zephyreks

According to UNCLOS, which the US isn't signatory to? Some "international" ass law

Unlikely

I mean, how many BYDs do you see on European streets? How many Teslas?

I think, I feel

Ok, glad that we agree that we're operating in a grey zone for international law. I respect your opinion.

I can neither confirm nor deny, but the moderator in question is still on the active mod team.

How much of Chinese exports to Europe are from Chinese owned and operated companies selling Chinese-branded EVs?

There's been rather public infighting on lemmy.world based on the previously pinned posts on this community.

A moderator on this community (@MightBe) collected community feedback on a post (https://lemmy.world/post/10102462) because of discontent with how the community was being run. The other moderators were unhappy with that mod, so they removed him, removed the post, and pinned this post instead: https://lemmy.world/post/10656753

I'm not sure what's going on in private, but publicly there's been a lot of drama. It's also been revealed that some members of the current group of moderators have been rather unprofessional imo. I'm quoting from a previous comment:

Some mods have also been deleting comments that add context to mod abuse. @naturalgasbad gave me the full DM context for their "bad faith argument" with a moderator (they did not specify which one), which I posted in a comment in the other pinned thread. It's a rather childish escalation sequence imo. That comment was deleted for "violating Rule 6", but I have copied it below for the record:

For the record, naturalgasbad sent me their exchange with the moderator, which stemmed from the moderator in question removing SCMP articles due to "SCMP not meeting reliability guidelines."

@moderator:

Al Jazeera is reliable when they aren’t talking about things that involve Qatar, that seems to be their specific blind spot.

Kyiv Post and the Telegraph I haven’t specifically looked at, if they get reported I’ll check them out.

@naturalgasbad:

Literally by the standards on SCMP you quoted, they’re unreliable.

@moderator:

SCMP: Mixed for factual reporting due to poor sourcing.

Al Jazeera: Mixed for factual reporting due to failed fact checks that were not corrected and misleading extreme editorial bias that favors Qatar.

You: “bUt ThEyR’e ThE sAmE!!!”

Poor sourcing is poor sourcing. You picked a shitty news agency. Try to do better next time.

(for reference, the Daily Telegraph is also "mixed due to poor sourcing" and Kyiv Post is "mixed due to failed fact checks")

@naturalgasbad:

MBFC claims SCMP has poor sourcing based on the suggestion that they’re misrepresenting the US import ban on China (the one “failed fact check” according to them). That’s how MBFC gives the commentary on their ratings. It’s based on a sample-size of one. There’s no long-term commentary provided by MBFC because their entire ratings system and commentary is based on sampling a small number of articles (we don’t know which ones) and going off of what goes wrong within that sample.

It’s also reflecting the problem of a US-based bias assessment > website: it suggests that ideas within the US Overton window are “correct” will those shared by the Global South are “less correct.”

From what I can tell, some of the problem is what they assume the basic level of skill is for readers. A few weeks ago, I posted a story about SCMP reporting on a research study published in Science. Members of this community failed to find it, despite being told the subject, authors, where it was published, and when it was published. That’s not poor sourcing, but poor research ability on behalf of the readers.

@moderator:

Continuing to argue with a mod who has made their decision will not win you any favors. Keep it up and you’ll get a ban on top of having your shitty links removed, oh, wait, you’ve already been banned for abusing the report feature. I can easily extend that.

@naturalgasbad

But again, MBFC’s entire commentary on SCMP’s issues is reliant on this single sentence from a single article. It’s inherently because MBFC relies on a small sample set of each site to determine a rating because they lack the manpower and the educational foundation to provide comprehensive analysis of a news source. Either way, that article was an editorial, not a news report. (In any cases, SCMP is commenting on Chinese reports written in Chinese, which American readers struggle to find because they don’t speak Chinese).

[The [U.S. import ban] has been taken without evidence being provided.]

Unlike SCMP’s reporting, Polygraph is unable to source the article this claim can be found in. From the articles I can find that, SCMP is comnenting based on this statement:

[The ban creates a “rebuttable presumption” that any Xinjiang goods were tainted by the use of forced labour – a “guilty until proven innocent” principle that effectively inverts US customs laws related to forced labour]

In fact, Ad Fontes’ media bias chart considers SCMP to be “reliable” (reliability score of 41.56 on a 0-64 scale) and “centrist” (bias score of -3.3 on a scale of -42 - 42). This is on par with Al Jazeera (41.65, -6.71) and New York Times (41.92, -7.96) and better than Washington Post (38.08, -8.69). (Ad Fontes also has issues, but your obsession with MBFC in particular is a little odd).

