factories, but the West still has the “brains” and the fine chemistry that makes the machines work. From the “Malacca Dilemma” to resource nationalism. To understand Xi Jinping’s movement of pieces, you have to go back to 2003. Then, leader Hu Jintao coined the “Malacca Dilemma”: the fear that a hostile power would block the strait through which almost all the oil consumed by China passes. The commitment to clean energy was not only a climate issue, but a national security strategy to break that chain. However, in trying to escape dependence on oil, China has fallen into the trap of geology. Although it is the largest refiner in the world, it is poor in its own deposits of lithium, cobalt or nickel. As you have warned an extensive report on Financial TimesIndonesia or the Democratic Republic of the Congo are tightening their access rules, forcing Beijing to increase its strategic reserves amid fears that third-country resource nationalism will disrupt its supply chain. The awakening of a “disarmed” West. In Washington and Brussels they have gone from complacency to counteroffensive. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and his G7 counterparts have met recently to create a “floor price” for rare earths, seeking to stifle the competitive advantage of Chinese subsidies. In Europe, the Commissioner for Industry, Stéphane Séjourné, has sent a message that has made boards of directors tremble: through the ReSourceEU program, the EU could legally bind companies to diversify their purchases to prevent Beijing from using permanent magnets as a geopolitical weapon. For its part, Donald Trump’s administration bet on recovering the control of physical matter through Venezuelan and Guyanese crude oil. However, as Gillian Tett warnsthis could be a pyrrhic victory: while the US fights for the fossil fuels of the 20th century, China continues to deploy ultra-high voltage networks to fuel its future race to Artificial Intelligence. The clash of clocks. Rebuilding this sovereignty is not just a matter of capital; It’s a matter of hands. Expert Craig Tindale postulates that the West suffers from a “human bottleneck”: after decades of deindustrialization, engineers who knew how to operate chemical plants and foundries have retired. China, through the prism of long-term planning inherited from Confucian thought, has synchronized its “industrial clock” with the political one, planning in decades what the West measures in financial quarters. The energy transition has ceased to be a humanitarian mission and has become a total battlefield. China dominates scale and execution, but the West still holds the keys to technological innovation and control of capital markets. The greatest risk is that this clash of strategies ends up slowing down the decarbonization of the planet. At the end of the day, the interdependence between China and the West is their greatest common weakness, but also the only guarantee that both sides are forced, sooner or later, to understand each other. Image | freepik Xataka | The gas market becomes unpredictable: we have tanks full and ships on the way, but the price remains an enigma

We have spent 30 years forgetting how things are made. Now China has the keys to the matter and the West is in panic

