A recent Peterson Institute for International Economics paper advances what it calls the “China Squeeze.” It argues that China, despite moving into more advanced industries, has not withdrawn from labor-intensive sectors. By continuing to compete in these markets, the paper claims, China is blocking poorer countries from following the traditional path to industrialization. It accuse China for climbing the development ladder and then pulling it up.

This argument misreads how industrial development and production relocation actually work. It treats China as a single, economically homogeneous country and overlooks the infrastructure, supply chains and market access that industrialization requires.

It assume that as Chinese wages rise, China should vacate traditional industries and make room for poorer economies. If it does not, it is supposedly trying to “retain comparative advantage in everything.”

But China is not composed only of Shanghai, Shenzhen and other prosperous coastal cities. It also has a vast interior, a large population and enormous regional differences in wages, land costs, industrial structures and stages of development. When manufacturing moves from Guangdong, Zhejiang or Jiangsu to Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei or Sichuan, the economic logic is not fundamentally different from a factory moving from China to Vietnam or Indonesia. Both represent the relocation of production in response to changing costs and capabilities.

China’s internal development gap means that the entire country cannot be expected to exit an industry simultaneously. Ignoring domestic industrial relocation while focusing exclusively on production crossing national borders makes China’s continued presence in traditional manufacturing appear far more anomalous than it is.

The “China Squeeze” argument also understates the scale of China’s outward industrial relocation. A growing number of developing economies import Chinese machinery and components, process or assemble them locally, and then export finished goods to the United States, Europe and other markets. Like what McKinsey describes in its report, China’s changing role as a shift from the “factory of the world” to a “factory to the factories.” In 2025, China’s exports of consumer goods declined by about 2 percent. Its exports of intermediate goods, however, rose by 9 percent, while capital-goods exports increased by 5 percent. The fastest-growing categories included semiconductors, memory chips, lithium-ion batteries, smartphone components and industrial machinery.

In other words, China increasingly exports not only products for final consumption but also the equipment and inputs that allow manufacturing to expand elsewhere. In many emerging supply chains, China supplies machinery and components while developing economies take on assembly, processing and other stages of production.

This does not mean that there’s no competition. It means that the relationship cannot be reduced to the proposition that every additional product made in China is one fewer product made elsewhere. Developing economies can be both competitors with China and participants in production networks supported by Chinese inputs.

The deeper problem with the “China Squeeze” theory is that it ignored the fundamental elements for industrial transfer to happen. Export performance also depends on productivity, electricity supply, port efficiency, financing costs, supplier networks, industrial clusters, technology and local governance.

A factory leaving China does not means it will reappear in Bangladesh or Tanzania. Production relocation requires reliable electricity, functioning roads and ports, a basically educated workforce, effective customs administration and a reasonably predictable investment environment, These were precisely the conditions that China possessed on the eve of reform and opening-up.

Industrial clusters also generate powerful economies of scale. A garment factory needs nearby suppliers of fabric, dyes, buttons, zippers and packaging, as well as efficient logistics. An electronics plant depends on chips, screens, batteries, molds and precision components. Moving a factory to the country with the lowest wages does not necessarily produce the lowest overall costs. Wages are only one part of the equation; a functioning industrial ecosystem is often more important.

Seen from this perspective, one of the Belt and Road Initiative’s most important contributions has been to help developing economies build the conditions needed to receive industrial investment. Ports, roads, railways, power plants and communications networks are not incidental to industrialization. They are what make industrialization possible.

Industrial capacity must also be connected to consumer markets. Here, too, China is moving in a direction that the “China Squeeze” narrative overlooks. Since May 1, 2026, China has applied zero tariffs across all tariff lines to imports from all 53 African countries with which it maintains diplomatic relations.

The significance goes beyond increasing African exports of commodities and agricultural products. Combined with Chinese infrastructure, investment and industrial parks, greater access to the Chinese market could encourage more goods to be processed and manufactured in Africa before export—creating local employment, value added and productive capacity. China should now complement tariff removal with simpler customs, inspection and certification procedures so that African producers can make full use of this access.

