cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/9156148

Archived version

Here is the full study: China's mercantilist squeeze on developing countries (pdf)

• The "China Squeeze" affects low- and middle-income countries through three major channels: intense competition in global export markets, rising Chinese import competition in their own domestic markets, and limited access to China’s own consumer market for low-skill-intensive exports from developing countries.
• The scale of the squeeze is historically unprecedented and may represent hundreds of billions of dollars in lost exports and forgone jobs in labor-intensive manufacturing in developing countries.
• Macro indicators on wages, productivity, and exchange rate policy suggest that distortions, especially an undervalued renminbi, may have played a role. Regardless of the cause, China’s dominance may be closing off the traditional manufacturing-led development path for low- and middle-income countries.

...

China’s resurgent trade surplus has revived concern in the United States and Europe, but consequences for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) remain underappreciated.

This paper documents a “China Squeeze”: China’s compression of the industrialization space poorer economies need in labor-intensive manufacturing.

Using historical benchmarks and labor-endowment comparisons, we show that China, despite becoming richer and moving up the technology ladder, still commands a historically unusual share of global low-skilled manufacturing export markets. We estimate that this squeeze costs LMICs hundreds of billions of dollars in forgone exports.

It also operates through rising Chinese import competition in LMIC markets and China’s limited absorption of low-skilled imports from poorer countries. Macro evidence suggests that policy distortions, including exchange rate undervaluation, may have amplified the squeeze.

The central concern is developmental: China’s export strength may close off pathways to industrialization for poorer economies.

...

This wasn't my article, but Gardiner's! Anyway, here's a nice guide if you've never done so but would like to emulate PSP on SteamOS :)

I hope not very many of you are wondering WTF awkward interactions have to do with privacy, but hopefully the following examples make it clear to any of you who are wondering that.

Story 1

So, I go to sign up for a bank account at <insert big-ass household-name (in the U.S.) bank name here>. As soon as I walk in the door and tell the person I want to sign up for a checking account, they say "ok, let's get you set up with the app."

Now, I was running Lineage at the time with no Google apps. Just F-Droid and stuff I could install from there. I had yet to install any proprietary apps on my phone. (Not necessarily saying there was nothing proprietary running on my phone. I'd be surprised if Lineage doesn't depend on some binary blob drivers and such for my particular phone. But still, my rule was "no proprietary apps." And even if I decided to break that rule at the time, I kindof doubt the bank's app wouldn't just refuse to work without Google Play Services.)

My mistake was to say "it won't work on my phone" rather than "I'm not interested in the app; can I still get a bank account here?" They pushed it hard. "It's Android, right?" "...Technically, but not the way you're-" "Ok, go to the Play Store." "I don't have the Play Store." "Let me see your home screen." (My second mistake was not ending that line of conversation there with a "no, just give me a bank account.")

Before it was all said and done, I'd scanned their QR code and hit the "install" button so I could show them the error message that resulted. It wasn't until then that they dropped it.

I honestly wonder if they didn't get a commission when folks installed the app.

Lesson learned. Don't say "my phone's weird and it won't work." Say "I'm not installing the app. The only question that remains is whether that means I'm taking my business elsewhere or not."

Story 2

Much more recent. Same phone, but by that point I'd switched to Ubuntu Touch. My phone just stops working as a phone abruptly. No calls or texts.

(The astute among you may already be thinking "oh, probably the carrier dropped 2G/3G support and now requires VoLTE." And if you're thinking that, congratulations you get 100 internet points, but don't spoil it for the rest of the class.)

Now, I've always been really nervous about cell phones. About the time they started being ubiquitous (back in the days of Nokia candy-bar phones with black-and-white LCD displays), I had just quit Windows for OpenSuSE, and then not long after that, Gentoo. And when cell phones started becoming smart phones, stuck with the dumbest phones I could find in the used-phone bin at the phone repair place in the mall. In other words, I was (and largely still am) Amish for QWERTY.

So, I honestly don't know shit about cellular communication technologies because I've never really used them. I've literally never had a data plan. I'm still grandfathered in on a no-data prepaid plan with my carrier that isn't available any more.

Anyway, back to my current story where my phone wasn't working. I had gotten a message a while previous that my SIM card (a physical SIM) would stop working at some point and I had to get a new SIM card. And my SIM card was super old. It was one I'd had to cut down to size and everything. I hadn't followed through on the SIM card replacement, so I figured that was the issue.

