Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jun 13 2024 11:57am)
Imho, it was always inevitable that Russia would eventually align with China as the tensions between China and the West ramp up. Russia is far too small, population- and economy-wise, to be an independent third power center in the world, but also too authoritarian, imperialist and antagonistic toward the West, and the US in particular, to align with them over the Chinese.
At the end of the day, Russia could align with China while staying true to itself while an alliance with the West would have require either Russia or the West to deny oneself.
No, it actually was not inevitable. Russia is inherently a more European country. In the way they look, dress, culturally, most Russians live in western Russia not that far from European countries, most really want to access Europe for shopping, to buy cars, for tourism, and so on. 15 years ago, it was a match made in heaven, Europe gets a massive amount of it's energy from Russia, while Russia gets western goods and consumerism and increased standards of living. Europe as a whole was a much more valuable trading partner, simply due to proximity and where most Russians actually live and where their country is most developed. But then we (the US) decided we should encroach and gobble up these peripheral ex-soviet states, for no real good reason other than to inch closer militarily to them.
The real economic blocks of today should have been US, China and Europe. Instead our actions made it that it's mainly US and China (maybe India eventually). In all of this EU (with largely German economic leadership and Russian raw resources) could have been an actual center of power. Instead Europe today is a stagnating economic bloc, not able to compete with China and the US, so it's relegated as basically being the junior western partner with US being the big bro.
You want one of the more obvious indicators that the EU is stagnating and is being left behind? This is a prime example. I thought it was one of the most explicit goals recently for EU to become green, with cheap EVs as something that every consumer would want. So then why are you slapping 40% tariffs on EVs? Because you can't compete with China, because industrially they're eating EU's industrial lunch and the only way compete is through these heavy protectionist mechanisms. Which ultimately means you won't be able to compete with them in exports outside of EU.
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LONDON, June 12 (Reuters) - The European Commission's decision to slap tariffs on imported Chinese EVs could have far-reaching effects for European automakers, as a possible trade war would hurt not only their business in China but also their own imports of Chinese-made cars.
Germany's automakers in particular have a lot to lose in China and the announcement on Wednesday leaves them fretting over a decision BMW (BMWG.DE), opens new tab CEO Oliver Zipse described as the "wrong way to go".
Tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles of up to 38.1% - equating to billions of euros - will be levied from July, but that is unlikely to deter China's automakers from exporting to Europe because they can absorb the extra cost and still make a profit.
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/europes-automakers-fret-china-ev-tariff-fears-become-reality-2024-06-12/#:~:text=Tariffs%20on%20Chinese%2Dmade%20electric,and%20still%20make%20a%20profit.
This post was edited by ofthevoid on Jun 13 2024 10:25am