The conscripts are part of the first group recruited under Denmark's expanded military service program.
The post Denmark deploys conscripts to Greenland, fueling fresh Arctic tensions appeared first on BOL News.
Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has used the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek and a wide-ranging interview with China’s Xinhua news agency to set out a closely connected vision of Kazakhstan’s foreign policy — combining deeper economic and technological cooperation with China with a broader commitment to multilateralism, Eurasian connectivity and reform of global institutions.
Speaking as leaders gathered in Bishkek for the 26th meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and its SCO Plus format, Tokayev presented Kazakhstan as both a committed regional partner and an increasingly active “middle power” seeking to bridge geopolitical divisions.
His summit remarks were reinforced by an exclusive written interview with Xinhua, published on 1 September, in which the Kazakh leader described relations with China as being at an “unprecedentedly high level” and said Astana intended to continue strengthening what the two countries describe as an “eternal comprehensive strategic partnership”.
Taken together, the two interventions offer a clear picture of Kazakhstan’s current diplomatic strategy: maintain close relations with its major neighbours, promote trade routes linking Asia with Europe, embrace technological cooperation and at the same time argue for international relations based on dialogue rather than confrontation.
In his Xinhua interview, Tokayev stressed that Kazakhstan-China relations now extend well beyond traditional energy and commodity ties.
Cooperation encompasses trade, investment, transport, industrial production, agriculture, digitalisation, healthcare, science, education and culture, he said. China is now Kazakhstan’s largest foreign trading partner, while transport and logistics have assumed an increasingly strategic role.
Kazakhstan occupies a central geographical position between China and European markets, and Tokayev argued that the country was working with China to transform that location into a modern Eurasian transport and logistics network.
He specifically highlighted the Belt and Road Initiative, new railway construction, dry ports, logistics terminals and modernisation of border infrastructure.
Central to this strategy is the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, commonly known as the Middle Corridor, which links China with Europe through Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, the South Caucasus and onward towards European markets.
Tokayev described making the route more competitive as a shared priority, pointing to “smart customs”, digital documentation, interconnected information systems and automated border procedures as necessary elements in reducing transit times.
That message closely reflected his position at the SCO summit, where Kazakhstan again offered to help develop transport initiatives throughout the organisation and called attention to the potential integration of the Belt and Road Initiative, Middle Corridor, North-South Corridor and routes connecting Central and South Asia.
For the European Union, which has increasingly sought alternative and resilient connections with Central Asia and China, the development of the Middle Corridor gives Kazakhstan an importance that extends considerably beyond the size of its domestic economy.
Tokayev also placed technology and artificial intelligence near the centre of the emerging Kazakhstan-China relationship.
China's position in AI, robotics, digital technology, new energy and advanced manufacturing complements Kazakhstan's own ambition to accelerate its digital transformation, he argued.
Kazakhstan has declared 2026 its Year of Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence, and Tokayev referred to meetings with leading Chinese technology companies during his recent participation in the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai.
He said there was mutual interest in projects involving the digital economy, intelligent manufacturing, e-commerce, research and skills development.
The subject moved seamlessly from the bilateral interview into Tokayev's multilateral message in Bishkek.
Addressing the SCO Plus meeting, he warned that global stability increasingly depends upon the responsible development of artificial intelligence and called for universal rules capable of encouraging innovation while preventing uncontrolled use and narrowing the digital divide.
Kazakhstan is also establishing an Asia-Pacific digital solutions centre in Almaty under the auspices of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, which Tokayev said should help developing countries gain access to technological expertise.
In his Xinhua interview he went further, arguing that AI should ultimately serve humanity as a whole and that countries should have equitable access to technology, knowledge and computing resources. Kazakhstan was among the founding participants this year in a new international AI cooperation initiative launched in Shanghai.
Underlying both the interview and Tokayev's summit speech was a wider political argument.
The Kazakh president portrayed the SCO not simply as an economic or security grouping but as a potential model for cooperation between states with different political systems and interests.
In Bishkek, he said the organisation's principles of equality and consensus had become a “gold standard” for multilateral cooperation. He proposed that core SCO principles should ultimately be reflected in a UN General Assembly resolution linked to the International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace.
The formulation is consistent with Kazakhstan's long-standing attempt to avoid being drawn exclusively into competing geopolitical camps.
Tokayev reiterated that Kazakhstan would maintain what he described as a balanced, constructive and peaceful foreign policy, while arguing that the international order should move away from the “cult of force and confrontation” towards collective responsibility and long-term cooperation.
In his interview with Xinhua, he similarly said Kazakhstan and China shared support for the central role of the United Nations, international law, mediation, multilateralism and the peaceful resolution of conflicts.
One of the more significant elements of Tokayev's Bishkek intervention was his argument that responsible middle powers should have greater influence within global governance.
