text: HONG KONG ELECTS PRO-CHINA SECURITY OFFICIAL AS NEW CHIEF EXECUTIVE: Over the weekend, Hong Kong residents “elected” a new hardline Chinese loyalist, John Lee, to the city-state’s Chief Executive position. Lee is a 64-year-old former police officer who led the China-backed crackdown on democracy activists in 2019 and 2020. Lee received 99.2% of the vote from an “election committee” composed of elite Hongkongers granted the power to select key leaders by Beijing. Lee is currently under U.S. sanctions for his role in detaining democracy activists and extraditing them to China. (AC: This outcome was completely foreseeable. It was unlikely that once China implemented the new National Security Law that it would ever allow free and fair elections in Hong Kong. Expect a continued ratcheting up of police-state conditions in Hong Kong with decreasing resistance from residents as they become acquainted with their new lack of liberty. – M.M.)NORTH KOREA TEST FIRES SUB-LAUNCHED BALLISTIC MISSILE: North Korea fired a suspected submarine-launched ballistic missile on Saturday. The launch occurred off of its east coast and the missile flew approximately 600km with an apex altitude of 60km before terminating in the East Sea just outside Japan’s economic exclusion zone. South Korean and Japanese officials both stated they were monitoring North Korea for any further missile tests and would collaborate on their observations of the launch. (AC: North Korea continues to pursue its nuclear and ballistic missile development programs. If initial information is accurate, this would make North Korea’s 15th launch of a ballistic missile since the start of 2022. – M.M.)SOUTH KOREA HITS BLUE GOLD: South Korean mining companies are attempting to capitalize on what could be large deposits of a very rare metal, tungsten. An abandoned mine 180 km south of Seoul is being reactivated after new tungsten deposits were found in it. The mine, which had been closed for over 30 years, contains large deposits of the valuable blue metal, which is used in smartphones, microchips, electric vehicles, and missiles. The Sangdong mine is one of 30 critical mineral mines and processing plants to launch or reopen outside of China in the last four years. (AC: As countries and economies realize their level of overdependence on China, they are searching for alternative sources of critical material and manufacturing capacity. In the words of the Vice President of Almonty Korea Tungsten Corporation, “Resources have become weapons and strategic assets.” Expect continued efforts by Western nations and their allies in the Indo-Pacific to re-shore industry and obtain alternate sources of critical natural resources – M.M.)GEOPOLITICAL INTSUMXI WARNS OF GROWING UKRAINE CONFLICT: In a conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron, Chinese President Xi Jinping warned of the risk that the Russia-Ukraine conflict turns into warfare between the ideological spheres of East and West. Xi urged Macron and other European leaders to stay in the lead on European security and retain autonomy instead of aligning with purely U.S. interests in the region. (AC: Xi and mouthpieces for the Chinese Communist Party continue to criticize the “Cold War mentality” of the United States. Alexander Dugin, who is often credited as being the ideological thinker behind the Ukraine war, is adamant that Russia has in fact embarked on a war against U.S. hegemony. China stands to gain from a diplomatically weakened United States, which is behind Xi’s attempts to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe. The Chinese previously suggested that the European Union break major trade ties with the United States in favor of developing closer relations with China. – M.S.)