Britain faces its “greatest risk” of war in decades as Russia continues to test NATO defences, Defence Secretary Wes Streeting has warned, as the government prepares to make the case for a sustained increase in military spending.

Streeting described Russia and Vladimir Putin as the “biggest threat” facing Britain, arguing that the war in Ukraine and Moscow’s broader military posture had fundamentally altered the security environment facing the UK.

“Without a shadow of a doubt, the biggest threat facing Britain is Russia and President Putin,” said Streeting.

“We’ve got war in our continent. We’ve got a Russian president who has imperialist ambitions, who is constantly testing Britain’s defences, NATO defences and testing the strength of our alliances.

“And so, the sobering reality is that we face a greater risk of war than we’ve done at any point in my lifetime.”

...

Archived

Archived

[Original in Russian. This is an automated and paraphrased translation with minimal edits.]

Children in Russian kindergartens will be taught more “moral guidelines” than counting and writing, said the head of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation Sergey Kravtsov. “Acquaintance with native culture, literature, customs and moral guidelines is more important than "memorizing letters and numbers."

...

Earlier, Kravtsov said that in Russian kindergartens, the projects “Eagle-Preschool” and “Good Games” were launched, aimed at instilling “traditional spiritual and moral values” in children.

According to the methodical materials of the Good Games, children from the age of 3 should be told about the annexation of Crimea and form their idea of the peninsula as a “region of Russia”. This, according to the Ministry of Education, will cause “patriotic feelings and pride for their country” among preschoolers. Also, the games are designed to educate children “heroism”, which in the materials of the project is defined as “the highest manifestation of love for the Motherland and people” and “willingness to sacrifice themselves for the sake of others.”

...

“Good Games” is an analogue of the propaganda “Talk about the important” that appeared in Russian schools after the invasion of Ukraine. Initially, the project for preschoolers was tested under this name: testing took place from September to December 2025 in 56 kindergartens in 25 regions. In February 2026, it was renamed.

If you're an EU citizen, sign the initiative so that it can be brought before the EU commission. The ECI is legally binding.

Objectives

We, the citizens of Europe, demand access to housing that is affordable, sustainable and fair.

We see and feel it every day: workers who can no longer afford the city they build, young people who cannot leave their parents' home, tenants pushed out of their neighbourhoods after renovation, empty buildings while people sleep on the street.

The current housing market is putting profit over people and the planet. Europe's buildings are expensive, empty and broken. But it does not have to be this way: the buildings exist, and so do the approaches to make them affordable. What is missing are the rules:

USE

Regulate short-term rentals and vacancy.
Convert empty buildings, like vacant homes and offices, into housing.
Create incentives and fast permits to make renovation the first choice.

INVEST

Ensure public money serves people not speculation.
Reform fiscal rules so governments can invest more in housing.
Create an EU housing fund.

PROTECT

Set enforceable standards to keep housing affordable and sustainable.
Keep people in their homes during EU-funded renovation.
Establish an EU Housing Agency to govern transparently.

We call on the EU to act and people to sign!

Norway and Canada have announced that they will strengthen cooperation on defense, especially in the Arctic.

Source in Norwegian. Parts of the article is machine translated below.

– Canada is a close partner for Norway and an important ally in NATO. We share many fundamental values ​​and have common interests in the Arctic. In turbulent times, Norway needs more legs to stand on.
In turbulent times, Norway needs more legs to stand on.

Now we are strengthening cooperation with Canada, says Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre (Ap).

On Sunday, he met with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Ottawa.

Jonas Gahr Støre and Mark Carney have agreed to strengthen cooperation between Norway and Canada.

Arctic and defense

– This is one of the cooperations that is perhaps developing the most in our immediate vicinity, said Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre during a meeting with the Norwegian press in Ottawa last night.

It is about, among other things, the Arctic and defense.

– Canada’s choice of German-Norwegian submarines is a very clear anchoring of Canada in industrial cooperation with Norway for many years to come, said Støre.

Identical submarines

Norway, Germany and Canada will get identical submarines.

– This will strengthen our and NATO’s ability to monitor the sea areas in the north. It is very important for the security of both Canada and Norway.

