Raw materials are not secret technology. China is simply sitting on rare earth mines that run on human exploitation and environmental destruction like a hoarding dragon. China couldn‘t build an electric battery in line with Sweden‘s regulations with Swedish resources either.

They bought the robots from Germany, a champion of automated manufacturing. That‘s not the secret sauce here.

China‘s growth almost always beats expectations (that they themselves set) but you have to take them for their word for a lot of these numbers. For all we know the Chinese economy could be an even bigger blowfish than the Japanese economy in the late 20th century.

I‘m assuming they want to flood our market with their crap while showing no real interest in buying ours anymore. It‘s hard to find a common ground on these terms. Ideally you want trade to go both ways but that seems to be less and less the case.

Printing birds and rivers on bank notes while European nations keep missing climate targets and burn down the planet in the name of capitalism would be almost as cynical as Mao‘s face on the Chinese currency.

The technology to make them this cheap are human exploitation and massive subsidies. It’s nothing that others haven’t figured out but most lack the resources or motivation to do that and that isn’t a bad thing.

I doubt China is doing anything they didn‘t do a year or two ago so clearly they‘re still as neutral as they always were. /s

They should aim at Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, xAI as well.

I expect them to prepare a tariff bomb on not only goods but services too that they won‘t unveil unless Trump really follows up on his threats.

They better learn mandarin and how to properly kowtow then.

Of course they won’t get special treatment and adapting the Euro is a given. Although the latter is basically a commitment statement anyway which many countries will probably never follow through with.

B-b-but Lemmy told me they‘re moderate and not far right at all because Sweden is a socialist country and therefore can do no wrong… How could this be? /s

Why does the largest and arguably most resourceful country on earth put an entire generation into a meat grinder for some more land and resources? Dictators have their own reason for doing things and Xi is investing heavily into the military while threatening neighboring countries. He made it very clear he plans to expand China’s borders one way or another before his reign ends.

Out of all the reasons China needs Russia to win this is the most bullshit one they could serve us. They are sided with Putin, supply him with military equipment and help him get around sanctions for oil. They need Putin’s war economy to work so they can replicate it in South East Asia obviously.

Didn‘t Denmark get criticized for doing exactly that, though?

Some parts of Germany are even colder, believe it or not. Top temperatures dropped by over 15°C since Wednesday here (From 35°C to 18°C tomorrow) just to climb to 30°C by Sunday next week. I‘d rather have a warm or cold summer than this bouncing around.

It „makes sense“ in that US troops are still stationed in Europe to (hopefully) help defend western Democracy. Meanwhile China is actively helping Russia attacking it. But judging by where things are headed with Trump, ChatGPT, Gemini, etc. could be next on the ban list.

I mean our chancellor infamously does not even know what the minimum wage is. It‘s no surprise but very telling how he formed a cabinet made of millionaires. We had a lot of disconnected governments during my lifetime but Merz takes the cake for sure.

Which is the goal of the very populists they voted for…

Of course it isn‘t. It‘s based on his painting and completely misses the point. It‘s a really stupid piece in a tasteless gallery.