Knock Knock: It's the CCP

Hi Global Recap readers,

I recently visited Hong Kong and spoke directly with people on the ground to see whether real-life sentiment matched the headlines.

• It did, and in many cases, it was worse.

• I talked to elderly residents who once fled communist China (on boats), as well as students.

• Many no longer read the news at all. Most can’t leave due to their jobs, families, or insufficient funds.

What’s most disturbing is that those who escaped the CCP decades ago are now watching the regime they fled come knocking again.

This seems to be a trend.👇🏼

🇨🇳 CHINA
Deepfake Porn
Targets Exiles

Hong Kong democracy activists in Britain say intimidation tactics have gone digital and sexual, with deepfakes turned into weaponized humiliation. In one case, a former Hong Kong district councillor learned that strangers mailed fake explicit images of her to people who used to live next door.

• Target: Carmen Lau, a Hong Kong pro-democracy activist now in the U.K., says at least half a dozen of her former neighbors in Maidenhead received letters recently, posted from Macau, containing face-swapped sexual images plus her former home address in full.

• Payload: The letters framed Lau as available for sexual services, including a line inviting recipients to visit her, and included multiple manipulated images, including one depicting a sex act (pixelated in reporting). Police in Thames Valley said they are investigating malicious communications involving digitally altered images, and no arrests have been made.

• Pattern: In Australia, former Hong Kong lawmaker Ted Hui said a sexualized poster targeting his wife (who is not a public figure) was emailed in August, around the time he says his family was granted asylum, and that other defamatory letters about him were sent to Australian addresses earlier this year. He says Australian authorities are investigating.

• Leverage: Both Lau and Hui are among dozens of overseas activists for whom Hong Kong authorities have offered HK$1 million bounties, and UK lawmakers have publicly warned that harassment is now occurring on British soil, with ministers pointing to the National Security Act 2023 as a route to prosecution.

🇪🇺 EUROPEAN UNION
Trump’s E.U. Pull List

A leaked U.S. strategy draft says the Trump administration wants to convince four EU members toward a Brexit-style exit. The White House is flatly denying this as "fake news."

• Leak: The controversy centers on an alleged expanded version of the U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS). According to reports, it explicitly outlines a plan to "pull" Italy, Hungary, Poland, and Austria away from the EU by deepening bilateral ties with governments viewed as politically aligned with Trump.

• Document: The official, publicly released NSS dated Dec. 4 warned that Europe faced "civilizational erasure” unless it cut migration. The leaked longer draft is said to go further—calling for a deliberate reshaping of Europe around national sovereignty, cultural identity, and culture-war priorities.

• Allies: The draft reportedly urges backing "parties, movements, and intellectual and cultural figures" committed to sovereignty and "traditional European ways of life," provided they remain pro-American. There were no parties explicitly mentioned.

• Players: The narrative draws heavily on Trump’s unusually close relationships with Italian PM Meloni and Hungarian PM Orbán, presenting them as proof of concept—reward friendly governments, marginalize EU institutions, and bypass Brussels when it clashes with U.S. priorities.

🇺🇸 UNITED STATES
Trump Grows Impatient

President Donald Trump is openly telegraphing frustration with Ukraine peace talks that keep producing meetings, not outcomes, and he is aiming most of his irritation at Kyiv and Europe rather than Moscow.

• Trigger: Speaking this week at a roundtable with business leaders, Trump said the U.S. may go to a weekend meeting in Europe but only if it is worth the time, adding, "We don't want to be wasting time."

• Europe: German Chancellor Merz said he, French President Macron, and British PM Keir Starmer pressed Trump to finish peace proposals together with the U.S. over the weekend, because Europe is trying to avoid a deal cut without them.

• Terms: The talks are stuck on territorial concessions, including the future of eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region and the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy saying negotiators are wrestling with who controls what and under what security guarantees.

• Moscow: Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov claimed Russia and the U.S. have now "resolved all misunderstandings" on Ukraine and said Moscow has handed Washington extra proposals on broader security guarantees, signaling Russia sees itself lining up more comfortably with the current U.S. approach.

• Signal: The White House framed Trump's mood as impatience with "meetings just for the sake of meeting," leaving open whether the U.S. sends a representative to Europe if there is a real shot at signing something.

🇪🇺 EUROPEAN UNION
Russian Assets Locked In

EU capitals just approved a legal "workaround" that lets the European Commission keep roughly €210 billion in Russian state assets frozen in Europe until Russia pays reparations to Ukraine. The point is to stop a single friendly-to-Moscow leader from unfreezing the money during the E.U.’s regular sanctions renewals.

• Trigger: Today, EU ambassadors backed a revised Article 122 emergency proposal, with the Danish Council presidency saying a formal Council decision would follow via written procedure by about 5 p.m. the next day.

• Mechanism: The Commission reportedly gets emergency powers to keep the assets blocked until "Russia ceases its war of aggression against Ukraine, and provides reparations to Ukraine," according to the legal text POLITICO saw.

• Veto: This sidesteps the current setup where E.U. sanctions have to be renewed unanimously every six months, which gives countries like Hungary or Slovakia recurring leverage.

• Stakes: If the assets ever got released after the E.U. used them to support an assets-backed loan to Kyiv, EU capitals could get stuck repaying, which is why this legal tweak is designed to reduce that scenario.

• Pushback: Hungary publicly argued the move violates E.U. law and compromises the Commission’s neutrality, while Slovak PM Fico wrote to European Council President Costa opposing solutions that would cover Ukraine’s military expenses for coming years.

🇨🇩 DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
M23 Pushes Into Uvira

Eastern Congo just got bloodier: regional officials say more than 413 civilians have been killed since early December as the Rwanda-backed M23 escalated its South Kivu offensive, with the province accusing Rwanda’s special forces and even mercenaries of operating in the middle of it.

• Seizure: M23 says it took Uvira on Wednesday after a fast offensive that began at the start of the month.

• Toll: South Kivu authorities say at least 413 civilians were killed by bullets, grenades, and bombs in localities between Uvira and Bukavu, the provincial capital, and they explicitly flagged women and children among the dead.

• Diplomacy: This all lands days after a U.S.-mediated peace agreement was signed in Washington by the Congolese and Rwandan presidents, but M23 was not part of it.

  • M23 is negotiating separately with Congo and had agreed earlier this year to a ceasefire that both sides say the other side broke.

  • Although M23 is widely believed by the U.N. and Western governments to be backed by Rwanda, Rwanda has not publicly admitted to supporting the group.

• Spillover: Burundi says it registered more than 30,000 refugees and asylum-seekers in three days, and there are reports of shells landing on the Burundian side of the border,.

• Numbers: The U.N. says M23 has around 6,500 militants now, and U.N. experts have estimated up to 4,000 Rwandan forces in Congo. Local U.N. partners report more than 200,000 people displaced in South Kivu since Dec. 2, with more than 70 killed.