Støre mentioned cooperation between the coast guards, in polar research and cooperation to map critically important minerals. The countries will also cooperate more closely in space and artificial intelligence, according to Støre.

– Within NATO, Norway and Canada are two of seven countries that have set the framework for how we should have an Arctic dimension in NATO, said Støre.

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/58176978

European Parliament Vice President Pina Picierno on Saturday praised Taiwanese Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) as a role model for freedom-loving women around the world and told CNA that she would soon begin planning a trip to Taipei after accepting Hsiao's invitation to visit.

Hsiao made an unannounced visit to Italy to attend the Second Ventotene European Conference for Freedom and Democracy on the Italian island of Ventotene at the invitation of the event organizers, despite strong protests from Beijing.

In an interview with CNA on the sidelines of the event on Saturday, Picierno, the conference's main initiator, described Hsiao as a role model.

"I believe the world needs the courage of women; and throughout history, many women have changed the course of history through their determination," Picierno said.

...

"As authoritarian regimes threaten our democracies, we have an even greater need for courageous women like Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim," she added.

...

Picierno noted that Hsiao fights for human rights and women's rights and is a "staunch pro-democracy activist who inspires freedom-loving women across the world."

,..

The trip was Hsiao's second visit to a European country that recognizes Beijing instead of Taipei since she took office in May 2024. Her first visit was in November 2025 to Brussels to address a meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.

...

Web Archive link

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/57287340

• Chinese workers echo EU concerns over excessive overtime
• EU-China trade tensions revive complaints about '996 culture'
• EU's forced labour rule gains traction on China's internet
• Chinese discuss on social media filing complaints with EU

...

The European Union is finding support on an opponent's turf ahead ​of trade talks with Beijing, as Chinese workers vent on social media about excessive overtime that critics say gives exporters an unfair advantage.

Europe, ‌which last year ran a trade deficit with China of roughly $1 billion a day, has given Beijing until October to address growing imbalances that it says are hollowing out domestic industries and causing mass layoffs.

...

A key EU complaint is China's weak domestic demand, caused in part by sluggish wages and insufficient labour protection, which is depressing imports - including from Europe - and is forcing Chinese producers to seek overseas ​markets.

Amid those tensions, one of Brussels' older tools to tackle the issue is drawing greater attention on China's heavily censored internet. The EU Forced Labour ​Regulation, adopted in 2024 and taking effect in December 2027, bans goods produced with imposed or involuntary work, including excessive overtime.

The ⁠regulation strikes a chord with many Chinese workers, who have long complained about the "996 culture" of 12-hour shifts, six days per week.

"I think the EU is right to ​sanction forced labour. Who agrees and who disagrees?" read a recent post on RedNote, China's Instagram-like platform, drawing almost 3,000 likes before being removed.

Users in the comments section ​expressed support for sanctions and shared information on filing complaints with EU authorities.

Analysts say the online interest in the topic reflects growing concerns over a weakening labour market and mounting pressure from employers grappling with deflationary price wars fuelled by overcapacity and competition in export markets.

"Some workers have found that while a company may not be particularly concerned about an individual domestic overtime dispute, it may be ​far more concerned about losing access to Western markets," said Mingwei Liu, director at the Centre for Global Work and Employment at Rutgers University. China's human resources ministry and ​the cyberspace administration, which oversees online content, did not respond to requests for comment.

...

On Douyin, China's version of TikTok, videos tagged "EU reporting website" and "EU reporting ‌procedures" received ⁠more than 200,000 views. One video explaining the formal complaints process received 5,442 likes and 714 shares.

...

Xiao Qiang, founder of the U.S.-based China Digital Times, which tracks Chinese censorship, said other platforms appear to be limiting the audience reach of such posts.

Nevertheless, Xiao said the topic's emergence in spite of that shows many Chinese people do not view exporters' interests as synonymous with national interest.

"History won't remember its view count, but this was the first time someone connected domestic labour grievances directly to foreign law ​enforcement mechanisms," he said.

An EU Commission source ​said its departments have received informal ⁠allegations of labour violations, including excessive overtime, but had not seen a noticeable increase in complaints recently.

Some social media users also suggested complaining to Washington. In July, the U.S. imposed tariffs of up to 12.5% on goods from 60 trading partners, including the ​EU and China, citing failures to screen or curb forced labour.

