* von der Leyen is a German but acts precisely against the interest of German companies and people.
**
Precisely because of China's success, US now tries to stop it because
US stolen dollar hegemony is otherwise slipping away. von der Leyen's
strange actions can therefore only be explained as her being US fifth
columnist within EU.
von der
Leyen wants to assist the world's worst financial criminal*,
$-freeloader US (since 1971) while blocking EU con sumers and EU
companioes from accessing the world's leading science and technology
from China.
* 1971 US stole
the world dollar by violating the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944. This
has made it possible for US - as the only country in the world - to
prosper (by money printing the rest of the world pays for) while having
constant trade deficit.
von der Leyen: The Clean
Energy Incentives Dialogue will become a part of the EU-U.S. Trade and
Technology Council where it will also facilitate information-sharing on
non-market policies and practices of third parties—such as those
employed by the People's Republic of China (PRC)—to serve as the basis
for joint or parallel action and coordinated advocacy on these issues in
multilateral or other fora.
Peter Klevius: Every parameter
points to Chinese leadership in R&D, science, technology and
alternative tech etc. Against this background and added by the
understandable desperation US feels for losing its stolen hegemony -
which hangs on an extremely thin thread called trust - it's evident that
von der Leyen acts opposite to the best interest of people in EU.
Moreover,
in an authoritarian manner von der Leyen wants to "shield away" that
part of "democracy" that doesn't fit her and her coterie's US steered
agenda.
If Peter Klevius tries to read her as positively he can,
it could simply be that she's really so delusional that she doesn't
understand US dangerous and desperate situation nor that China is
accelerating its progress on precisely those areas EU would benefit
from. Moreover, even in defense spending EU will lose heavily by
sticking to soon outdated Western military tech.
West lives in a
delusion founded on what it copied (from China) and stole (from weaker
people/countries) in its internal and external colonialism. China is
today pushing US to judgement via people's inevitable upcoming
abandoning of trust in US financial hegemony. Moreover, consumers around
the world have already started to notice Chinese manufacturing and
quality superiority. And no, China isn't Japan because it's not occupied
by US and it's more than 10 times bigger.
Europe shouldn't be afraid of Chinese electric cars, says Mercedes-Benz CEO
George Glover
Mar 12, 2024, 7:18 AM PDT
The Mercedes-Benz concept CLA model at CES 2024
The Mercedes-Benz concept CLA could go on sale next year. Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu/Getty Images
The CEO of Mercedes-Benz called on the European Union to cut tariffs on Chinese electric cars.
"That is the market economy. Let competition play out," he told the Financial Times.
The trading bloc doesn't want Chinese EV makers like BYD to undercut European manufacturers.
The
boss of Mercedes-Benz wants the European Union to cut tariffs on
Chinese electric cars, which he argues will force European companies to
make better vehicles.
In an interview with the Financial Times
published on Tuesday, Ola Källenius rallied against protectionism and
said lawmakers in Brussels should reduce, not raise, duties on Chinese
EV makers such as BYD.
Chinese cars face 10% tariffs in Europe, which is lower than the 15% levy imposed on European cars sold in China.
"Don't
raise tariffs," he told the FT. "I'm a contrarian, I think go the other
way around: take the tariffs that we have and reduce them … that is the
market economy. Let competition play out."
"It has been opening
up markets that has led to wealth growth, especially in the economic
wonder of China, that has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of
poverty," Källenius added. "If we believe protectionism is the thing
that gives us long-term success, I believe history tells us that is not
the case."
BYD's cheaper, smaller (and with much more tech and better
quality and safety - Peter Klevius comment) cars helped it overtake
Tesla as the world's top EV seller in 2023 — and it's announced plans to
build a production plant in Hungary as part of a bid to ramp up its
expansion into Europe.
France's Renault and Jeep owner Stellantis have
previously called for the EU to take steps to prevent the continent's
carmakers being wiped out by their Chinese rivals.
"The Chinese
offensive is possibly the biggest risk that companies like Tesla and
ourselves are facing right now,'' Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares said
last month. "We have to work very, very hard to make sure that we bring
out consumers better offerings than the Chinese."
However, German
carmakers such as Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen have pushed back against
the EU's ongoing probe. China accounts for over a third of
Mercedes-Benz's worldwide sales, while it also signed a deal with BYD
last year to use the Chinese company's LFP Blade batteries in its own
EVs.
Reports last September suggested Mercedes-Benz is planning a
2025 launch for the CLA sedan that will use BYD's LFP batteries and have
a range of more than 450 miles.
Daimler, the owner of
Mercedes-Benz, and BYD have also worked together in the past, setting up
an EV joint venture in China as long ago as 2010, per Electrek.
Von der Leyen proposes vaccines for minds and a 'shield for democracy
Anonymous
27 May 2024, 04:13 GMT+10
The European Commission president's campaign features an unprecedented preventive crackdown on wrongthink
One
of the hallmarks of the European Union is that if something sounds too
good to be true, it usually is. In fact, it often means the exact
opposite.
Take, for instance, the idea that Ursula Von der Leyen,
the European Commission president, is running for re-election when in
reality she's just publicly squabbling with a few other establishment
hacks to be handpicked and confirmed by the establishment itself, not by
popular vote. But that hasn't stopped her from cosplaying as an actual
democratic candidate. It's not like she didn't have the opportunity to
actually be one rather than just play one, but when her German
colleagues asked her to run for an elected EU seat in Germany to
establish some democratic credibility, she reportedly declined the
inconvenience.