Competition is real, but industrialization is not a zero-sum game and China is not pulling up the industrialization ladder. The “China Squeeze” thesis counts the competitive pressure created by Chinese exports while largely ignoring the opportunities created by Chinese investment, infrastructure, intermediate goods and market access.

Today, the nature of asymmetric threats is undergoing a profound transformation, with their focus shifting increasingly toward economic centers. By mid-2026, the nature of asymmetric warfare within the borders of the Russian Federation entered a qualitatively new and critical phase.

An analysis of the Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) strikes carried out in July 2026 reveals a deliberate shift in targeting. Moving beyond military installations and fuel-energy infrastructure, these attacks directly targeted civilian logistics networks and critical nodes of the macroeconomic infrastructure.

The primary objective of this strategic shift is to deplete the country’s internal resources, induce insurmountable disruptions in supply chains, and exert intense psychological pressure on the civilian population.

Large-scale, coordinated strikes on the distribution centers of Wildberries—Russia’s largest e-commerce platform and part of the RVB joint venture (formed by the 2024 merger of Wildberries and Russ)—became the symbol of this new phase of home-front vulnerability. The geographic scope of these attacks, spanning an unprecedented area from the Northwestern Federal District to Southern Russia and Crimea, exposed critical gaps in national industrial risk insurance mechanisms. Furthermore, this situation sparked severe legal disputes between platform economy giants and small businesses, compelling immediate intervention from both corporate executives and senior state officials.

Tracing the multi-layered consequences of the kinetic impacts resulting from these July attacks on the state’s digital and physical economy will shape the new architecture of civilian sector security.

The zenith of the logistical terror waged by Ukraine was recorded on the night of July 24, 2026, marking the most technically complex UAV attack inflicted on Russian Federation territory since the beginning of the year. According to data from the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, domestic air defense systems detected and destroyed 571 fixed-wing Ukrainian UAVs that night.

Two points have become exceptionally critical here: saturating radar fields and the military “swarm” effect. In short, this event is the clearest indication that the enemy has transitioned to a tactic of overwhelming radar systems. At the same time, the “swarm” effect generated across a vast geographic expanse aims to rapidly deplete the ammunition of anti-aircraft missile systems and expose air defense positions deep behind the front lines.

The breadth of the targeted geography attests to the unprecedented scale of the operation. UAVs were neutralized over the Belgorod, Bryansk, Kaluga, Kursk, Leningrad, Novgorod, Oryol, Pskov, Ryazan, Smolensk, Tver, Tula, and Vladimir regions, as well as over Moscow, Krasnodar, the Republic of Crimea, and the waters of the Azov and Black Seas.

Such a dense dispersion of targets across a vast territory points to an attempt to paralyze transportation and logistics arteries within Russia’s European landmass.

In parallel with the mass deployment of UAVs, missile strikes were also conducted against civilian industrial enterprises. During the same period, a missile attack on a local enterprise in the Fileyka district of Kirov resulted in outright catastrophe, leaving 6 people dead and 32 employees injured with varying degrees of severity.

Following the incident, Regional Governor Aleksandr Sokolov stated that the situation required not only the evacuation of the wounded, but also large-scale interventions such as restoring water and power supplies and auditing the security of neighboring settlements. This combined approach—employing inexpensive kamikaze drones to degrade air defenses followed immediately by missile strikes on unprotected industrial zones—presents an entirely new threat paradigm for the civilian economy.

Systematic and sequential attacks directed at the facilities of a single commercial entity completely eliminate the possibility of coincidence. The strategic, macroeconomic, and psychological factors turning civilian commercial warehouses into critical vulnerabilities for an entire state rest upon four pillars:

