Europe

This article is rubbish at best (and Chinese and Russian propaganda at worst).

The EU empire made that decision in late October 2024. The message was: given that we’re no longer capable of expanding into the Chinese domestic market with our electric vehicles, and seeing as affordable “Made in China” Build Your Dreams (BYD) electric cars are about to flood our own consumer markets ...

Aside from calling the EU an "empire" being false and disrespectful, the sentence doesn't reflect economic reality.

• First, it is false that Europeans are "no longer capable of expanding into the Chinese domestic market." The Chinese government prohibits the presence of European industries in its domestic markets through a wide range of protective measures.

For example, if Europeans want to set up a subsidiary in China, they need a Chinese partner that would then own the majority of the joint venture (this applies to all non-Chinese firms active in China, with the only exemption being Tesla, btw.). So the focus is not on European capability, but rather China's economic policy that prevent foreign companies from being successful in China.

• Second, and supposedly more important, it discredits the author when referring to "affordable 'Made in China' Build Your Dream (BYD) electric cars" without mentioning that these dream cars are so affordable because of forced and coerced labour in Chinese factories, may they be in China or abroad. One recent example for this is Brazil, which [sued China carmaker BYD over the company's 'slave-like' conditions](sues China carmaker BYD over 'slave-like' conditions).

It is noteworthy that China is among the countries which lobbied most against the EU's supply chain law as the government in Beijing and Chinese companies apparently have no interest in higher transparency.

Given that large segments of the arms spending will fill the coffers of the biggest weapons manufacturers, which happen to be American, this amounts to a major military-Keynesian stimulus package — for the United States.

Although this is true for now, the article doesn't mention that the EU does invest in its own weapons manufacturing in the coming years to reduce its dependency from non-European suppliers. A notable partner in this respect is obviously Ukraine, which, for example, launched a joint weapons production with international partners just at the start of July.

More important in that respect is the author's critique on European Nato partners' target to spend 5% of the GDP for military, while at the same time playing down the threat posed by Russia and China to European security. Both countries - Russia and China - are heavily interfering in European politics, e.g., by supporting the European far-right and far-left across all countries. It is noteworthy that around a third of the 5% GDP spending is reserved for measures outside of traditional security and military. This comprises protection measures against arson attacks, undersea cable attacks, cyber attacks, disinformation campaigns, and similar criminal activities that have been increasing in recent years all across Europe, and in which Russia and China have been heavily involved according to European intel.

This whole article appears to be a cheap propaganda rant published by a biased media outlet that is ignoring facts because they don't align with the publisher's desired narratives. Being publicly 'leftist' and not owned by corporate media does not guarantee good journalism.

[Edit typo.]