It all depends what Ukraine gets in return I would say.

That was my first thought, too. But as the article also says,

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also said that Ukraine is ready to help protect Gulf countries from the Iranian regime, but is asking them to help Ukraine in return.

If all sides are willing, they will find a way I hope.

Source (Sixth Tone) is a Chinese state-funded soft-power outlet. That should not be relevant to this report, which is simply decent journalism.

This is always relevant, one reason being that they intentionally suppress certain information to spread propaganda and propagnada only. It’s the outlet’s sole raison d’être. This so-called “soft power” comes from the same dictatorial political system. It is an inherently bad and unreliable source and has nothing to do with decent journalism.

It is a really racist and dictatorial policy:

The new law was needed to provide better legal safeguards for the party’s “ethnic work” in order to “maintain the security and stability of China’s border regions and ethnic regions […]

and

[there is] “no way” that non-Han people would be able to safely express “any type of discontent without being accused of being essentially separatists or terrorists."

but I would be surprised if China doesn’t come out stronger, some how.

How so?

I wouldn’t say it is a different argument. China is using this for its propaganda, portraying itself as a ‘democracy’ and stable government valuing the rule of law. But this is not reality. Beijing just uses Trump’s actions for vindication, although China has long been a dictatorship long before Trump.

I don’t know what Trump exactly wants in Venezuela and Iran, of course, but the wars here and there hit China massively.

Both Venezuela, the country with the largest known oil reserves, and Iran are (were?) ideal partners for China’s global business model built on commodity-based lending. It works quite simple: a Chinese bank close to its government loans the money, the borrower required to sell commodities to a buyer in China, and the commodities proceeds will then be redirected to the bank service the loan. As these trades often occur at predefined prices, China benefits not only by gaining political influence in the selling country - often politically isolated and whose primary source of income is the commodity - but also by making itself a bit independent form fluctuating oil prices.

China has similar deals with a wide range of countries to whom it provides loans for commodities: in Zimbabwe China purchases platinum with such agreements, in Zambia cobalt and copper, in Ghana bauxite.

In Venezuela, the China Development Bank financed the loans for the government in Caracas. The commodity purchase contract involved Venezuela’s state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela SA and a Chinese state-owned oil purchaser. The loan is then being repaid by the proceeds from Petróleos de Venezuela SA’s revenue stream from oil sales.

Venezuela is the largest borrower of this Chinese state-backed lending scheme in South America and the fourth largest globally. Between 2000 and 2023, China granted loans totaling USD 95 billion to Venezuela via this scheme, which is roughly 90% of China’s total loan volume to Venezuela, according to AidData.

Amidst the current turmoils, however, the supposed convenience has a hefty price as China’s credit risk is highly concentrated in a single commodity - in Venezuela’s case, oil. Any fundamental change in Venezuela’s oil industry would inevitably effect repayment terms (and enforcement conditions) of Caracas’s debt to Beijing.

The situation in Iran is similar. China has been buying cheap oil form sanction-hit Iran for a long time. China accounts for more than 80% of Iran’s maritime crude oil exports, and Iranian oil accounts for 13% of China’s oil imports. If Iran is forced to shut the Strait of Hormuz, it has a much wider impact as 45% of China’s (and 20% of the world’s) oil and gas supply is shipped through this small lane in the gulf.

For a short period of time, China may be able to even benefit from a possible oil scarcity. It has bought a huge stockpile and could be able to sell its refined oil to others at a reasonable price. But Beijing has no reason to celebrate as this will be short-term. In the long run, the situation will cause a lot of troubles for China.

This is not to say that the US is deliberately aiming at China. I don’t understand what the current administration is doing as Trump appears to contradict himself perpetually. But the impact on China is tremendous imho, at least this is how I interpret the data.

I apologize for the long comment.

[Edit typo.]

Dude, I am not here to win an argument. You are coming up with a series of allegations upon which you form your opinion, but you don’t provide any report, article, or anything that fosters this opinion.

But then you criticize sources linked by other while claiming you are right.

If you are not able to provide even a glimpse of evidence of what you say, I end this discussion.

There is even a study investigating the Flix pricing.

• Fares of long-distance bus service are determined by a profit-maximizing strategy known as revenue management…
• At each point in time fares follow an increasing stepwise distribution in the number of sold seats (capacity effect).
• The increasing trend of the lowest available fare during the booking period is mainly driven by the capacity effect.
• The decreasing option value of seats is in place during the last week before departure (temporal effect).

We see such pricing methods everywhere, especially in transportation. But it has nothing to do with the type of payment but the time. You’d pay the higher price later even if you paid digital, there is no cash penalty.

I don’t know of such price hikes. But if you choose to pay online now or in cash at a later point (supposedly immediately before departure) you may pay more. But this usually hasn’t to do with the type of payment (digital or cash) but rather because you pay later at the time of departure or shortly before.

It’s basically the kind of revenue management you see in airline ticketing: the sooner you buy, the lower the price. But it is not a ‘penalty’ for using cash.

I really never heard about such stories.

Are there at least some links where you can compare prices?

Where do you pay 4 times more in cash as compared to digital payments? I have never seen this nor other stories in you text as others have already said.

Ukraine could also demand Taurus in exchange for their expertise.

Is there a source for these allegations?

There is a link to an archived version at tge top of the paraphrased summary. Here again: https://web.archive.org/web/20260227120459/https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/27/us/china-nyc-whistleblower-ufwd-intl-hnk-dst

Yes, according the the NGO Freedom House, a quarter of the world’s governments (48 states) are using tactics of transnational repression, but 10 are responsible for nearly 80 percent of all physical, direct incidents between 2014 and 2024.

The Chinese government remains the most prolific perpetrator, committing 272 incidents, or 22 percent, of recorded cases. The governments of Russia, Turkey, and Egypt are also leading offenders. Authorities in Tajikistan and Cambodia have received less attention despite being major perpetrators of transnational repression against targets in Europe and Asia.

Chinese Communist Party: Knows it’s far ahead.

Modi is hugging also Putin, another war criminal, not sure if this has anything to do specifically with Israel’s popularity in the country.

Just stumbled upon this article by a scholar, “What is Shen Yun, the Chinese dance troupe connected to the bomb threat at the Lodge?”, of someone is interested.

TL;DR: Shen Yun has been highly criticised by officials from China and has critics also abroad, but “the Chinese government’s sensitivity to Shen Yun reflects a broader strategic concern” as the article says:

Shen Yun is not simply performing culture. It is contesting China’s cultural authority. In Shen Yun’s performances, cultural authenticity is not created by the state. Instead, cultural authenticity is created by the diaspora and the people […] Western cultural venues – and today, the Lodge – have become key battlegrounds in this contest.

They certainly (hopefully) also have an in-house control, but I guess what is meant here is the need for an external independent body to better protect consumers (which would imply transparent supply chains).

Modi has been hugging also Putin when they met in the last two years. Seems he should rethink his friendships …