1. Role as the central circulatory system of domestic trade: Wildberries plays a critical role in the architecture of the modern Russian economy, connecting millions of consumers with tens of thousands of SMEs. Damage to distribution centers severe supply chains, triggering localized shortages of essential consumer goods and regional inflationary spikes. The primary goal is to destabilize the domestic market and create an artificial supply vacuum.
2. Immense facility footprints and defense complexity: Spanning hundreds of thousands of square meters across the nation, these hangars constitute massive targets with high radar contrast. Unlike military bases, these commercial warehouses cannot possess their own air defense systems; placing every such facility under an air defense umbrella is physically impossible without compromising frontline systems.
3. Social and psychological impact: In the eyes of the public, logistics centers symbolize daily economic stability. Black plumes of smoke visible from miles away, massive fires, and civilian casualties represent a hybrid terror tactic designed to transport an atmosphere of fear deep into peaceful cities and shake the internal socio-political climate.
4. Magnified radius of economic impact: Inventory consumed by flames in these warehouses generally consists of stock purchased by merchants on credit. The destruction of commodity inventories holds the potential to cause mass vendor bankruptcies, bank loan defaults, and cascading layoffs across small businesses.

The events of July 2026 mark an irreversible shift in the threat landscape facing Russian commerce and macroeconomics. Attacks directed at Wildberries hubs in regions such as St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Tambov exposed the utter vulnerability of civilian logistics infrastructure.

Deploying relatively inexpensive unmanned aerial vehicles, the enemy is capable of inflicting tens of billions of rubles in direct damage, paralyzing the supply of essential goods, and triggering an acute social crisis in which hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs face the threat of bankruptcy. According to Russian experts, the total cost of a single fire—similar to the Kotovsk incident on July 18—can range between 50 and 100 billion Rubles ($630 million – $1.2 billion USD).

Despite its massive capital reserves, corporate business was caught unprepared for military threats. The medium-term survival of the e-commerce economy depends on the state and the private sector uniting to engineer unprecedented systemic solutions. Establishing compensation funds and introducing mandatory risk-distribution mechanisms are critical steps that must be taken.

Logistics hubs will remain open targets unless a “state program for subsidized reinsurance of military risks” is established for the critical nodes of the civilian economy. In the future, it will not suffice for large enterprises merely to pour capital into the physical protection of infrastructure; they must also deeply decentralize their logistics networks to prevent the concentration of goods and capital at single points of failure.

Dr. Ahmed Moustafa, Director & Founder, Asia Center for Studies & Translation, Egypt

For the first time since successive waves of escalation between Washington and Tehran began in recent months, an Egyptian liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility has become a direct target.

In the early hours of Wednesday, 29 July 2026, at least one drone struck the floating storage unit Energos Winter, owned and operated by a U.S. company and sailing under the Marshall Islands flag, while it was moored at the Mediterranean port of Damietta. The impact ignited a fire that spread to a neighboring LNG carrier, GasLog Salem. Egyptian authorities confirmed that the blaze was brought under control without any reported casualties, while no group had claimed responsibility for the attack at the time of writing.

A Broader Context That Cannot Be Ignored

The incident did not occur in a vacuum. It came only hours after the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that it had conducted joint strikes with Saudi forces targeting armed factions in Iraq accused of launching drone attacks against Saudi oil facilities. Tehran responded by warning against a “miscalculation,” at a time when the Middle East is still grappling with the repercussions of an earlier round of escalation that erupted on 8 July, when U.S. forces carried out strikes inside Iranian territory following an attack on a commercial vessel in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran retaliated with attacks targeting U.S. military bases in Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and the Sultanate of Oman.

Against this tense backdrop, Damietta appears to represent yet another link in the chain of regional escalation—but an exceptional one. For decades, Egypt has sought to keep itself removed from direct military polarization in the region, unlike several Gulf states that have increasingly become arenas of open confrontation.

At the same time, this interpretation does not entirely rule out the possibility of an indirect Israeli role, driven by hostility toward Egypt’s growing diplomatic influence in the Palestinian and Gaza files. Cairo has remained committed to advancing the two-state solution and to implementing the second and third phases of the peace roadmap agreed upon following the Sharm El-Sheikh Peace Summit last October. The Israeli government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, has sought to obstruct these efforts. Netanyahu, who is the subject of arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court, is widely accused of bearing responsibility for committing genocide that, according to Palestinian authorities, have resulted in the deaths of approximately 73,000 Palestinian civilians since 7 October 2023.

Why Egypt?

