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3·1 day agoWhen Chinese leader Xi Jinping visited Russia in May 2025 to celebrate victory day in Moscow, Chinese state-controlled media outlet South China Morning Post reported that China’s Xi Jinping kicked off his state visit by thanking Moscow for supporting Taiwan’s reunification with mainland China.
In a signed article in Russia’s state-run Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper … [Xi Jinping wrote that Taiwan’s] unification [with China] must be upheld as part of the post-war international order … Celebrating the “enduring friendship” between Moscow and Beijing, he said the two countries had supported each other since World War II …
The war in Ukraine and China’s aggression against Taiwan are apparently closely linked, at least from China’s point of view. There may or may not be a threat of a U.S.-China war, but here this is just a red herring.
Believe or not, but I have been reading the articles and your comments you are mentioning, and when I read now this post, I was expecting such a comment, not to say literally waiting for it. 😅 Again, it perfectly fits ;-)
All you need is a clickbait headline and an absurdly bad interpretation of a study, and you see doomerism (and some tankies) in full force.
As someone already wrote in this thread, the study has a different outcome than what the title suggests. I encourage everyone to click the original study link (it’s in German, but there is DeepL and the like …).
The young European don’t loose faith in democracy, but I have been loosing faith in the Guardian for some time.
Britain should simply re-join. Problem solved.
I agree, the NIMBY framing seems indeed to be misplaced here. There are similar issues regarding Chinese investments in Europe, e.g., in Hungary, where a Chinese gigafactory has been raising concerns since around 2023 about water shortage as local residents struggle to get information from their government.
… on the outskirts of the city of Debrecen, the scale of Hungary’s ambitions to adapt to the electric transition is visible. Chinese-owned Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL) is building its new gigafactory, which will occupy over 200 hectares — over 280 football fields — once finished … [local residents] are worried that the new plant will be a health hazard for their crops, as well as for people in the area [over] the industrial water consumption in the already arid region … Intransparent communication is a key point of frustration for locals, who feel the decision for the investment was made without their consent. According to a … survey, almost two-thirds of residents view the battery plant critically.
These children and their families go through hell. This is pure genocide. There are no “not so bad aspects” of things. It is only black, there is no white at all,
Fact Sheet: Russia’s Kidnapping and Re-education of Ukraine’s Children – [from March 2025]
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Yale HRL [Humanitarian Research Lab] has identified more than 8,400 children from Ukraine who have been systematically relocated to at least 57 facilities––including 13 facilities in Belarus and 43 facilities in Russia and Russia-occupied territory.
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Russia targeted vulnerable groups of children for deportation, including orphans, children with disabilities, children from low-income families, and children with parents in the military.
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There are documented cases in which children were physically abused, denied communication with their families in Ukraine, and given inadequate access to food and care after being taken to Russia.
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Russia has refused to give Ukrainian authorities a list of children taken to Russia––as required by international law––and has engaged in various activities to conceal their forced deportation and illegal adoption of children from Ukraine.
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The** kidnapping and indoctrination, including military training, of children from Ukraine was ordered by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin** and executed by Russia’s federal, regional, and occupation officials. Russia’s security services and criminal investigative agency systematically targeted vulnerable groups of children and transported them to Russia, where regional officials subjected them to re-education and listed children for adoption. Russia’s Investigative Committee has set recruitment quotas and designated a cadet school for children from Ukraine, creating a direct pipeline into federal security service.
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Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova have been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the forced deportation of Ukraine’s children.
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Hundreds of children––including those with families––were taken from Ukraine and illegally placed for adoption in Russia or placed in Russian families. In at least one case, Russia’s government re-issued the child’s birth certificate, changing the child’s name and place of birth. Such changes in personal information present significant barriers to identifying the child for return.
Addition:
The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly just issued a report yesterday (30 June) urging governments to act on the deportation and Russification of Ukrainian children (the report is here as pdf).
TLDR:
- Albeit less overtly violent, these crimes consist of the erasure of Ukrainian identity and militarization of children who are forced not only to endure a brutal war of aggression during those formative childhood years, but to have Russian imperialism, aided by Belarus and North Korea, kill their parents, siblings, relatives, friends, language, culture and home. Because of Putin’s war, these children are being robbed of their identity.
- Sources on the number of Ukrainian children that have been forcibly deported to Russia vary: 19,546 have been confirmed by Ukraine, while the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab places the number closer to 35,000. Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights (wanted for arrest by the International Criminal Court) has claimed that over 700,000 Ukrainian children have been “relocated” to Russia, while her Ukrainian counterpart, Daria Herasymchuk, estimates the true number to be between 200,000—300,000. Russia has consistently refused to provide Ukraine or other international parties with any records of transferred children, in violation of international law.
- The experiences of these deported children vary, but many are forced to undergo intense efforts to erase their Ukrainian identity. Children are subjected to Russification and militarization, including being forced to speak Russian, sing the Russian national anthem, participate in military marches and handle firearms. Moreover, the few children that have returned from these camps demonstrate signs of having been psychologically and physically abused and of the resulting trauma, including unquestioning obedience of adults and fear of using the Ukrainian language.
- Adding to the difficulty is the fact that many children have had their birth records and names changed to appear Russian, and the fact that some children were deported at such a young age that they might not remember their origin and home in Ukraine. Most importantly, the Russian Federation needs to agree to return the children – if not, it will be practically impossible, even if the children are identified and located.
The report makes a range of recommendations to address this nightmare.
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I have been working with several customers for years and we are using Nextcloud, it works great, but I agree that at least for now it is a niche product.