But that hasn't stopped her from posting "campaign"
ads on social media, as though she's actually trying to appeal to
voters. In one such video, she promises that if she's re-coronated, er,
"re-elected," she'll defend Europe with a "Democracy Shield." The whole
idea, she says, is to "detect disinformation and malign interference...
remove content, including [artificial intelligence] deepfakes, [and] to
make our societies more resilient." Nothing about defending Europe's
democracy from unelected bureaucrats wielding excessive power though, I
guess?
Ever since billionaire tech entrepreneur, Elon Musk, took
over Twitter, renamed the social media platform 'X', and publicly shamed
all the Western government authorities that tried to exploit the
platform directly for their own propaganda purposes, his "community
notes" feature has allowed users to react directly and in real time to
content, including deep fake videos, and has proven that the antidote to
inaccuracy is more free and democratic speech, not less.
"Democracy,"
in the case of this "Democracy Shield" is really just a euphemism for
censorship. Because what does this "shield" really protect Europe from,
that more free speech can't achieve, other than inconvenient facts? Or
from Queen Ursula and the rest of the European establishment having to
defend their own ideological lunacy and explain to citizens why the
narratives they peddle often don't jibe with reality.
Apparently,
they figure that democracy would be better off if everything and
everyone that didn't fit their top agenda narratives could just be
whacked over the head and dragged off into the shadows by the online
Gestapo serving von der Leyen's online "Democracy Shield."
But
maybe characterizing the Democracy Shield as little more than a
"propaganda shield" is unfair. After all, it's not like the EU or Ursula
actually say that they're interested in doing propaganda. No, instead
she says that she just wants to do a little "pre-bunking," which totally
doesn't sound like propaganda at all.
Speaking at the Copenhagen
Democracy Summit earlier this month, von der Leyen explained that
"research has shown that pre-bunking is more successful than de-bunking.
Pre-bunking is the opposite of de-bunking. In short, prevention is
preferable to cure. Think of information manipulation as a virus.
Instead of treating an infection once it has taken hold, that's the
de-bunking, it is better to vaccinate, so that our body is inoculated.
Pre-bunking is the same approach."
Yeah, folks, just think of free
debate and discussion as a nasty virus that could get really messy. May
provoke verbal diarrhea. Ugly stuff. Wouldn't it just be better if the
EU could inject its narratives like a vaccine straight into the minds of
citizens to eliminate any risk of messy opposing views or information?
What
if the pre-bunk narrative IS the disinformation, though? Of course that
never happens, right? Everything that the EU and Western governments
say is always the total and complete objective truth and anyone
questioning it is some kind of foreign agent.
By the way, von der
Leyen's "societal resilience" here really just means compliance - that
everyone piles into the clown car on command so these bozos can take
everyone on a joyride down Dystopian Highway towards wherever fresh Hell
their hidden special interests dictate at any given time.
But
perhaps Queen Ursula should be given the benefit of the doubt here,
though. Maybe she really does just want to deploy her Democracy Shield
against armies of annoying online bots and not on the political playing
field to quash dissent?
"It's not just fakes or fabricated
content," von der Leyen argued in announcing the Shield. "It's also
buying influence and causing chaos. We have seen far-right politicians
and lead candidates from AfD in Germany in the pockets of Russia. They
are selling their souls on Russian propaganda outlets and videos."
Well, if she puts it that way... doubt benefit erased.
Want
to smear a political opponent because they happen to enjoy free speech
on a variety of platforms? Sounds like a job for Queen Ursula's
Democracy Shield, which, like NATO, is totally defensive and does not
ever do offensive operations and actively snuff out opponents on the
political landscape. The EU already tried to pick off entire media
outlets that it didn't like, censoring Russian platforms like RT and
Sputnik at the supranational level and imposing that ban on all member
states of the entire bloc in the absence of sovereign and democratic due
process. The justification? That they were spreading "distortion of
facts" that threatened the EU democratic order. Nothing better for
credible journalism than governments arguing that they're the ultimate
arbiters of truthful information.
It turns out that blanket
censorship didn't quite knock everyone into line, so von der Leyen says
in her ad that the Democracy Shield will "track down information
manipulation and coordinate with national agencies." Hunting down
wrong-speakers on the informational landscape? Sounds super democratic.
So does the idea of "national agencies" deciding what qualifies as news.
Is
this authoritarian Democracy Shield going to require any independent
oversight? Because von der Leyen, back when she was German defense
minister under Chancellor Angela Merkel, wasn't really into that kind of
thing. Western press reports were rife with details of her
underwhelming performance, with the Washington Post, for instance,
citing a shortage of military equipment and promises to rectify the
situation that were never fulfilled. They also said that the troops used
broomsticks instead of machine guns for NATO exercises. Guess she had
lots of those at her disposal.
We know from her stonewalling of
the committee demanding to see her text messages with Pfizer brass over
her vaccine deals that Queen Ursula really isn't into transparency,
either. Who needs actual democratic values though, when you have a
Democracy Shield? Maybe we can see it deployed in real time in a sort of
test. If it was truly doing its job of shielding democracy, it would
mow down von der Leyen's propaganda first, then just blow itself up.