Lecturer in World Politics, Royal Military Academy (🇧🇪)
PhD in Chinese Studies
Guest Lecturer, KULeuven
Curious by nature and by profession
🇪🇺 🌏 🌍
Amai maTwins
Sara Van Hoeymissen
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Iran suspects the US seeks not a lasting peace but a free hand to keep Iran isolated and weak, checking its nuclear and missile activities by periodically “mowing the lawn”. Faced with such a prospect, Iran is seeking deterrence on 3 fronts: Hormuz, the nuclear file and by making the US pay a price.
“The development of AI technology should be applied to liberating labor, promoting employment and improving people’s livelihood,” the Court wrote. “Labor law allows employers to ... upgrade their operations, but it should also take into workers’ legitimate rights and interests."
"Countering 10 enemy ICBMs simultaneously could require a constellation of roughly 7,800 armed satellites. These would need to be placed in low orbit where they would be subject to drag from the Earth’s atmosphere. Over a 5 year span they could lose enough altitude to burn up and need replacement."
"Many critics expect, even hope, that Chinese industrial policy will eventually implode under the weight of its own contradictions. But there is not guarantee that will happen soon. To paraphrase an old adage about markets, China can stay irrational longer than foreign competitors can stay solvent."
"ASML is seen as the jewel in the crown of Europe’s technological sector, but has spent much of the past decade caught in the crossfire of the US-China tech war. In January it estimated that 20% of its 2026 annual sales would come from China. This would represent a reduction from 33% in 2025."
The investigation also underlined that the strikes have not reduced the flow of drugs to the US but have instead torn apart communities already fractured and weakened by organised crime and state neglect: "some communities stopped fishing for weeks because they were terrified of being bombed".
"To keep their competition peaceful, China and the US must:
🔺 preserve military deterrence without turning it into provocation
🔺 channel their rivalry into institutions and public goods rather than military confrontation
🔺 keep ideology from hardening every disagreement into a zero-sum struggle"
"When translating Trump’s remarks, Chinese state media used a common practice to make Xi look superior. They portrayed Trump as using a formal form of the Chinese word for 'you' that signals respect when addressing Xi. Xi, on the other hand, used the more common form of 'you' when addressing Trump."
"In terms of sectors, Chinese investment was still heavily concentrated on the automotive industry, with €7.6 billion of deals completed in 2025. Entertainment was the second most popular category at €2.3 billion, followed by consumer products and services at €2 billion."
"The result is that while all external actors claim to fight instability, the current regional order depends on continuing insecurity. Stabilisation risks becoming less about resolving conflict than about managing insecurity in ways that sustain regimes, partnerships and geopolitical influence."
Tehran interprets the US’s seemingly generous concessions as too good to be true
Both sides need to realise there will be no ‘winner’ in their rivalry. Instead, they can learn to coexist through mutual restraint and continued engagement.