@moderator:

7 day ban. Want to go for 30?

@naturalgasbad:

I cited Ad Fontes. Feel free to criticize their methodology.

@moderator:

30 days. Keep going.

@naturalgasbad:

So… Do you not like Ad Fontes’ methodology, then?

@moderator:

And permaban. Good luck on your next account.

We're talking about the same country that blocked railroad workers from striking for daring to request paid sick leave... Right? Under socialist principles, technically the government should enforce a standard for worker care such that individual unions don't need to negotiate with their company - dictatorship of the proletariat and all that. We can debate as to whether that system works, but the lack of unions does not mean a lack of labour protections.

For example, China mandates giving a minimum paid sick leave of 3 months.

Government-funded cheap vehicles... Like Tesla, right?

I'll tell this story in three parts:

1. Tesla's US subsidies

2. China's EV exports

3. China's "overcapacity"

Part 1.Tesla's US subsidies. Under the US' Inflation Reduction Act, purchases of new EVs made in the USA were given a tax incentive of $7500. Previously, states such as California has other incentives such as the $7500 incentive under CVRP. How much in subsidies has Tesla received from tax credits alone under the IRA in 2023, ignoring state-level benefits and carryover from pre-2023 benefits? 654000 sales, for a total of almost $5 billion dollars in purchase-side government subsidies. For 2023. We also know that Tesla has received billions in state-level government funding to set up factories in California, and billions more in government funding for their other various efforts. In comparison between 2009 and 2022, China handed out about $28 billion in EV subsidies, much of that at the state-level to encourage companies to set up factories. In fact, Tesla received huge subsidies to set up it's factories in Shanghai. By the end of 2022, China had phased out most purchase-side subsidies (except some lingering programs that are not set for renewal). Note that the maximum purchase-side subsidy was about $1750. China's most significant subsidy today is in it's expansion of the domestic charging network: China makes up 68% of the world's charging stations, with a huge number of them being fast chargers. Much of that expansion came out of government coffers and is a huge driver for EV adoption in China.

Part 2. China's EV exports. In 2022, China's EV exports were as follows, sorted by volume:

270k - Tesla

140k - SAIC (mostly under the British brand MG)

72k - European joint ventures

55k - BYD

(others)

So, let's be more clear about what the EU means: they don't like that foreign companies (including European ones, but mostly Tesla, and almost all European/American brands) are setting up shop in China to produce cars for export.

Part 3. China's "overcapacity". It's no secret that China has pitiful O&G reserves. Oil, notably, is needed for ICE vehicles, but not for EVs. That is, the switch to EVs is a matter of national security for China as it reduces Chinese reliance on foreign oil supplies. Indeed, a huge proportion of Chinese EV production is going to the domestic market, and exports make up only about 10% of total sales (for reference, this number is more like 70% for Toyota).

To sum it up: unlike Toyota/Japan (and others), China is consuming the vast majority of its production. Meanwhile, a huge number of it's exports are from foreign companies. It's most notable exporter is Tesla, which is notable for having received $5 billion in purchase-side tax incentives in 2023 in the US... Alone. This is compared to $28 billion between 2009 and 2022, most of which have been phased out, and for which a big proportion was to encourage setting up factories in specific provinces or to build out a domestic charging network.

Edit: to clarify, China does have more car factories than they know what to do with. This is because ICE companies are getting fucked by EV companies. All those factories dedicated to producing ICE cars? Fucked. Idling. Useless. Sales of all cars in China: Volkswagen (-0.2% YoY), Toyota (-3.8% YoY), Honda (-12.3% YoY), Nissan (-14.3% YoY). The only foreign brands that are staying alive in China are EV brands like Tesla (+20% YoY) and luxury cars like BMW (+7.8% YoY) and Audi (+11.3% YoY). These idling ICE factories are currently being closed by the government and the government is limiting licenses handed out for new factories.

Ironically, Tesla is a large part of the reason why Chinese EVs are so cheap because they started the price war... They just couldn't win it.

Actually, this isn't the full story. Military activities in a nation's EEZ is a point of contention: countries like Brazil, India, Pakistan, China, Iran, Malaysia, and Indonesia object to this. It's not explicitly defined in UNCLOS whether military activities should be permitted, and it's the prevailing view of countries that make up almost half of the world's population that it shouldn't be. International law hasn't really been extensively challenged in this regard until very recently (the past decade or two), so the debate on military activities within EEZ is still that, a debate.

Edit: for reference, it's mostly the big ex-colonial maritime trading powers that are in support of this because it makes their trade easier, while those countries who exercise coastal rights and natural resource exploration rights are opposed.