分类： politics

On April 23, 2026, a group of Taiwan compatriots took part in a special public open-day event held in Qingdao, Shandong Province, to mark the 77th founding anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy. As part of the anniversary celebrations, the group was granted access to tour active-duty warships that had been opened exclusively for the occasion, getting an up-close look at the branch’s capabilities.

During their visit, the Taiwan compatriots walked through the decks and interior spaces of the vessels, receiving detailed introductions to the warships’ advanced weapons systems and onboard equipment from serving naval officers. They also gained first-hand insight into the daily working routines and life of the officers and crew stationed aboard the ships, posing for photos with service members to commemorate the occasion.

Public open-house events that open active-duty naval vessels to civilian visitors are a long-standing common practice among navies across the globe. For the PLA Navy, these public engagement events have become a regular fixture in recent years. The service has hosted multiple such open days to mark major national and institutional milestones, including its annual founding anniversary and China’s National Day.

In a major development marking the closing phase of the criminal trial against former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, state prosecutors have formally asked the Seoul Central District Court to sentence the ousted conservative leader to 30 years in prison over explosive allegations that he deliberately stoked cross-border tensions with North Korea to consolidate authoritarian power at home.

The charges against Yoon, which include aiding an adversarial power and multiple counts of abuse of authority, are part of a sprawling set of indictments connected to his short-lived, controversial declaration of martial law in December 2024. Special prosecutors led by independent investigator Cho Eun-suk argued in court Friday that Yoon and his top national security allies orchestrated unauthorized drone flights over Pyongyang roughly two months before the martial law declaration. Prosecutors allege the provocative drone incursions were intended to ratchet up inter-Korean hostilities, creating a manufactured crisis that Yoon could exploit to justify imposing domestic martial law, during which he labeled rival liberal political factions as North Korea-aligned “anti-state” forces.

North Korea first publicly accused South Korea of flying surveillance drones over Pyongyang to drop anti-regime propaganda leaflets on three separate occasions in October 2024. Then-Defense Minister Kim Yong Hyun, a close confidant of Yoon, initially issued an ambiguous denial of the claims, before South Korea’s Defense Ministry later revised its position to state it could neither confirm nor deny Pyongyang’s allegations. The incident triggered a sharp spike in cross-border tensions that lasted through the end of 2024.

Yoon ultimately moved forward with his late-night martial law declaration on December 3, 2024. In a live televised address to the nation, he attacked opposition liberal parties over a series of policy disputes, most notably their impeachment of his top appointed officials and cuts to his administration’s proposed budget. The extraordinary decree was overturned just six hours after it was announced, after a quorum of opposition and ruling-party lawmakers breached blockades set up by armed soldiers and police that Yoon had deployed to shut down access to the National Assembly. Lawmakers voted unanimously to invalidate the martial law order, forcing Yoon’s cabinet to formally rescind the measure.

The political fallout from the crisis unfolded rapidly: Yoon was suspended from presidential duties on December 14, 2024, following impeachment by the liberal-controlled National Assembly, and the Constitutional Court formally removed him from office in April 2025. He was taken into custody in July 2025 and has since stood trial on multiple overlapping criminal charges connected to the martial law incident. Earlier this year, the Seoul Central District Court found Yoon guilty of the more severe charge of rebellion and sentenced him to life in prison. Both Yoon, who has maintained his innocence, and prosecutors — who had originally pushed for a death sentence in that case — have appealed the verdict. Yoon’s legal team has repeatedly denied all allegations against him, and had no immediate public response to Friday’s 30-year sentence request.

Prosecutors are also seeking a 25-year prison term for Kim Yong Hyun, Yoon’s former defense minister and a key co-conspirator who they say helped plan the martial law declaration and mobilize military forces to implement it. In a public statement released Friday, Cho’s investigation team alleged that Yoon deliberately sought to create a de facto state of war between the two Koreas as part of a premeditated plot to remove political opponents, monopolize state power and extend his time in office beyond his legal term.