With tensions between major powers putting pressure on existing international institutions, Tokayev suggested countries such as Kazakhstan could facilitate dialogue between competing centres of power and help develop collective solutions.
“Kazakhstan is ready to actively contribute to this process,” he told the summit.
At the same time, he resisted suggestions that shortcomings within the United Nations justified weakening the organisation.
Despite criticism of the UN, Tokayev said there was no viable alternative to it. Kazakhstan's position, he argued, was that the UN should remain at the centre of the international system and that its Charter should continue to provide the universal foundation of international law.
The President called for closer interaction between the UN and regional organisations such as the SCO, stronger preventive diplomacy and greater emphasis on peaceful settlement of disputes.
Tokayev also used the summit to promote another issue of growing importance to Central Asia: water.
Climate pressures, population growth and competing demands on shared water resources make the issue increasingly important to Kazakhstan and neighbouring states.
Tokayev proposed creating an International Water Organisation under UN auspices, arguing that although numerous UN bodies deal with water, no universal intergovernmental organisation currently has a comprehensive mandate.
He also proposed an SCO Water Problems Analysis Centre as a regional complement to such a global organisation.
The proposal fits into Kazakhstan's broader effort to move environmental and resource-security questions higher up the international agenda.
Perhaps the strongest thread connecting Tokayev's interview with his SCO appearance is Kazakhstan's determination to turn geography into diplomatic and economic influence.
Astana is simultaneously strengthening its relationship with Beijing, maintaining important relationships with Russia and other neighbours, developing transport corridors towards Europe, expanding cooperation with Western partners and presenting itself as an advocate of multilateral diplomacy.
Tokayev's description of relations with China therefore carries a wider meaning.
He quoted a Kazakh proverb in the Xinhua interview: “Those travelling the same road share a common destiny.”
Yet the message emerging from Bishkek suggests Kazakhstan sees that road not as one running exclusively eastwards towards China, but as part of a much larger network connecting East and West.
As competition between the world's major powers becomes more pronounced, Kazakhstan is attempting to position itself at the centre of those connections — geographically through trade and transport corridors, technologically through digital cooperation, and diplomatically through its advocacy of multilateralism.
For Europe, that makes developments in Kazakhstan-China relations increasingly relevant. The more successfully Kazakhstan develops the Middle Corridor and other east-west transport links, the more the country becomes not simply a Central Asian partner but a strategic gateway connecting European and Asian economies.
And that, ultimately, appears to be the common theme running through Tokayev's words both to Xinhua and to the leaders assembled at the SCO summit: Kazakhstan believes its future influence will come not from choosing between competing blocs, but from connecting them.
Chinese state-run shipping company COSCO has been using concealed systems on its vessels to gather signals intelligence around North American, European, and Asian coastlines for decades, it has been alleged. Similar claims have been made in the past, and overlap between nominally civilian enterprises in China and the country’s military and intelligence services is well established at this point.
Reuters first reported on the use of COSCO ships as discrete signals intelligence platforms earlier today, citing two unnamed officials within President Donald Trump’s administration.
“The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the U.S. assessment of the Chinese program, said COSCO has a decades-long intelligence-collection partnership with Beijing,” according to the report. “The arrangement allows China to collect communication signals from vessels and aircraft operating across Europe, North America and Asia, they said.”
It is worth noting here that China’s National Intelligence Law, enacted in 2017, includes a specific provision that requires all organizations and citizens within the country to support state intelligence work as required. It also obligates the state to protect entities that do so.
“The advanced equipment aboard the ships is intended to enable China to gather information about ‘military communications technologies and encryption developments,’ one of the officials said,” Reuters‘ story today added. “The officials did not detail the type of equipment COSCO ships were allegedly using, but said they were ‘sophisticated signals intelligence collection’ platforms, not routine communications hardware.”
Officials at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., unsurprisingly denied these assertions, according to that outlet.
Purpose-built signals intelligence suites can range widely in size and shape, as can their capabilities. They can be very small and basic or far more elaborate systems. Even the latter could be concealed as modern commercial ships, which already feature lots of antennas.
What might happen to intelligence collected by the ships is unknown. At the very least, systems onboard could record the data, which could then be batched out when safe to do so, either physically or via transmission. Basic passive signals suites can also run autonomously, or even be controlled from anywhere in the world if the ship is connected via satellite communications (SATCOM). High-bandwidth SATCOM is very common now on ships around the globe.
Personnel on the ship could also operate the systems, and even process receptions of interest. It might be possible to fit the ships with suitable datalinks to then transmit the collected data in near-real-time to other nodes, including ones back in China, for further analysis and exploitation.
