🌍 China and Taliban to deepen ties

🗺️ AROUND THE WORLD

1. 🇨🇳 China: A mysterious Chinese spacecraft has returned to Earth after 276 days in orbit on a classified mission. Some suspect the reusable craft may have used advanced sensing and imaging equipment to collect intel.

2. 🇪🇺 EU: Armenia and Azerbaijan are due to restart peace talks in Brussels this weekend after a spike in tensions. A 2020 war over a disputed territory resulted in the deaths of thousands of Armenian and Azerbaijani soldiers.

3. 🇳🇿 New Zealand: Kiwi military spending is set to increase by nearly $500M in the next four years as the country attempts to limit its personnel loss and upgrade its security infrastructure. It’s New Zealand’s biggest military budget increase in years.

4. 🇨🇱 Chile: Right-leaning parties have won the most seats on Chile’s newly elected constitutional rewriting committee. The new draft constitution will likely be more conservative than the document defeated by a referendum last year.

5. 🇸🇾 Syria: The Arab League has readmitted Syria to the regional body after more than a decade. The League suspended Syria’s membership after President Al-Assad’s bloody crackdown on street protests in 2011.

🚃 AFGHANISTAN | GEO-ECONOMICS

The Taliban might have a new friend (China)

Briefly: The foreign ministers of Afghanistan, China, and Pakistan met in Islamabad over the weekend and agreed to consider Afghanistan as a hub for China’s massive infrastructure spending in the region.

Kabul needs any investment it can get. Since the Taliban took over in 2021:

• 📉 GDP has halved to $10B (that’s less than McKinsey’s revenue), and

• 😓 two thirds of Afghanistan’s 40 million folks can’t afford food (up from half).

With the Taliban now back in charge, the West continues to pick up checks for humanitarian agencies, but has mostly refused to work with the government.

Why? The Taliban has banned women from universities, NGO jobs and even parks. And it’s conducted targeted killings of ethnic Hazaras and former soldiers.

So in search of new friends, the Taliban is turning to China. And unlike the West, China doesn’t usually draw a link between aid and human rights.

Intrigue’s take: Of course, that doesn’t mean China’s help comes strings-free. China wants the Taliban to:

• stop militant groups from using Afghanistan to mount attacks back home (sound familiar?), and

• bring the country’s security situation under control so Chinese firms can develop Afghanistan’s massive mineral deposits.

So far, US pressure, UN condemnation, and even Russian finger-wagging have done little to stabilise Taliban-led Afghanistan. Maybe Chinese railroads will do the trick…?

Also worth noting:

• In December, Islamic State militants bombed a hotel in Kabul that frequently hosts Chinese diplomats and business leaders.

• China and Afghanistan share a 92-kilometre-long (57 mi) border.

• The US was the largest donor to Afghanistan’s U.N. appeal last year, giving nearly $1.2B. The US froze $7B in Afghan assets in 2021, assigning half for the families of the September 2001 terrorist attacks and moving the rest to a Swiss-based fund it says will benefit Afghans.

Today’s briefing is sponsored by Hubspot

💰 TECH | CRYPTOCURRENCY

Crypto-controversy mounts

Briefly: Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, halted its Bitcoin withdrawals twice on Sunday due to a “congestion issue”. The company’s actions spooked a crypto sector that’s been hit by a wave of bankruptcies and scandals in recent months.

Binance is a big deal in the trillion-dollar crypto space. In 2022, it:

• controlled 92% of the world’s bitcoin spot trading volumes

• hosted crypto trades worth around $65B a day, and

• grew to 128 million users.

But the firm is also shrouded in secrecy. As a private company, Binance hasn’t shared basic financial info (eg, revenue) with external investors since 2018.

Intrigue’s take: This intriguing mix of money and secrecy has had regulators hovering around Binance like Canadians around a bowl of poutine. The firm is now in the crosshairs of at least four different US agencies (plus others abroad), including on allegations it allowed Russians to circumvent US sanctions.

Also worth noting:

• Binance says it has a 700-member compliance team handling 1,300 law enforcement requests a week.

• The surprise collapse of crypto exchange FTX last year caused the entire sector’s market valuation to fall below $1T.

👀 EXTRA INTRIGUE

We’re very online, so you don’t have to be.

• Did China help Vancouver’s mayor win election?

• How Biden lost the Balkans

• A caste survey could upend India ($)

• Turkey’s earthquake election

• Aid agencies are changing the way they do business ($)

💬 QUOTE OF THE DAY

US Ambassador Rick Barton has been working on global conflict mediation for decades – in Rwanda, Bosnia, Haiti, and elsewhere. So, why is peace getting harder to build? Check out Friday’s Intrigue Outloud on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever.

🗳️ POLL TIME!

Yesterday’s poll: Do you think the US will default on its debt this year?

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💸 Yes, and people aren't taking it seriously (34%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ❌ No, lawmakers will come to their senses (63%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🖋️ Other (write in!) (4%)

Your two cents:

• ❌ T.J.L: “They play this game with the debt ceiling quite often. Duelling into the final hours trying to squeeze all manner of unrelated legislation through.”