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For the past three decades, Western democracies have operated under an intellectual mirage. Elites, blinded by a neoclassical bias, assumed that control of intellectual property, financial instruments, and software code constituted the pinnacle of value creation. In this worldview, physical processes—the “dirty work” of mining, refining, and manufacturing—were considered low-margin commodity services that could be outsourced to low-cost jurisdictions without strategic risk. As Gillian Tett explains in his Financial Times columnthis cognitive bias allowed China to dominate global supply chains with little protest. The material deterioration of the West. The essence of the current problem is defined by investor Craig Tindale in his essay “The return of matter”. In it he argues that the West has suffered “strategic disarmament” by dismantling its national productive economy in favor of quarterly financial efficiency. As Tindale details, he fell into the “raw material paradox”: believing that possessing the raw mineral is equivalent to possessing the usable material. While the West possesses vast geological deposits, China has monopolized the “Midstream,” that is, the heavy industrial capacity to refine, smelt and purify these materials into useful forms. Without this capability, a lithium mine in Australia or a copper mine in Arizona are simply quarries for a Chinese smelter; They are not strategic assets for the West if Beijing has the keys to access them. The data is there. The data of the Chinese industrial domain are, as investor Craig Tindale describesoverwhelming and unprecedented in history, consolidating what he calls “processing sovereignty”: Gallium: China controls approximately 98% of global production, a material that is essential for AESA radars, 5G networks and the semiconductors of the future. Rare earths: The Asian giant dominates 90% of chemical separation capacity – the true technical “separation wall” – and more than 90% of the production of NdFeB magnets, vital for electric vehicle engines and defense systems. Graphite: Control more than 90% of the production of graphite anodes, the indispensable component of virtually all lithium-ion batteries. Magnesium and Polysilicon: Your control extends to 90-95% of magnesium casting (key for aluminum alloys) and 95% polysilicon necessary for solar energy. As Tett points outwhile the West became obsessed with software and services, China was quietly building the physical infrastructure that today gives it a massive competitive advantage in the race for artificial intelligence and the energy transition. This physical reality is what has forced the Trump administration to try to redraw the energy map by taking Venezuelan crude oil, desperately seeking to regain control over the “matter.” The electric wall of AI. This physical reality has revealed that the race for Artificial Intelligence It’s not just a question of code or chips. The digital leadership of the West is now encountering the physical limit of cheap energy. Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, and Jensen Huang, director of Nvidia, agree that the biggest current problem is not the excess of chips, but lack of electricity to connect them. On this board, China has gone from being a dependent petrostate to becoming the first “Electrostate” in the world. Beijing now produces 2.5 times more electricity than the US and builds 74% of all current solar and wind projects on the planet. By investing massively in electrification, China is expanding an infrastructure that could give it a definite advantage in the AI ​​race. The Venezuelan trap. Against this backdrop, Donald Trump’s administration has accepted the importance of physical matter, but seems determined to fight with tools from the last century. The taking of Venezuelan crude oil seeks to consolidate the reserves of Venezuela, Guyana and the United States are under US influence, which would represent close to 30% of the world’s oil reserves. according to a JPMorgan report. However, Venezuelan oil alone cannot solve the AI ​​problem. As Gillian Tett warnswhile Washington asks the world to buy 20th century infrastructure (fossil fuels), Beijing offers 21st century infrastructure (renewable energy and high voltage networks). In addition, Venezuelan crude oil is “mortgaged”: The country owes up to $60 billion to China under the oil-for-loans model, and its infrastructure is in ruins. The skills gap and the clash of “clocks.” Rebuilding industrial sovereignty is not just a question of money. The West has closed its heavy industrial capacity for thirty years, causing a “human bottleneck”. Metallurgists and process engineers who know how to adjust an unstable furnace or a chemical separation train are retiring without relief. Tindale further postulates a conflict of time horizons. The “Western Financial Clock,” which requires quarterly profits, has destabilized the “Industrial Clock” (which requires decades of investment) and the “War Clock” (which requires immediate reserves). While China’s clocks are synchronized by the state, the West remains trapped in short-term financial efficiency. Towards a rematerialized sovereignty? The JPMorgan report suggests that the US has won the short-term battle for Venezuelan crude oil. But, as Gillian Tett concludesrisks losing the global strategic war for the energy that will power AI. Tindale’s thesis is blunt: a civilization that financializes everything ends up sacrificing the material base that keeps it independent. If the West does not rebuild its foundries, refineries and factories, it will renounce the material sovereignty that sustains democracy, becoming a simple “quarry” rich in resources but poor in capacity in the face of a rival that already holds the keys to the physical world. Image | freepik Xataka | Venezuela has something much more valuable than oil and the US knows it. The big problem is that he doesn’t know where he is.