I don't have an online/web account with my carrier. And I still have never installed any proprietary apps on any phone, so I didn't have my carrier's official app. The chat and phone support wouldn't help me because they couldn't get proof that I was me. (They required text-message-code authentication, but my phone didn't work, so I couldn't receive the text.) They referred me to the T-Mobile store to get a new SIM card that would ostensibly work.

So, I suppressed my gag reflex and walked into the T-Mobile store. At the door, they asked me some basic questions and entered me into the queue. They told me it'd be 15 to 20 minutes of wait time.

I went and had a seat to wait. Well over an hour later, I finally asked someone for an updated wait time estimate. I'd apparently slipped through the cracks because as a prepaid customer, I appear on a different wait queue in their software than other customers. But at least prompting them got me attended to.

I told them the whole situation. I was glad they didn't try to push me to get a new phone and plan. And they did give me a new SIM card. But when they found out I was running Ubuntu Touch, they referred to it as a "bootleg rom", intimated that I might be doing something shady (because custom roms can supposedly "break the rules" and... I dunno get calls for free or some shit, I don't know), and warned me strongly to be very careful with what data I store on the phone. (As if a stock-firmware phone is completely trustworthy. Heh.)

Not only that, but the new SIM card didn't resolve the issue. Reverting to the stock firmware did. VoLTE is the only thing Ubuntu Touch doesn't support on that phone. So now I either stick on the stock firmware until that red x turns into a green checkmark or try to figure out if Lineage supports VoLTE on the Pixel 3a as a stop gap until I can go back to Ubuntu Touch.

Anyway, those are my stories. I'd love to hear more such painful interactions with "normies" who don't understand why you wouldn't use Facebook or smart kitchen knives that won't work without WIFI or what have you.

May 25, 2026

Trump suggested that Iran could also normalize relations with Israel by signing the Abraham Accords and said that “it would be an Honor to have them also be part of this unparalleled World Coalition.”

However, Baghaei threw cold water on Trump’s optimism, stressing Monday that “the focus of the negotiations is on ending the war on all fronts, including Lebanon,” and that this critical point is “one of the core elements of understanding in any agreement.”

What negotiators aren’t discussing at this time, according to both sides, is ending Iran’s nuclear development.

This wasn't my article, but Gardiner's! Anyway, here's a nice guide if you've never done so but would like to emulate PSP on SteamOS :)

One of the tenets from a software-craft site I've been building. The idea is to keep state and dependencies as local as you can, and only promote something to a wider scope (module, shared, then global) once it's actually used widely enough to earn it. Most of the 'shared' code I've had to untangle started local and got hoisted up a tier too early.

Can anyone tell this meme is true or false? I don't have Gspy so I cannot test this

Original

edit: yeah looking back, only slightly annoying.

Upcoming on PlayStation:

• 007 First Light: 27 May 2026
• Poppy Playtime: Chapter 5 – Broken Things: 27 May 2026
• One Move Away: 28 May 2026
• Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar: 28 May 2026
• Necrophosis: Full Consciousness: 28 May 2026
• Majogami: 28 May 2026
• Mina the Hollower: 29 May 2026
• BrokenLore: Follow: 1 Jun 2026
• Vapor World: Over the Mind: 1 Jun 2026
• Hell Clock: 2 Jun 2026

Upcoming on Xbox Series X|S

• 007 First Light: 27 May 2026
• Poppy Playtime: Chapter 5 – Broken Things: 27 May 2026
• Echo Generation 2: 27 May 2026
• One Move Away: 28 May 2026
• Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar: 28 May 2026
• Necrophosis: Full Consciousness: 28 May 2026
• Crashout Crew: 28 May 2026
• Mina the Hollower: 29 May 2026
• Hell Clock: 2 Jun 2026
• BrokenLore: Follow: 1 Jun 2026

Upcoming on Nintendo:

• Poppy Playtime: Chapter 5 – Broken Things: 27 May 2026
• Schrödinger' s Call: 27 May 2026
• One Move Away: 28 May 2026
• Wall World 2: 28 May 2026
• Judero: 28 May 2026
• Night Swarm: 28 May 2026
• One Military Camp: 28 May 2026
• Utawarerumono: Past and Present Rediscovered: 28 May 2026
• Mina the Hollower: 29 May 2026
• Vapor World: Over the Mind: 1 Jun 2026

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