In Laos, a New Railway Signals a Future in China’s Orbit

Just a decade ago, the land to the east of downtown Vientiane was a patchwork of lush green fields. Now, a vast, gleaming rail station looms over the landscape — and a new city is rising around it. The countryside is now dotted with newly built warehouses, business parks, and high-rise apartment complexes — a sign of the Chinese investment that is transforming this once-sleepy Southeast Asian capital. Laos, a remote nation of 7 million people, used to be known in the region for its mountainous scenery, Buddhist temples, and laid-back lifestyle. But that is rapidly changing as the country becomes a key partner in China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative.

In April, cross-border passenger services began on the Laos-China Railway: a new 1,000-kilometer rail line running from Vientiane to the southwestern city of Kunming. It is Laos’ first semi-high-speed railway, as well as the first international line connecting to China’s high-speed rail network. Both countries have a lot riding on the project. For China, the LCR is a high-profile test case for its global infrastructure-building program. It’s designed to be the first stage of a long-planned pan-Asian rail network that will run all the way from China to Singapore, via Laos, Thailand, and Malaysia.

For Laos, the stakes are even higher. The country has long championed the LCR, believing it will help the country break out of the economic constraints imposed by its rugged terrain and lack of a natural sea border.

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Bringing the Struggles of China’s Migrant Women to Life

After “The Life of Mulan,” the interactive theater production I spent much of the past four years bringing to life, finished its nationwide tour with a six-show run in Kunming in early June, I finally found myself with enough time to look back and reflect on a process that took me farther than I ever could have imagined.

The show’s success was a milestone that would have been unthinkable in 2010, when I and a handful of other migrants founded the Mulan Community Service Center to provide community outreach and mutual support to our peers. We have been creating art and literature almost since the beginning. For so long, migrant women have been marginalized both socially and economically, and the scant attention they draw from mass media often depicts them as a disadvantaged, pitiable group in urgent need of outside help. Our creative works were not only a response to that impulse; they were also a way to hone our self-awareness and voices.

Over the past 10 years, we created songs, skits, dances, monologue plays, stage plays, photographs, exhibitions, and all kinds of literary works featuring migrant women. In 2019, we partnered with Zhao Zhiyong, a professor at the Central Academy of Drama, to produce the stage play “Maternity Chronicle.”

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Giorgia Meloni and Europe’s incoherence over China

Chinese leaders must be either confused or delighted by the stream of visits they have been receiving from European heads of state and government. Italy’s Giorgia Meloni may think that her five-day visit to China was something special. To the Chinese, however, it will have felt quite routine.

China does, after all, describe itself as “the Middle Kingdom,” the place around which the world revolves, just as in ancient Roman times the Mediterranean was named as the sea in the center of the Earth. So Chinese governments have always expected visitors to come and, to use their own old word, “kowtow” to them or bow at their feet. To them, a flow of Europeans kowtowing perhaps seems natural. And it has been quite a flow. Just counting from the beginning of April, President Xi Jinping and his colleagues have received visits from Olaf Scholz, chancellor of Germany; from Andrzej Duda, president of Poland; from Viktor Orban, prime minister of Hungary; and now from the prime minister of Italy.

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US mainland ultra-vulnerable to China, Russia hybrid attacks

The US Army’s recent Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) report warns that near-peer adversaries China and Russia are gearing up for unprecedented hybrid warfare tactics targeting the US homeland.

The report says the US homeland, traditionally considered a sanctuary, is now vulnerable to its near-peer adversaries’ conventional, hybrid and irregular warfare tactics. The TRADOC report emphasizes that these adversaries are heavily investing in capabilities designed to disrupt and attack soft targets within US territory, leveraging information and cyber operations to create significant effects with minimal risk of escalation compared to kinetic strikes.

The TRADOC report suggests that China and Russia are likely to transition from subtle, non-attributable cyber and information operations to more overt and destructive physical actions in the event of a conflict. It mentions the potential use of ultra-long-range systems with conventional payloads, asymmetric platforms and commercial off-the-shelf unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to target critical infrastructure and military operations.

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Taiwan proposes biggest ever defense spending of US$19.7 billion

Taiwan aims to increase its defense spending to NT 647 billion (US$19.76 billion) next year to the biggest sum ever as it seeks to bolster its defenses and its cooperation with democratic allies, President Lai Ching-te announced. That total is equivalent to about 20% of anticipated annual revenue of NT$3.13 trillion (US$96.12 billion) for the 2025 fiscal year, and a nominal increase of 6.7% in defense spending over the previous year.

“We are determined to enhance our self-defense capabilities and strengthen cooperation with our democratic partners to ensure peace and prosperity,” Lai said in a speech on Wednesday as he announced the budget. The president did not mention China, which considers the self-ruled, democratic island a wayward province, and has never ruled out the use of force against it.

Military spending is the fourth-largest itemized category in the budget, behind social welfare, education, science and culture and expenses related to economic development. The prioritization was unchanged from last year.

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