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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/2007127

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Weidel admitted meeting Wu but said she met him once in months. As for their discussions, Weidel said that she sought an understanding of China’s position on Germany.

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The damning findings come days ahead of German parliamentary elections in which AfD has rattled mainstream politicians. As per latest opinion polls, the party stands second in popularity and way ahead of incumbent SPD. While AfD’s links to the neo-Nazi movement have led to widespread concerns and contributed to its ostracisation by German parties, the links to China have led to fresh concerns whether a top contender for German chancellorship has been groomed by China.

The findings are all the more damning as European far-right has long been supported by Russia and China is Russia’s principal ally. The AfD is so extremist that even French far-right party, National Rally (RN), broke ties with it in the European Union (EU) elections last year. Moreover, AfD has previously been charged with spying for China and such allegations contributed to the RN-AfD split.

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AfD leader Alice Weidel’s long relationship to China

In light of revealation of Weidel’s secret meetings with the top Chinese diplomat in Germany, fresh attention has come on her long relationship with China that goes back to decades. It is bound to be explored whether she has been groomed by China to do the Communist Party’s bidding in Germany and Europe.

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As an economist, Weidel worked for the state-owned Bank of China and lived in China for six years. It has been reported that she was on scholarship during those years. Her doctoral thesis was also written on Chinese pension system.

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In China, Weidel worked at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

While Weidel today leads a party linked to neo-Nazis, her grandparents were members of the Nazi Party. Her grandfather, Hans Weidel, was a prominent Nazi judge who persecuted political opponents of the Nazi regime. He was appointed by Adolf Hitler himself.

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Weidel admitted meeting Wu but said she met him once in months. As for their discussions, Weidel said that she sought an understanding of China’s position on Germany.

...

The damning findings come days ahead of German parliamentary elections in which AfD has rattled mainstream politicians. As per latest opinion polls, the party stands second in popularity and way ahead of incumbent SPD. While AfD’s links to the neo-Nazi movement have led to widespread concerns and contributed to its ostracisation by German parties, the links to China have led to fresh concerns whether a top contender for German chancellorship has been groomed by China.

The findings are all the more damning as European far-right has long been supported by Russia and China is Russia’s principal ally. The AfD is so extremist that even French far-right party, National Rally (RN), broke ties with it in the European Union (EU) elections last year. Moreover, AfD has previously been charged with spying for China and such allegations contributed to the RN-AfD split.

...

AfD leader Alice Weidel’s long relationship to China

In light of revealation of Weidel’s secret meetings with the top Chinese diplomat in Germany, fresh attention has come on her long relationship with China that goes back to decades. It is bound to be explored whether she has been groomed by China to do the Communist Party’s bidding in Germany and Europe.

...

As an economist, Weidel worked for the state-owned Bank of China and lived in China for six years. It has been reported that she was on scholarship during those years. Her doctoral thesis was also written on Chinese pension system.

...

In China, Weidel worked at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

While Weidel today leads a party linked to neo-Nazis, her grandparents were members of the Nazi Party. Her grandfather, Hans Weidel, was a prominent Nazi judge who persecuted political opponents of the Nazi regime. He was appointed by Adolf Hitler himself.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/2005766

**The EU is seeking improved screening of greenfield projects and a bigger say on which investments member states approve on national security grounds, as it expands its efforts to protect critical assets and know-how amid rising geopolitical tensions involving countries such as China. **

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“What comes out throughout [the reforms] is the Commission trying to give itself a … greater role in foreign investment screening,” says Christoph Barth, a partner in law firm Linklaters’s antitrust and foreign investment practice.

Among the proposed changes to the inbound screening regulation, which must be approved by European parliament and council to take effect, is obliging member states to give ‘utmost consideration’ to the Commission’s input when assessing a transaction’s national security risks and an explanation when their views diverge. “The question is whether the Commission now makes its opinions more directive in the sense of achieving a particular outcome for a particular case,” says Mr Barth, adding that this could “result in a potential clash between the Commission and member states”.

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“The push toward a FDI screening of greenfield investments is likely to build another hurdle for investments in the energy, battery or e-car sector … sectors where foreign competitors of EU companies have been gaining significant market share,” said Udo Herbert Olgemöller, partner at Allen & Overy. “Such screenings are time-consuming and create a certain level of legal uncertainty as their outcome may be affected by political considerations that are hardly predictable.”