Reuters‘ sources said scooping up data on “military communications technologies and encryption developments” was a priority for the commercial vessels turned spy ships. Signals intelligence can take many other forms, from emissions from radars to communications chatter. Depending on what is collected and how, specialists can use that information to glean details about how systems function, as well as insights into standard operating procedures and other details. This is especially true when multiple forms of intelligence are fused together. Generally speaking, signals intelligence is routinely used to help build out so-called ‘electronic orders of battle’ detailing the disposition and capabilities of an opponent’s forces, especially air defense and command and control networks.
As mentioned, this is not the first time claims in this general vein have emerged, either. At least some evidence has been presented in the past, through open-source analysis. Reuters‘ sources directed that outlet to a report published last year by the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College exploring exactly this topic in relation to China’s quasi-military maritime militia. The maritime militia is made up of ostensibly civilian fishing fleets, but has direct ties to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the Chinese Coast Guard. It is routinely used to harass and intimidate foreign vessels in disputed waters, especially in the South China Sea.
“Undergirding these operations is a cadre of maritime militia intelligence specialists called ‘information personnel.’ Information personnel are organized into force contingents that support operational militia forces,” according to that report. “Most have day jobs in the fishing industry, but many hale [sic; hail] from other sectors, including marine shipping and even maritime law enforcement units.”
“It is more likely than not that PRC [People’s Republic of China] vessels operating overseas have already begun embarking information personnel to serve intelligence collection and reporting functions. In the case of China’s fishing fleet, serving this foreign intelligence collection function could be as simple as adding a new duty to the ‘information personnel’ that already embark aboard some distant-water fishing vessels,” that report added. “Aside from their primary responsibilities of tallying and reporting production numbers, serving as experts on international and national fisheries regulations that affect their work, and handling interactions with foreign officials while at sea and in port, they might also be tasked with collecting and reporting military and political intelligence while operating overseas.”
“Similar processes may already be in place in the commercial shipping industry,” it continued. “For instance, Guangxi province’s Beihai city has built up its ranks of maritime intelligence specialists by recruiting from among marine shipping personnel.”
No explicit mention is made in the report about signals intelligence gathering.
In the past year or so, there have been multiple reports that Russia is also using its so-called ‘shadow fleet’ of oil tanker ships in a secondary role as intelligence-gathering platforms. The primary job of those vessels is to help the Kremlin evade sanctions.
There is other tangential evidence that also lends credence to today’s report from Reuters. As mentioned, in the midst of still mysterious drone swarms that harassed U.S. Navy ships off the coast of southern California back in 2019, U.S. authorities at least explored the possibility that a Hong Kong-flagged bulk carrier, the M/V Bass Strait, might have been a launch point. It remains unknown, at least publicly, whether the Bass Strait or another nearby ship might have been the source of the harassment, or if it came from somewhere else, potentially further away. TWZ was the first to report on this detail as part of a deeper investigation into these incidents, which came amid a spike in news about claimed sightings of what are now commonly referred to as unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). We have been saying for years now that, while some UAP sightings do remain unexplained, many more are likely to have been drones (as well as balloons), which foreign governments could be using for intelligence gathering and other malign purposes.
It’s also worth noting here that intelligence collection from international waters and airspace is a practice that nation state armed forces and intelligence agencies globally, including those in the United States, engage in regularly with varying degrees of openness. Leveraging nominally civilian ships, as well as aircraft, for these purposes is hardly new.
Despite the official denials to the Reuters piece today, it would be hard to imagine Chinese authorities not making use of commercial ships for this purpose, if possible, given that major deepwater ports worldwide are often dual-purpose civilian/military facilities. Radar sites and other critical facilities are often positioned along or near coastlines. Cargo ships and tankers often pass by major exercises and under major military operating airspace, where they could scoop up critical data.
With commercial ships already plying their routes, this would also just offer the Chinese government ways to readily bolster maritime intelligence-gathering capacity at low cost and low risk. China’s commercial fleets dwarf any other on Earth, making their presence commonplace and providing many opportunities to hide these operations.
A 2021 report published through the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s (NGA) Tearline Project also highlighted the possibility of Chinese-owned facilities at ports around the world being used for intelligence gathering or even for launching non-kinetic attacks, including electronic warfare jamming. It specifically noted how COSCO’s facility in Belgium’s Port of Zeebrugge is “in close proximity to a Belgian Naval Base and thus could fulfill additional militarized requirements.”
Concerns about land owned by Chinese companies and nationals being used to collect intelligence or for other purposes have become an increasingly hot topic of discussion in the United States in recent years.
Reuters‘ piece does not say what, if any, steps U.S. authorities have taken or may be planning to take now to monitor for or take more active countermeasures against Chinese-flagged ships being used for intelligence gathering, despite this being said to be a decades-old practice. The report does note that “the Pentagon put COSCO on its list of companies linked to China’s military in January 2025, a designation that carries serious reputational costs for companies as well as U.S. government procurement bans, but does not entail formal sanctions.”