...

CHINA STRUGGLES TO ENFORCE WORKER PROTECTIONS

Chinese people work more than 48 hours a week on average, versus the legal cap of 44, official figures show, suggesting poor worker rights enforcement.

Last year, some Chinese companies, including appliance maker Midea, announced mandatory clock-off times.

In an article in March, Lu Ming, a member of ⁠the Chinese ​People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the country's top political advisory body, called for stronger labour protections, warning of ​a backlash from trade partners.

"Other countries may view the price competitiveness of Chinese products as being derived from excessively intensive work and a poor quality of life," Lu was cited by the CPPCC website ​as saying.

"This not only affects China's image, but could also lead to substantive trade barriers."

We ban the pesticides in Europe, but continue producing them and selling them abroad --> then end up back in our food anyway.

foodwatch laboratory tests reveal the presence of pesticide residues in everyday foods — including substances not approved in the EU.

Forgejo is server software to host code projects. It is a popular alternative to GitHub and GitLab. A popular instance is Codeberg.

Forgejo is on mastodon too! @forgejo@floss.social

The scientific publication: A Sovereign, Open-Source Foundation Model for German and English

Soofi S 30B-A3B is a sovereign, open-source Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) hybrid Mamba–Transformer foundation model for German and English. Its hybrid design activates only 3B of 30B parameters per token and keeps the inference cache near-constant as context grows, giving it a decisive throughput advantage over dense models for long-context, high-concurrency deployment.

Pretrained on roughly 27 trillion tokens with deliberately up-weighted German, Soofi S matches dense 14–27B models on aggregate English and German benchmarks, achieves the best code aggregates in both languages among 17 open base models, and outperforms every European sovereign baseline in our comparison — including ones far larger in active parameters. Among fully open models, it obtains the highest English and German evaluation scores, ahead of Olmo 3 32B and Apertus 70B. Soofi S was built end-to-end on the German Industrial AI Cloud, a sovereign HPC-scale AI infrastructure operated by Deutsche Telekom in Munich.

...

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/56505692

Archived

The European Union's latest anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese-made tires are poised to accelerate a strategic realignment across Korea's tire industry, prompting local manufacturers to curb their production reliance on China as geopolitical risks increasingly reshape global supply chains.

Under the latest regulatory measure, Hankook Tire received an anti-dumping duty of 4.3 percent, while Kumho Tire and Nexen Tire were each hit with a 24.4 percent levy. The effective tariff burden rises to 8.8 percent for Hankook and 28.9 percent for its domestic rivals, after calculating the EU’s existing 4.5 percent import tariff.

The disparity reflects years of divergent manufacturing strategies rather than differences in product competitiveness.

[...]

The tariff decision is widely viewed as a catalyst for broader restructuring across the Korean tire industry, with manufacturers increasingly shifting production closer to major end markets in Europe and North America, as geopolitical uncertainties surrounding China continue to mount.

[...]

Here is the report in Polish (pdf) and the report in English (pdf).

How does TikTok show China to Polish users?

Experts from the Polish NASK Disinformation Analysis Centre examined nearly 10,000 pieces of material on six topics considered particularly sensitive by Beijing (Xinjiang, Tibet, Tiananmen Square massacre, Taiwan, human rights, re-education camps). They show that the way content is recommended may be conducive to building a favourable image of China.

Some key points:

• Many of the materials classified as „pro-China” based on the adopted criteria contained statements fully consistent with messages approved by the Publicity Department and other bodies directly subordinate to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

• There are at least several English-language accounts on the Tiktok app responsible for spreading pro-Chinese propaganda messages. A few characteristics indicate their direct links to the Chinese propaganda mechanism, including they exclusively discuss topics important to Chinese propaganda message, promote an extremely pro-Chinese message, attempt to discredit individuals criticizing the CCP’s actions, and publish large amounts of professionally prepared content despite posing as, for example, ordinary tourists in China.

• The Tiktok app does not designate state-owned channels as “state-controlled media as Facebook does. This means that it is impossible to determine which channels on the platform operate directly under government control.

• The examined material raises legitimate doubts about the impartiality of the TikTok app. It is impossible to definitively answer the question whether this is solely the result of the algorithm itself or the presence of a significant number of propaganda channels on the platform, whose activities are not moderated or labeled in any way.

