Comrades, come and enjoy!

I specifically waited for the U.S. stock market to open before starting to write the article, and the U.S. stock market has still clawed its way up from -2% V… So the biggest losers are actually China, Japan, and South Korea? Today’s A-share market doesn’t have much going for it, because the entire market was thrown off course by that Trump speech—basically, it was a form of “we ended up paying the bill for the military budget.”

The biggest reason the U.S. stocks can V-shape up is: reports say Iran and Oman are drafting a passage agreement for the Strait of Hormuz. As international crude oil fell sharply, WTI crude briefly broke below $107 per barrel, and Brent crude fell to as low as $103.5 per barrel. Spot gold also briefly rebounded to above $4,700 per ounce.

In plain terms: we’re going to set up a toll station, and it’s still in the “drafting” stage… Global financial markets are being turned upside down by Iran and the United States, because oil is the lifeblood of industry and there’s no way to “de-sensitize” it. Unless you’re a major oil exporter—for example, Russia’s stock market is completely unaffected. But for China, Japan, and South Korea, and also Europe, a large amount of crude oil has to be imported. So it’s impossible to de-sensitize it. As long as crude oil rises sharply, the stock market has to sell off. Then money will look for defensive sectors. Oil, oil substitutes, and even pharmaceuticals themselves are defensive areas.

Considering there’s a small holiday tomorrow, the market isn’t going to develop any new themes. Most likely, it will keep tossing around these same hotspots.

Using a baby’s eyes to objectively observe the market: which sector currently has the strongest profit-making effect? Then you go into that one—everything else is fake.

As of now, pharma stocks are still the preferred choice as long as high-end varieties keep holding and there aren’t any daily limit-downs. But if high-priced stocks collectively start to fade away, then it’s time to rest—properly.

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1. Reports say Iran and Oman are drafting a Strait of Hormuz passage agreement; the market swings sharply. Due to the Iran–U.S. conflict, shipping through the strait has been severely disrupted, and passage volume has plunged by more than 90%. A large number of ships are forced to take detours or remain stuck, causing freight rates and insurance costs to skyrocket, tightening global supply chains as well. [Taoqiba]
   The market fears uncertainty the most: What the market worried about most before was that the strait would be closed for a long time—even permanently. Now Iran and Oman propose joint management, which means the strait won’t just stay open; it may even become safer and more orderly. This huge uncertainty has been removed.
   Also, things aren’t that simple.
   The agreement is still “in draft”: At present, it’s only at the “drafting” stage—it hasn’t been formally signed or taken effect, and the specific details are still unknown.
   Iran is also “collecting tolls”: Meanwhile, Iran is also studying a passage fee to be charged to ships transiting the strait. While this is better than direct blockade, it would still increase shipping costs, and this cost may ultimately be passed on to oil prices.
   So, this news is a positive signal that eases tensions, but whether the Strait of Hormuz can truly restore the flow to pre-conflict levels is still a long way off.

2. On local time April 1, the U.S. Supreme Court formally held oral arguments on the birthright citizenship case. The lawsuit stems from Executive Order No. 14160 previously signed, and its core intent is to challenge and overturn the legal tradition established in 1868—“Anyone born on U.S. territory automatically receives citizenship.” In the past, as long as a child was born on U.S. territory, regardless of whether his parents were tourists, international students, or illegal immigrants, the child automatically became a U.S. citizen. This rule has been in place since 1868.

What did Trump do? On his very first day in office, he signed an executive order (No. 14160) and directly changed that old rule. The new rule says: If you want a child to become a U.S. person at birth, at least one parent must be a U.S. citizen or have a green card. Otherwise, even if the child is born in the U.S., the child won’t be able to obtain U.S. citizenship.

This issue caused an uproar across the entire U.S., and it eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Just yesterday (April 1), the Supreme Court’s nine justices debated face-to-face with Trump’s team for 75 minutes. Trump himself even showed up to attend and listen to the arguments in person, which was unprecedented in history.

How chaotic is the situation now? The U.S. is currently in a “one country, two systems” split:
28 states: have already followed Trump’s new rules, and they don’t recognize the U.S. citizenship of newborns whose parents lack legal status.
22 states: firmly oppose it and have banded together to fight the lawsuit—in their states, the old rules still apply for now.

So right now, the whole U.S. is waiting for the Supreme Court’s final ruling to set a unified standard. What are the core points of contention in both sides’ arguments?

