It’s unfortunately not so easy. Many Chinese people poured a lot of money - some even their life savings - into property that is now worth much less than they paid or have never been built as the developer went bankrupt.

As one report on Evergrande said already in 2023:

In 2021, just months before the Chinese property giant Evergrande showed the first signs of crisis, Guo Tianran (whose name has been changed on request) and her husband bought an apartment off-plan for their only child from the top-selling developer.

The couple, nearing their 60s, had scrimped to afford the $30,000 (£24,500) down payment on the yet-to-be-built flat. They bit the bullet in pledging to use 75% of their income to pay for the mortgage.

“We wanted to help our son, to give him a place to start out on once he graduates from college,” Mrs Guo told the BBC earlier this month. But just months after their purchase, Evergrande’s facade began to crack.

In Henan, the central Chinese province where they had bought the home, building work ground to a halt.

“We saw the main frame being built, and suddenly we heard that Evergrande was falling. Then construction stopped last year,” she says […] “When I think about it, I cry,” says Mrs Guo about the home she had bought. “It’s hard, and I feel sorry for my son and myself.”

You’ll find more reports than this one, and they are devastating not only for institutional investors but also for retail customers like Mrs. Guo in this report.

Well, I don’t think that Russia would have a chunk of Ukraine, as this will encourage the Kremlin to go for the next country. Another question is what happens with Russia after Putin?

What a cute question, as if anything would convince someone like you.

Xi Jinping’s talk about living to 150 echoes a specialized research project conducted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to extend the lives of its top leaders. The conversation between Xi and Putin in September has resurfaced a 2019 digital advertisement on Chinese social media by the 301 Hospital’s “981 (CCP) Leaders’ Healthcare Project."

The 301 Hospital is the official PLA General Hospital, the main military medical institution in China, providing health care exclusively for senior party members, government, and military officials. The “981 Project” was established in 2005, the 981 Healthcare Technology Group was registered as a company in 2014. The project offers elite medical services to extend the lifespans of senior CCP leaders to 150 years, so the project says.

The 2019 ad also claims the CCP started researching enhanced elite health care as soon as it seized power in 1949, developing a “unique system” that significantly extends leaders’ lifespans with “remarkable results.”

Among others, the project touted already in 2008 that the average lifespan of Chinese leaders reached 88 years, as opposed to state statistics showing the average Chinese life span in 2008 was only 73. The project drew widespread criticism on Chinese social media, it has been censored since.

Addition to the topic:

There is a terrifying documentary, “State Organs”, that has been released in 2024 and has now been screening across the world on many occasions, and you can also watch online on the website:

State Organs

Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Raymond Zhang follows the story of two families in China embarking on a perilous twenty-year journey searching for their missing family members. Along the way, they uncover a harrowing government-run organ harvesting operation that is destroying the lives of thousands of innocent victims, and still occurring to this day.

The powerful documentary explores how the rise of the Falun Gong movement caused deep jealousy in Chinese Communist party leader JIANG Ze-Min, and how that jealousy resulted in Falun Gong practitioners being directly targeted and subjected to forced organ harvesting.

[Content warning: The film may contain disturbing content.]

The linked report cites experts with direct knowledge of the matter, but we can’t expect official data by China here.

There is ample evidence of forced organ harvesting in China, including the project 981, in Xinjiang and other regions. Just search the web.

China: UN human rights experts alarmed by ‘organ harvesting’ allegations - (2021)

Forced Organ Harvesting in China: A Decades-long Injustice in Need of Accountability and Action - (2024)

First Known Survivor of China’s Forced Organ Harvesting Speaks Out - (2024)

I don’t think anything will convince you, but across the web you’ll find and almost endless stream of highly credible information on that.

I found one single reference to a “project 981” on the internet

That’ s likely because you searched in the Chinese web, and there it is censored. There is ample evidence for this.

@Ferrous@lemmy.ml

You are criticizing others over their alleged bad source, but then posting exclusively propaganda sources of the Chinese party-state. Those propaganda trips by influencers who then reports on the so-called ‘progress’ in Xinjiang are well documented as genocidal tourism. The real picture is different.

There is ample evidence from many reliable sources.

Israeli-made?

80 percent of shares are held by German defense companies Rheinmetall and Diehl, with the remaining 20 percent owned by Dutch holding company Ercas B.V.

Yeah, EU standing up to the bully of China, that’s the big picture if you want to put it that way.

Yeah, our opinions don’t carry much weight as we are some random guys on the web. It’s so true.

I’m right, though.

The funny bit is that tankies try to prove me wrong citing a report by CNN, you know, one of these liberal billionaire media that they call out as always biased and not credible. It’s hilarious: -)

This won’t happen. Dependence isn’t a good insurance as Europe can see with Ruusia, China, the US. Tere are better cooperation approaches, and these are good steps towards it imo.

Nah, it’s absolutely justified. It’s a lever the EU members have every right in using as they wish.

You’re not the only one as you can read in another thread. I edit the title for clarity.

Yes, this is also briefly discussed in the article. The joint ventures are a first step, with the longer aim to exchange technology transfer, know-how, etc. in relevant industries far beyond drones. But the report doesn’t go into detail here.

No, it doesn’t. That aside, I think the EU needs to treat this as the emergency that it is and unleash its anti-coercion shield.

No.

@BCBoy911@lemmy.ca

The move by Russia had involved 21 drones in a seven-hour incursion …

“They were launched from a single location, and they were all unarmed. If this was an accidental offshoot of that night’s attack on Ukraine, you would expect the mix of drones to be the same, some armed, some unarmed. All the ones that crossed into Poland were unarmed,” he said.

This is what the report says. I guess there are weird people everywhere, here in the West, in China, everywhere else. It’s just that given the strict censorship in China, the government does not much against this racism. One report is here.

China’s government suppresses its minorities. If you are not Han Chinese and not a member of the CCP, you may not climb to high up the career ladder to say the least.

Homosexuality was a crime in Canada till 1969.

It is in China in 2025.

Yeah, as the Clean Arctic Alliance recently said in response to China’s new containership route through the Arctic:

An increase in shipping in the Arctic will lead to

• an increase in shipping’s global climate impact due to black carbon emissions – which have a disproportionately higher impact when emitted in the Arctic,
• an increase in disturbance to wildlife and to communities dependent on marine resources due to increased ship pollution including underwater noise in a comparatively quiet ocean, and
• an increase in the risk of damaging oil spills.

As one report said, as the Arctic ice vanishes, maritime traffic boom fuels the climate crisis.