Review of World Affairs

• Russian Threats & Trump’s Reaction
• Sino-American Rapprochement?
• Trump’s New Tariffs Bring a Heavy Cost
• China is building the world’s biggest hydropower dam

By Shashi P.B.B. Malla

Trump moves nuclear submarines after Russian ex-president’s provocative comments

US President Donald Trump said he has ordered two nuclear submarines to “be positioned in the appropriate regions” in response to “highly provocative comments by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (BBC/Jaroslav Lukiv, Aug. 2).

Trump said he acted “just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that. Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences. I hope this will not be one of those instances.”

He did not say where the two submarines were being deployed, in keeping with US military protocol.

Medvedev had recently threatened the United States in response to Trump’s ultimatums to Moscow to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine or face tough sanctions.

Russia and the US possess the most nuclear arms in the world, and both countries have a fleet of nuclear submarines.

In last Friday’s post on Trump’s own Truth Social, he wrote: “Based on the highly provocative statements of the former president of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, who is now the deputy chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, I have ordered two nuclear submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions.”

The US president did not elaborate whether he was referring to nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed submarines in his post on Truth Social [definitely the latter if his own threat was to be effective, and understood as such by the Russians].

Speaking to reporters later the same day, Trump said: “A threat was made, and we didn’t think it was appropriate. So I have to be very careful .  .  .

“I do that on the basis of safety for our people. A threat was made by a former president of Russia [who is still active on questions of national security]. And we’re going to protect our people.”

Moscow’s stock market fell sharply following The Kremlin has so far made no public comments on the Trump’s statements.

Trump and Medvedev have recently been involved in a series of mutual personal attacks against each other on social media.

It comes after Trump set a new deadline for Putin to bring his Ukraine war to an end by 8^th August – which Putin has shown no signs of doing.

Before that, on Monday, Trump had set a “10 or 12” day deadline [while he was at a press meeting with EU President Ursula von der Leyen in Scoyland].

Even earlier in July, he had threatened Russia with severe tariffs targeting its oil and other exports if Putin did not end the war in 50 days.

Medvedev – who was Russia’s president from 2008 to 2012 [ Putin was then the prime minister ] –accused Trump playing “the ultimatum game with Russia” earlier this week.

In a post on X, Medvedev said “each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war.”

He also described Trump’s ultimatum as “theatrical” earlier in July, saying that “Russia didn’t care.”

Writing on Telegram last Thursday, Medvedev warned of a “dead hand threat” – which some military analysts understood as a reference to the code-name of Russia’s retaliatory nuclear strikes control system (BBC).

Friday wasn’t the first time Trump responded to Medvedev’s comments.

On Thursday, he described Medvedev as “the failed former president of Russia, who thinks he’s still president.”

Trump also warned Medvedev to “watch his words”, adding that “he’s entering very dangerous territory!” (BBC).

Medvedev supports Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine launched in February 2022, and is an outspoken critic of the West.

A Very Optimistic Prediction About Sino-American Relations

Perhaps US-China tensions will resolve pleasantly for both sides, blossoming into a superpower partnership – even a friendship.

That’s the rosy analysis of former US assistant defence secretary [ equivalent to a minister of state ] and Harvard professor of political science Graham Allison, who predicts in a Foreign Policy magazine op-ed that when Trump and President Xi Jinping meet this year [as they may do in late October or early November], the talks will produce something very positive.

Allison predicts: “In what they may call a ‘great rebalancing’, when Trump and Xi finally meet, they will announce advances not only on trade but on other issues, including major investments in energy and manufacturing, a serious Chinese crackdown on exports of fentanyl precursors, a resolution of the Tik Tok standoff, and promises of Chinese purchases of more U.S. products to reduce the bilateral trade deficit .  .  .

“The two leaders will also talk candidly in private about how they can work together to constrain the provocations of Taiwan’s current government.”

CNN-anchor and The Washington Post commentator Fareed Zakaria asks about the background of the new optimism.

According to Allison, the possible new development in US-China relations has to do with Trump himself:

• The US president rose to prominence lambasting China’s trade practices, but he also has said he likes China and wants it to succeed.
•  Trump doesn’t appear as committed to defending Taiwan as past US presidents have, Allison notes.
• And Trump “believes that a strong U.S. economy is essential for the Republican Party’s success in the midterm elections in November 2026 – and that’s required for everything else he cares about.”

Ending his economic standoff with China surely would help.