Over the past two years, Egypt has steadily strengthened its position as a regional hub for liquefying and re-exporting natural gas. This growing role has been supported by its two LNG plants at Idku and Damietta, in addition to a network of pipelines linking the country with Israel and Cyprus.

This infrastructure—unmatched elsewhere in the Eastern Mediterranean in terms of combined liquefaction capacity and direct access to European and global markets—has transformed Damietta and Idku into critical gateways for Eastern Mediterranean gas, including increasing volumes of Israeli/Stolen Palestinian natural gas liquefied and re-exported through Egyptian facilities.

According to local reports, the Energos Winter alone was supplying approximately 450 million cubic feet of gas per day to Egypt’s national grid and was preparing to receive four additional cargoes during August.

This expanding role gives any attack on Egypt’s gas infrastructure significance far beyond the immediate incident itself. It threatens not only Egypt’s domestic energy supplies but also a supply chain upon which Europe has increasingly relied as part of its strategy to diversify away from Russian natural gas.

Who Was Behind the Attack? Open Scenarios

At the time of writing, no organization had officially claimed responsibility, leaving several possible interpretations.

The first scenario cautions against prematurely attributing responsibility to Iran or its regional allies. It argues that the ambiguity surrounding the incident—and the absence of any claim of responsibility—may itself be deliberate, allowing whichever actor carried out the attack to undermine Egyptian stability without incurring immediate political costs.

This possibility includes actors competing over Eastern Mediterranean energy routes, as well as local or transnational groups pursuing agendas unrelated to the U.S.-Iran confrontation. Egyptian officials themselves have adopted a notably cautious approach. Egypt’s Minister of Information warned against “rushing to accuse any party,” while a former official suggested that “certain actors are seeking to drag Egypt into the conflict,” implying that the attack may have been designed precisely to draw Cairo into a confrontation it has consistently sought to avoid.

A second scenario, Israeli Involvement or the Involvement of Israel’s Allies

This, in itself, remains a serious hypothesis that is reportedly being discussed in undisclosed investigative circles. The prevailing analyses, supported by pro-Israeli and pro-American narratives, have largely centered on suspicions directed at Iran or Iran-aligned actors within the context of the ongoing conflict, rather than at Tel Aviv. This is partly because Israel maintains an energy partnership with Egypt, making any attack on an Egyptian export terminal potentially detrimental to its own natural gas interests.

Nevertheless, this hypothesis—like all others—must ultimately be assessed in light of the findings of the official investigations, which are still underway. It is worth recalling, however, that repeated warnings have been voiced regarding the visits of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington, as such visits have often been followed by heightened regional instability, as was argued after developments last December. According to this line of analysis, Netanyahu seeks to prolong the conflict with Iran in order to strengthen his domestic political position, secure his continuation in office, and advance Israel’s long-term strategic objective of neutralizing Iran and carrying out “Greater Israel.”

Within this framework, some analysts argue that there are broader efforts to weaken both Egypt and Türkey. They cite remarks attributed to a former Mossad operative during appearances on Israeli television, alleging that such a strategy would also serve to divert international attention away from the Gaza file and the question of Palestinian statehood—an issue on which Egypt has intensified its diplomatic efforts in recent days. According to this interpretation, creating indirect pressure on Egypt—the region’s most stable and secure state—could be viewed as a means of drawing Cairo into a wider regional confrontation.

A third scenario links the incident directly to the broader U.S.-Iran escalation. According to the article, The New York Times, citing two Iranian sources, reported that the attack may have been intended as a signal that global shipping and energy supplies could face deeper disruptions should Tehran or its allies choose to escalate further. The sources, however, did not identify the perpetrators or specify the launch point of the drone.

The Messages Behind the Attack

Regardless of who carried out the operation, the choice of target sends several important signals. An attack on what the article describes as the first American-owned energy asset on Egyptian soil would convey a message to Washington that not only its military installations in the Gulf, but also its economic footprint across the region, has become increasingly vulnerable.

For Egypt, which has consistently pursued a policy of strategic restraint and regional neutrality, the incident serves as a reminder that its geographic position—adjacent to some of the world’s most important energy and maritime corridors—no longer guarantees insulation from the conflicts unfolding around it.

