Sentinel minutes #2/2025: Chinese amphibious barges, Taiwan internet cable cut.

Status: Green

Top items:

• Nvidia unveils $3K computer able to run 200B parameter models locally.

• China is building barges designed for an amphibious assault on Taiwan.

• A Taiwan internet cable was cut by China.

Biorisks

The US has seen its first known H5N1 bird flu death. A patient in Louisiana, the first severe case in the US, has passed away. The patient was over age 65 and had other medical conditions. The patient was exposed to H5N1 through some combination of a backyard flock and wild birds. In San Francisco, US, a child who has since recovered had H5N1—no clear source of exposure has been identified. A 28-year-old man in Cambodia has also died from an H5N1 infection, possibly after eating sick chickens.

H5N1 viruses in dairy cows in the US have acquired mutations that help the virus to make copies of itself more efficiently in cattle, pigs and humans.

A person who traveled to the Democratic Republic of Congo was diagnosed with clade 1b mpox. Four additional cases in China have been associated with this patient.

There is a Human Metapneumovirus (HMPV) outbreak in China; reporting started as somewhat sensationalistic, but it seems that cases are now declining. India confirmed its first case of the virus.

Geopolitics

The Americas

US President-elect Trump suggested that the US could use military force to acquire the Panama Canal and Greenland and "economic force" to annex Canada.

Greenland’s Prime Minister Mute Egede has said he’s ready to talk to Trump, as has Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Fredriksen. Denmark says it has neglected Greenland’s defense for years, but is planning new ship and dog sled patrols. And the US lobbied Greenland’s rare earths developer Tanbreez not to sell to China.

Forecasters think that a Greenland acquisition by the US—whether by forceful annexation or with a compact of free association—is an unlikely but real possibility in Trump’s second term; they give it an aggregate chance of 14% (range 2% to 37%). On the one hand, the US could offer its 50K population a million dollars each, and the 2025 Greenlandic general election will feature independence as the most important issue. On the other hand, a four-year timeline would be very aggressive.

Forecasters think that annexation of the Panama canal is very unlikely (2.5% chance, range 0.1% to 4%), and of Canada extremely unlikely (0.05% chance, range 0% to 0.1%).

The US sanctioned a Chinese company, Integrity Technology, and accused it of backing the hacking group known as "Flax Typhoon." Reuters reported that, "In a statement, the State Department said that Integrity Tech was a large Chinese government contractor with ties to the Ministry of State Security and that its hackers were working at the direction of Beijing to target critical infrastructure in the U.S. and overseas."

A mercenary who previously served with Russia's Wagner Group was caught trying to cross the border illegally from Mexico to the US, carrying two passports, $4,000 in cash, and a drone.

Meta and Amazon have announced they are scaling back DEI programs ahead of Trump’s inauguration. Zuckerberg has also announced they are ending their third party fact-checking program and moving to a Community Notes model, to allow freer speech.

Canada's PM Trudeau will resign as PM and leader of the Liberal Party.

The parting Biden administration will remove regulations to facilitate civil nuclear cooperation with India.

The US State Department accused Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces of committing genocide.

Paraguay and Venezuela suspended relations after Paraguay recognized Edmundo González as the president. Masked men kidnapped the son-in-law of Edmundo González.

Middle East

In an article in Foreign Affairs, Richard Haass argues that, "Iran is weaker and more vulnerable than it has been in decades, likely since its decadelong war with Iraq or even since the 1979 revolution. [...] The most promising approach is one that would pursue the ambitious objective of reshaping Iran’s national security policy through diplomacy—but diplomacy carried out against a backdrop of the ability and willingness to use military force if Tehran refused to adequately address U.S. and Western concerns. [...] And for the United States, it will help determine the extent to which it can finally make good on a long-discussed pivot and shift military resources away from the Middle East toward other priorities, above all deterring Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific. [...] stopping Iran’s nuclear program and its support for destabilizing proxies will remain urgent priorities."

Turkey’s foreign minister said that the new Syrian administration should be given an opportunity to address the presence of Kurdish militants in Syria, and that the Turkish military would act if it did not.

The Jerusalem Post is calling for a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear program

Hamas approves Israeli list of captives to be freed as part of Gaza ceasefire deal.

110K Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces will stage a military exercise

Europe

NATO has sent a fleet to guard undersea cables under the Baltic Sea. Russian naval activity is ongoing in the Baltic Sea.

Russian gas has stopped flowing to EU countries via Ukraine, after a five-year deal expired. The Russia-backed separatist region of Transnistria has extended its State of Emergency after losing access to Russian gas—though Moldova says that Russia could still supply the region via an alternate route.

The United States unveiled a further package of $500 million in support for Ukraine, including air defence missiles and F-16 fighter jet equipment, in what is expected to be the last weapons package sent to Ukraine before Trump takes office.

A report by the Institute for the Study of War suggests that some Russian elites and officials are frustrated with Putin's handling of the war in Ukraine. The elites have apparently grown tired of waiting for the war to end, while some security officials want Putin to completely transition the Russian economy and society to a wartime footing.

NATO took over air defenses in Poland that support Ukraine and that had been under the control of the US.

Macron suggests that European countries should build their own military technological capabilities and not rely solely on US military technological capabilities.