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The Commission has also progressed plans to screen outbound investments into critical technologies in countries such as China, where it fears sensitive technologies and know-how could be used to undermine national security. It is seeking industry feedback via a three-month public consultation, which will be followed by a year of monitoring outbound deals and a final decision on an outbound mechanism by August 2025.

One of the early questions is whether the challenging task of obtaining the buy-in of each member state, which is necessary to introduce an outbound mechanism, can be achieved. On January 17, the European parliament passed a resolution calling for the expansion of legislative initiatives to tackle risks emanating from Chinese investment in the bloc. But neither industrial policies nor views on China are fully aligned across EU countries.

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**The EU is seeking improved screening of greenfield projects and a bigger say on which investments member states approve on national security grounds, as it expands its efforts to protect critical assets and know-how amid rising geopolitical tensions involving countries such as China. **

...

“What comes out throughout [the reforms] is the Commission trying to give itself a … greater role in foreign investment screening,” says Christoph Barth, a partner in law firm Linklaters’s antitrust and foreign investment practice.

Among the proposed changes to the inbound screening regulation, which must be approved by European parliament and council to take effect, is obliging member states to give ‘utmost consideration’ to the Commission’s input when assessing a transaction’s national security risks and an explanation when their views diverge. “The question is whether the Commission now makes its opinions more directive in the sense of achieving a particular outcome for a particular case,” says Mr Barth, adding that this could “result in a potential clash between the Commission and member states”.

...

“The push toward a FDI screening of greenfield investments is likely to build another hurdle for investments in the energy, battery or e-car sector … sectors where foreign competitors of EU companies have been gaining significant market share,” said Udo Herbert Olgemöller, partner at Allen & Overy. “Such screenings are time-consuming and create a certain level of legal uncertainty as their outcome may be affected by political considerations that are hardly predictable.”

...

The Commission has also progressed plans to screen outbound investments into critical technologies in countries such as China, where it fears sensitive technologies and know-how could be used to undermine national security. It is seeking industry feedback via a three-month public consultation, which will be followed by a year of monitoring outbound deals and a final decision on an outbound mechanism by August 2025.

One of the early questions is whether the challenging task of obtaining the buy-in of each member state, which is necessary to introduce an outbound mechanism, can be achieved. On January 17, the European parliament passed a resolution calling for the expansion of legislative initiatives to tackle risks emanating from Chinese investment in the bloc. But neither industrial policies nor views on China are fully aligned across EU countries.

...

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/2005369

British Foreign Minister David Lammy said on Thursday he saw no appetite from Russia for peace with Ukraine after listening to his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov talk at a closed-door meeting of the top G20 diplomats in South Africa.

Lammy was speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of a meeting of foreign ministers from the world's biggest economies, which has been overshadowed by dispute between members over the Ukraine war, among other disagreements.

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British Foreign Minister David Lammy said on Thursday he saw no appetite from Russia for peace with Ukraine after listening to his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov talk at a closed-door meeting of the top G20 diplomats in South Africa.

Lammy was speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of a meeting of foreign ministers from the world's biggest economies, which has been overshadowed by dispute between members over the Ukraine war, among other disagreements.

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/2005305

This is an op-ed by Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, and a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley.

As Trump empowers Russia and the far right, he is laying the foundation for undermining democracies around the world.

Since the end of the second world war, liberal democracies have stuck together – led by the US. On the opposite side have been authoritarian states, led mainly by the Soviet Union, followed, after the demise of the Soviet Union, by Russia and China.

But all this is rapidly changing. Russia and China have morphed into oligarchies, run by small groups of extraordinarily wealthy people.

The US has been moving from a democracy to an oligarchy as well – and is doing so at lightning speed under Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/2001269

Mette Frederiksen admitted that Denmark and other countries made a mistake by cutting their defence spending as she announced a 50bn Danish kroner (£5.5bn) package, saying: “It must never happen again.”

The Danish prime minister increased defence spending to 3% of GDP in the next two years – up from 2.4% in 2024 – as she said Denmark needed a “massive rearmament” to avoid war.

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“We have had to pay attention to a lot, both here in Denmark and in Greenland, and in general as Europeans,” Frederiksen said. “We are in the most dangerous situation in many, many years.”

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The Danish defence minister, Troels Lund Poulsen, said: “Within two years, Russia could pose a credible threat to one or several Nato countries if Nato does not build up its own military power in the same rate as Russia. This calls for swift political action.”

...

