Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Burak Gürel @burakgurel1980.bsky.social · 6h

"Nearly 80% of CATL’s overseas investment has been in Europe. The company has pumped $12.3 billion into three production hubs, according to the September analysis....CATL’s advance into Europe is a pre-emptive move in case exporting to the EU becomes harder."
www.caixinglobal.com/2025-10-07/c...

Burak Gürel @burakgurel1980.bsky.social · 7h

"Unlike the West’s gig economy, which is almost entirely focused on services, roughly 40m of the make-or-break workers are paid by the day or week to work in factories. In China’s largest manufacturing complexes they can at times make up 80% of the workforce."

www.economist.com/finance-and-...

China’s future rests on 200m precarious workers

They may work in factories or for delivery apps, but are united by common struggles

www.economist.com

Burak Gürel @burakgurel1980.bsky.social · 2d

Kapitalist bir çerçevede dahi olsa kalkınmacılık ile uzaktan yakından alakaları yok. Bunun uzun vadede yaratacağı ekonomik tahribat çok büyük olacak.

Burak Gürel @burakgurel1980.bsky.social · 3d

"AI pioneer Marvin Minsky told Life magazine that true AGI was three to eight years away—in 1970. Less widely known is that the magazine canvassed skeptics who cautioned that AGI was more likely to take 15 years. It’s always been the technology of the future."
www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-i...

AI Investors Are Chasing a Big Prize. Here’s What Can Go Wrong.

There are good reasons to think that simply throwing more computing power at the current models won’t do it.

www.wsj.com

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Burak Gürel @burakgurel1980.bsky.social · 4d

"The audacious plan...envisages American investors developing the seaside fishing town of Pasni as a terminal for access to Pakistan’s critical minerals. Pasni is just 100 miles from Iran and 70 miles from the Pakistani city of Gwadar, which has a China-backed port."
on.ft.com/3KwTz7E

Pakistan courts US with pitch for new Arabian Sea port

Audacious plan would give Washington a mineral gateway near China’s flank

on.ft.com

Burak Gürel @burakgurel1980.bsky.social · 8d

While not the main focus, the study also uncovers a rising number of Chinese nationals obtaining Turkish citizenship without informing the PRC, which bans dual citizenship. It is an intriguing trend to watch in terms of Sino-Turkish relations.

Burak Gürel @burakgurel1980.bsky.social · 8d

This is a fascinating study on Turkey's "citizenship by investment" program implemented since 2017. What stood out to me most was the state’s deliberate withholding of reliable data on the program.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
+

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Burak Gürel @burakgurel1980.bsky.social · 9d

This paper operationalizes the concept of uneven and combined development to analyze the workings and contradictions of the BRI in Indonesia and the Philippines by focusing on the interplay of local class forces, bureaucracies, and great powers.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Burak Gürel @burakgurel1980.bsky.social · 9d

"Between 2008 and 2023, the first-marriage rate among 22- to 45-year-olds declined 9%, to 60 marriages per 1,000 never-married Americans."
www.wsj.com/lifestyle/re...

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Burak Gürel @burakgurel1980.bsky.social · 11d

Türk Sosyal Bilimler Derneği 18. Ulusal Sosyal Bilimler Kongresi kapanış oturumunun diğer konuşmacıları olan Seyhan Erdoğdu, Funda Hülagü ve Hayri Kozanoğlu'na, oturum başkanı Ezgi Doğru'ya, soru ve yorumlarıyla katkıda bulunan katılımcılara ve bu güzel kongreye emek veren herkese teşekkür ederim.

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Burak Gürel @burakgurel1980.bsky.social · 14d

Dış politikanın ötesine geçerek, Türkiye'nin devlet kapasitesinin gidişatına dair çok net bir tablo sunan bu iki yazıyı tavsiye ederim.
1. t24.com.tr/yazarlar/bar...
2. t24.com.tr/yazarlar/bar...

MI6’dan Türkiye’ye kabile devlet muamelesi

İngiliz dış istihbarat servisi MI6’nın başkanı Richard Moore’un İstanbul’daki basın toplantısının içeriğinden Türk tarafının habersiz olması ihtimali bir skandal, haberi olup yeşil ışık yakması ayrı s...

t24.com.tr

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Burak Gürel @burakgurel1980.bsky.social · 17d

"China’s entry into the top ten is all the more remarkable given its status as a middle-income economy."
www.economist.com/graphic-deta...

