China

As DeepSeek’s AI models gain traction internationally — attracting users with their strong technical performance at low costs — the question remains how their embedded political filters will affect global audiences. The broader concern is what it means when millions worldwide start depending on AI systems deliberately designed to reflect and reinforce Chinese government perspectives.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3380309

Archived version

Fiji PM Stiveni Rabuka says he is against China gaining a military base in the Pacific, but he remains unconvinced that is Beijing's aim.

But experts say his comments are out of touch with China's ambition given its previous "dual infrastructure" projects in the region.

Rabuka wants to explore a new Australian agreement to formalise their relationships beyond changes in government, and will meet with other Pacific leaders in September.

...

Fiji's Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has delivered a blow to China's security ambitions in the Pacific, declaring his country would "not welcome" any Chinese military bases in the region.

But Mr Rabuka has also stressed he doesn't believe that China is actively looking for such a security foothold in the Pacific — saying the rising power doesn't need it to project power.

Sitiveni Rabuka was repeatedly pressed about China’s role in the Pacific in the wake of his speech to the National Press Club in Canberra today.

Mr Rabuka didn’t mince words when he was asked if he believed that Beijing should be permitted to establish a military base in the Pacific.

"Who would welcome them?" he asked rhetorically. "Not Fiji."

...

Australian government assessments, which warn that China is seeking a security foothold in the Pacific — potentially through "dual use" infrastructure projects which could be used for military purposes.

The Pacific Minister Pat Conroy has repeatedly said publicly that Beijing is seeking a security "presence" in the region, including through its attempts to expand police cooperation in the Pacific.

...

Mr Rabuka also said he would like to explore signing a new overarching agreement with Australia, saying the relationship may have "reached a point … where our renewed and elevated partnership needs to step up to an agreement or treaty".

...

Mr Rabuka did not provide detail about how a new agreement could work, but said it would allow Australia to expand assistance to Fiji and help the relationship withstand the "political whims of the winning parties in the various elections, because there will be national treaties between sovereign states".

...

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/37843200

Archived

The EU's top foreign policy official, Kaja Kallas, issued a sharp warning to Beijing not to undermine Europe's security.

“China is not our adversary, but our relations are under growing strain in the security field,” Kallas said before meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

“Chinese companies are Moscow's lifeline, supporting the war against Ukraine. Beijing is conducting cyberattacks, interfering in our democracies, and trading unfairly. These actions harm European security and jobs,” she added.

Wang's visit to Brussels — after which he will travel to Berlin and Paris — comes about three weeks before the summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and leading EU representatives in Beijing.

[...]

Trade tensions between Brussels and Beijing have deepened over allegations of unfair trade practices.

The 27-member bloc continues to condemn the flow of vital technologies that reach the Russian military via China.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/37784756

Archived

According to The China Story, created by the Australian Centre on China in the World (CIW) at the College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University (ANU). there are more Australians missing in China than any other country.

Since 2009, there have been a number of high-profile cases of contentious arrests and imprisonments of Australian citizens in China. Australian journalist Cheng Lei was arrested and detained for three years before her release in 2023. [...] Rio Tinto executive Stern Hu, travel entrepreneur Matthew Ng, technology educator Charlotte Chou (released in December 2014) and medical inventor Du Zuying (released in July 2014) have been imprisoned on charges of bribery, embezzlement and fraud allegedly targeting their China-based employers or partners. (Du was released in July 2014 and Chou in December 2014).

[...]

Sophie Richardson is the Washington-based co-executive director of Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), a coalition of Chinese and international human rights non-governmental organizations. From 2006 to 2023, she served as the China Director at Human Rights Watch.

She reflects that “many people assume that because the Chinese government have written things down on paper and called them laws, they’ll abide by them, but that’s often not the case.”

“For foreign lawyers who set up offices in Beijing or Shanghai, it’s often not until things go dreadfully wrong that people come to realise the law is an instrument of Xi Jinping’s political power, used when and how he and his allies see fit.”

Richardson says, “I’m not sure anyone could definitively answer about the numbers of people detained. In some cases, families don’t want to publicise that their family member has been detained. The number of foreigners detained pales in comparison to Chinese citizens. The scope and scale has been identified by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which is one of the UN expert bodies, as a crime against humanity.”

