First of all I am actually curious what you think about this as you seem to have done some research on the matter, thanks for your reply!

Sure, would have been better to use the nuclear option 10+ years ago. Let’s see how we got there, to what you describe as a multi-polar world.

When China was taking over the solar industry, in which Germany invested tons of money, just so that China can steal the technology and make profit off that by selling them to Europe which was happily subsidizing them, killing its own industry (China did only subsidize domestically produced solars for context). Then came EVs - again, European companies were busy shifting production to China, sharing technology, and subsidizing all the EVs no matter where they come from again, Chinese included, while China would only subsidize Chinese EVs. Now France is busy exporting plane parts, so that Chinese Comac can build their own planes by scraping together European parts, and gradually replacing the European parts with Chinese clones, and then actually improved Chinese designs. Would be impossible if you just banned plane part exports to China and would delay they efforts for ages, but apparently learning from mistakes isn’t the strongest trait of our leaders. But who could think that sharing technology and shifting production to an authoritarian regime could eventually backfire?

Does this mean that nothing can be done and we have to accept our fate? No, Europe has still many strong sectors. Sure, not much can be done about solars at this point, but, as an example, banning plane part exports and stopping subsidizing Chinese EVs, would still greatly hurt the pace of further growth of the beast that we’ve raised. And Trump is on the same page with China, so if we sit down and talk together with the US, we can actually still do a great harm to the Chinese economy as two of the three biggest polars of the current day multipolar world. Let’s cooperate with Japan, South Korea, Australia and Canada on that, let’s bully India and Vietnam a bit which would love to get some western foreign investments, and China is screwed. Yes, we should have done that in 2016, but we were busy bailing China out when US finally started fighting them. I don’t get why no one did it before and why no one does it to this day.

Regarding cheap oil - China doesn’t need cheap oil anymore. They invented their own, alternative energy sources, and the falling global oil prices are partly attributed to the declining demand from the Chinese side. Their alliance with Russia is not an economic one because Russia barely has anything to offer for China nowadays, with their economy of a size of Spain. What Russia has is nukes, a similar authoritarian regime, a great network of spies, and a will of destabilizing the European continent, which China loves, as it keeps Europeans busy with Russia, and shifts the focus away from China.

Sorry, it’s the best article I could find on this topic on the internet. If you can find a better one - feel free to share though

Actual western sanctions and western companies leaving the country. They can only play hard now because of how West is so dependent on China for key manufacturing facilities

Most people in France, Germany, Italy and Spain would support UK rejoining EU, poll finds

Sure, but as an equal member, without special treatment, which won’t please current UK.

Asked whether Britain should be allowed back in on the same conditions it enjoyed when it left, including not having to adopt the euro currency and remaining outside the Schengen passport-free zone, the numbers changed significantly.

Only one-fifth of respondents across the four biggest EU members, from 19% in Italy and France to 21% in Spain and 22% in Germany, felt the UK should be allowed return as if it had never left, with 58-62% saying it must be part of all main EU policy areas.

In the UK, while 54% of Britons supported rejoining the EU when asked the question in isolation, the figure fell to just 36% if rejoining meant giving up previous opt-outs. On those terms, 45% of Britons opposed renewed membership.

UK is probably the biggest supporter of the US in Europe (along with Poland) and is not a part of the EU, hence not affected by the tariffs mentioned by the OP

“Drill, baby, drill”

What technologies Germany, Poland, Singapore or Norway stole since the fall of USSR if that’s the case? I can name many technologies that China stole, that the US stole, but definitely don’t see it as a critical piece for all nations. Most countries don’t even have hackers nor network of spies capable of stealing other countries’ valuable trade secrets

Sorry, fixed

Yes, I’ve been there multiple times. I have seen people who went to jail for sending a political meme on a private WeChat group because Xi felt insulted. Even in the US which is in a huge democratic backsliding for years, it’s nowhere that bad. In China there’s also “massive false information” but the thing is, it’s all government-run propaganda only and the rest of the world’s media is blocked. In the US, you can read Al Jazeera if you don’t like the American media narratives. In China you can’t. In USA, you can use Lemmy to laugh about Trump’s fake tan. In China Lemmy is blocked and even if it wasn’t, laughing at Xi gets you in jail. There’s no political freedom in China, even if it’s in shambles in the US now, let alone countries with a working democracy like Switzerland.

Hong Kong is not mainland China, you picked one of the only two places (alongside Macau) that doesn’t have a censored internet in China. Regular Chinese need to pay $30 for a visa/entry permit to Hong Kong. Hong Kong has a different system than Mainland China. When taking about China, I am talking about mainland China and not a special administrative region of Hong Kong, obviously.

Regarding the economy (I’ve never mentioned it and it has nothing to do with democracy but ok), many people in China also can’t afford health care and are living paycheck to paycheck (or worse). China is not just Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. Do you think 120 yuan pension is enough in the Chinese village near Chengdu? That’s what grandparents of one of my Chinese friend make. Asked her if that’s enough, she laughed and replied “of course not!”. Do you think they were able to before retiring, working their whole lives as farmers? Do you really think such people don’t live paycheck to paycheck and it’s USA-exclusive issue than China doesn’t have? Do you know how many months of a median wage you need to work for a house in any major city in China vs in the US (spoiler: it’s even longer than in the US).

Summing up: the political freedom is still lower in China than in any flawed democracy (as I stated before), and China also has its economic issues which you seem to neglect. Yes, USA has those too, but it’s still among the richest countries in the world. You would be better off in many European countries if you’re poor but not in China.

Would be great if the competition was not about stealing others’ technologies

Just a friendly reminder that China is still much worse than any flawed democracy when it comes to freedom

Shame on some EU countries

And the UK too

deleted by creator

Holding people who enabled this accountable won’t fix the core issue, there’s always gonna be someone in the whole EU wanting to make the same thing, even if you cut one of the hydra’s heads. Better to work on improving the mechanisms of detecting the operations between the Russian companies instead

I am not a Trump supporter, you can check my posts history on Lemmy. I am not defending Trump, I am talking about the news’ headline

I like how they included “his country’s official language” so that people can laugh about Trump being stupid and not feel dumb themselves. Wondering if they would also write it if it was about Australia or the UK and not Liberia

Did you create your Lemmy account just to say this?

Firefox for the win!

Wait, wasn’t it 30% on China? I am lost

Trump posted on Truth Social, “As per letters sent to various countries yesterday, in addition to letters that will be sent today, tomorrow, and for the next short period of time, TARIFFS WILL START BEING PAID ON AUGUST 1, 2025. There has been no change to this date, and there will be no change. In other words, all money will be due and payable starting AUGUST 1, 2025 - No extensions will be granted. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”