• This raises doubts, especially considering the platform’s subordination to a Chinese entity (ByteDance) operating within the Chinese legal system. Therefore, the app has significant potential to become a tool for shaping audience attitudes and views in the event of large scale influence operations.

• Given the scale of Sino-Russian cooperation in information exchange, the TikTok app may pose a potential threat to the security of Polish users. Therefore, it is recommended not only to approach content appearing on the platform critically, but also to refrain from publishing sensitive data on the platform – this is particularly relevant for government entities and individuals associated with the state apparatus.

[...]

The analysis showed that the way content was presented on TikTok differed significantly depending on the topic. The highest percentage of pro-Chinese content was recorded for Xinjiang (58.7%) and Tibet (44.5%). This also applied to the issue of human rights in China (35%).

In turn, the results that referred to the Tiananmen Square massacre were dominated by content critical of the Chinese authorities (76.6%). "We treat such actions as a so-called "safety valve" – a strategy to create the impression of freedom of speech," the analysts write.

In the case of Taiwan, neutral materials predominated (92%). The most unusual results were obtained for the topic of re-education camps – as much as 89% of the displayed materials were not related to the searched topic. "The conclusions of the study clearly show that TikTok uses different content selection strategies for different topics.

"However, we should not focus solely on the operation of one algorithm. This is a question about who shapes the image of the world that millions of users see every day, and how they do it," says Antoni Mazek, an analyst at the NASK Disinformation Analysis Centre and co-author of the report.

[...]

In the flood of information, it is easier to give up further searches In the case of the topic concerning re-education camps, OAD analysts observed a large number of random videos. Unrelated content accounted for as much as 89%. In response to this specific query, several dozen materials appeared praising miraculous methods for weight loss (34% of content on the topic of health/weight loss), and even recordings of Chinese women doing the hula hoop.

"This is intended to discourage users from further searches – explains Dr Agnieszka Lipińska, head of OAD. "It simply causes frustration in the recipient. The search for information on an important topic collides with content that is less intellectually engaging," she adds.

Western influencers reinforce manipulation The analysed content rarely took the form of official messages. It often took the form of travel advertisements or lifestyle content. There was also material featuring Western influencers who constructed their narratives according to a similar pattern: they presented themselves as people "discovering the truth" about China and criticised Western media coverage. It was their materials that were most often recommended to Polish users. Prolonged exposure to such content may affect the perception of China by the audience, according to the researchers.

[...]

I have just been tossed off Reddit. No bad behaviour but Reddit suspects I am not old enough. I have been an adult for quite a few years. Note that age verification is not (yet) required under EU law.

The age verification on Reddit runs through a third party which is associated with Palantir. I will not do this, and there's enough data associated with my account to show I'm an adult.
In general I am extremely sceptical of giving this level of personal information to any third party but especially a company that just cannot be trusted and has proven itself to be a destructive force in the world. I would not recommend anyone to use this, even if it may lose you access to platforms.

On Reddit there have been concerns among the various European subs and its community. I have encouraged various mods to collectively search for a solution. A move to Lemmy seems the obvious one - also just for the sake of supporting European tech and platforms. Alas, none have acted. The best I got was 'good idea, we'll look into it'.

My guess is I am far from the only one to lose access, if not already than soon the same will happen to other users. It may destroy the community that exists there, and my guess is that it's the largest online truly pan-European community.

Anyway, I've signed up for Lemmy / europe.pub a while ago and am eager to use it instead of Reddit. I just hope this place becomes a little more lively.

Colour me fucking shocked. The EU commission bend over yet again to US big tech. I mean, why have rules or regulations at all if they aren't going to agree with them.. 🙄

Pervert glasses get the green light to expand in Europe.

Commission exempts smart glasses like Meta’s from batteries regulation, clearing a major hurdle to European expansion.

---

The European Commission on Tuesday exempted wearable tech from rules requiring removable batteries, clearing a major hurdle for Meta’s smart glasses to take on the EU market following pressure from the United States.

Smart glasses are in European regulators' and lawmakers' crosshairs over privacy and surveillance concerns. But the bloc's batteries regulation also held up the EU rollout of Meta’s latest model in recent months because the glasses' built-in batteries cannot be easily removed and replaced.