Though no hard evidence has yet been provided, Chinese authorities using cargo ships as additional discreet signals intelligence-gathering assets is very plausible, and would certainly seem to be an issue that should be taken seriously, if it is not already being addressed.
Contact the author: joe@twz.com
The post Chinese Cargo Ships Clandestinely Gather Signals Intelligence: Report appeared first on TWZ.
According to Nepal's Disaster Management Authority, at least 639 people remain trapped at damaged hydropower facilities.
The post Nepal flood death toll surpasses 1,000 as rescue efforts intensify appeared first on BOL News.
In the second quarter of 2026, the EU imported €701.8 billion in goods from non-EU countries and exported €680.0 billion. Compared with the previous quarter, both imports and exports increased, by 9.9% and 5.4%, respectively. Compared with the second quarter of 2025, imports increased by 11.7% and exports by 4.5%.
China was the EU’s largest supplier, accounting for €153.6 billion (21.9% of all imports). The United States came second (€98.7 billion; 14.1%), followed by the United Kingdom (€43.4 billion; 6.2%), Switzerland (€36.9 billion; 5.3%) and Türkiye (€25.5 billion; 3.6%).
The EU increased imports from the United States (+11.5%), the United Kingdom (+8.8%), China (+7.9%) and Switzerland (+2.1%) compared with the second quarter of 2025, while imports from Türkiye declined slightly (-0.6%).
Source dataset: ext_st_eu27_2020sitc
The EU exported €127.7 billion of goods to the United States, making it the EU’s main export destination (18.8% of all exports). The United Kingdom came second with €92.7 billion (13.6%), followed by Switzerland (€60.5 billion; 8.9%), China (€50.3 billion; 7.4%) and Türkiye (€27.3 billion; 4.0%).
Exports to Switzerland rose sharply (+16.1%) compared with the same quarter of 2025. Exports to the United Kingdom (+5.6%) and China (+2.8%) also increased, while those to the United States (-5.6%) and Türkiye (-4.9%) decreased.
This week, Mark Leonard is joined by Janka Oertel, director of ECFR’s DARE* initiative, and Andrew Small, head of ECFR’s Asia programme, to examine the growing impact of the “China shock 2.0” on Germany and Europe.
A new wave of Chinese competition, driven by overcapacity and state-backed industrial strength, is hitting sectors such as car manufacturing, chemicals and machine tools. Germany is at the epicentre, with mounting job losses raising questions about Europe’s long-term economic resilience and competitiveness. The crisis is reshaping German politics, exposing government divisions and putting pressure on Chancellor Friedrich Merz ahead of September’s potentially divisive regional elections.
Together, Mark, Janka and Andrew discuss the policy options being considered in Brussels and in European capitals—from emergency trade measures to new industrial strategies. Can Europe protect its industrial base without triggering a damaging escalation with China? Is Germany able to lead a coherent European response amid its own political turbulence?
This podcast episode was recorded 12th August 2026.
Bookshelf
China Shock 2.0: The Cost of Germany’s Complacency, by Brad Setser and Sander Tordoir
The art of the swarm: Systemic rivalry with China on European terms, by Andrew Small
Dear Britain, by Annette Dittert
If Europeans need any reminder of the real impact of climate change, they should simply look out of the window. This summer, a few extra degrees of sustained heat have forced school closures, disrupted railways and cut nuclear power plant output. More than 25,000 excess deaths across Europe have been attributed to extreme heat so far, while wildfires are causing over €15bn of economic damage.
The increasing intensity of heatwaves is generally attributed to climate change as a result of the global reliance on fossil fuels. While cutting carbon emissions remains the focus of EU climate policy, European governments also need to ensure that their societies can better adapt to extreme weather. Many households have already taken matters into their own hands by turning to portable air conditioners—often Chinese-made—for relief.
And China’s air-conditioner export boom points to a broader challenge: whether confronting extreme weather or fragile economic dependencies, Europeans need to adapt to the consequences while also addressing underlying sources of vulnerability. They should not just accept the status quo; here, some answers may lie in the lessons of China’s own industrial transformation.
Once again, when Europe looks for a climate solution, China has one ready to ship. China is a powerhouse in technologies used to mitigate climate change, from solar panels to wind turbines; it is also a vital player in helping Europe adapt to warmer temperatures. China produces over 80% of the world’s air conditioners: exports of Chinese AC units to the EU rose by 43% year on year in the first half of 2026. Chinese brands now account for 41% of the European market, up from 27% in 2023.
This success is not only about price and scale. Chinese manufacturers have adapted their products for the European market: for example, Midea’s PortaSplit model is tailored to overcome cumbersome building regulations and high installation costs. Chinese manufacturers were also early adopters of refrigerants less harmful to the climate, ensuring their products meet Europe’s strict environmental rules.