China dominates technological industries invented by the West

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iRobot, pioneer of domestic robotics and creator of the Roomba, has gone bankrupt and ends up in the hands of Piceaa Chinese manufacturer. It is not an isolated case but rather the symbol of a devastating trend in which Western companies develop technologies for decades and China ends up appropriating entire industries. iRobot was founded in 1990 by three MIT researchers. It launched the first Roomba in 2002 and sold 50 million units. For two decades it dominated the robot vacuum cleaner market. In 2021 it was worth $3.5 billion. Today it is worth 140 million25 times less. Picea cancels its 264 million debt and keeps everything. Why is it important. It’s not just about vacuum cleaners. Chinese manufacturers – Roborock, Ecovacs, Dreame, Xiaomi – already control almost 80% of the global robot vacuum cleaner market. With Picea purchasing iRobot, that figure is close to 95%. China not only manufactures cheaper: it now owns Western innovation that it previously only copied. The pattern repeats: Volvo has been Chinese since 2010. Motorola too. Segway, the scooter that was going to revolutionize urban mobility, ended up in the hands of Ninebot. Lenovo bought IBM PC. Haier took over GE Appliances. Geely owns Lotus. Western brands survive, but only as shells with Asian engineering inside. Between the lines. Europe blocked Amazon’s purchase of iRobot in 2024 for fear that it would dominate the smart home. The result: the company was not independent, but ended up owned by its own Chinese manufacturer and creditor. European “protection of competition” resulted in iRobot falling into the hands of its foreign rivals. iRobot outsourced its production to Vietnam to avoid Chinese tariffs, but Trump’s 46% tariffs on Vietnam cost it an extra $23 million in 2025. Meanwhile, Picea was simultaneously its manufacturer, its major creditor, and its indirect competitor. It didn’t even take a hostile takeover: just financial patience. He waited for iRobot will drown in debt and collected the remains. The invisible cost of innovation. iRobot invested decades in R&D: military robotics, space robotics, domestic autonomous navigation… That research is expensive, slow and risky. Chinese manufacturers have not had to pay that cost. They just had to wait for the technology to mature, copy what worked, and improve execution. The asymmetry is total. The West imposes antitrust restrictions on itself that slow domestic consolidations while Chinese companies operate with extensive state support, protected access to a domestic market of 1.4 billion consumers and regulatory scrutiny that cannot even be compared. Europe has recently blocked other similar operations, such as that of Adobe and Figma either that of Broadcom and Qualcomm. Yes, but. It is not about approving any acquisition without scrutiny, but about recognizing that blocking the purchase of Amazon has led to an objectively worse result: pioneering American technology that ends up in Chinese property. If you are truly concerned about Chinese companies dominating strategic sectors, this was a blunder with predictable consequences. Western governments constantly talk about technological sovereignty and their willingness not to depend on China. But concrete actions are producing the opposite effect. Ultimately, the only thing the West loses is not its industry, it is ownership of its technological innovation. In Xataka | The largest food chain in the world is Chinese, surpasses McDonald’s and is unknown in Europe: Mixue Featured image | Onur Binay

China is not only eating the West in electric cars or televisions. It also threatens Starbucks

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New York is so damn big that it would be logical that the news of the opening of two coffee shops would pass unnoticed. After all, the city that never sleeps is full of places where one can taste (or pick up) a lattecappuccino, macchiato or any other coffee variation that comes to mind. The opening of the first two Luckin Coffee stores a few months ago in the Big Apple was however sneaked into media such as CNN either The New York Times and has inspired analysis of all kinds out of the country. Logical. After all, in just a few years Luckin Coffee has achieved bend your pulse to Starbucks in China. Now, for his landing in New York, he has chosen a place located barely 60 meters from one of their cafes. What is Luckin Coffee? If its name doesn’t sound familiar to you, don’t worry, it’s more than understandable: Luckin is a coffee shop chain founded in 2017 in China by Jenny Qian and Charles Lu and since then its expansion has focused mainly on the Asian giant. In 2023 he achieved a key milestone by surpassing Starbucks as the largest coffee brand in China and in recent years it has not stopped growing: from close to 16,200 stores that it had that year in China (more than double that of its American rival) has gone on to manage more than 20,000 in several countries. In July the company spoke of 24,097 points of sale spread across mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. During the first quarter of 2025 alone, it launched 1,757. After taking over the Chinese market, a few months ago the company announced his landing in America with two stores in Manhattan and Washington Square Park, an area popular with students. “This is just the beginning. New York, we are here,” warned Luckin in networks. Is it that important? The landing of Luckin Coffee in the US market has generated expectation inside and outside the country. Normal. Your surprise Starbucks in China in 2023 (both in sales and number of stores) had a symbolic value that goes far beyond the numbers. To begin with, because the Asian giant is one of the big markets of the American multinational. Starbucks has also been established in the country for some time: it opened its first establishment in Beijing in 1999, contributing greatly to establish coffee culture in a nation that has traditionally opted for tea. That’s why Luckin’s jump to the US has generated so much interest. How has it succeeded? With a bet well defined. At least until now, Luckin Coffee’s strategy has been based on three pillars. First, a dizzying expansion focused on gaining market share. Second, the user experience. Customers manage their orders directly through an app and in just a few minutes they can collect their orders at the counter, without any human interaction. The mobile application is not only dynamic; It allows the company to retain its customers by using discounts, bonuses and gamification. The third bet is a wide offer and, above all, affordable prices. During its landing in the US, the Chinese chain has decided to launch aggressive discounts that leave its coffees in less than two dollars, considerably below of what Starbucks charges for its drinks in the Big Apple. In fact there is who points that the American multinational’s strategy to stand up to its Chinese rival will be to move in the opposite direction: if Luckin focuses on app orders and low prices, Starbucks has proposed eliminate the premises of their network that only accept orders via app and for pickup due to their low “warmth”. The idea: return to the origin, to the traditional cafeteria experience. Does it only happen with Luckin? No. In fact Luckin is just one of many Chinese tea chains, hot potsdrinks… that are landing in the US to compensate for the changes in the Chinese market. How he slid TNWT in a recent analysis On the subject, there they find an excess of supply and an economy weighed down by the real estate crisis and weakened consumption, which leads them to look to the other side of the Pacific. One of the threats that its US competitors face is that this leap comes with aggressive tariffs. Gaining a foothold in the US market will not be easy. The Luckin case is a clear example. It has just opened its first stores in New York, but in front of it it has almost 17,000 establishments that Starbucks manages in the US. If the Chinese chain has demonstrated something, however, it is its resistance. In fact, it has managed to overcome the serious crisis it experienced in 2020, when an accounting scandal left it on the edge of the abyss. Since then it has not only managed to recover and grow. Now aspire to quote again in the USA. Images | Xataka In Xataka | China has just beaten the United States in the most unexpected fight: that of branded coffee shops