Trump’s team says: “subject to its jurisdiction,” as written in the Constitution, means “complete political allegiance” to the United States. Illegal immigrants and temporary visitors (such as tourists) still have allegiance in their hearts to their own country, so children born to them shouldn’t count as U.S. citizens. They say this is only meant to “restore the original intent of the Constitution.”

Opponents say: The Constitution is written clearly: “All who are born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction are U.S. citizens.” If you want to change this rule, you have to go through a complex constitutional amendment process. A president can’t arbitrarily change things with an executive order—this would be unconstitutional.

What will the final outcome be? Nobody can say for sure.
Although during the arguments, many justices expressed skepticism toward Trump’s approach, believing he overstepped his authority, the final ruling still won’t be released until the end of June or early July this year.

If Trump wins: then the “giving birth in the U.S.” route will be completely shut down. Roughly 150,000 newborns each year would be directly affected. Many children who have already been born but whose parents lack legal status would have their situation become awkward.
If Trump loses: then the old rule of “birthright citizenship on U.S. soil” is preserved, and everything stays as it was.

In short, this is a major showdown involving the foundations of the U.S. Constitution and the futures of millions of people. The final result will be known in a few months.

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Today I saw a news report: the Japanese government plans to send a delegation in May to visit Russia, trying to lock in crude oil imports amid complex international circumstances. It’s hard not to感叹 that Japan’s energy security concerns have been a thread kept taut for nearly half a century.

Actually, looking back to the global oil crisis of 1973, Japan was able to “miraculously” dodge the Arab world’s comprehensive oil embargo. Besides the government’s emergency diplomatic pivot, there was another highly ironic “behind-the-scenes hand”—the Japanese Red Army. The causal tangled relationship here is more absurd than any script.

On May 30, 1972, at the Lod International Airport (now Ben Gurion Airport) in Tel Aviv. Three members of the Japanese Red Army—Tsuyoshi Okudaira, Yasuda Yasuyuki, and Akamoto Shinzo—carried a violin case concealing submachine guns and carried out a random attack that shocked the world. After the gunfire, 26 people were killed and 80 were injured. Okudaira detonated a grenade and killed himself; Yasuda was killed on the spot; only Akamoto Shinzo was captured alive.

To the West and Israel, this was nothing short of terrorism. But in the Arab world at the time, these three radical youths who tried to overthrow the Japanese government were hailed as “anti-imperialist heroes.”

This twisted form of “hero worship” peaked over the following decades: every time Palestinian armed groups exchanged prisoners of war with Israel, Akamoto Shinzo’s name was always listed first; in Lebanon, as many as 250 lawyers volunteered to provide him with free legal defense; and among Arab boys born after 1972 as well, many were named “Okudaira” to commemorate the suicide bomber.

In October 1973, the Fourth Middle East War broke out. Arab oil-producing countries brandished “oil weapons” and imposed an embargo on Western countries that supported Israel. As a U.S. ally and extremely dependent on Middle East oil, Japan was already on the “blacklist.”

But history played a huge joke here.

Although Japan’s government at the time did indeed try to save itself through diplomatic measures such as issuing a “New Middle East Policy” and recognizing Palestinian human rights, it’s undeniable that the Red Army’s atrocities gave Japan an unexpected “amulet” at the level of popular emotions. The Arab world broadly believed: “These Japanese are bleeding for us, and the Japanese people are friendly toward us.”

In the end, Japan was removed from the sanctions list (or listed as neutral/friendly), and oil kept flowing nonstop to Tokyo. This directly helped Japan’s economic takeoff in the 1970s. Yet the price of all this was that three radical youths whose goal was to destroy Japan’s system used their blood to keep Japanese capitalism “alive.”

In 2022, Red Army leader Fusae Shigenobu (Shigenobu Nagano) completed her prison sentence and was released. This woman, who had vowed to “step out of the circle of nationalism and become an internationalist,” spent more than half her life in prison. And far away in the Middle East, there are still people who remember her name—remember that crazy era.

History sometimes is just that strange. Japan’s certain “positive image” in the Middle East doesn’t come from the Foreign Ministry’s clever paperwork—it comes from the gunshots and explosions of that night in 1972. The flames meant to destroy the country ended up, unexpectedly, lighting up the country’s energy lifeline. This is not only Japan’s black humor, but also the deepest footnote to that turbulent era.

Ladies and gentlemen, good evening!