U.S. Ambassador to the EU Andrew Puzder came to Meta's defense at an event in March, where he called the EU's rules "so broad and so restrictive that it prevents the sale of this wonderful, jointly developed, U.S.-European product from being sold in the European Union" and praised the smart glasses as being "very stylish" and "very wonderful."

"You have to focus on allowing businesses to grow and allowing businesses to innovate," Puzder then said about the European hurdles to Meta's product.

The Commission on Tuesday presented a legislative tweak known as a delegated act that exempts connected products including smartwatches, smart glasses, fitness trackers and electric toys from the batteries regulation.

A Commission spokesperson said in a statement that it "has not given in to anyone’s pressure," adding that its proposals "follow a broad public consultation with consumer associations, industry stakeholders and the Member States." The spokesperson added that the proposal for the exemption "is not about regulating one specific product" but "to ensure safer consumer and industrial products in cases where opening a device could create safety risks or where technical limits make consumer access unrealistic."

The European Parliament and national governments have two months in which to object to the tweak. If there are no objections, the delegated act will then be published in the Official Journal of the EU and after 20 more days the bill should enter into force.

The change is a major boon for Meta, which has bet big on the new spectacle technology but felt held back in reaching European consumers with its eye-catching product. The battery rule exemption may also benefit other companies like Samsung and Google, and Apple which are planning their own smart glasses launches.

Earlier financial results from the French-Italian eyewear company EssilorLuxottica that owns the RayBan brand noted that Meta smart glasses sales are ramping up "exponentially" in the U.S.

While Meta has launched its AI glasses in the EU, the financial results said the distribution rollout is still slow in the EMEA region, with "more than half" of sales points still not served. More than 7 million pairs of Meta smart glasses were sold worldwide in 2025.

The smart glasses still face fierce privacy pushback, regardless of the change in batteries rules.

Cláudio Texeira, the head of digital policy at Europe's largest consumer protection group BEUC, said: "Europe should not dilute consumer protections. Smart glasses are already raising important concerns about privacy, security and consumer choice. Exemptions from EU battery removability rules should remain exactly that: genuine exceptions based on clear technical and safety evidence, not industry pressure. Exempting these devices … risks setting a dangerous precedent."

When Meta launched the first iteration of its RayBan smart glasses in Europe in 2021, the product immediately sparked concerns with Irish and Italian privacy watchdogs over whether the specs made it obvious enough to people that they are being filmed.

And earlier this year, concerns peaked again when Swedish media reported that subcontractors for Meta in Kenya were reviewing “deeply private” footage captured by the firm's smart glasses to help annotate the content to train artificial intelligence models. It included recordings of people's bathroom visits, banking details, or even them having sex.

The European Data Protection Board, which gathers privacy regulators across Europe, has ordered a report into smart glasses which should be finalized this summer, chair Anu Talus told POLITICO earlier. She added that the board will look at actions from there.

A Meta spokesperson told POLITICO last month that its glasses include built-in privacy safeguards and that the company has "teams dedicated to evolving these measures so that we can continue to deliver safe, secure products that enhance people’s lives."

“Unlike smartphones, our glasses have an LED light that activates when someone prompts the glasses to take a photo or video that will be saved to their gallery. The glasses feature tamper detection technology to prevent people from covering that light. Unless users choose to share media they've captured with Meta, that media also stays on the device," they said.

The U.S. Mission to the EU declined to comment.

Meta didn't respond to POLITICO's request for a comment.

[Op-ed by Chu Meng-hsiang, former deputy secretary-general of the Lee Teng-hui Foundation.]

...

Taipei-based Indo-Pacific Strategy Thinktank CEO Akio Yaita, a political commentator and former Taipei bureau chief of the [Japanese daily newspaper] Sankei Shimbun, was allegedly assaulted by a Chinese national in a hotel lobby in Taichung on Monday last week, in the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) latest attempt at transnational repression in Taiwan. Yet politicians from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party offered no condemnation of the attack, while some of their supporters even cheered it.

