Miscellaneous News

WTO rules against U.S. on Trump metal tariffs, favoring China​

tokenanalyst said:

WTO rules against U.S. on Trump metal tariffs, favoring China​

Biden administration strongly rejects 'flawed' conclusions of panel.
Of course.

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FriedButter said:

In either case, it just ends up on what you believe more. Did Germany have an independent foreign policy or did they not. The UK throw that out a few decades ago.

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Russian controlled enterprises created turnover of just under 32 billion euros in Germany
Enterprises headquartered in Russia accounted for 1.9% of the turnover generated by all foreign-controlled enterprises in Germany in 2019. For comparison: enterprises headquartered in the USA accounted for 17.9% of turnover.

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siegecrossbow said:

Can some of our forum members finally agree not to hyperventilate every time China gets tech sanctioned or some politicians fly to Taiwan now?

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The head of NATO expressed worry that the fighting in Ukraine could spin out of control and become a war between Russia and NATO, according to an interview released Friday.

“If things go wrong, they can go horribly wrong,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in remarks to Norwegian broadcaster NRK.

“It is a terrible war in Ukraine. It is also a war that can become a full-fledged war that spreads into a major war between NATO and Russia,” he said. “We are working on that every day to avoid that.”

Stoltenberg, a former prime minister of Norway, said in the interview that “there is no doubt that a full-fledged war is a possibility,” adding that it was important to avoid a conflict "that involves more countries in Europe and becomes a full-fledged war in Europe.”

In comments that reflected soaring tensions between Russia and the West, President Vladimir Putin suggested Moscow might think about using what he described as the U.S. concept of a preemptive strike.

“Speaking about a disarming strike, maybe it’s worth thinking about adopting the ideas developed by our U.S. counterparts, their ideas of ensuring their security,” he said.

Long before the Ukraine war, the Kremlin expressed concern about U.S. efforts to develop the so-called Prompt Global Strike capability that envisions hitting an adversary's strategic targets with precision-guided conventional weapons anywhere in the world within one hour.

Putin noted that such a strike could knock out command facilities.

“We are just thinking about it, they weren't shy to openly talk about it during the past years,” he said, claiming that Moscow's precision-guided cruise missiles outperform similar U.S. weapons and Russia has hypersonic weapons that the U.S. hasn't deployed.

In separate comments via video link to defense and security chiefs of several ex-Soviet nations, Putin again accused the West of using Ukraine as a tool against his country.

“For years, the West has been brazenly draining and exploiting [Ukraine’s] resources, encouraged genocide and terror in Donbass, de-facto turned this nation into a colony, and is now cynically using the Ukrainian people as cannon fodder, a battering ram against Russia, as it keeps delivering weapons and munitions to Ukraine, sending mercenaries, pushing it down the path of suicide. This violence is just one example of a destructive influence that Western nations exert around the world, in an attempt to preserve dominance on the global stage”, Putin said.

Putin also said he was disappointed with former German Chancellor Angela Merkel's recent comments that a 2015 peace deal for eastern Ukraine negotiated by France and Germany had bought time for Ukraine to prepare for the 2022 war.

“I assumed that other participants of the process were sincere with us, but it turned out that they were cheating us,” he said. “It turned out that they wanted to pump Ukraine with weapons and prepare for hostilities."

Putin argued that Merkel's statement showed that Russia was right in launching what he calls the “special military operation” in Ukraine. "Perhaps we should have started it earlier,” he said.

He also said her comments further eroded Russia's trust in the West, complicating any possible peace talks.

“Eventually we will have to negotiate an agreement,” he said. “But after such statements there is an issue of trust. Trust is close to zero. I repeatedly have said that we are ready for an agreement, but it makes us think, think about whom we are dealing with."

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ACuriousPLAFan said:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1601240489231282177

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1601242597921816576

China's offensive and defensive soft power needs to do a lot more work in order to counter thess kinds of propaganda offensives by the West and India.

China is already labelled by the West and India for employing "Wumao" internet bot army to "spread Chinese propaganda". Might as well put this into mass and effective use.

Seeing how inept China's propaganda department is at directing efforts and doing their job on the international stage is just sad and pitiful.

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ACuriousPLAFan said:

Which makes me think that if the Shanghai Communiqué document jointly issued by China and the US in February 1972 holds the same "hidden values and objectives" as the Minsk Agreements.

Claiming to abandon the recognition of Taipei for Beijing in order to buy time for a deep, throughout inflitration and indoctrination of anti-China, pro-US and pro-seperatism thoughts and values across the Wanwanese populace using US bootlicker elements on the island and under-the-table diplomatic pressure. So that when the time is ripe, the US would edge Taiwan towards declaring independence from China. When China goes for AR over this, the US would just tear that document up like toilet paper, and support Taiwan instead.

The US would then go to war with China, defeat and destroy China, and place a puppet in Beijing/Nanjing that would forever be subservient to the whimps and demands of Washington DC.

If that isn't achievable, use Taiwan as the fuse that would turn the eastern part of the Eurasian continent into a sea of destruction and chaos, thus securing the dominant position and hegemony of the US on the world stage.

Perhaps, this has always been the case...

I hope the Chinese leadership is smart and diligent enough to see through and recognize this.

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kokole said:

Until today, poor Putin still believed in the honesty of his Western "partners".

Putin about Merkel's words about cheating with the Minsk agreements: "To be honest, it was absolutely unexpected for me. It's disappointing. Trust almost dropped to 0. How to negotiate? About what? And is it possible to negotiate with them? Where are the guarantees? "

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AssassinsMace said:

The problem with American style capitalism is someone private has to profit from everything. It's like the rule of fight club. It's the one and only rule and everyone has to stick by it no matter what. The West's supply chain problems where they have to go to non-Western countries for their supplies because that's the only way they can make and save the most money possible is because someone private has to make money. Soros hates China because China doesn't give vampires like him free reign to bleed out money from China.

People are taunting how Apple is leaving China. The China end only gets $10 out of every $1000 iPhone so no big loss to China but Apple would be losing a large market so go taunt away. Like most things China gets out from, it's usually the beginning of its end. Look at crypto and how they were laughing at China getting out from it. It's been downhill ever since. And now China is getting out from the West.

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MixedReality said:

Never understood the hype around where Apple is manufacturing. There are many other companies that sell smartphones other than Apple. Apple has around 20-25% share of the global smartphone market. Chinese smartphone companies are taking away iPhone’s market share. 50-55% of Apple’s revenue comes from iPhone.

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