Yoon’s brief martial law declaration plunged South Korea into one of its most severe political crises in modern history, paralyzing domestic governance, halting high-level diplomatic engagement, and triggering significant volatility in South Korean financial markets. The political turmoil only stabilized after Yoon’s liberal rival, Lee Jae Myung, won a snap presidential election in June 2025. Shortly after taking office, Lee signed into law legislation authorizing independent, wide-ranging investigations into the martial law incident and all other criminal allegations against Yoon, his wife, and his close political associates.

The question of what constitutes victory over Iran is one that rarely receives a clear, consistent answer—and the chasm between competing definitions lies at the heart of the long-running standoff between Iran, the United States, and Israel. In political circles in Washington and Jerusalem, the vision of success is framed in uncompromising, decisive terms: the permanent elimination of Iran’s nuclear program, the fragmentation of its regional power projection networks, and even the ousting of Iran’s top political leadership. This is the language of total war, rooted in the expectation of a clear, conclusive endpoint.

From Tehran’s perspective, however, the definition of victory could not be more different. For Iran, success boils down to one core goal: national survival. This fundamental asymmetry in objectives shapes every dimension of the ongoing conflict, and it creates a decisive structural advantage for the side that requires far less to claim victory. Today, that side is Iran.

There is no ignoring the stark military imbalance between the two camps. The US and Israel possess cutting-edge precision strike capabilities that can reach targets across Iranian territory, and they have repeatedly demonstrated their ability to hit critical infrastructure, senior leadership, and key strategic assets.

Yet tactical military gains have consistently failed to translate into the desired political outcomes. Iran’s state structure has not fractured, its governing system remains fully intact, and its military, regional, and ideological networks continue to operate unimpeded. Even its most sensitive strategic capabilities, including its accumulated nuclear expertise, have proven remarkably resilient to external pressure.

The core miscalculation from Washington and Jerusalem stems from the false assumption that Iran operates by the same strategic rules as Western powers. It does not. Iran has no ambition to deliver an outright military defeat to the US or Israel. Instead, its strategy centers on outlasting its adversaries, complicating their strategic objectives, and raising the human and financial cost of continued pressure until that cost becomes unsustainable.

This logic plays out across every front of the conflict. The battlefield extends far beyond direct military confrontation, stretching into global shipping lanes, international energy markets, and regional alliance structures. Disruptions to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz are no random accident: they are deliberate pressure tactics designed to inflict global economic pain.

Iran’s strategy is not aimed at regional dominance—it is aimed at entanglement. Tehran does not need to win a traditional military victory if it can draw its opponents into a protracted conflict that is too costly to sustain and too complex to resolve on Western terms.

When conflicts stall, the default response from stronger powers is almost always escalation: expanded bombing campaigns, strikes on critical energy infrastructure, and even the extreme option of a full ground invasion with “boots on the ground.” The unspoken assumption is that greater force will eventually force a breakthrough.

But Iran is far from a passive target. It has already proven it is willing to launch retaliatory strikes across the Middle East, targeting sites in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan, and Iraq. Any Western strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure would not remain contained; they would trigger immediate retaliation against these neighboring states, rapidly widening the scope of the conflict.

A further critical constraint undermines the case for escalation: current estimates suggest the US has already depleted between 45% and 50% of its key missile stockpiles, including roughly 30% of its entire inventory of Tomahawk cruise missiles. This leaves the stark reality that escalation is no longer just a question of political will—it is a question of military capacity. In any broader conflict, the limiting factor will not be how far Washington is willing to go, but how much firepower it has left to deploy.

The human and geopolitical consequences of escalation would extend far beyond the battlefield. Iran’s retaliation would target neighboring countries’ power, fuel, and water systems. As summer temperatures climb across the Middle East, this would render large swathes of the region increasingly uninhabitable, forcing millions of people to flee their homes and creating a new large-scale humanitarian displacement crisis.

Even after widespread escalation, the core reality of the conflict would remain unchanged. Iran’s political and social system is structured for long-term endurance, and any ground invasion would almost certainly devolve into a protracted, attritional conflict that drains Western resources for years. Most importantly, escalation misses the fundamental point of the standoff: the problem is not a lack of force, but the absence of a realistic political objective that military force can actually achieve.