A similarly alarming incident occurred at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle International Airport in March 2024, when French border police intervened to stop the abduction of 26-year-old Chinese dissident Ling Huazhan (凌華湛) by Chinese agents. Ling had publicly voiced anti-CCP views and support for democracy in Taiwan and Hong Kong. The group was attempting to force Ling onto a flight bound for China when police and journalists at the scene intervened.

The incident struck a nerve within the French government, sparking concerns about violations of national sovereignty, human rights and freedom, prompting counterintelligence authorities to launch a year-long covert investigation and adopt strong countermeasures aimed directly at China’s secret repression networks. Earlier this year,

...

France’s domestic intelligence agency DGSI dismantled nine clandestine Chinese “police stations,” also known as “110 overseas police service centers.” The “police service stations” were disguised as local Fujian associations, business federations and Chinese restaurants. The outposts, which claimed to provide administrative services for overseas Chinese, were allegedly used to monitor 600,000 Chinese residents in France and gather intelligence on dissidents. The French Ministry of the Interior expelled three Chinese nationals believed to be behind the operation, including Fujian Association of Industrialists and Merchants president Ni Chaowen (倪超文).

...

France has shown it will not tolerate foreign powers illegally enforcing their laws on French soil. Taiwan should look to France and ask what lessons it can learn from the incident.

...

Web Archive link

• Former Member of the European Parliament, Stelios Kouloglou, was repeatedly hacked with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware while on the committee investigating Pegasus spyware abuses.
• Kouloglou was infected during key periods of PEGA committee activity, and the spyware would have likely captured non-public information about committee activities, possibly breaching EU parliamentary confidentiality and privilege frameworks.
• We are not attributing these infections to a particular government at this time, and found no indications that the Greek Government is responsible. Instead, we note an overlap between the first infection and a previously identified Pegasus campaign targeting Russian and Belarusian-speaking exiled journalists and activists in Europe, suggesting a Pegasus customer with authorization to spy in multiple European countries is responsible.

...

Whichever entity is responsible for the hacking, the infection could have exposed strictly confidential exchanges among PEGA Committee members and their staff, and other sensitive and confidential parliamentary proceedings, including to parties under investigation by the Committee itself.

The finding that a PEGA Committee member was targeted with Pegasus spyware during the Committee’s work highlights the serious threat that mercenary spyware poses to the integrity of democratic processes.

As outlined above, this case is not the first that a Member of the European Parliament has had their devices either targeted or hacked with mercenary spyware, which illustrates the corrosive nature of unregulated mercenary hacking.

...

Web Archive link

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/54275021

When people talk about foreign influence operations, Russia is usually the first country that comes to mind. We picture troll factories, aggressive TV shows or conspiracy theories spreading on social media.

But a study published this June by Viginum, France’s national agency for countering foreign digital interference, describes a very different approach. At its centre is not loud propaganda, but an entire network of news portals that look like ordinary media outlets and focus mainly on how successful, innovative and essential to the world China supposedly is.

According to Viginum, the network consisted of 13 websites operated by China’s state broadcaster CGTN, or China Global Television Network. The portals published articles in English, French, Spanish and Vietnamese, presenting themselves as independent media outlets. In reality, they were part of a coordinated influence operation, which French authorities named Fawn Mianju.

...

One of the best-known portals in the network was called Actu Méridien. It was a French-language website that looked just like an ordinary news outlet. The same network also included the Spanish-language Amigo News, English-language sites and Vietnamese-language publications.

The content of these sites did not focus on criticising the West. Quite the opposite. Readers were told about China’s achievements in aviation and artificial intelligence, Beijing’s leading role in the Global South, and how European countries could benefit from closer cooperation with China. One article, for example, attacked a programme by the French TV channel France 2 that covered the situation of Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

This is exactly what sets Chinese influence operations apart from Russia’s. While Russian propaganda is often dominated by conflict, threat perception and confrontation, China’s goal is to build a positive image of itself. Freedom House describes this as a long-term strategy aimed at “telling China’s story well”. At its core is the image of China as a successful, trustworthy and indispensable partner.

Freedom House notes that in France, Chinese state media has for years tried to influence public opinion not only through its own channels, but also through partnerships, paid content and social media influencers. These have included both Facebook influencers and traditional media outlets that have published paid supplements from Chinese state media.

...