Chinese state media and officials were quick to present the boom in AC unit sales as a success for EU-China trade: it is a “natural result of complementary advantages” and demonstrates the mutually beneficial nature of the EU-China economic relationship. China’s industrial specialisation, supply-chain efficiency and technological competitiveness, they argue, mean manufacturers respond swiftly to shifts in global demand. AC is an example of China acting as an “enabling superpower” in providing efficient and affordable products that respond to climate change—as Beijing would say, a win-win.
But this is not all. Chinese commentators say that Europe should not only adapt to the hotter climate—it should adapt to the patterns of EU-China trade. They portray the EU’s de-risking and trade-defence measures to tackle economic imbalance with China as economically self-defeating, arguing that Europe lacks confidence in its own industries. European policymakers, they say, are approaching trade as a game of “cold statistics” that will ultimately hurt ordinary consumers.
This is a fatalistic prescription for industrial policy from a country that refuses to accept that its position in global supply chains or its existing competitive advantage is fixed. For decades, Beijing has made industrial upgrading a central policy objective that has reoriented global trade patterns. Europeans are experiencing this firsthand in the AC boom, where China’s position reflects decades of deliberate industrial upgrading. And now Beijing is advising Europe to be content with trade patterns as they stand: strange advice, given that this would not pass the political sniff test in Zhongnanhai.
Since Deng Xiaoping, Chinese leaders have not simply passively adapted to their inherited competitive advantages. Neither do they treat the existing global division of labour as an efficient market outcome to be preserved. This is especially the case when such patterns risk constraining China from developing the sectors it considers strategically important—robotics, clean technology or aviation, for example.
China’s industrial transformation did not happen through market forces alone. Its latest five-year plan emphasises “self-reliance and controllability” as a guiding principle for technologies underpinning critical infrastructure, including energy systems. Over the years, under the banners of Made in China and Dual Circulation, the country has deployed large-scale subsidies, preferential financing from state banks, government-guided investment funds, public procurement, favourable access to land and infrastructure, and requirements around joint ventures, localisation and technology transfer.
These policies helped Chinese firms “import, digest and absorb” foreign know-how, build scale, and create globally competitive and innovative companies across supply chains. But while the European debate on competitiveness centres on many of the same concepts, European politicians, industries and member states are divided over future industrial policy. One prevailing idea is that Europe should pull a “reverse Deng” by ushering in a new era of industrial policy capable of matching the scale of support and protection that China extended to its domestic industries during the 1990s and 2000s.
Europeans should preserve their ability to source and scale critical technologies through viable alternatives, ensuring they have options should conditions change
But Europe should be cautious in trying to beat China at its own game. It has no centralised state to direct capital and help companies navigate commercial losses in pursuit of their goals. The main lessons from China’s industrial policy lie in the assumptions behind it: Europeans should minimise dependencies that could be strategically constraining; industrial competitiveness is not only about efficient production; Europeans should preserve their ability to source and scale critical technologies through viable alternatives, ensuring they have options should conditions change.
This logic is becoming more relevant as climate shocks intensify and geopolitics grows more volatile.
Europeans need to consider what such options would look like in practice. To borrow the question posed by Chinese commentators: what could Europe do right now without Chinese air conditioners?
Cooling is becoming essential infrastructure. Much like heating and water, Europe will need a broader portfolio of solutions to meet demand. AC is part of the answer, alongside low-energy and passive-cooling technologies such as evaporative cooling, reflective roofs and building retrofits, and stronger building standards. But Europe does not need to develop every solution itself; it could build a network of alternative suppliers and production capabilities.
For example, Singapore and the Gulf states are confronting many similar challenges and could be potential partners in deploying more efficient solutions such as district cooling. Europe can build similar partnerships in clean-tech supply chains. South Korea, the second-largest battery manufacturer globally, holds 78% of installed battery capacity in Europe. It can learn from countries such as Japan, which has diversified its rare-earth supply through partnerships with Australia and Malaysia, as well as Vietnam. India doubled solar-cell manufacturing capacity in the first half of 2026 alone, backed by localisation incentives extending to upstream components like ingots and polysilicon.
China will remain part of Europe’s clean-tech supply chains. For Europe, preserving its options does not mean that it needs to produce every critical technology in the clean-tech supply chain. But it should work with external partners to maintain commercially viable alternatives at scale. This can be done through reciprocal access to public procurement markets, targeted incentives and shared product standards.
Fundamentally, having options means being able to adapt to a problem while tackling its cause. Climate policy offers a useful framework: Europeans have concluded that the impact of heatwaves or floods are not inevitable; they are not relying on AC, seawalls and floodgates as their only response. Instead, they are tackling the cause of climate change by pursuing adaptation while mitigating the underlying problem through cuts in fossil-fuel emissions.
Europe should dare to do the same with its competitiveness and economic dependencies. Rather than simply adapting to change, its governments should invest in Europe’s capacity to innovate, work with partners and build alternatives, with the aim of reducing vulnerabilities and helping preserve its choices.