1

Burak Gürel @burakgurel1980.bsky.social · 17d

"BYD shares increased by roughly 3890% during the years Berkshire owned them. Buffett has not explained in detail why Berkshire started selling."

www.cnbc.com/amp/2025/09/...

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Burak Gürel @burakgurel1980.bsky.social · 19d

"In terms of intellectual property, however, Chinese firms continued to lag long-established Japanese and Korean players...though the gap is shrinking."

jamestown.org/program/embo...

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Burak Gürel @burakgurel1980.bsky.social · 22d

Another manifestation of the global rise of state capitalism, including in the West👇🏾
"The US government is in talks to set up a multibillion-dollar fund for overseas mining projects with investment firm Orion Resource Partners, as Washington seeks to counter Chinese dominance."
on.ft.com/3VkvZNu

US in talks to fund multibillion-dollar mining initiative for critical minerals

Investments would finance projects to extract materials crucial for defence and high-tech manufacturing

on.ft.com

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Burak Gürel @burakgurel1980.bsky.social · 22d

"The Swiss National Bank has US equity holdings amounting to $167bn, spread across more than 2,300 positions [...] More than $42bn is invested in just five companies — Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft and Nvidia — making it a major Silicon Valley investor."
on.ft.com/3K3yukW

Burak Gürel @burakgurel1980.bsky.social · 23d

"Technology was a different matter. As Mao put it, 'in any case, [we should] copy everything, whether it is relatively good, or we basically don’t know. Having learned, we will see'."

Source: Sergey Radchenko, "To Run the World: The Kremlin's Cold War Bid for Global Power," 2024.

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Burak Gürel @burakgurel1980.bsky.social · 25d

"The Jakarta Model shows how resource-rich countries can attract investment and climb the value chain—but at immense cost to people and the planet. Without key changes, it risks becoming a blueprint for a new era of green extractivism across the Global South."

www.newamerica.org/planetary-po...

Burak Gürel @burakgurel1980.bsky.social · 28d

"The producer price downturn in China has persisted for almost three years, hurting profits of manufacturers who also have to weather weak consumer confidence and uncertainties stemming from U.S. trade policies."

www.reuters.com/world/china/...

Burak Gürel @burakgurel1980.bsky.social · 29d

"Consumers are likely to curb discretionary spending, especially on pricier meats, and opt for cheaper alternatives like poultry and pork...Meanwhile, the central government’s crackdown on lavish official banquets would also likely dampen demand."

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Burak Gürel @burakgurel1980.bsky.social · Sep 7

"European steelmakers are urging Brussels to impose US-style tariffs on all imports of the metal, warning the industry risks collapse under pressure from cheap Chinese products and Donald Trump’s high duties."

on.ft.com/4nfnbnV

EU steelmakers plead for tariffs on cheap imports to avert collapse

Senior Thyssenkrupp executive warns industry is ‘not going to survive’ without emergency protection

on.ft.com

2

Burak Gürel @burakgurel1980.bsky.social · Sep 7

"The Nordic and Scandinavian countries with their social democratic history are supposed to have the least inequality and lowest poverty in the modern world. But that reality has disappeared over the last 30 years."

thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2025/09/07/n...

Burak Gürel @burakgurel1980.bsky.social · Sep 7

"A new US-UK technology partnership is essential to stopping China from achieving technological dominance over the west in crucial fields such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing and biotechnology, the UK’s ambassador to the US has warned."
www.ft.com/content/d1bd...

Peter Mandelson warns US and UK must unite to halt Chinese tech supremacy

US ambassador describes Beijing as west’s ‘most formidable modern competitor’

www.ft.com

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Burak Gürel @burakgurel1980.bsky.social · Sep 7

"US GDP would have grown at a mere 0.6 per cent annualised rate in the first half were it not for AI-related spending, or half the actual rate...Beyond the surge in AI-related spending, private investment elsewhere in the US economy has started to shrink this year."
www.ft.com/content/e9be...

Burak Gürel @burakgurel1980.bsky.social · Sep 5

I don’t agree with everything here, but it’s quite informative and worth reading.

online.ucpress.edu/currenthisto...