The most interesting part of the story, however, is the role played by artificial intelligence. According to Viginum’s investigation, since late 2025 CGTN published nearly 3,000 articles, more than 2,300 of which were quickly adapted and republished on other websites in the network. This often happened less than an hour after the original story appeared.

The articles were not copied word for word. The texts were edited, shortened, adapted for different target audiences and rewritten so that they appeared to be original content. Investigators found that the texts showed unusually little natural variation in sentence length and punctuation. This is one of the signs associated with automatically generated or AI-assisted content.

...

One mistake led back to CGTN

The strongest evidence linking the network to China’s state broadcaster came from an unexpected place. The administrator of one portal, Actu Méridien, left behind a login trail that led Viginum investigators to a senior project manager at CGTN Digital.

In addition, investigators found a hidden webpage on Actu Méridien’s server that had been built to resemble CGTN’s official website.

An anonymous Viginum analyst told Le Monde that the portal’s technical setup pointed to “a well-resourced actor”. The website was not running on a single server, but used a distributed architecture, professional SEO tools and several different infrastructure components.

Still, it did not become successful propaganda

Perhaps the most surprising part is that, despite the scale of the effort, the operation was not particularly successful. The network was supported by Facebook and Threads accounts, and advertising campaigns were shown to users in as many as 89 countries. Yet individual articles usually received no more than around 15,000 views.

...

Influence operations no longer have to look like propaganda.

There is no need for loud voices, militant slogans or obvious fake news. A website that resembles an ordinary news portal is enough. An article about China’s green transition or technological success is enough. And so is artificial intelligence that can adapt the same message for dozens of different target audiences within minutes.

The question is no longer only whether a news story is true or false. The question is who is telling stories about the world, what kinds of stories are being told, and whether the reader even notices that the “news” in front of them was not produced in an independent newsroom, but far away in Beijing.

Web Archive link

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/54135854

Great Britain, France and Germany on Wednesday issued a rare joint statement expressing alarm over Chinese activities east of the self-ruled island of Taiwan, where China earlier this month deployed coast guard patrols.

The de-facto embassies of the three European nations in the Taiwanese capital Taipei said the “novel Chinese activity,” which was not specifically identified, endangered regional stability.

China, which claims democratically governed Taiwan as its breakaway province and has not ruled out the use of force to annex the island, called the maneuvers earlier this month a “maritime traffic enforcement and hydrographic survey operation.”

Chinese state media said the activities were “sending a pointed warning” to Japan and the Philippines over an announcement that the countries would discuss their maritime boundaries in waters that Beijing views as its own.

...

“These actions ⁠threaten regional stability and the freedom of navigation and safety of international shipping. We reiterate our opposition to any unilateral change to the status quo, particularly by threat or use of force or coercion,” the [joint European] statement said.

The offices also called for navigational rights and freedoms and respect for the safety of all seafarers.

...

Beijing’s tensions with Tokyo also have increased since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested the country’s military could get involved if China takes action against Taiwan.

...

Web Archive link

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/54977089

Archived

France is not only facing the threat of Russian or Iranian interference but China's growing influence on its territory. Following a year-long investigation, counterintelligence services shut down nine clandestine "police stations" in early 2026 that were operating in France on behalf of Beijing's interests.

According to the Interior Ministry, three "heads" of these shadow police stations, all Chinese nationals, faced expulsion measures. They were tasked with monitoring the Chinese diaspora and tracking down regime opponents to forcibly return them to China. Two have already been expelled. On June 9, before the Council of State, France's highest administrative court, the public rapporteur recommended that the third expulsion be confirmed.

Less spectacular than Russian destabilization operations but just as active, Beijing's clandestine activities abroad have largely relied on Chinese nationals without direct links to the Chinese state. A law passed on June 28, 2017, on intelligence, created legal obligations for Chinese citizens and companies to assist in collecting information as part of the "United Front," making every Chinese national a potential spy. On June 1, 2023, the European Parliament called on "member states and Union authorities to investigate the alleged existence of these police outposts and to take coordinated action against any illegal activity linked to the Chinese United Front Work Department in Europe."

[...]

