Good morning, and welcome to the Global Situation Report for Tuesday, 16 July 2024.
- CHINA-PHILIPPINES PRESIDENTIAL LINE OPENS FOR DEESCALATION: China and the Philippines established a direct line between their presidential offices for quick responses to actions in their ongoing territorial dispute in accordance with their latest agreement to maintain open communication.
- Additional lines will be opened between their Foreign Affairs departments and Coast Guards.
Why It Matters:Direct communication between the heads of state to de-escalate low-level encounters shows how seriously lower-level communications have failed. Based on historical actions, I expect the Chinese to be unresponsive or to employ “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy when the Filipinos do get ahold of them. – J.V.
- Global Rollup
- The Chinese Ministry of National Defense used the phrase “rejection of reunification by using force” to describe Taiwan’s potential course of action. (This is our first indication since Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te’s inauguration that, despite numerous verbal provocations, China still assumes it will peacefully reunify with the island, but they believe Taiwan may take the first shot. – J.V.)
- The Kuomintang, Taiwan’s legislative majority party, sent a delegation to the Republican National Convention to meet with several Congressmen and Mike Pompeo
- Mirroring Australia, Prime Minister of New Zealand Christoper Luxon announced they will steadily disclose cases of Chinese espionage to increase awareness of security threats inside the country.
- Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia announced they will disconnect from the Soviet-era BRELL (Belarus, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) power grid on 08 February 2025, which connects them to the Russian and Belarusian power grids. The Baltic countries are still under contract with the European Union (EU) to be on the EU power grid by 2025.
- The Space Force is installing Laser Reflector Arrays onto two GPS satellites next year to begin taking sub-centimeter accurate elevation measurements of Earth. The Space Force claims this will have many “scientific and national security applications.” (This is likely to make GPS even more spatially accurate for daily use and could be used to rapidly build three-dimensional maps of areas that have not been photographed for a long time or have been otherwise non-permissive. – J.V.)
THAT’S A WRAP: This does it for today’s edition. Thank you for reading. If you know folks who would also like to receive this email, would you please forward it to them? We appreciate you spreading the word. – M.S.