They have published the plans for the future Russian nuclear bomber. And the worst thing for Moscow is that the West now knows how to deactivate it

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The last time Russia’s bombers made the news was to verify a unprecedented assault in the Ukrainian war. It happened with the Spiderweb operation that kyiv carried out in the heart of the Moscow air bases, when a swarm of more than 100 drones hidden in trucks managed to destroy an important part of the Russian fleet of strategic bombers. The truth is that Russia was developing an unprecedented bomber to renew its fleet, although there are now doubts that it could materialize. The fragility of an industry. The international intelligence network InformNapalmin cooperation with the Fenix ​​cyber center, has revealed one of the largest information blows against the Russian military-industrial complex since the start of the war in Ukraine. The data, obtained after infiltrating the internal systems of the Russian company OKBM (key supplier of components for strategic aviation and the space sector), show Russia’s deep dependence on foreign machinery and reveal classified technical information of two programs considered pillars of its new generation aviation: the stealth bomber PAK DA “Poslannik” and the Su-57 fifth-generation fighter. And more. According to InformNapalmthe stolen files were used for months for the benefit of the Ukrainian Defense Forces and allied countries, which amplifies the impact of the leak both at the operational and political levels. Between ambition and sanctions. The PAK DA, designed by Tupolev to replace veterans Tu-95 and Tu-160represents the Russian attempt to create a subsound strategic bomber flying wing with stealth capability, intercontinental autonomy and dual nuclear and conventional capability. Conceived since the early 2000s, the project has suffered chronic delaysbudget problems and a persistent inability to consolidate a national production chain. The leaked documents include coded hydraulic system specifications like 80RSh115responsible for opening the bomb bay hatches of Poslannik-1, and confirm the existence of a classified contract between Tupolev and OKBM which requires absolute confidentiality and allows it to be terminated if state secrecy is violated. Technical documentation with engineering drawings and specifications for the RSh type box used in the PAK DA bomb bay system Extra page. Not only that. Apparently, a additional annex (called Supplementary Agreement No. 7) details the scheduling of the production phases between 2024 and 2027, a calendar that is now more than compromised by the scandal and the deterrent effect of European sanctions. Technological dependence. The filtrationFurthermore, it reveals a structural contradiction: the Kremlin’s discourse on industrial sovereignty contrasts with the reality of a system that cannot sustain its own projects. no western technology. OKBM, an essential part of the gear that produces actuators and transmission systems for the Su-57 and the PAK DA, depends on CNC machinery imported from Taiwan (Hartford HCMC-1100AG and Johnford SL-50 models) and Serbia (Grindex BSD-700U grinding machine). The equipment was purchased through subsidies from the Ministry Russian Ministry of Industry and Commerce, which shows that the State itself finances the evasion of international sanctions. This framework (a mix of obsolete engineering, technological dependence and state bureaucracy) has become a strategic vulnerability that compromises Russia’s ability to sustain complex long-term programs. Supplementary agreement confirming the continuation of the contract of the PAK DA component under the revised technical code 80RSh A failed industrial pattern. The leaked internal emails They also include documentation on RSh-65 systems of hinge and transmission used in the weapons compartments of the Su-57, the fifth generation fighter that Moscow presents as a symbol of its technological autonomy. However, the materials confirm that production remains subject to the same bottlenecks than the PAK DA: lack of critical parts, dependence on foreign suppliers and delays caused by a shortage of precision tools. Despite public investment and the expansion of plants in Kazaninternal audits attribute the delays to the departure of international manufacturers from the Russian market after the invasion of Ukraine. The political coup. After the analysis of the documentsthe European Union officially included OKBM in its 19th sanctions package on October 23, 2025, recognizing its central role in Russian strategic weapons production and restriction evasion operations. This decision, directly motivated by the findings, confirms how cyber intelligence has become a battlefield expanse: a space where the exposure of industrial vulnerability can be as decisive as a physical attack. The operation, named OKBMLeaksis announced as the first chapter in a series of publications aimed at documenting the structural dependence of the Russian military sector on foreign technology and showing the erosion of its productive capacity. The Russian mirage. He OKBM case illustrates the distance between the Kremlin’s rhetoric about self-sufficiency and the material reality of an industrial complex sustained by imported parts, inherited engineering, and a network of opaque middlemen. If the PAK DA was to symbolize Russia’s entry into a new era of strategic aviation, the leak shows that the project is today a promise threatened by sanctionsproduction necks and lack of technological substitution. The vulnerability revealed transcends the technical: it reflects the accumulated cost of two decades industry dependency global and exposes the difficulty of sustaining a prolonged war without the support of a fully autonomous industrial base. In short, the scandal not only reveals aeronautical secretsbut rather it exposes the structural fragility of contemporary military Russia, whose defense apparatus seems increasingly sophisticated in its designs, but more than precarious in its actual capacity to manufacture them. Image | Russian Defense Minister, InformNapalm In Xataka | A 20-year-old technology led Ukraine to Russian bombers. Moscow’s answer comes from China: a laser cannon In Xataka | In 2024, Ukrainian trucks disguised as “home” entered Russia. Now they have dynamited their main air bases