Compounding this strategic confusion is a quiet but consequential rift between the US and Israel over their end goals. Israel’s public posture reflects a commitment to maximalist outcomes: a deep, potentially irreversible weakening of Iran’s governing system, if not outright regime collapse. The US, by contrast, has oscillated between competing approaches: coercion, containment, and occasional negotiation with Tehran.

These are not minor differences in tone—they are fundamental divides in strategy. Wars waged without a shared, clear definition of victory almost never produce the desired outcome. Instead, they generate endless military activity with no strategic convergence: constant military movement, but little progress toward a sustainable resolution.

Today, the conflict has settled into a familiar, intractable pattern. It is no longer a confrontation moving toward a decisive conclusion. Instead, it has locked into a cycle of targeted strikes followed by temporary pauses, fragile ceasefires that hold just long enough to avoid total collapse, and on-again off-again negotiations that progress just enough to avoid total failure.

The repeated extension of these ceasefires is not a sign of progress—it is a reflection of strategic constraint. Under the current administration, Washington has strong political incentives to keep talks alive, avoid deep escalation, and end the conflict sooner rather than later. The alternatives—an all-out regional war or a catastrophic global economic shock—are far too politically risky to pursue.

This dynamic works directly to Iran’s advantage. Tehran has no need to make quick concessions when delaying negotiations only strengthens its strategic position.

Time is not a neutral factor in this conflict. The longer the stalemate drags on, the more it intersects with the most fragile pressure points of the global economy. International energy markets are already strained, key supply routes are under constant threat, and global energy reserves are tightening. Industries dependent on stable fuel supplies—aviation, commercial shipping, global manufacturing—face growing exposure to disruption.

What began as a regional standoff has now evolved into a systemic global risk. Even limited disruptions to energy supplies can ripple outward across the global economy, driving up consumer prices, breaking global supply chains, and undermining political stability in countries around the world. The longer the stalemate persists, the greater the cumulative strain on the global system, and the closer the world edges toward a full-scale global economic shock.

In purely conventional military terms, the balance of power is clear: the US and Israel hold overwhelming military superiority over Iran. But the outcome of wars is never decided by military capability alone. It is decided by the interaction of strategic goals, accumulated costs, and the passage of time.

Measured by that standard, Iran’s position is far stronger than conventional military analysis suggests. It has set a far lower bar for success, demonstrated a much higher tolerance for prolonged external pressure, and proven it can impose significant costs on its adversaries far beyond the traditional battlefield. Most critically, Iran does not need to win a decisive military victory—it only needs to prevent the US and Israel from achieving their stated goals. So far, it has done exactly that.

Returning to the original question: can the US and Israel win this conflict? If winning means forcing Iran into total submission or fundamentally reshaping its strategic posture, the unavoidable conclusion is that they cannot. What they can do is continue managing the conflict, containing its worst excesses, and shaping its marginal outcomes. But that is not victory—that is just endurance.

The greatest danger of the current impasse is the persistent belief that just a little more pressure, one more round of escalation, or a few more months of stalemate will eventually deliver a breakthrough. If that belief is misplaced, this is not a war on the cusp of being won—it is a war that cannot be won at all. It is a forever war.

Ahead of the 2026 World Intellectual Property Day, senior Chinese regulatory officials outlined major progress in the nation’s intellectual property (IP) development and announced new targeted measures to strengthen IP safeguards for fast-growing emerging technology fields during a press conference held Thursday.

Rui Wenbiao, deputy director of the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), reported that China saw continuous improvement in the quality of domestic IP creation and further intensified IP protection across all sectors in 2025. Last year alone, China granted 972,000 invention patents, pushing the total number of active domestic invention patents past the 5 million mark — a milestone that makes China the first country in the world to reach this figure.

Along with this overall growth, China has secured a large number of core patents in high-potential emerging sectors, including quantum technology, biomanufacturing, brain-computer interfaces, and 6G communications. Additional IP data for 2025 also shows the nation registered more than 4.2 million new trademarks, 10.67 million new copyrights, 6,986 new plant variety rights, and recognized 104 new geographical indication products, Rui added.