Mette Frederiksen admitted that Denmark and other countries made a mistake by cutting their defence spending as she announced a 50bn Danish kroner (£5.5bn) package, saying: “It must never happen again.”

The Danish prime minister increased defence spending to 3% of GDP in the next two years – up from 2.4% in 2024 – as she said Denmark needed a “massive rearmament” to avoid war.

...

“We have had to pay attention to a lot, both here in Denmark and in Greenland, and in general as Europeans,” Frederiksen said. “We are in the most dangerous situation in many, many years.”

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The Danish defence minister, Troels Lund Poulsen, said: “Within two years, Russia could pose a credible threat to one or several Nato countries if Nato does not build up its own military power in the same rate as Russia. This calls for swift political action.”

...

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/2001039

Archived version

China's ageing population threatens key Beijing policy goals for the coming decade of boosting domestic consumption and reining in ballooning debt, posing a severe challenge to the economy's long-term growth prospects.

[...]

"China's age structure change will slow down economic growth," said Xiujian Peng,  senior research fellow at the Centre of Policy Studies (CoPS) at Victoria University in Melbourne.

In the next 10 years, about 300 million people currently aged 50 to 60 - China's largest demographic group, equivalent to almost the entire US population - are set to leave the workforce at a time when pension budgets are already stretched.

The state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences sees the pension system running out of money by 2035, with about a third of the country's provincial-level jurisdictions running pension budget deficits, according to finance ministry data.

[...]

Chinese society has traditionally expected children to support their parents financially as they age and often by living together to care for them.

But as in many Western countries, rapid urbanisation has shifted young people to bigger cities and away from their parents, prompting a rising number of seniors to rely on self care or government payments.

[...]

INNOVATION WOES

China saw a rise in births after ditching the one-child policy but the recovery was far off pre-implementation levels and also short-lived. Fewer children were born in each of the past eight years, including 2023.

Demographers say the number of children in any economy is directly correlated with domestic consumption.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/1993347

Archived

Russia is building up its forces and combat capabilities for a confrontation with NATO, notes the Latvian Constitution Protection Bureau (SAB) in its report for 2024.

In the public part of the report, the SAB pointed out that since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, European countries face a new but increasingly significant threat – sabotage and physical attacks against targets in Europe organized by Russian intelligence and security services.

In 2024, this trend had intensified significantly, and Russian organised sabotage is affecting more and more European countries. The new trend of Russian attacks confirms that Russia is already practically in direct confrontation with western countries, SAB concluded in its report.

According to the bureau, the current goal of the Russian intelligence and security services is to improve their ability to organize sabotage in Europe and is part of Russia’s preparations for a possible military confrontation with NATO in the long term.

[...]

If the war in Ukraine were to be “frozen” and the Russian armed forces no longer suffered significant military losses in active hostilities, they could, for a period of up to five years, implement military augmentation plans in the direction of the north-eastern flank of NATO, including the Baltic, SAB concluded.

In such a case, the Russian military threat to NATO would increase substantially, the bureau stressed.

[...]

The SAB is one of the three Latvian state security institutions that carries out intelligence and counter-intelligence, protection of classified information in accordance with the procedure established by law, as well as carries out and controls the exchange of classified information with international organizations.

Archived

Russia is building up its forces and combat capabilities for a confrontation with NATO, notes the Latvian Constitution Protection Bureau (SAB) in its report for 2024.

In the public part of the report, the SAB pointed out that since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, European countries face a new but increasingly significant threat – sabotage and physical attacks against targets in Europe organized by Russian intelligence and security services.

In 2024, this trend had intensified significantly, and Russian organised sabotage is affecting more and more European countries. The new trend of Russian attacks confirms that Russia is already practically in direct confrontation with western countries, SAB concluded in its report.

According to the bureau, the current goal of the Russian intelligence and security services is to improve their ability to organize sabotage in Europe and is part of Russia’s preparations for a possible military confrontation with NATO in the long term.

[...]

If the war in Ukraine were to be “frozen” and the Russian armed forces no longer suffered significant military losses in active hostilities, they could, for a period of up to five years, implement military augmentation plans in the direction of the north-eastern flank of NATO, including the Baltic, SAB concluded.

In such a case, the Russian military threat to NATO would increase substantially, the bureau stressed.

[...]

The SAB is one of the three Latvian state security institutions that carries out intelligence and counter-intelligence, protection of classified information in accordance with the procedure established by law, as well as carries out and controls the exchange of classified information with international organizations.