A few statements are very illuminating. UniCredit ‘set aside EUR 800m in provisions’, which means they didn’t pay taxes for this sum (assuming the Russian accounting law has the same principles as everywhere else which seems reasonable here), so they might have predicted the Russian move anyway.

Another point is that they report a profit for Q1-2024 that is more than double than that in Q1-2023. I would be curious to see more numbers to learn how they ‘significantly reduced’ their bussines.

This is why Russia has to leave Ukraine.

Die Vorteile des Beamtenstatus im Vergleich zu Privatangestellten betreffen weit mehr als das Kindergeld, etwa höhere Pensionen, keine Sozialversicherungsbeiträge, Zuschüsse und erleichterten Zugang zur Leistungen in der Gesundheitsvorsorge.

Gibt es außer eines verfassungswidrigen Bundeshaushalts irgendetwas, dass Christian Lindner nicht ablehnt? Egal was ich lese, Lindner ist dagegen, zumindest kommt mir das vor.

Hinzufügung: Ach ja, es gibt noch was. Die Beförderungen in FDP-geführten Ministerien lehnt Lindner auch nicht ab, das hätte ich fast vergessen. Sorry.

Eine gute Übersicht (in englischer Sprache) über deutschsprachige Medien, die russische Propaganda verbreiten, mit vielen Links zu deutschsprachigen Medien:

Which German websites help disseminate pro-Russian narratives

Hier ist die [archivierte Version](Alternative link).

They may come from one of the sources you list in your comment above :-)

In Germany -as anywhere else- there is much more. You may be interested in this, for example:

Which German websites help disseminate pro-Russian narratives (here is the alternative archived link)

After our research on which websites are spreading pro-Russian narratives and talking points that benefit Moscow, we decided to take a closer look at websites in German. During the analysis, we found publications that quote Russian state media, that receive back quotes from them, and that spread claims that could play into the hands of the Kremlin.

[…]

It is clear that Russia is waging a war of propaganda and disinformation against Europe, whereas it is waging a real war against Ukraine, seizing its territories. An analysis of key Kremlin media narratives in different languages reveals that their campaign’s main goal is to force the West to stop supporting Ukraine and make concessions to Putin, probably by giving him the occupied territories and thus recognizing the redrawing of borders in Europe by military means.

News websites that tend to support pro-Russian, Euroskeptic, and anti-American views, as well as those close to the positions of right-wing radical parties, often pick up such narratives. Consciously or unconsciously, such web resources play into the hands of the Kremlin’s agenda. Such news reports are becoming a tool for spreading Russian and pro-Russian influence in Europe.

This is maybe a good idea. What would an emoji analysis tell us about a network? 😃

China wouldn’t agree with your view I guess.

In addition to whst @taanegl already said:

Hong Kong’s Freedoms: What China Promised and How It’s Cracking Down

Before the British government handed over Hong Kong in 1997, China agreed to allow the region considerable political autonomy for fifty years under a framework known as “one country, two systems.”

In recent years, Beijing has cracked down on Hong Kong’s freedoms, stoking mass protests in the city and drawing international criticism.

Beijing imposed a national security law in 2020 that gave it broad new powers to punish critics and silence dissenters, which has fundamentally altered life for Hong Kongers.

Beijing had been chipping away at Hong Kong’s freedoms since the handover, experts say. Over the years, its attempts to impose more control over the city have sparked mass protests, which have in turn led the Chinese government to crack down further.

In the years following the 2014 protests, Beijing and the Hong Kong government stepped up efforts to rein in dissent, including by prosecuting protest leaders, expelling several new legislators, and increasing media censorship.

Last year, researchers at AidData, the World Bank, the Harvard Kennedy School, and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy in Germany found that Beijing has dramatically expanded emergency rescue lending to sovereign borrowers in financial distress —or outright default- when the China’s Belt and Road Investments have failed.

Essentially, however, China has been bailing out its own banks, the study found. You can download the study here.

TLDR:

China had undertaken 128 rescue loan operations across 22 debtor countries worth $240 billion [by March 2023 when the study was published]. These include many so-called “rollovers,” in which the same short-term loans are extended again and again to refinance maturing debts.

Less than 5 percent of Beijing’s overseas lending portfolio supported borrower countries in distress in 2010, but that figure soared to 60 percent by 2022. Therefore, China’s new funding schemes pivoted away from infrastructure project lending to ramping up liquidity support operations. Nearly 80% of its emergency rescue lending was issued between 2016 and 2021.

China does not offer bailouts to all BRI borrowers: low-income countries are typically offered a debt restructuring that involves a grace period or final repayment date extension but no new money, while middle-income countries tend to receive new money to avoid default. The reason is that these middle-income countries represent 80% or more than $500 billion of China’s total overseas lending, thus posing major balance sheet risks, so Chinese banks have incentives to keep them afloat via bailouts.