For global markets, the attack suggests that the geographic scope of potential disruption is expanding beyond the Strait of Hormuz and the Arabian Gulf into the Eastern Mediterranean, increasing insurance premiums for shipping and critical energy infrastructure in a region long regarded as comparatively secure.

Egypt’s Official Response

The Egyptian government handled the incident with considerable caution and procedural professionalism, treating it primarily as a crisis-management operation rather than a political event.

The Cabinet confirmed that the fire had been caused by a drone attack without attributing responsibility to any specific party, emphasizing that investigations were continuing “to take all necessary measures to safeguard Egypt’s interests and national security.”

Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly described the response as a test of the state’s crisis-management capabilities, praising emergency teams for successfully moving the burning vessels away from the port, thereby preventing what could have become a far larger disaster.

President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi addressed the incident publicly for the first time during a telephone conversation with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. During the call, he confirmed that the competent authorities were conducting a comprehensive investigation, warned of the dangers posed by the escalating regional situation, and stressed the importance of cooperation between Egypt and the international community to contain the crisis while adhering to peaceful solutions.

This measured diplomatic approach—avoiding direct accusations while emphasizing de-escalation—reflects Cairo’s determination not to be drawn into a broader regional confrontation despite having come under direct attack on its own territory.

Several Gulf states also expressed their full solidarity with Egypt and voiced support for its efforts to safeguard its national security and sovereignty.

The Impact on Global Energy Markets

The Damietta incident occurred at a time when global energy markets were already under considerable strain. Brent crude had been hovering around US$90 per barrel following the escalation of 8 July, while the European Title Transfer Facility (TTF) benchmark for natural gas had climbed above US$700 per 1,000 cubic meters for the first time since March.

Any additional disruption affecting an Egyptian LNG export terminal risks reinforcing this upward trend. Europe has increasingly relied on Egyptian liquefied natural gas as part of its broader strategy to diversify supplies away from Russian pipeline gas. Consequently, even a temporary interruption to Egypt’s export infrastructure could heighten market concerns over supply security.

The incident also adds to the geopolitical risk premium already factored into insurance costs for vessels operating in the Eastern Mediterranean. Higher perceived risks could translate into increased shipping and insurance costs for LNG carriers throughout the region, even if subsequent investigations conclude that the attack was an isolated event unlikely to be repeated.

What Should Be Done to Prevent Similar Incidents?

First, Egypt should further strengthen its short-range air defense capabilities and counter-drone systems around strategic energy installations along its Mediterranean coastline. This includes deploying advanced early-warning radar networks and cost-effective interception systems capable of neutralizing small unmanned aerial vehicles before they reach critical infrastructure.

Second, broader regional intelligence-sharing mechanisms should be expanded among Egypt and neighboring states—including Cyprus, Greece, and Türkiye—in recognition of the increasingly interconnected nature of Eastern Mediterranean gas infrastructure and the shared strategic importance of safeguarding regional energy corridors.

Third, given that the targeted floating storage unit is owned by a U.S. company, Washington should contribute to financing and modernizing the protection of such critical infrastructure rather than limiting its response to statements indicating that it is merely “monitoring the situation,” as the article characterizes the U.S. reaction.

Finally—and perhaps most importantly—reducing the broader cycle of regional escalation between Washington and Tehran remains the only sustainable guarantee against similar incidents in the future. Any purely technical or localized security measures can mitigate immediate risks but cannot eliminate them so long as the underlying geopolitical drivers of confrontation remain unresolved.

Conclusion

The Damietta incident serves as a stark reminder that geographic neutrality alone is no longer sufficient to shield a country that has become a pivotal node in the global energy network.

References:

1- https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c39ez3klwmro

2- https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/egypt-confirms-drone-caused-fire-two-gas-vessels-damietta-2026-07-30/

3- https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/drone-hits-gas-storage-tanker-egypts-mediterranean-port-2026-07-29/

4- https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/29/world/middleeast/ships-drone-strike-egypt.html