On the global innovation stage, China achieved a landmark ranking jump in 2025: the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Global Innovation Index placed China 10th globally, marking the first time the country has entered the top 10 of the index. It also now hosts 24 of the world’s 100 leading science and technology innovation clusters, with the Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou cluster holding the number one spot worldwide.

“With their vibrant innovative activity, high technical density, and enormous market potential, emerging fields have become new core drivers and engines powering China’s high-quality economic and social development,” Rui said. In response to this rapid growth, CNIPA has already ramped up IP protection efforts for these sectors, and has placed increased focus on addressing ethical concerns tied to artificial intelligence applications. Moving forward, Rui noted that CNIPA will work alongside other relevant government bodies to refine national IP legal frameworks, to better adapt to the unique needs of these growing sectors and resolve emerging regulatory challenges.

Wang Huowang, head of the Law Enforcement and Inspection Bureau at the State Administration for Market Regulation, added that targeted IP enforcement campaigns in emerging sectors and the e-commerce industry will be a top priority for Chinese regulators in 2026. “We will strengthen proactive enforcement and forward-looking IP protection for new fields and emerging business models, including next-generation information technology, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, new energy, and green environmental protection,” Wang explained. Regulators will also intensify crackdowns on common illegal IP activities, such as malicious trademark squatting and trademark infringement, to create a more secure regulatory environment that supports the healthy development of emerging industries.

Wang Zhicheng, head of the Copyright Administration of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, emphasized that copyright has grown into a critical strategic resource for China’s innovation-driven development. In recent years, law enforcement teams have expanded anti-piracy campaigns targeting key sectors including film, cultural products, and youth publications, actions designed to support healthy industry growth and protect the welfare of China’s younger population. This year, anti-piracy enforcement will focus specifically on audiovisual works, online literature, and digital content distribution, with advanced digital technologies being deployed to boost the efficiency of enforcement operations, Wang added.

BANGKOK – On a regional diplomatic tour aimed at deepening bilateral ties across Southeast Asia, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held official talks with Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul in Bangkok on Friday, centered on elevating the long-standing strategic partnership between the two nations and expanding cross-sector collaboration.

Following the closed-door meeting, Thai government spokesperson Rachada Dhnadirek confirmed that the two leaders reached a clear consensus to strengthen joint action against transnational criminal networks, with a specific focus on combating cyberscams, alongside advancing cooperation in other key priority areas. In the meeting, Anutin expressed sincere gratitude to Beijing for its consistent support of Thailand amid regional and global challenges, while Wang extended congratulations to the prime minister on retaining his cabinet position following Thailand’s recent general election. Wang also underscored his firm confidence that the Thailand-China relationship will continue to gain momentum and deepen in the coming years, according to the spokesperson.

The meeting kicked off with a formal greeting at Bangkok’s Government House, where the two leaders shook hands and posed for official photos before entering discussions. Ahead of his talks with Anutin, Wang had already held productive working sessions with his Thai counterpart, Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow, government officials confirmed.

Wang’s three-day visit to Thailand began Thursday, coming directly after a series of high-level meetings with Cambodian government officials in Phnom Penh. That stop focused on strengthening political and security cooperation between China and Cambodia, wrapping up successfully before Wang traveled onward to Thailand. Per the official schedule released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Myanmar will be the next stop on Wang’s Southeast Asian diplomatic tour after he concludes his engagements in Thailand.

The diplomatic engagement builds on a deepening foundation of ties between Beijing and Bangkok: China has held the position of Thailand’s largest trading partner for years, and the two nations marked the 50th anniversary of the establishment of formal diplomatic relations in 2023, a milestone that included an unprecedented historic visit to China by Thailand’s reigning monarch, King Maha Vajiralongkorn, last November. In recent years, Chinese direct investment into Thailand has also grown at an accelerated pace, a trend partially driven by a broader shift of Chinese manufacturing operations into Southeast Asia as companies seek to mitigate the impact of United States tariffs on Chinese-made goods.