Borrowing from Beijing in emergency situations comes at a high price. Rescue loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) carries a 2% interest rate, while the average interest rate attached to a Chinese rescue loan is 5% in comparable situations.

Yes, there is strong evidence for these practices. Safeguard Defenders, a rights group, published a comprehensive reports on that issues, for example on China’s Consular Volunteers (November 2023):

For at least a decade, PRC Embassies and Consulates have been running consular volunteers in countries around the world. These have been seemingly undeclared to most host nations.

[…]

The network runs through United Front-linked associations and individuals and shows the involvement of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office (OCAO), on which a January 2022 Federal Canadian Court decision upheld labeling as an entity that engages in espionage and acts contrary to Canada’s interests with concerns over “OCAO’s interactions with the overseas Chinese communities, the information gathered, and the intended use of the gathered information”.

Everyone interested can find more at https://safeguarddefenders.com and across the web.

I don’t like the term ‘gigafactory’ either, it’s just that I didn’t want to change the original version … (but I altered the title now :-))

It’s very unlikely that Chinese cars are sold at a loss.

Even if we ignore for a moment that Chinese cars are produced at such low costs not in the least because of the use of forced labour and thus by ignoring even the most fundamental human rights, China will subsidize its EV industry at all costs, also offering dumping prices. China’s ‘industrial policy’ isn’t focused on financial health but on scale to destroy foreign competition to control the market for economic and political gains.

It’s a bad life in China as a journalist unless you parrot the Chinese communist party’s propaganda. “China is the world’s largest jailer of journalists, with more than 100 currently detained," as the organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) announced last week when they released 2024 World Press Freedom Index.

China ranked 172nd among 180 countries and regions. Compared with Chiba’s 2023 ranking of 179th—second last place—China’s ranking has increased only because of the deterioration of situations in other countries, such as in the Taliban controlled Afghanistan, rather than any improvement in China.

RSF’s report also said that “in addition to detaining more journalists than any other country in the world,” the Chinese communist regime “continues to exercise strict control over information channels, implementing censorship and surveillance policies to regulate online content and restrict the spread of information deemed to be sensitive or contrary to the party line.”

Yes, but not only in Africa. There’s a comprehensive report by Safeguard Defenders from 2022, but you’ll find more, just search for something like ‘chinese illegal police stations’ as already suggested.

China orientiert sich nicht an deutschen Wirtschaftskonzepten, auch wenn man das an manchen Details so ableiten könnte. Die chinesische Regierung will durch eine wirtschaftliche Vormachtstellung ihr ganzes politisches System exportieren, inklusive Internetzensur und Abschaffung demokratischer Prozesse. In Ländern des globalen Südens, wo Demokratien weniger ausgebaut sind, sieht man das störker als in Europa, aber das Ziel ist dasselbe.

Die strukturellen Überkapazitäten Chinas und die in der Folge deflationären Entwicklungen passen in dieses Bild (in diesem Punkt stimme ich dem Artikel zu). Auf dem heimischen chinesischen Markt fallen die Preise etwa für E-Autos rapide. Einige Hersteller mussten ihre Produktionen aus Liqudiditätsmangel einstellen (HiPhi, Aiways von Tencent, WM Motor von Baidu) oder sind insolvent (Levdeo, Singulato). Momentan scheint sich China hier auf SAIC, Geely und vor allem aber BYD zu konzentrieren, die offenbar ausreichend Finanzierung bekommen.

Vergessen dürfen wir aber auch hier nicht, dass diese billigen Massenfertigungen nicht zuletzt auch wegen sklavenähnlicher Arbeitsbedingungen in China möglich sind, und das längst nicht nur im Technologiesektor. Dort werden die fundamentalsten Menschenrechte vollkommen ignoriert.

Das muss man berücksichtigen, wenn man über Wirtschaftskonzepte in China diskutiert.

If you are ready to live in a low-quality, insecure, and unfinished building, you may have a chance to get one.

Addition: The first 3 minutes of this video may give a rare glimpse what ‘low quality’ (and the handling of it) could mean.

Just two examples:

China responsible for ‘serious human rights violations’ in Xinjiang province: UN human rights report

A long-awaited report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) into what China refers to as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) has concluded that “serious human rights violations” against the Uyghur and “other predominantly Muslim communities” have been committed.

Rights experts warn against forced separation of Uyghur children in China

Forced separations and language policies for Uyghur and other minority Muslim children at State-run boarding schools in China’s Xinjiang region carry the risk of forced assimilation, three UN independent human rights experts said on Tuesday.

An den Hals werfen muss und sollte sich niemand, der EU und dem IWF nicht und einer Diktatur schon gar nicht