Richardson explains that under Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR) requires governments that have detained foreign citizens to notify the governments of those citizens, along with notifying the foreign national that they have a right to contact their consulate, and enabling this.

“That’s routinely ignored,” says Richardson, “Some countries also require that their government be informed. That means people have to know to request [contact with their consulate], and that the people detaining you will convey that information.”

[...]

[The Australian government] defines enforced disappearances as occurring “when individuals are deprived of liberty against their will with the involvement of government officials (at least by acquiescence), which includes a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person.”

The 2023 US Department of State China Human Rights Report found that disappearances were standard practice by Chinese authorities at a nationwide, systemic scale. The typical method is Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location (RSDL), which the UN has consistently stated is ‘not compatible with international human rights law’. RDSL enables authorities to detain individuals in an undisclosed location for up to six months, without trial or access to a lawyer.

There is a lack of official data on how prevalent RDSL is, or the conditions that victims are subjected to, but INGO Safeguard Defenders estimated that between 55,977 and 113,407 people were placed into RSDL, prior to trial and verdict, from 2015 to 2021. Those numbers do not account for cases where no trial proceeded.

[...]

Human rights NGO Safeguard Defenders, founded in 2016, has released a handbook Missing In China, designed to guide people through the steps when a family member, colleague, or friend has been arbitrarily detained by the PRC. It will also be made available in Chinese and Japanese.

[...]

Economic worries fuel interest in fortune telling

Worries about relationships and jobs are hardly unique to China. But as the country grapples with slowing economic growth, many young people are feeling particularly anxious about the future. So some are turning to xuanxue, or mysticism. Cece, an astrology app backed by Tencent, has been downloaded more than 100m times. The trend has been dubbed the “spiritual economy”.

“The most obvious sign of economic downturn is that, a few years ago, it felt like hardly anyone believed in metaphysics or fortune telling. But in the past two years, such beliefs have clearly become more common,” wrote one Weibo user.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/37766685

Archived

About 80% of the components Russia uses for weapons production come through China, posing the biggest challenge to the EU’s sanctions policy.

This was stated by David O'Sullivan, the EU Special Envoy for Sanctions Implementation related to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, during the “Fair Play: Honest Game” conference on additional sanctions against Russia held Friday in Kyiv, reports Ukrinform.

“About 80% of these goods enter Russia via China or Hong Kong and China. It’s a very difficult conversation. When President von der Leyen, or President Costa speak about this at summits, or our member states, President Macron, Chancellor Scholz when he was in Beijing — the Chinese usually respond: ‘We don’t understand what you mean. We don’t supply anything with military use for Russia.’ So we keep pressing, but the response is lukewarm. You see this in many products made in China. These are Chinese copies of Western brands,” explained O’Sullivan.

[...]

He added that similar difficult negotiations happen in Malaysia, Southeast Asia, Thailand, and Singapore, where he plans to go again next month, as many local companies are subsidiaries of European firms.

[...]

According to the special envoy, companies have introduced clauses banning resale to Russia and conduct client checks, but at some point their components disappear into a “wild field,” making supply chain control impossible.

[...]

“I try to explain to manufacturers in third countries that these components — especially a list of 50 joint priority categories we prepared closely with Ukrainians — may seem harmless. These include optical readers, integrated circuits, microchips, flash memory cards, which are found in our phones and computers. But when they get to Russia, it becomes weapons of war,” O’Sullivan detailed.

Distressed Tibetan children as young as four sent to Chinese state-run boarding schools for indoctrination have been beaten for praying and wearing Buddhist blessing cords, forced to sleep on sheepskins and taught only in Mandarin, a new report has found.

Researchers and activists say the boarding schools have been used by authorities to suppress the local culture and language of people in China's Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) and Tibetan areas in nearby provinces.

Details of the violence and coercive indoctrination have emerged in a new report from the US-based Tibet Action Institute (TAI) titled When They Came To Take Our Children.

Two Tibetans interviewed told the TAI that children were reprimanded for practising their religion.

"Students are restricted from wearing any sungdue [Buddhist blessing cords] around their necks and wrists and chanting Tibetan prayers," the report quotes them saying.

"If the students are found chanting prayers and wearing any blessing cords, they are beaten by the teacher."

A former student, who has left Tibet, told the TAI if school authorities inspected dormitories and "found that we had not kept it clean, we were beaten as a punishment".