Now it is a label that worries the West

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I propose a mental exercise: close your eyes for a moment and try to remember what perception you had of most of the Chinese products a decade ago. With a few exceptions, you probably associated them with cheaper and lower quality alternatives than their Western equivalents. We talk about everything: from smartphones to cars. But something changed during this time. The Asian giant has completely transformed its role in the global economy, causing a real earthquake in multiple industries. Today, consumers—people like you or me—already have a very different perception when we see a label that says “Made in China.” And the question is inevitable: how did they achieve it? How China is moving from assembly to the forefront On the YouTube channel where formats such as 24/7the series Domotize or die trying and Science and Apartwe launch a new Xataka Presents dedicated precisely to understanding that transformation. Ana Boria invites us to look beyond the headlines to discover how China went from being the world’s factory to becoming a true technological benchmark. “The tension between the US and China for more than five years is due to a very obvious purpose: these two countries are disputing for world supremacy, and it is no secret,” explains our colleague. He also remembers how, in recent years, the administration of an American president recognized something that few in his country wanted to hear. With its Made in China 2025 plan, the country set an ambitious roadmap to lead in a wide range of strategic sectors. Some of them are obvious, such as the automotive industry. “It manufactures 57% of electric car batteries of the world,” says Ana, who goes into detail about why controlling the battery ecosystem It is key to understanding the rise of BYD, OMODA or JAECOO. But the list does not end there. “China controls 90% of the world market for drones, both those used to record professional video, as well as those used for agriculture or security.” DJI, its flagship manufacturer, has also become a reference brand among content creators thanks to its cameras and microphones. “China controls 90% of the global drone market.” The industrial muscle of the country led by Xi Jinping even extends to rail transport —where it dominates with the largest high-speed network in the world— and materials, with examples as relevant as graphene. “Furthermore, they consider it strategicso they invest millions in research for applications in medicine, energy and electronics. The result is that they control 83% of the market in Asia and the Pacific.” Ana also reviews the reaction of the United States to the Chinese advance, both in terms of innovation and trade restrictions. And it brings an important point to the table: not everything in this plan is brilliant. China is still years away from its competitors in certain sectors, although its pace of progress seems unstoppable. You can discover it in the full video available on the Xataka YouTube channel. Images | Xataka In Xataka | China was the great polluter of the planet: now it is emerging as the first “electrostate” in history In Xataka | Speed ​​has moved to China: BYD and Xioami are breaking all the records that Europe once dreamed of

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