Letter From the Editors
After months of unpredictability and chaos, it seems many countries have decided to put their houses in order. In Ukraine, apparently, some of these houses were built in the Dynasty luxury development outside Kiev, which former presidential aide Andrei Yermak allegedly used as a money-laundering front. Now remanded in custody on orders from anticorruption agencies, Yermak faces a reckoning for his years in power. Among the lurid details, a recent Izvestia article claims “this éminence grise of Ukrainian politics” worked with a fortune teller known as Veronica Feng Shui, who advised him on appointing officials and outmaneuvering enemies.
No matter how the Yermak trial turns out, there are clearly far worse problem-solvers one might consult than feng shui experts. For example, the Kremlin has long accused Ukrainian authorities of unleashing hired gangs of neo-Nazis to achieve its goals. But now we’re learning how Russian authorities have worked with such groups – as Pavel Kuznetsov details in a chronology from the 2022 formation of the Española PMC to the grisly “housecleaning” as it was decommissioned over the past year. Questions only continue to grow, alongside the number of dead, wounded and imprisoned.
With so much conflict in the world, it is fitting to seek concord in China, the home of feng shui – the harmonious flow of wind and water – as Xi welcomes Trump to Beijing. Izvestia quotes scholar Yang Cheng as saying Beijing and Washington “are moving away from ‘social media diplomacy’ and sharp tariff increases toward more traditional mechanisms overseen by high-ranking officials.” Yang clarifies: “From China’s perspective, high-level dialogue with the US is aimed at conflict management between major powers and global stabilization, not at sharing global domination with Washington.”
Expert Sergei Lukonin points to a degree of superficiality in these overtures: “Chinese State Council Premier Li Qiang said that he hopes to deepen the presence of American companies in Chinese markets. What does that mean? Absolutely nothing. . . . Or there are Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s words about the unprecedented growth of the Chinese military over the past decade: Washington is making it clear what it is paying close attention to, putting it in a diplomatic format of praise for success.”
One senses that other Russian commentators are frustrated with all this amiability and would like to stoke a fight between the world’s two largest powers. Scholars speculate to Izvestia that, in order to assert leverage, the US “will thus cross all of Beijing’s red lines” regarding Taiwan and turn it into a “second Ukraine.” More egregiously, Vedomosti quotes the Xinhua readout of the Trump-Xi meeting as saying stability in the Taiwan Strait is “the biggest dividing issue between China and the US,” when the readout really says this is “the biggest common denominator.”
Sure, the readout then quotes Xi as “emphasizing that ‘Taiwan independence’ and cross-Strait peace are as irreconcilable as fire and water.” But while the US readout stayed mum on the issue, Trump later seemed to concur with Xi, telling journalists: “I’m not looking to have somebody go independent, and you know, we are supposed to travel 9,500 miles to fight a war.”
Perhaps the US president has taken a note of caution about needless confrontation. Once friction starts, it’s hard to tell what will break, and what will burst into flames. In NG, experts had similar warnings for Iran, which, having imposed tolls on sea traffic through the Strait of Hormuz as a military contingency, is now likewise considering charging for the use of cross-strait telecommunications cables, part of a broader trend toward a “bottleneck economy.” Expert Olga Rozanova says, “The negative consequences of such behavior are predictable. Trust in a partner who changes the rules after the fact inevitably declines. The reputational damage for Iran could be substantial.” Indeed, while it’s surely tempting to turn one’s backyard into a source of leverage, this violates the most basic household principle of wind and water: Never defecate upstream.