For the Interior Ministry, these undeclared clandestine stations are extensions of Chinese police stations on French territory and operate under the orders of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), China's main police authority. Most of these structures that are active in France, especially in the Paris region, were set up within the Chinese community or cultural associations. In addition to hunting dissidents, they provide administrative services such as issuing passports and gathering intelligence to recruit informants, described as "talents." The Chinese community in France numbers around 600,000 people.

[...]

The case of Ni Chaowen, 57, head of a clandestine police station, was brought before the Council of State on June 9. According to the Interior Ministry, Ni served as president of the Fujian Association of Industrialists and Merchants (FAIM) since 2023, but behind this organization, he was actually running a clandestine police station linked to the Chinese MPS.

[...]

French authorities decided to take a tougher line against these clandestine Chinese police structures after cracking down in 2024 on the activities of intelligence agents officially listed at the Chinese Embassy in Paris. The station chief of China's Ministry of State Security (MSS, or Guoanbu, China's intelligence service) and his deputy were asked to leave France after orchestrating, in March 2024, an attempted forced repatriation of a political dissident.

[...]

Apparently displeased with the publicity surrounding these cases, Chinese authorities tried, both in the matter of secret agents assigned to the embassy and in the case of nationals implicated in the "shadow police stations" affair, to plead their case with the French Foreign Ministry. Questioned on the matter, a senior diplomat at the French Foreign Ministry confirmed that Chinese diplomats had come to defend their "good faith" and that of their compatriots. In return, they only obtained a pledge that France would act discreetly regarding the measures taken against them.

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/53878559

The Netherlands will not back down from regular military deployments to the Indo-Pacific despite a recent tense naval encounter with China, the country’s defense minister said, signaling that the incidents will not deter European engagement in the region.

“We are not here to seek a conflict, but we will keep coming back,” Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius told The Japan Times in an interview Monday following the arrival of Dutch frigate HNLMS De Ruyter in Tokyo for a three-day port call.

The guided-missile frigate was involved in an incident last month near the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, where the Chinese Navy reportedly subjected it to electronic interference.

The frigate continued its planned mission, later transiting the sensitive Taiwan Strait before arriving in Japan, but the event highlighted ongoing tensions between Chinese forces and foreign militaries operating in waters Beijing claims as its own.

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Yeşilgöz-Zegerius was unequivocal that such incidents would not prompt the Netherlands to scale back its Indo-Pacific engagement, insisting that Dutch naval operations are conducted in accordance with international law and the principle of freedom of navigation — and that the deployments are far from symbolic.

“For the Netherlands, it’s very important to send a frigate through this region every two years because the safety, security and economy of the Indo-Pacific are closely interlinked with those of the Netherlands and the rest of Europe,” she said.

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“If something were to happen here [in the Indo-Pacific], the effects would be felt acutely in Europe — even more so than in the Strait of Hormuz,” referring to the crucial Middle Eastern waterway that has remained largely closed amid the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran.

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The minister confirmed that Chinese officials had raised the naval encounter during bilateral and panel discussions at last month’s Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore, where Dutch military officials reaffirmed the legal basis for the transit while keeping the door open to dialogue.

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While encounters between Chinese, U.S. and regional forces in the South China Sea occur regularly, publicly acknowledged incidents involving European warships remain comparatively uncommon, making the De Ruyter episode one of the most visible Chinese-European military interactions in the region so far this year.

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The report was adopted on Tuesday by 434 votes in favour, 128 against and 104 abstentions, the parliamentary press service announced.

Transnational repression was described in the text as deliberate acts or threats by states and authoritarian regimes — or state-linked entities and proxies — to threaten, silence, coerce or harm people living abroad, as well as their support networks and family members.

MEPs said these actions pose a threat to democracy and the protection of human rights, and amount to foreign interference.

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Targets can include dissidents, journalists, activists, academics and members of diaspora communities, as well as their families, according to the European Parliament.

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They also called for measures to share best practice between member states and floated the appointment of an EU coordinator to help develop a wider strategy, including action against digital threats, abusive Interpol “red notices” — requests to locate and provisionally arrest people pending extradition — and “consular coercion”, which the report described as pressure from embassies and consulates.

“For many people living in exile in Europe, distance doesn't guarantee safety. Authoritarian regimes actively seek to silence critics beyond their own borders,” the report’s rapporteur, Hannah Neumann, said in the statement published by the European Parliament.

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