Trumps Tariffs & International Trade

In the meantime, “In the blizzard of last-minute tariff ratthreats and trade deals, Americans are losing sight of the big story: a seismic shift in world affairs,” according to Fareed Zakaria in his latest Washington Post column, after Trump announced new tariff rates for most US trading partners on Wednesday.

“The United States, the creator and upholder of the open global economy, is now imposing its highest average tariff rate in nearly a century – and now has the highest tariffs of any major economy in the world.”

Trump has exerted leverage to squeeze US trading partners, but Zakaria writes that this is no victory – and it will change the nature of trade and how US policies around it are shaped.

“No one wins a trade war,” writes Zakaria.

“The United States is now burdening its own consumers with passed-on tariff costs, in other words, a highly regressive tax that is likely to hit poor people hardest .  .  .

“How is it a victory for the U.S. that low income Americans will now pay a good bit more for food and clothes at stores such as Costco and Walmart? .  .  .

“The world we are entering is different .  .  .

“Companies will have to spend time and brainpower gaming the system’s politics .  .  .

“They will ship goods first to low-tariff countries and then to the U.S. .  .  .

“They will under-invoice goods [which are tariffed] and over-invoice various processing fees [which are not] .  .  .

“They will increase their lobbying efforts .  .  .

“The U.S. created an ecosystem in which liberal democracies were economically and geopolitically interdependent and intertwined. Now America, the force that created this peaceful and prosperous world, is moving in the opposite direction.”

China’s Massive Dam: Why is India Worried?

China breaks ground on what Premier Li Qiang has called the ‘project of the century’, but some fear a water conflict and ecological effects.

On the eastern rim of the Tibetan plateau, China envisions a future powered by the roaring waters of the Yarlung Tsangpo, known as the Brahmaputra in India and Jamuna in Bangladesh.

The Yarlung Tsangpo will be the site of a mega dam – the world’s most ambitious to date – that promises to bring clean energy, jobs, infrastructure and prosperity to the region (SCMP/ South China Morning Post/Meredith Chen, July 23).

Construction on the world’s largest hydropower dam has already begun, according to Premier Li Qiang, who called it the “project of the century.”

But the project is not just about electricity and economic benefits – the stakes are far higher.

Regional security, ecological stability and the future of one of Asia’s great rivers all hang in the balance.

How big is the mega dam?

The dam will be situated in the lower reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo, where a section drops 2,000 metres over a 50 km stretch, creating immense hydropower potential.

The dam is reportedly located in Medog, a remote county in the city of Nyingchi in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR/Xixang).

When completed, the project will overtake the Three Gorges Dam as the world’s largest hydropower dam.

It would generate three times more energy with five cascade hydropower stations – an estimated annual capacity of 300 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, more than the U.K’s total annual power output.

It is estimated to cost around US Dollar $ 167 billion, dwarfing many of the biggest infrastructure undertakings in modern history at around five times the cost of the Three Gorges Dam and even more expensive than the International Space Station (SCMP/Chen).

The project was first announced in 2020 under China’s five-year plan as part of a broader strategy to exploit the hydropower potential of the Tibetan plateau, with feasibility studies dating back to the 1980s.

Beijing authorized the dam’s construction in December 2024.

Indian Concerns

The massive dam has raised fears in India over water flows, agriculture and regional security.

The mega project is situated near the disputed border with the north-eastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh [formerly NEFA/North Eastern Frontier Agency] which China claims as ‘Southern Tibet’], and which was the focus of the October 1962   Sino-Indian Border War.

The project has sparked alarm in India and Bangladesh given both the environmental risks and the potential leverage it offers China over water flow into North-East India [including the state of Assam] and Bangladesh (SCMP/Chen).

India and China have accused each other of trying to seize territory along their de facto border, known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC), which India claims is 3,488 kilometres long and China says is shorter.

After years of tension, both countries have renewed efforts to normalize relations.

However, the dam project introduces a major new fault line, as the ecological changes to the landscape are expected to trigger a range of geopolitical and environmental issues related to habitats and when flooding is a major risk.

“In the long run, as India argues, it will not only trap nutrient-rich sediments vital for downstream soil fertility in Assam and Bangladesh, thereby affecting irrigation,” Arvind Yelery, associate professor at the Centre for East Asian Studies in New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, told Deutsche Welle (DW).

India is also assuming that China will weaponize the waters of the Tsangpo, conveniently forgetting that it is already doing so with the Indus River waters vis-à-vis Pakistan!

The writer can be reached at:

shashimalla125@gmail.com