🇨🇳 Arnaud Bertrand on the gentrification of China's Hainan:

"This is largely being ignored but it's easily one of the biggest China news of the year.

What China is doing with Hainan - a huge island (50 times the size of Singapore!) - is pretty extraordinary: they're basically making it into a completely different jurisdiction from the rest of the country, and an extremely attractive entry gate for the Chinese market.

You can now import most products in the world (74% of all goods) entirely duty free into Hainan. And, if you transform the product and add 30% value locally, you can then send it to the rest of mainland China completely tariff-free.

So for instance: import Australian beef into Hainan tax free. Slice it and package it for hotpot in Hainan: it can enter all mainland supermarkets duty-free.

They also have insanely low corporate tax rates: 15%, lower than Hong Kong (16.5%) and Singapore (17%) or the rest of the mainland (25%).

That's not all, Hainan now has different rules from the rest of China in dozens of areas:

HEALTH: Basically the rule is that if a medicine or medical device is approved by regulatory agencies anywhere in the world, it can be used in Hainan - even if banned on the mainland. Which undoubtedly makes it THE place in the world with the widest range of medical treatments available.

NO FIREWALL: Companies registered in Hainan can apply for unrestricted global internet access

OPEN EDUCATION: Foreign universities can open campuses without a Chinese partner

VISA-FREE: 86 countries get visa-free entry, probably one of the most open places in the world

CAPITAL: Special accounts let money flow freely to and from overseas - normal mainland forex restrictions don't apply

So they're running a pretty extraordinary "radical openness" experiment there.

They're basically building a "greatest hits" of global free zones: Singapore's tax regime, Switzerland's medical access, Dubai's visa policy - all in one giant tropical island attached to the 1.4 billion people Chinese consumer market."

📎 Arnaud Bertrand

Jared Isaacman Confirmed as New NASA Administrator – Trump Signs Executive Order Directing Return of Americans to the Moon by 2028 With a Permanent Lunar Base by 2030

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/12/jared-isaacman-confirmed-as-new-nasa-administrator-trump/

Never claim the Aetherstream doesn't provide practical and helpful household hints.

🇨🇳 District committee employees in China were skipping work by exploiting biometric system flaws, reported South China Morning Post.

Officials took several masks, covered their faces, and approached the recognition system, which counted their attendance. Thus, workers replaced each other and did not come to the office. One resident complained about the truants to government authorities.

Over three-thousand books sold in our latest Based Book Sale. What were the top sellers? Check them out in time for Christmas.

https://basedbooksale.substack.com/p/2025-black-friday-after-action-review

Historical probability of having a snowy (1 inch+ snow) Christmas
https://redd.it/1phz5zk
@r_mapporn

"Monarchy first changes into its vicious allied form, tyranny; and next, the abolishment of both gives birth to aristocracy. 9 Aristocracy by its very nature degenerates into oligarchy; and when the commons inflamed by anger take vengeance on this government for its unjust rule, democracy comes into being; and in due course the license and lawlessness of this form of government produces mob-rule to complete the series."

The Histories, Polybius (~200–120 BC)
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/6*.html

Shut up and take my money.

NEW - School teacher, Enoch Burke, jailed again, in Ireland for "contempt of court." Burke was suspended in 2022 from his school after refusing to use a student's preferred pronouns, citing his Christian beliefs.

@disclosetv

Listen up kids. Yukon Cornelius says don't try to take on the abominable snowmen in your life without being properly armed and equipped.

Inside the operation of the world’s largest ship elevator at the Three Gorges Dam, China.

Did you know? 🎓

Great review of The Brave and the Bold, third book in The Hidden Truth series.
https://amzn.to/3SpMAPK

"Schantz’s world building is, I think the make or break aspect of the book, and really the whole series, for most people. He goes into great detail describing the secret history behind the development of many technologies we take for granted today, as well as recapping some of the physics that the Circle is trying to keep secret. The intent is both to help the reader understand on a base level what the Circle is up to and how they go about accomplishing their goals of containing technological development and disrupting Western Civilization. Some readers might find the level of detail excessive. On the other hand, I find it draws me in even further, making the book difficult to put down to say the least. Part of that is because the author does such a good job describing things in an accessible way and the other is that most of the details are actually true. It makes you realize that the free market has never really been free."

https://upstreamreviews.substack.com/p/review-the-brave-and-the-bold-by

"Every Christmas, Judas Iscariot is let out of Hell. Most people never leave, not even once, and they did not betray Our Lord and Savior to his agonizing if necessary death, so you might not expect him to get special treatment. In fact, Judas leaves Hell on a regular basis. As this infamous man told St. Brendan the Navigator, that night long long ago when the saint and his companions came across him on a frozen sea, he is released from Hell on Sundays, for the twelve days of Christmas, and a couple additional feast days beside."

https://www.notebook.bdmcclay.com/p/a-december-ghost-story?r=lp6h7

Help the Society for Post-Quantum Research put the classical back into classical physics by putting Amazon's #1 New Release in Electromagnetism under your Christmas tree.

Help us maintain the momentum by buying a copy: https://amzn.to/4axBYXY
If you have already, please leave a review: https://amzn.to/4iJfC7Z

"John Leake: The Demonic Rituals to Replicate God and Mankind’s New Religion of Science" - Tucker Carlson, YouTube, 08DEC2025

>Ritual piercing of the body. The shedding of blood. The promise of salvation. John Leake explains the religion of vaccines, and why its adherents are dangerous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PQpQ0MtHF0
(COVID, Coof, Pharma, Health)

"Gerard’s death, announced today, December 17, 2025, closes a chapter not only in television history, but in the long, evolving life of one of science fiction’s most durable characters.

When Buck Rogers returned to the screen at the end of the 1970s, science fiction was in the midst of a cultural recalibration. Sci-fi on television struggled with the post-Star Wars world. The genre was shaking off the cynicism of the post-Apollo era and rediscovering a sense of adventure, optimism, and wonder. Gerard’s Buck was not a relic of the past, nor a grim futurist anti-hero. He was something rarer: a bridge figure."

https://open.substack.com/pub/lucinarocketeer/p/remembering-gil-gerard-19432025?r=lp6h7