Along with the allegations of beatings, the report says Tibetan children are indoctrinated to praise the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and taught only in Mandarin.

"It's an effort to move Tibetan children away from family and community … expanding its control over what they're learning and thinking," Freya Putt, the author of the report and TAI's Director of Strategy, says.

[...]

• 简体中文
• 繁體中文
• Français

• China’s government has erased Hong Kong’s freedoms since imposing the draconian National Security Law on June 30, 2020.
• The Chinese government has largely dismantled freedoms of expression, association and assembly, free and fair elections, fair trial rights and judicial independence, and ended the city’s semi-democracy.
• Other governments should press the Chinese government to end its repressive policies in Hong Kong by holding responsible officials to account.

Donate to Human Rights Watch.

More than 80% of people convicted under Hong Kong’s National Security Law (NSL) have been wrongly criminalized and should never have been charged in the first place, according to new research by Amnesty International published on the fifth anniversary of the law being enacted.

The organization’s analysis of 255 individuals targeted under national security legislation in Hong Kong since 30 June 2020 also showed that bail was denied in almost 90% of cases where charges were brought, and that those denied bail were forced to spend an average of 11 months in detention before facing trial.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/37731125

Archived

[...]

China's top diplomat Wang Yi heads to Europe on Monday seeking a closer relationship that can provide an "anchor of stability" in the world and act as a counterweight to the United States [...] but deep frictions remain over both the economy – including a yawning trade deficit of $357.1 billion between China and the EU – and Beijing's continuing close ties with Russia despite Moscow's war in Ukraine.

[...]

The war in Ukraine will likely be high on the agenda, with European leaders having been forthright in condemning what they see as Beijing's support of Moscow.

China has portrayed itself as a neutral party in Russia's more than three-year war with Ukraine.

But Western governments say Beijing's close ties have given Moscow crucial economic and diplomatic support, and they have urged China to do more to press Russia to end the war.

[...]

Ties between Europe and China have also strained in recent years as the EU seeks to get tougher on what it says are unfair economic practices by Beijing.

[...]

Tensions flared this month after the EU banned Chinese firms from government medical device purchases worth more than €5 million ($5.8 million) in retaliation for limits Beijing places on access to its own market.

The latest salvo in trade tensions between the 27-nation bloc and China covered a wide range of healthcare supplies, from surgical masks to X-ray machines, that represent a market worth €150 billion in the EU.

[...]

Archived

[...]

China's ruling Communist Party has appointed the head of an ethnic affairs panel as its new party secretary in the vast northwestern region of Xinjiang, the official news agency Xinhua said on Tuesday.

Chen Xiaojiang has also held a vice ministerial role since 2020 in the party's United Front Work Department [...] The department runs influence operations related to ethnic minorities, religious groups and on the Taiwan issue at home and abroad.

[...]

In 2022, the United Nations reported finding "serious human rights violations" against mainly Muslim Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang under China's national security and counter-terrorism policies, as well as forced labour accusations.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/37719732

Archived

[...]

Ukrainian intelligence highlights that the project would deepen cooperation between Russia and Chinese businesses within occupied Ukrainian territory, potentially reinforcing Russia’s military and economic presence in the region.

Earlier, an investigation revealed that Russia has nearly tripled production of its Iskander ballistic and cruise missiles over the past year by importing advanced manufacturing equipment from China, Taiwan, and Belarus.

Despite Western sanctions, the Votkinsk Plant—the main missile production facility—acquired over 7,000 new machines, including Chinese-made CNC systems, enabling it to manufacture more than 700 missiles since 2024.

Customs records confirmed that much of the equipment reached Russia through intermediaries, with eight out of ten known contracts traced back to China.

In addition to machinery, China has also supplied critical raw materials such as titanium for missile components. Ukraine’s military intelligence estimates Russia now holds a stockpile of about 900 Iskander missiles, enough for at least two more years of strikes.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/37651981

Archived

Taiwan's top China policy body, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), on Friday said Hsiao Bi-khim's motorcade was surveilled and followed in a ploy to be rammed during a visit to the Czech Republic in March 2024.

Citing a Czech intelligence agency report, the council said staff from the Chinese Embassy in Prague were behind the incident.

Czech military intelligence spokesman Jan Pejsek told AFP on Sunday that Hsiao was targeted by "persons legalised in diplomatic positions at the Chinese Embassy in Prague".

