Aug 01, 2025
Geopolitics is one of our favourite distractions – rarely profitable, yet impossible for us to ignore. That’s why Lei’s analysis caught our attention. Her account elegantly solves two puzzles – just the sort of parsimony that appealed to William of Ockham: Why did China suddenly halt drone component sales to Ukraine, and why did Wang Yi become unusually candid about Beijing’s thinking on the Russia-Ukraine war? Her theory: a CCP defector turned up in Moscow with sensitive documents (and his superior’s wife!) outlining China’s contingency plans in the event of a successful regime-change operation against Putin and the installation of a Western-aligned Russian government. Putin’s response was a very tersely worded statement noting that Russia was a nuclear power, and the return of both defector and wife. Lei’s theory is that the deepening mistrust between Moscow and Beijing created an opening for Trump to drive a wedge between them, prompting Beijing to respond with tangible support.
But there is a broader lesson here, beyond the very real dangers of eloping with your boss’s wife. Sudden bouts of honesty are often suspicious developments which can signal ulterior motives. Lei suggests that Wang Yi’s uncharacteristic “honesty” was not addressed to Kallas and the EU but to Putin and Moscow and sent a signal of its commitment to the bilateral relationship. Maybe.