This year’s Country Report on Hungary have been discussed at the start of June in Budapest, it provides good first insights into the state of Hungary’s economy.
The report concludes:
Excessive centralization and intense government intervention are both holding businesses back, with the World Bank also seeing a serious deterioration in government indicators. For example, [Hungary has] dropped to 26th place among EU members in terms of anti-corruption controls and to the last, 27th place in terms of the quality of regulation. The structure of public spending has shifted from traditional tasks to economic intervention both compared to 2010 and when compared with the rest of the region, which she believes is not at all beneficial.
[Political economist and lecturer at the University of West Hungary] Zoltán Pogátsa stressed that Balázs Orbán, the Prime Minister’s advisor [not related to PM Viktor Orbán], had identified that we [Hungarians] have fallen into the trap of a middle-income economy. […] Many are stuck in this situation, but [Pogátsa] said that there is a wide range of literature on how to get out of it: those who have managed to escape have done so by strengthening human capital. However, the innovative potential of companies here [in Hungary] is severely limited by the fact that Hungary’s human capital indicators are not on a par with those of other Visegrád countries, from healthcare and language skills to reading comprehension. He expects change to come only when the most important ministers will be those responsible for healthcare or education, but these areas currently do not even have their own ministries.
For a few years, Hungarian productivity did indeed grow, but this is relative. Compared to walking, a horse-drawn carriage is very fast, but not when surrounded by cars – and the Hungarian economy has jumped onto a horse-drawn carriage, while everyone else is driving cars …
Mr. Sanchez decided to run for re-election despite a corruption scandal, I can’t help thinking that his daily messages are aimed at diverting from his own conundrum.
“It is precisely because most European decision-makers realize the necessity of strategic autonomy that they have made it clear that they must strengthen cooperation with China,” said Yan Xuetong, dean of the Institute of International Relations at Tsinghua University, to The Paper, a Shanghai-based news site.
Maybe I am a bit slow today, but it is not clear to me why “the necessity of strategic autonomy” makes it clear “they must strenghten cooperation with China” … Oh, wait, the dean of Tsinghua University in China told that to a Shanghai-based news site …
What a survey, hell, I am surprised (s/).
It is not only Germany that has “long sought to extinguish the militarism that fueled its calamitous history during World War II,” but also other countries. In Russia, the country which started a brutal and unprovoked war in Europe after decades of peace, soldiers’ mothers have long been a thorn in the Kremlin’s side.
First Russian grassroots organizations of soldiers’ mothers to bring their sons home are known to have started in the 1980s during the USSR’s occupation of Afghanistan, and has been continuing their work to this day. The Human Rights Organization “Soldiers’ Mothers of Saint-Petersburg” is one example.
The difference is that in the West, these organizations and every individual can openly speak out against the war, while in autocracies like Russia you can’t. A report like the one linked here would be immediately censored, with the author likely facing long imprisonment.
Which mother or father wants their children to go to war? Do Putin’s children fight in the war in Ukraine? His backers’ children? What a title.
It is really like someone has said long time ago:
“One of the most horrible features of war is that all the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.”
Addition:
Russian officials criticised for giving meat grinders to mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine
Chinese automakers are in big trouble everywhere in the world, but foremost in their home market. China’s market leader BYD slows production, cancelling shifts in factories or closes factories completely, suspended some plans to set up new production lines.
A survey conducted by the China Automotive Dealer Association in May found that BYD dealers held an average inventory of 3.21 months, the highest among all brands in China, whereas the inventory level industry-wide was at 1.38 months.
The ongoing overproduction of Chinese carmakers and a fierce price war takes its toll (with around 400 Chinese carmakers went bankrupt or ceased production since 2018).
But China needs Europe and the rest of the world to buy their cheap products, made by coerced labour, so the propaganda must go on.
I guess Russia hasn’t too many options anymore.
It is explicitly allowed as far as I know.
Where is the “dialogue” in the original title? Is this a propaganda piece by a .ml account?
Russia violated about 400 international treaties since 2014
You’ll find a lot of sources in addition to my link on that subject.
Unless China sides with Russia they haven’t a chance, and China doesn’t seem to have shown any form of intent in that regard. They sell equipment to Russia because there’s money to be made, in the same way they sell equipment to NATO countries.
Oh, no, this is just as China (and Russia) portray things as part of their propaganda. But it’s false.
For example, China сuts drone sales to Ukraine and the West but continues supplying Russia.
China is everything but neutral, and it’s also not just about money as your comment tries to suggest. The government in Beijing pursues its own agenda (and its own agenda only). It goes far beyond Europe.
According to Chinese state-controlled media outlet South China Morning Post, for example, China’s Xi Jinping kicked off his state visit to Russia in May 2025 by thanking Moscow for supporting Taiwan’s reunification with mainland China.
In a signed article in Russia’s state-run Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper … [Xi Jinping wrote that Taiwan’s] unification [with China] must be upheld as part of the post-war international order … Celebrating the “enduring friendship” between Moscow and Beijing, he said the two countries had supported each other since World War II …
Russia’s war in Ukraine and China’s aggression against Taiwan are closely linked, at least for China. Beijing wants control over Taiwan (and supposedly over the South China Sea and other neighbouring areas in Asia, including a part of Siberia which is currently Russian territory).
And there are also Chinese mercenaries fighting for Russia, hired by ads on Chinese social media. Unlike any ‘pro-Western’ content on China’s state-controlled internet, these Russian conscription ads aren’t get censored.
[Edit typo.]
Do yourself a favour and stay away from wherever you get such stuff.