High-tech goods from China, such as electric vehicles or even robot vacuum cleaners, could represent a security risk, Germany’s BfV domestic intelligence agency has warned.
BfV head Sinan Selen told a hearing of parliament’s intelligence oversight committee in Berlin that the issue was of “great concern” to him.
“I already see substantial shortcomings that create potential for abuse,” he said.
Data collected via the products could be passed on to “state agencies”, he said, leading to risks including “potential shutdown of entire products.”
“In terms of resilience and availability (this) could confront us with problems,” he said.
The warning comes as sales of high-tech products to Germany are growing and Chinese manufacturers compete ever more strongly with their German counterparts.
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Maybe they could work towards getting european cars affordable first
European cars already are affordable, and they are free of forced labour and heavy subsidies.
(X) sorry, not true. Affordable are only very basic versions with lowest range. And forced labour, the automotive industry lobbied hard and successfully not to have this type of transparency and none will guarantee this in writing.
Unfortunately, you pay the “manager mismanagement bonus” currently still.
They could be more affordable if they cut the subscription and luxury bullshit.
German carmakers used to be a decent value proposition, almost as good as Japanese. But They picked up the enshittification mandate pretty quick and then expected EU protection so they can cry all they want.
Hope the profits suffer. They will always blame the staff of customers rather than the greedy exexs and shareholders.
Where do you get the idea from that European cars aren’t heavily subsidised?
They’re just lightly subsidised. You see, there’s a magical level of subsidy that distinguishes between heavy and light that makes one bad the other not. 🤭
Oh yeah? So European cars don’t contain Chinese-made parts? You sure-sure about that? If I pop the bonnet of my VW right now and I spot a Bosch part that says “Made in PRC” on it, how much forced labour would you say it’s got in it?
I’d say about three milliliters.
Yeah, because European EVs aren’t heavily subsidized.
This is always the same misleading propaganda. These subsidies in ‘capitalist’ Europe are paid to consumers, in ‘socialist’ China the subsidies are paid to the car industry. And Chinese subsidies are much higher and go far beyond direct payments.
Okay three things:
You are blatantly moving the goalposts right now.
Consumer subsidies pass to businesses anyway because they increase demand enabling them to raise prices, as seen from the American college system.
Almost every single entry in that article has a subsidies for businesses section.
You can’t be fucking serious. Actual gaslighting.
This is nonsense. Both the structure and volume of Chinese subsidies are fundamentally different. One result is that Chinese markets see fierce price wars. There are some 130 carmakers in China, but just three of them are in the black (while even they have been facing drastically falling profits). The whole Chinese car industry depends on state support. The money is given to a few owners and their managers.
Forced labour, sure, I doubt that happens in European auto factories. To be fair, it’s not Xinjiang cotton, so I’m not sure how much the Chinese are doing, either.
Subsidies, ehh… Last I checked big auto has a lot of political pull, at least in Germany.