The summer heat of 2026 is a reminder of the cost of delayed climate action. The same lesson applies to economic security: adapting to today’s dependencies in the name of efficiency will leave Europe with fewer options—and come with a larger bill—tomorrow.
One of Hong Kong’s most unusual sights is the stone wall tree—a mature tree growing directly out of a masonry retaining wall.
These remarkable trees first appeared during the colonial era when thousands of stone retaining walls were built to stabilize Hong Kong's steep hillsides. Over time, seeds carried by birds and wind became lodged in cracks between the granite blocks. Dust, decaying leaves, and moisture accumulated in these crevices, creating tiny pockets of soil where the seeds could germinate.
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Most wartime diaries are written on paper. Some are scribbled in notebooks or loose sheets and hidden beneath floorboards, or tucked inside clothing. The most famous wartime diary is undoubtedly that of Anne Frank, but there are many others whose accounts are equally compelling. One of the most unusual records of the Second World War, however, was kept by Day Joyce, a biologist interned at Stanley Camp in Hong Kong. Her diary was not written on paper at all. Instead, she stitched it into a bed sheet.
The Day Joyce Sheet. Credit: Imperial War Museums
This week, Mark Leonard is joined by Adriana Abdenur, a Brazilian policy expert and co-president of the Global Fund for a New Economy, and Jorge Castañeda, former foreign minister of Mexico and professor at Sciences Po, to explore debates about development and ideas of strategic autonomy across Latin America.
Jorge explains why China’s role is varied across the region, arguing that Mexico and much of Central America remain deeply constrained by their economic ties to the US. Adriana discusses Brazil’s long tradition of strategic autonomy, describing how policymakers engage with China as both an economic partner and a source of ideas on development, technology and global governance.
Together, Mark, Adriana and Jorge explore how intensifying US-China competition is reshaping the region’s choices. Can Latin American countries balance relations with both powers? Is China a model, a market or simply another partner in a multipolar world? And what does strategic autonomy look like in an increasingly coercive geopolitical environment?
This podcast episode was recorded on July 31st 2026.
Bookshelf
Latin American Foreign Policies in the New World Order: The Active Non-Alignment Option, by Carlos Ominami, Jorge Heine and Carlos Fortín
Manifesto Antropófago (Cannibal Manifesto), by Oswald de Andrade
Reluctance among German decision-makers has long stopped Berlin taking a tougher economic approach towards China. When France, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Spain recently pressed the European Commission for tougher measures and faster trade defence action against China, Germany not only declined to join, it even called for stronger industrial ties with Beijing.
Yet, one thing Berlin should not worry about is voters’ disapproval should it pursue a more hawkish China policy. ECFR polling data find that Germans are the most China-sceptical out of 15 European countries surveyed. No fewer than 60% of Christian Democrat and Social Democrat supporters regard the country as an adversary or rival. In contrast, elsewhere in Europe, majorities still see China as either a “necessary partner” or even an ally. In Italy and Spain, 56% and 65% of people hold this view respectively. (Closest to the sceptical Germans are the French public; President Emmanuel Macron’s increasingly hawkish political posture vis-à-vis Beijing may have found an audience willing to listen.)
The China shock has hit Germany particularly hard: its manufacturing sector lost around 420,000 jobs between 2019 and 2025 and it continues to shed 10,000 jobs each month. The car industry is paying the highest costs, being squeezed out of a market increasingly dominated by Chinese manufacturers at home and abroad.
The mood in the European Council is shifting, and with Germany’s acquiescence. When EU leaders met in June 2026, they backed a stronger trade defence toolbox of existing measures against China. This included instruments such as the Industrial Accelerator Act’s “Buy European” provisions and limits on high-risk Chinese technology. Despite its past hesitations, Germany no longer acts as a spoiler on firmer EU action, and it has cautiously supported this new direction. Nevertheless, the combination of growing public scepticism towards China, mounting pressure on German industry and appetite for a more assertive policy on the European level creates a political mandate that German decision-makers could yet seize.
The German public’s views on the energy transition should also prove encouraging for their leaders. Voters want to see investment in renewables: 57% back what would amount to the growing electrification of the economy. Across the countries polled by ECFR, 61% of respondents say they support prioritising renewables and the clean tech sector.
This public support should help persuade leaders, including in Germany, that they can take action to limit emerging dependencies on China. They can accelerate the energy transition while de-risking the clean tech sector through providing support for domestic European industries, from wind to batteries.
For Berlin, and capitals across Europe, it is safer to move ahead rather than delay. Chinese economic policy is already doing irreparable damage to European industry—but European policymakers still need to protect an increasingly electrified economy from weaponisation by China. If they fail to do so, governments will almost certainly pay the price at the ballot box. Those that pursue electrification and economic de-risking as a single package are most likely to reap the political rewards.
