It's a myth that China heavily subsidises its EV industry. See e.g. this Bloomberg article titled "China Can't Cut EV Subsidies It Isn't Paying": https://archive.ph/5olix
431 karma · joined July 23, 2021
May I ask if you actually live in one of these neighbouring countries? I do -- in fact I have lived in more than one -- and I can assure you that many/most people living in these areas outside of the Western media bubble absolutely do not share your view.
From the CCP's (and many Chinese people's) perspective:
1) the U.S. repeatedly interfered in the CCP's/KMT's attempts to resolve the civil war -- see e.g. the First and Second Taiwan Strait Crises (during which the PRC shelled Taiwan), Project National Glory (the ROC's plan to reconquer the mainland) -- preventing the mainland and Taiwan from reunification;
2) the Taiwanese government has lost the civil war, and the loser doesn't get to set the terms.
Pretending that the PRC's interest in Taiwan isn't special is to ignore extremely crucial historical circumstances that are core to understanding the situation today. Regardless of what you think of the PRC's stance on reunification, their desire to reunify doesn't exist in a vacuum, and it takes ahistorical leaps of reasoning to suggest that the PRC might want to annex South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, etc. next.
> only during the last few centuries
This is way more than enough time to drastically transform the culture of a society. Taiwan today is culturally much more similar to the PRC than it is to the West. In some aspects it is also similar to Japan, despite the fact that Japan colonised it for "only" 50 years.
This is correct, since the Qing Dynasty was led by the Manchus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qing_dynasty), not by the Han Chinese.
Not the person you replied to, but this isn't constructive. Correctly pointing out hypocrisy/double standards is very pertinent to the discussion, and shouldn't be dismissed as "whataboutism". Making assumptions about someone who disagrees with you -- in this case, the assumption that he/she is a Kremlin sympathiser -- is irrelevant at best and insulting at worst.
You're thinking of Taiwan, not South Korea.
I understand your skepticism, but here is an interview from April 2025 with the founder of VYRIY, a Ukrainian drone company: https://militarnyi.com/en/news/vyriy-founder-compares-accura... According to him, Russian drones are far superior. "In terms of [Ukrainian drone vs Russian drone] quality, well, like 10% vs. 80%. It’s not even comparable,” Oleksii Babenko sums up.
Generally speaking, there is a lot of dark money in Danish politics, and the EU has repeatedly flagged Denmark as a country lacking in transparency with regards to corporate lobbying: https://www.altinget.dk/artikel/eu-kritik-af-danmark-puster-...
Generally speaking, the Danish government also tends to behave in authoritarian ways. E.g., Denmark has wilfully violated EU regulations on data retention for many, many years. In 2021, a Danish court ruled that the Danish Ministry of Justice could continue its mass surveillance practices even though they were (and still are) illegal under EU law: https://www.information.dk/indland/2021/06/justitsministerie...
Currently Denmark is also trying to leverage its position as the President of the Council of the EU to legalise, on a EU-wide level, the form of data retention that Denmark has been illegally practising: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-sa...
Yes, it would lower such barriers for countries that are commonly seen today as Europe's adversaries. But in this case, the U.S. (or rather, U.S. organisations and corporations) might be the primary bad actor pushing for ChatControl. See e.g.:
Thorn (organization) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(organization)
"Thorn works with a group of technology partners who serve the organization as members of the Technology Task Force. The goal of the program includes developing technological barriers and initiatives to ensure the safety of children online and deter sexual predators on the Internet. Various corporate members of the task force include Facebook, Google, Irdeto, Microsoft, Mozilla, Palantir, Salesforce Foundation, Symantec, and Twitter.[7] ... Netzpolitik.org and the investigative platform Follow the Money criticize that "Thorn has blurred the line between advocacy for children’s rights and its own interest as a vendor of scanning software."[11][12] The possible conflict of interest has also been picked up by Balkan Insight,[13] Le Monde,[14] and El Diario.[15] A documentary by the German public-service television broadcaster ZDF criticizes Thorn’s influence on the legislative process of the European Union for a law from which Thorn would profit financially.[16][17] A move of a former member of Europol to Thorn has been found to be maladministration by the European Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly.[18][19]"
Additionally, it would not surprise me at all if Palantir is lobbying for this either. Many EU countries, like Germany and Denmark, have already integrated Palantir's software into the intelligence, defence, and policing arms of their governments.
But at the end of the day, while it is convenient to blame external actors like U.S. corporations, ultimately the blame lies solely on the shoulders of European politicians. People in positions of power will tend to seek more, and I'm sure European politicians are more than happy to wield these tools for their own gain regardless of whether Palantir or Thorn is lobbying them.
And the willingness and ability to enforce it. The current iteration of ChatControl is pushed by Denmark, which is at present the President of the Council of the European Union. The Danish Constitution itself enshrines the right to privacy of communication [0], but this is not stopping Denmark from wanting to ratify ChatControl anyway.
Nearly impossible for anyone who isn't proficient in Mandarin to do this. Western journalists tend to be extremely biased in favour of the DPP, because DPP's anti-PRC rhetoric aligns with the West's own anti-PRC biases.
I've noticed that alephnerd's comments are often tinted with pro-U.S. propaganda. Note that I'm not accusing him of being disingenuous or malicious. I think he shares his thoughts and viewpoints in good faith. But his bias is very obvious when he writes about topics I'm familiar with, which makes me a bit skeptical when he writes about topics I'm not familiar with.
Total fertility rates in Scandinavian countries (known for their very generous welfare) are falling as well -- not as catastrophic as South Korea's, but way below replacement rate nonetheless. E.g., Denmark's total fertility rate fell yet again in 2024 to 1.466. (Source: https://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/emner/borgere/befolkning/fer...)
"Nixon should be told," Kissinger said, "that it is probably an objective of [Clark M. Clifford, the Secretary of Defense] to depose [Nguyen Van Thieu, the President of South Vietnam] before Nixon is inaugurated. Word should be gotten to Nixon that if Thieu meets the same fate as [Ngo Dinh Diem, a former President of South Vietnam whom the U.S. initially supported, but who was later murdered in a CIA-backed military coup], the word will go out to the nations of the world that it may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."
Kissinger was motivating why the U.S. should continue to support Nguyen Van Thieu, the dictator of South Vietnam; but today his words are frequently taken out of context to suggest a self-aware take of U.S. foreign policy.
Thank you. As someone who lives in Southeast Asia (and who also has lived in East Asia -- pardon the deliberate vagueness, for I do not wish to reveal too many potentially personally identifying information), this is how many of us in these regions view the current tensions between China and Taiwan as well.
Don't get me wrong; we acknowledge that many Taiwanese people want independence, that they are a people with their own aspirations and agency. But we can also see that the US -- and its European friends, which often blindly adopt its rhetoric and foreign policy -- is deliberately using Taiwan as a disposable pawn to attempt to provoke China into a conflict. The US will do what it has always done ever since the post-WW2 period -- destabilise entire regions of countries to further its own imperialistic goals, causing the deaths and suffering of millions, and then leaving the local populations to deal with the fallout for many decades after.
Without the US intentionally stoking the flames of mutual antagonism between China and Taiwan, the two countries could have slowly (perhaps over the next decades) come to terms with each other, be it voluntary reunification or peaceful separation. If you know a bit of Chinese history, it is not entirely far-fetched at all to think that the Chinese might eventually agree to recognising Taiwan as an independent nation, but now this option has now been denied because the US has decided to use Taiwan as a pawn in a proxy conflict.
To anticipate questions about China's military invasion of Taiwan by 2027: No, I do not believe it will happen. Don't believe everything the US authorities claim.