He said they tailed her and sought information about Hsiao's programme and meetings with Czech officials.

"We even recorded attempts by the Chinese civil secret service to create conditions for a demonstrative kinetic action against a protected person, which, however, did not go beyond the preparatory stage," Pejsek added.

Hsiao, who was vice president-elect at the time of the trip, posted on social media on Saturday, that she "had a great visit to Prague & thank the Czech authorities for their hospitality & ensuring my safety".

"The CCP's unlawful activities will NOT intimidate me from voicing Taiwan's interests in the international community," she said.

"Taiwan will not be isolated by intimidation," she added.

'Violent nature'

Like most countries, Prague does not have official diplomatic relations with Taipei.

China claims Taiwan as its territory and in recent years, has ramped up the deployment of fighter jets and warships around the self-ruled island. It has also sought to erase Taiwan from the international stage by poaching its diplomatic allies and blocking it from global forums.

Taipei said on Friday that "the Chinese Embassy in the Czech Republic followed, conducted surveillance on, and even attempted to ram the motorcade, seriously threatening the personal safety of Vice President Hsiao and her entourage".

It added the incident exposed CCP's "violent nature" and lack of "sincerity" in communication.

[...]

"China uses legal grey areas to harass, threaten or oppress their targets," [one] official said.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/37722020

Archived

[Australian PM] Anthony Albanese says his government will pump as much cash as is needed into Australia’s defence after China’s ambassador wrote an op-ed urging Canberra to restrain from spending more.

In his piece published on Monday, [Chinese ambassador] Xiao Qian said China and Australia were “not foes” despite being embroiled in a regional rivalry and Beijing rapidly building up conventional and nuclear military capabilities.

It came as the Prime Minister faces domestic and international calls to boost the defence budget, with the US warning of a potentially “imminent” threat from China in the Indo Pacific.

But Mr Albanese has resisted, making Australia an outlier in the West – a position highlighted by NATO’s decision last week to dramatically hike military spending to 5 per cent of GDP.

Fronting media on Monday, Mr Albanese did not align with Xi Jinping’s envoy either.

[...]

“The Chinese ambassador speaks for China,” Mr Albanese told reporters.

“My job is to speak for Australia.

“And it’s in Australia’s national interest for us to invest in our capability and to invest in our relationships, and we’re doing just that.”

Asked by a reporter for The Australian if Mr Xiao’s comments constituted “meddling”, a visibly riled Mr Albanese said: “I don’t know, your newspaper published the op-ed.”

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/37599025

Archived

The Canadian government has ordered Chinese surveillance camera manufacturer Hikvision to cease operations in Canada over national security concerns, Industry Minister Melanie Joly said late on Friday.

[...]

"The government has determined that Hikvision Canada Inc's continued operations in Canada would be injurious to Canada's national security," Joly said on X, adding that the decision was taken after a multi-step review of information provided by Canada's security and intelligence community.

[...]

Canada said last year it was reviewing an application to impose sanctions against Chinese surveillance equipment companies, including Hikvision, after rights advocates alleged the firms were aiding repression and high-tech surveillance in Xinjiang.

Joly said Canada was also banning the purchase of Hikvison's products in government departments and agencies, and reviewing existing properties to ensure that legacy Hikvision products were not used in the future.

She said the order does not extend to the company's affiliate operations outside Canada but "strongly" encouraged Canadians "to take note of this decision and make their own decisions accordingly."

At least six people have died and more than 80,000 people were evacuated from their homes after floods inundated China’s Guizhou province, state media reported, as a tropical depression made landfall in the island province.

State broadcaster CCTV reported on Thursday that “exceptionally large floods” had swept through Guizhou’s Rongjiang county since Tuesday.

[...]

“Many low-lying areas in the county were flooded, and the infrastructure of some towns was seriously damaged, resulting in traffic obstruction, communications blackouts, and some people being trapped,” the broadcaster said.

“The water level in the county has now retreated below the warning level,” it added, saying “post-disaster recovery and reconstruction and investigation of trapped people are under way.”

[...]

Archived

This is an op-ed by Benedict Rogers, founder of rights group Hong Kong Watch and member of the advisory group of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) and an advisor to the World Uyghur Congress.

Four years ago today, June 24, the printing presses of Hong Kong’s largest and most successful mass-circulation Chinese language pro-democracy daily newspaper, the Apple Daily, fell silent and its newsroom shut its doors.