For China Books Review, Zhang Er reflects on growing up in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution, and how she owes her love of reading to Auntie Zou, a librarian who stripped banned books of their covers and any pages marked with the library seal of the Workers’ Club, smuggled them home, and secretly loaned them to her. Even amid the chaos of that era, Er remembers this part of her childhood as magical, a time “where characters sprung from their pages and interwove with each other’s lives,” and she imagined worlds far beyond the one she lived in.
By the time I was 12 or 13, I could read fast enough to finish the weekly book loan in two days, so I had time to spare before returning it to Auntie Zou. By then I had made a good friend, Yu Ping, who loved reading too. Her home was three blocks from mine. I would bicycle to her place and deliver the book to her. Yu Ping would read day and night to finish the book and return it to me before the due date. We would keep the book wrapped in old newspapers, so that we could read in class without getting into trouble, while our teachers repeated the same quotations from Mao, week after week.
In this harrowing, incredibly reported story co-published by Science and Retraction Watch, Brendan Borrell uncovers how “Mei,” a 6-year-old girl in China, died a week after an experimental gene-editing trial went wrong—and how her medical team, led by neuroscientist Zilong Qiu, downplayed the risks to her parents, did not publicly disclose her death, and has faced no real accountability.
On 23 March 2025, the day before the procedure, the family settled into a shared room inside a crowded pediatric ward. When the other girl in the room broke into tears, Mei handed her one of her favorite stuffed animals: a blue bird. “She liked to give things to other kids,” Jason said.
The next day Mei put on a brave face as she was taken to the procedure room. Yu’s handpicked doctor inserted a needle between two vertebrae on her lower back and withdrew just over a teaspoon of spinal fluid to create space for the drug. Then, he swapped syringes and gently pressed down on the plunger, filling her spinal canal with viruses.
Growing popularity of electric vehicles (EVs) from China is causing headaches for European carmakers – and for Brussels, with national governments clamouring for protection for their national champions.
The European Commission, which is in charge of trade policies for the bloc, has to square the circle between avoiding a trade war and injecting some life into the idling economy.
In one recent step the EU is attempting to introduce minimum prices for Chinese made EVs to offset subsidies instead of slapping on more tariffs.
The EU in 2024 had introduced tariffs of up to 35.3 percent on EVs imported from China after an anti-subsidy probe concluded that the country’s support undercut European automakers. Manufacturers in China benefit from unfair subsidies that give them a significant advantage in the European market. Since then, the two sides have been engaged in talks to find other solutions.
Under new guidelines published by the Commission last week, companies can commit to setting minimum prices for vehicles exported to the European Union in order to avoid the price surcharges. In addition, in the case of a corresponding offer, commitments to invest in the EU or to limit exports would be positively taken into account.
Such offers would be assessed objectively and fairly by the Commission, according to the new guidelines. A prerequisite for acceptance is that the measures eliminate the damaging effects of subsidies and have an effect equivalent to the tariffs.
The published document was “intended to provide guidance to Chinese exporters who may be considering submitting price undertaking offers for exports of battery electric vehicles to the EU, which are currently subject to countervailing duties,” Commission spokesman Olof Gill said.
He said that at present, the Commission has received one price undertaking offer, without specifying which company or for which model. He added that the Commission is ready to consider other proposals, provided that they “adequately address the unfair competitive advantage” and demonstrate that they are “feasible in practice”.
Leading German automotive expert Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, head of the private institute Center Automotive Research (CAR), was sceptical of the effects of the minimum prices could have on competition.
According to EU calculations, manufacturers in China benefit from unfair subsidies that give them a price advantage of around 20 percent on the European market. For this reason, tariffs ranging from 7.8 to 35.3 percent were imposed from 2024, depending on the manufacturer. German and US companies that manufacture in China are also affected. In retaliation, China imposed special tariffs on EU goods such as spirits, pork, and dairy products.
According to CAR, Chinese manufacturers sell their models in the EU at an average markup of 118 percent on top of the domestic price. “Given the current price level in Europe, there should still be significant scope for Chinese manufacturers to reduce prices,” said Dudenhöffer.
According to the latest report by the EU research agency Eurofound, the automotive industry in the EU directly employs around 6 million workers and another 6 million in related sectors.
Since 2019, the pace of job losses in the sector has clearly accelerated. In 2024 alone and at the beginning of 2025, layoffs announced by European companies affected around 100,000 jobs.
The largest employment losses have been recorded in countries with a strong presence of Europe’s biggest car manufacturers. In France, a structural decline is feared, while since 2019 job cuts have also affected Germany, Italy, and, to a lesser extent, Spain. Central and Eastern European countries – Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia – are facing the relocation of production outside the EU to countries with lower labor costs.
