The EU’s Evolving China Sanctions Strategy | It’s All Catching Up to Bibi Netanyahu | NATO Wants to Boost Its Undersea Defenses, and more

This shift in EU strategy, coupled with Beijing’s significant criticism of the EU’s February decision, suggests a new dawn of economic tension is arriving between two global powers, potentially disrupting the existing currents of international trade.
As China ramps up its support for Russia’s ongoing military campaign against Ukraine, the EU has emboldened its sanctions targeting Beijing. In late February, the EU sanctioned companies in mainland China for supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for the first time—blacklisting four entities for supplying critical dual-use items to Russia. The EU’s 14th sanctions package against Russia—adopted by the EU on June 24—included an additional six mainland Chinese companies “directly supporting Russia’s military and industrial complex in its war of aggression against Ukraine.”
This round of sanctions comes only a year after the EU first sanctioned companies in Hong Kong when Brussels chose not to sanction mainland Chinese companies. The 14th package includes another 13 Hong Kong companies, but it is the six sanctioned mainland Chinese companies that shed additional light on how the EU’s sanctions regime is evolving at a time when China is also pursuing a more strategic approach to sanctions—having taken steps in recent years to formalize its own independent sanctions regime. This shift in EU strategy, coupled with Beijing’s significant criticism of the EU’s February decision, suggests a new dawn of economic tension is arriving between two global powers, potentially disrupting the existing currents of international trade.

China’s New Info Warriors: The Information Support Force Emerges  (Joel Wuthnow, War on the Rocks)
Xi Jinping has tried to remake the People’s Liberation Army, but he’s recently been forced to undo part of his own creation. In April, China’s military underwent its largest reorganization this decade when the Strategic Support Force was eliminated, and a new Information Support Force inaugurated. Xi has hailed the new force as a “strategic force and a key support for coordinating the construction and application of network information systems.” He added that it would help “smooth information links,” “strengthen information protection,” and “efficiently implement information support,” all of which would be crucial for the military to carry out multi-domain joint operations.
The latest reorganization hints at a combination of frustration and ambition for China’s leaders. The establishment of the Strategic Support Force was a key part of Xi’s 2015-6 military reforms and could have been part of his legacy as the leader of the largest peacetime transformation in the Chinese military’s history. Yet its elimination after only eight and a half years signaled that Xi was willing to trade that achievement for a new arrangement that would better prepare the Chinese military for regional conflicts, especially the high-intensity joint operations necessary to intimidate and, if needed, conquer Taiwan. Indeed, Chinese sources describe the reforms as helping to keep the People’s Liberation Army on track for its 2027 modernization goal, which focuses on preparations for a cross-strait conflict.

It’s All Catching Up to Bibi Netanyahu  (Aluf Benn, The Atlantic)
Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is showing all the signs of heading for an early election, probably next spring. The leaders of coalition parties are already openly campaigning, Netanyahu’s Likud party is beginning to crack, senior military and civil-service figures are clashing openly with the prime minister, and Netanyahu remains broadly unpopular, despite overall public support for the war.
Ratcheting up the pressure even more, an old scandal returned to haunt the beleaguered leader yesterday: A state commission of inquiry accused him of putting Israel’s security at risk and harming the country’s foreign relations and economy by mishandling a submarine-procurement deal from 2009 to 2016. Netanyahu seemed to shrug off the commission as politically biased against him, but he has yet to respond to the accusation.
Finally, earlier today, Israel’s supreme court declared the long-held draft exemption of ultra-Orthodox men illegal and called on the government to either recruit them or enact a law relieving them from conscription. The ruling strains Netanyahu’s coalition of nationalist and religious parties, leaving the prime minister with a host of bad options.
Netanyahu has defied Israeli political wisdom by keeping his job for this long after Hamas’s attack on October 7. He presided over the country’s worst-ever disaster and has since failed to defeat Hamas or Hezbollah or to bring back the remaining hostages from captivity in Gaza. He turned Israel into a pariah state, censured around the world for the mass killing of Palestinian civilians and the destruction of infrastructure. And yet, through it all, he retained the support of his political base and remained in power, defying many predictions. Now, however, the pressure is mounting on his cabinet, which may not last through the end of its official term, in October 2026.

The West Eyes India’s Transnational Repression  (Michael Kugelman, Foreign Policy)
On Monday, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with his Indian counterpart, Ajit Doval, in New Delhi. The officials also led the second meeting of the U.S.-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology, a joint project launched in 2022 to strengthen technology collaboration to counter China. A joint fact sheet released after the meeting laid out plans for cooperation on defense innovation, space technology, and telecommunications.
While not mentioned publicly, it’s likely that Sullivan also brought up India’s transnational repression—a tension point that affects New Delhi’s relations with several key Western partners, including Washington, and could even undermine strategic tech collaboration. Navigating this issue will be a notable foreign-policy challenge for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he begins his third term.
Last Friday, Indian national Nikhil Gupta arrived in the United States after being extradited from the Czech Republic. A U.S. indictment unsealed last November accused Gupta of colluding with an Indian intelligence official in an unsuccessful plot to assassinate a Sikh separatist, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, in New York. Pannun, a U.S. citizen, is a prime figure in the pro-Khalistan movement, which advocates for an independent Sikh state.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Monday that Gupta’s extradition shows that the United States “will not tolerate attempts to silence or harm American citizens.” The same day, Gupta appeared in a federal court in Manhattan and pleaded not guilty. His next court appearance will be on June 28.
Gupta’s arrival in the United States comes on the heels of bombshell reports alleging that India has recently targeted Sikh communities in Australia and Canada, two other key Indian partners. On Sunday, an Australian Broadcasting Corp. investigation alleged that India was spying on Indian Australians, threatening Sikh diaspora members, and engaging in political interference.

NATO Wants to Boost Its Undersea Defenses  (Jack Detsch and Keith Johnson, Foreign Policy)
There are just two cables linking the remote Arctic archipelago of Svalbard with mainland Norway, providing almost all the data from polar-orbiting satellites to the rest of the world. And two years ago, they nearly stopped working.
Norwegian police images released in late May show the catastrophic damage done to one of the Svalbard fiber optic cables: the plastic casing slashed open, the cable exposed, and wires unfurled like a faulty electrical cord.
The unsolved January 2022 incident, which cut data flow from the SvalSat satellites and limited air traffic to the archipelago, is serving as a cautionary tale about what can happen when undersea cables—which underpin most of the global communications network—are cut. Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels did just that earlier this year when they targeted a key bottleneck between Asia, Africa, and Europe—after threatening to do so in response to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
The threat is not just limited to one or two areas. NATO officials believe that Russia has a decadeslong program to map out European undersea infrastructure as part of an effort to prepare the battlefield for a possible conflict with the 32-nation alliance.