Azerbaijan’s gas flows to Serbia and Bulgaria have been suspended because of technical reasons, but they are expected to resume next week

Russian TV personalities, including a Duma member, talk about why Russia is cutting energy cables on national TV. “[The point] is to create problems for them, and it is creating problems”, “We need the Suwałki Gap from Kaliningrad to Leningrad”, “So let’s go ahead and invade Estonia, right? Why just Estonia? Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania”. It’s pretty good TV.

Lithuania will protect said Suwalki Gap more intensely, ahead of planned disconnection of Baltic countries from Soviet-era grid shared with Russia and Belarus.

Russia says Ukraine fired US-made missiles at the Belgorod region.

East and Southeast Asia

The WSJ published an in-depth look at China's hacking of US infrastructure in support of its military goals.

China announced trade restrictions for several dozen US companies, as part of an escalation of trade disagreements between the two countries and in anticipation of Trump's second term.

2024 saw record-breaking PLA activities around Taiwan.

Taiwan is investigating a Chinese vessel, the Shunxing 39, over damage to an undersea internet cable that links Taiwan with the United States. It was a Cameroon- and Tanzania-flagged vessel, crewed by seven Chinese nationals. It is owned by a Hong Kong-based company directed by a Chinese national. Radar showed the vessel passed by when the cable was cut, though there was no direct evidence that it was responsible.

A small number of what appear to be special purpose barges have been spotted in Guangzhou Shipyard in Southern China. Experts suggest that they are tailor-made for an amphibious assault on Taiwan, with unusually long road bridges that could be used to offload tanks onto Taiwanese roads. Forecasters think it is very likely (~80%) that they are being built with an invasion of Taiwan in mind. And while they think that a short-term invasion attempt of Taiwan by China is fairly unlikely in the short term (~2% in 2025, range 0.5% to 3%), it grows more likely over the medium term, with an aggregate of 32% (range 13% to 65%) by 2030.

Chinese-language patent applications show that some engineers in China have been trying to invent devices that can cut undersea cables quickly and efficiently, though there are also peaceful applications.

Meanwhile, the United States is fortifying the island of Guam to prepare for Chinese ballistic missile attacks in the event that war breaks out over Taiwan.

Indonesia joined the BRICS as a full member.

North Korea conducted further intermediate-range missile tests.

South Asia

Maoist rebels in India kill nine.

Time to get rid of TTP once and for all, says Pakistani PM

There was a surge in armed activities by Baloch pro-independence groups in 2024

General

The Council on Foreign Relations published a list of potential conflicts to watch for in 2025 based on the results of polling hundreds of foreign policy experts "to assess thirty ongoing or potential violent conflicts and their likely impact on U.S. interests." Anxiety levels among respondents were high.

Technology

Police said that the suspect in the Cybertruck explosion at a Trump Hotel in Las Vegas on New Year's Day used ChatGPT to plan the blast, making this the first known use of AI to plan a terrorist attack.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unveiled two new GPUs that use Nvidia AI Blackwell chips, and its new Cosmos series of AI models that generate videos for training robots and other automated activities. He also introduced Project DIGITS, a $3000 desktop supercomputer that will allow users to run AI models with up to 200B parameters. As the AP points out, "This means models previously requiring expensive cloud infrastructure to operate can run on your desktop."

As reported by Oracle last week, the Biden administration is restricting GPU and data center exports. Nvidia has criticised the Biden administration’s new AI chip export controls, saying that the Biden administration shouldn’t "preempt incoming President Trump”.

Gravy Analytics, a US company that collects and analyzes anonymized location data from mobile devices, was hacked, and hackers claim to have stolen 17TB of data. They shared a sample of it on the web. Venntel, a subsidiary of Gravy Analytics, has sold data to the US DHS, IRS and FBI. Cyber Security News reports that the hackers gave Gravy Analytics 24 hours to respond. Alon Gag of Hudson Rock has compiled a list of apps whose data has been compromised.

The US Federal Trade Commission has weighed in on Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI, offering legal analysis that could aid Musk, while not formally supporting either party.

Dario Amodei and Matt Pottinger wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, aimed at influencing incoming President Trump. They argue that the US should “keep America’s AI advantage”, calling for strong export controls on China and “proactive development efforts” in the US.

Anthropic is reportedly near a deal to raise an additional $2 billion at a price that values the company at $60 billion.

Amazon announced that it will invest $11 billion in Georgia for AI infrastructure development.

Apple is facing calls to withdraw its AI-based news alerts feature on iPhones, after the feature invented entirely false claims.

Climate and Nature

Aerosol pollution, such as sulfur dioxide, reduces global warming. But now that aerosol pollution is decreasing, the planet is warming faster. Beyond aerosols, an article in The Atlantic explores why the Earth is warming faster than climate models can explain.

Climate extremes significantly disrupted global water cycle in 2024, says the Global Water Monitor Report.

A major citrus grower in Florida, US will cease its citrus operations after the current growing season. Its citrus production had fallen by almost 3/4 over the past decade because of hurricanes and citrus greening disease. Citrus greening is a bacterial infection of citrus plants and was first reported in China in 1919 and has been spreading around the world in recent decades, killing off citrus trees worldwide. Scientists and growers have been struggling with citrus greening in the US since it first appeared in Florida in 2005. Over a decade ago, a scientist told a Florida citrus grower that, "People are either going to drink transgenic orange juice or they’re going to drink apple juice." Other approaches beyond genetic engineering and genome editing are also in the works, but it's unclear how many of the world's citrus groves will remain in the decades to come.