When the lights were switched off in the Tseung Kwan O building, they were turned off not only for the newspaper founded by media entrepreneur and pro-democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai, but for media freedom itself in Hong Kong.

Since the forced closure of Apple Daily, almost all other independent media in the city — particularly Stand News and Citizen News — have shut down.

[...]

Meanwhile, dozen of rights groups released an open letter urging UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to meet the son of jailed British publisher Jimmy Lai.

The Chinese defense chief called for SCO countries – which, in addition to China and Russia, include India, Iran, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus – to enhance coordination and “defend international fairness and justice” and “uphold global strategic stability.”

Attending countries “expressed a strong willingness to consolidate and develop military collaboration,” according to China’s official news agency Xinhua.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/37453666

Archived

AChinese asylum seeker has been allowed to stay in Britain because he “cannot be expected to lie” about his support for Taiwanese independence.

The unnamed man had claimed his attendance at pro-Taiwan rallies meant he would be persecuted by the Beijing government if he had to go back.

An asylum judge ruled in his favour, concluding that the risk to pro-Taiwanese activists was “far greater” than in 2022, when the refugee came to the UK.

Judge Christopher Hanson said that the man would face questioning by officials if he was returned to China. “If he is asked about what he has done in the UK, or in relation to any political activities, he cannot be expected to lie,” he said.

Taiwan, which lies just off the coast of the mainland, was occupied by the nationalist government following the communist victory in 1949. Beijing regards it as a breakaway state that will eventually come under Chinese control, and tensions between the two have escalated in recent years.

The case, disclosed in court papers, is the latest example [...] in which illegal migrants or convicted foreign criminals have been able to remain in the UK or halt their deportations after claiming returning them to their home countries would breach their human rights.

[...]

The Chinese citizen, known as BK, claimed asylum in the UK in January 2022, but his case was dismissed by a lower-tier immigration tribunal because he was deemed not high-profile enough to warrant protection. The 39-year-old then appealed to an upper-tier tribunal in March this year.

The hearing in Birmingham was told that BK had stated that he had been arrested twice because of his pro-Taiwanese beliefs. Since moving to the UK, he had attended pro-Taiwanese events, the last of which was in 2022.

[...]

This was mainly down to international tensions and other separatist movements in Xinjiang and Tibet, prompting crackdowns by China. Last year, China launched military drills around Taiwan and even simulated a full-scale attack on the island nation. ‘Credible risk of harm’

Despite being a low-level activist, the tribunal believed that BK, who is also a Christian, could be prosecuted if he returned to China.

Judge Hanson concluded: “The risk of arrest for worshippers in unlicensed churches is also greater now than it was when BK was last in the country, and greater than it was in certain decisions and documents cited in his First-tier Tribunal hearing.

“I do conclude with a great degree of confidence that the risk to pro-Taiwanese activists in general is far greater than it was when he was last in China.

“Even if the authorities in China have no knowledge of BK’s activities in the UK it is likely that on return he will be interviewed by the Chinese authorities. If he is asked about what he has done in the UK or in relation to any political activities he cannot be expected to lie.

“If he continues to express his pro-Taiwanese separatist beliefs, there is a real risk that the authorities in China will become aware.

[...]

“I conclude that whilst BK may be able to be returned to China as he does not have the type of profile indicated in the report that will give rise to a real risk at this stage, there is a credible risk of harm sufficient to amount to persecution if he continues with his pro-Taiwanese activities in China, and is entitled to a grant of international protection.”

[Edit to insert the archived link.]

Archived

• BYD has reportedly sued 37 influencers in China, claiming they have made defamatory comments.
• The manufacturer has a News Anti-Fraud department where people can send tips about possible defamation and get rewards.
• Companies suing influencers for potentially damaging their image is far more common in China than it is in the West.

The relationship between automakers and the people who create content with their vehicles can sometimes be tense. However, it seldom results in legal action taken against them, and requests to change or remove content are usually about as extreme as it gets.

But not if you’re covering the world’s fastest-growing automaker over the last few years, BYD, which is reportedly taking 37 influencers to court over things they said that it deems defamatory.