This is happening because sales of cars originating from China, including electric vehicles (EVs), are increasing in the EU. In practice, some of these cars on EU markets are not only models of Chinese brands but also vehicles produced in China for Western brands.
Germany, for many years a global carmaking powerhouse, is facing a dilemma. Demand for EVs is rising, but it is not just the battery powered Volkswagens or BMWs customers are flocking to – and the long-term outlook is dire.
Electric vehicle sales rebounded strongly in Germany in 2025, according to official data from early January this year, with Chinese manufacturers making inroads from a low base in the EU’s largest economy despite tariffs.
EV sales rose 43.2 percent last year to 545,142 in total, the KBA federal transport authority said, representing 19.1 percent of all new cars sold.
Chinese EV giant BYD – which last year overtook Elon Musk’s Tesla to become the worlds largest electric carmaker – saw its German sales rise over 700 percent to more than 23,000 cars, giving it 0.8 percent of the overall auto market.
“International vehicle manufacturers with affordable battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids have contributed disproportionately to growth in these segments,” said Imelda Labbé, head of the VDIK foreign carmakers’ lobby in Germany.
The rise in EV sales last year comes after a fall of almost 30 percent in 2024 following the withdrawal of government subsidies, and Germany’s electric car market is still smaller than optimists had hoped for. After the decline in the market in 2024, the government said in December it would introduce subsidies again.
Some motorists will be able to benefit from 5,000 Euro for the purchase of new EVs or hybrids so long as their components are largely made in Germany. But industry figures say that better charging infrastructure and cheaper power would be needed to really boost EVs and warned that the planned subsidy would have limited impact.
On the other hand, German carmakers have been reporting strong declines in vehicle sales in China. Volkswagen said in January its sales dropped by 8 percent in 2025 year-on-year, as it was facing intense competition on the Chinese market from local producers. Mercedes-Benz reported a 19 percent decline in sales for the year, while BMW sold 12,5 percent fewer cars in China.
German manufacturers like Mercedes or VW sell about 30 percent of their cars on the Chinese market.
The tug-of-war affects not just major players, but the automotive sector across the continent.
Bulgaria for example is not a major car producer, but it is increasingly important as a supplier of automotive components to European manufacturers. The sector has grown into one of the country’s strongest industrial branches, generating close to 11 billion Euro in annual turnover, according to business media and industry analyses.
This means that it is indirectly exposed to the EU-China trade dispute over electric vehicles: weaker competitiveness of European carmakers could reduce orders for Bulgarian suppliers, while a recovery in EV sales in core markets such as Germany would have the opposite effect.
At the same time, Chinese manufacturers are not only exporting cars to Europe but are also expanding production and partnerships within the EU, with Bulgaria being increasingly part of China’s automotive strategy in Southeast Europe according to analysts.
For Bulgaria, this creates a mixed impact: EU trade measures may protect European carmakers, but Chinese localization in Europe could also open new opportunities for Bulgarian suppliers.
Dudenhöffer expects the sector to shrink in the next years in Germany and Europe, as manufacturers shift their production to the US or Asia, he said in his market forecast for 2026.
“Growth is taking place in Asia, and Asian car manufacturers (Japan, Korea, China) are increasingly dominating the car business.”
Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, German Automotive Expert
And then there are of course the EU’s green policies: The EU in December rolled back a 2035 ban on new petrol and diesel cars seen as a milestone in the fight against climate change, as the bloc pivots to bolstering its crisis-hit auto sector.
Under proposals slammed by green groups as an act of “self-sabotage”, carmakers will have to cut exhaust emissions from new vehicles by 90 percent from 2021 levels – down from an envisaged 100 percent.
This means that in practice automakers will still be able to sell a limited number of polluting vehicles – from plug-in hybrids to diesel cars – beyond 2035, provided the resulting emissions are “compensated” in various ways.
The EU’s Industry Commissioner, Stéphane Séjourné, insisted the bloc’s green ambitions stood intact as he put forward a plan billed as a “lifeline” for Europe’s auto industry.
The combustion-engine ban was hailed as a major win in the climate fight and a key tool to drive investments in electrification when adopted in 2023.
The compromise plan was slammed by both environmentalists and industry groups.
While the EU had recognised that remaining open to different technologies was important, its proposal was “fraught with so many obstacles it threatens to remain ineffective in practice”, the president of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), Hildegard Müller, said. “In times of increasing international competition, in times when European economic power is crucial, this overall package from Brussels is disastrous.”
The future of German car manufacturers – and by extension automakers in other EU member states – is closely linked to the Chinese market.
According to Dudenhöffer, they must develop and build electric cars “in China for China”. In this context, he criticised the softening of the combustion engine phase-out. He said it was not possible to disconnect from developments, but that it is necessary to face competition in the tough Chinese market. “If you’re not in China, you’re not in the car business.”
This article is an ENR Key Story. The content is based on information published by ENR participating agencies.
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