China does not play by the same rules and includes research into a wider range of industries, beyond traditional ones such as steel, including semiconductors, telecom equipment and renewable energy.
Europe (and other regions in the Amercas, Africa, and Asia) can't address this by tariffs alone imho. There is more to do. Not sure whether all political decision makers have understood that, but at least some appear to be heading into the right direction.
"Geopolitical risks, responses to China's economic and export strategy and maintaining free trade must be weighed up against each other."
The EU should not only focus on tariffs as the sole aspect of trade imo, but also raise the issue of state-imposed forced labor in China's EV industry, which significantly contributes to cheap Chinese EVs, as well as other violations of human rights abuses there. Among others, this requires unhindered access to Chinese plants across the supply chain for independent audits. Volkswagen itself admitted a few weeks ago that "no full supply chain transparency exists".
Volkswagen statement in May following accusations of forced labour in the Xinjiang plant (operated by VW's joint venture with SAIC)
"[...] as no full supply chain transparency [in China] exists."
Meanwhile, VW had left the joint venture over forced labour accusations.
Another report says:
Volkswagen said in December 2023 that an audit overseen by Markus Löning, Germany’s former commissioner for human rights, found “no indications” of forced labor at the Xinjiang joint venture plant, which is used to road test cars assembled elsewhere in China. Löning conceded, however, that the basis for the audit had been a review of documentation rather than interviews with workers, which he said could be “dangerous.” He also said that “even if they [workers] would be aware of something, they cannot say that in an interview.”
The same report continues:
In June 2023, ECCHR [European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights] filed a complaint with the [German] Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control [...], the German government authority overseeing the country’s Supply Chain Act. The complaint contends that Volkswagen, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz are violating their obligations under the law by failing to adopt appropriate measures to identify and prevent the risks of state-imposed forced labor in their supply chains. [The Federal Office] has not yet responded publicly to the complaint.
And:
“We [Volkswagen] have no transparency about the supplier relationships of the non-controlled shareholding SAIC-Volkswagen.”
One of the biggest banks in Latvia, ABLV, had their banking license pulled overnight and was forced into liquidation for a mere SUSPICION of enabling money laundering operations for/through russia. Later it was found that it was not guilty. That was before the war. It bewilders me the there are still at least two banks that continue operations in russia and ECB has not persecuted them to the same extent as a Latvian one.
It matters not if the bank is stable or not. It matters that mere allegation caused ECB to switch off their operations. On the other side, we have at least two other banks who are openly continuing to work in russia against sanctions and they don't get the same treatment.
It matters a lot when the country can't sustain its banking industry for decades. Also ABLV was closed in 2018, way before the war. So stop spreading dumb bull shit, ok?
Yes because appeasing to voters by copying inhumane far right rethoric and politics has worked out so well in the past for the parties on the democratic spectrum.
Doing something against problems without using their rethoric is a good thing and the problems they use for their Antidemocracy propaganda exist and ignoring problems because the extremists talk about them won't help at all.
Migrants are people first, not "problems". They have rights, they have value, they have skills. As in any population, some will be an issue for society, nad you'll need to deal with that. But that has little to nothing to do with them being migrants.
And the whole "anti-democracy propaganda", as you called it, is mixed up in there too: The far right wants to take away human rights. They'll start with the weakest link, which may be migrants or disabled people or ..., and work their way up.
Exactly, thats what im arguing and uncontrolled immigration is a problem for our society, just as the rise in antisemitism or right wing idiology are.
And there is no human right to getting to stay in EU when you traveled through other countries first. Ukraine is a different story. This isn't meant offensive, its just a fact.
The way to strengthen the weakest link is to reduce the number of people destroying it from inside and giving those that work with us the tools to repair it better, so, throw out people that don't belong here due to crimes (actual crimes not a parking ticket or shit like that) or involvement in organizations that are considered problematic. And the way to reduce the number of people of destroying it from the outside is to do better Educational work especially in structural weak regions and settle more people from that weak link there (unless they are at risk for violence, i wouldn't settle gay people in rural Saxony for example...)
On the other hand more news like this might get people away from far right.
Xenophobic arguments are not "about the numbers" or rationality. They are about fear. You can deport as many people as you want, the argument will not go away, as long as there's a single migrant anywhere (and possibly beyond). Also, voters tend to be more right-wing if they don't know any migrants themselves because either there are few/no migrants where they live or they're segregated from them.
Also look at Biden or Obama — they had more people deported than any US president who came before them. Biden even instituted an "upper limit" on migration recently. Yet, they will still be attacked as "weak on migration".
The only way to win (as a society) is to integrate migrants well. And to make sure people don't need to flee their home countries.
Exactly and working against that fear is the important part, throwing out people that are problematic is a good step, you can simultaneously work on better integration, like Germany did with the overhaul of the citizenship program.
Efficient integration also means reducing the number of immigrants in certain areas that have too many, moving them somewhere else is better as they don't have the ability to build subsocieties
And of course its not about the numbers itself, its about the number of immigrants that shouldn't be here due to crimes, there was almost a decade of the issue being effectively ignored and the voters show that, every other day is a headline about a immigrant doing crimes and being known beforehand to the authoritys, its a actual issue, this issue causes xenophobia.
And im not in favor of a "upper limit" or throwing out people that integrate. Its idiotic to do that and doesn't help at all, its even counterproductive.
And of course, fighting the root of the problem would help a lot but its often not possible or too complex, or in some cases counterproductive "look how much money we spend on those [slurs] while people here have it so bad" -right people fishing for voters (efficiently due to our current economic situation)
Britain has been harsher on China than anybody in the EU for a while now.
E.g. the UK is one of only four countries in the world that have the balls to formally recognise the Uyghur Genocide as a genocide. The UK offered asylum to over 3 million Hong Kong citizens. The UK sanctioned china over attempts to infiltrate the UK's Electoral Commission. The UK got into a spat with China over them hacking some MoD server. Several Chinese spies have been charged by the UK, etc...
UK-China relations were already rocky even before the bullshit in Hong Kong (which as you can imagine is a big issue for the UK and not others) and Russia invading Ukraine (in which the UK has been one of the top supporters of Ukraine), and it's got worse from there. Clearly you're talking about something that you know nothing about.
You're letting your xenophobic attitude towards the UK cloud your judgement. Put your hate aside for a moment and actually look at reality.
People that break the constitution in favor of money don't really deserve to be given a judgment based on our constitution. They broke not only that, but endangered the existence of said constitution.
We don't kill murderers, yes, they kill at worst a handful of people. We do kill terrorists when they have weapons on hand to kill civilians. High treason is just terrorism with informations.
Let's be real, you would be against life without parol in that case as well. I would be ok with that, i just don't see how its economically viable. People trying to destroy our state shouldn't get a life financed by our state. And the current laws are obviously not punishing enough.
(1) Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar. Sie zu achten und zu schützen ist Verpflichtung aller staatlichen Gewalt.
(2) Das Deutsche Volk bekennt sich darum zu unverletzlichen und unveräußerlichen Menschenrechten als Grundlage jeder menschlichen Gemeinschaft, des Friedens und der Gerechtigkeit in der Welt.
(3) Die nachfolgenden Grundrechte binden Gesetzgebung, vollziehende Gewalt und Rechtsprechung als unmittelbar geltendes Recht.
Why to spread it in Germany then? It's the first time I hear about that living in russia, and I'm a passionate collector of crazy conspiralogical theories, thanks to X-Files for that hobby. That exaggeration doesn't paint you in a better light too.
reuters.com
Heiß