CarNewsChina says BYD has also added 126 content creators to an internal watch list, and they will be monitored in the future, potentially also facing legal action from the automaker if they say something that the company sees as damaging to its image. The carmaker created a “News Anti-Fraud Office” a few years ago and it’s encouraging people to send tips about potentially damaging content.

[...]

To encourage tip-offs about potential smear campaigns, BYD is offering substantial bonuses—50,000 to 5 million yuan ($6,900 to $690,000)—for credible leads. The source lists several examples of why BYD sued influencers. In one instance, a person accused the company of manipulating content creators to say negative things about rival brands.

The court concluded that the influencer was required to make a public apology and pay a fine of 100,000 yuan (around $13,800). Another influencer was fined after making claims that BYD was financially unstable and on the verge of bankruptcy.

All of these fines pale in comparison to the August 2023 lawsuit launched by Nissan Dongfeng against an influencer who had posted over 50 videos on TikTok denigrating the automaker’s vehicles. He was asked to pay 5 million yuan in reparations to the manufacturer. In 2022, Tesla also took a Chinese influencer to court, demanding 5 million yuan in reparations, but eventually settled for a lot less.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/37452848

Archived

China has begun construction of a new structure in waters between China and Japan in the disputed East China Sea, the Japanese foreign ministry said on Tuesday, adding it has lodged a protest with China.

The ministry said in a statement "it is extremely regrettable" that China is pressing ahead with unilateral development when the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf in the East China Sea have not yet been delimited.

Japan requests that China cease its unilateral development and to resume talks on the implementation of a 2008 agreement, in which the two countries agreed to cooperate on natural resources development in the East China Sea, it also said. Asked about Japan's protest, China's foreign ministry said on Wednesday that its oil and gas development activities in the East China Sea were located in undisputed waters under Chinese jurisdiction.

[...]

Japan's ties with China have been plagued by a territorial dispute over a group of Japanese-administered islands in the East China Sea, called the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, as well as the legacy of Japan's past military aggression.

China’s AI industry has drawn increasing media attention as its progress generates excitement and trepidation about a global future fueled by Chinese AI. One dimension of this success is the ability of Chinese actors, such as DeepSeek, to circumvent U.S. restrictions on the export of critical technology. According to Reuters, a U.S. official claimed this week that DeepSeek had evaded export controls to gain access to American AI chips. Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese engineers transported hard drives with hundreds of gigabytes of AI training data in suitcases to Malaysia in order to bypass U.S. restrictions by using American chips outside of China. But the flipside to this story is how U.S. export controls have encouraged the flourishing of China’s domestic AI ecosystem.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/37385162

Archived

• Despite international sanctions, Russia's strategic missile plant was able to import complex machinery to dramatically increase missile production.
• The Kyiv Independent has identified the equipment supplied to the plant, as well as the supply chains, mostly from China.
• We located the plant's new premises, built to house the new machinery.
• We obtained a document confirming that the plant received an order to produce intercontinental missiles capable of reaching the U.S. shortly after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

[...]

The Votkinsk Plant, also known as the Votkinskiy Plant, — a strategic, state-owned facility serving Russia’s nuclear forces — has hired thousands of new workers, added new buildings, and brought in advanced machinery to significantly increase its missile production.

Ukrainians have felt it firsthand. Iskander-M ballistic missiles, with a range of up to 500 kilometers and assembled at Votkinsk, have been increasingly hitting Kyiv and other cities.

But the plant’s core mission is even more threatening: manufacturing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of delivering nuclear warheads across continents.

[...]

Full-scale war has been a boon for Votkinsk: Since its start, the plant has expanded and increased output.

In 2024, Russia produced nearly three times more Iskander-M ballistic missiles than in 2023 — 700 compared to 250, according to RUSI, a London-based defense and security think tank.

[...]

Russian authorities planned the expansion of the Votkinsk missile hub in 2022, after the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The process began the following year, from 2023 to 2024, during which the arms manufacturer built new premises, renovated existing ones, hired additional staff, and procured new equipment for missile production.

Using satellite imagery provided by Planet Labs, we identified the location of the plant’s largest new facility: a sheet metal fabrication shop.

In 2023, the site was bare ground; by 2024, a new workshop had risen to house additional machinery.

[...]

Simultaneously, the missile producer launched a recruitment drive, hiring an additional 2,500 employees during the first 2.5 years of Russia’s full-scale war, according to the plant’s director general.

The total number of employees now exceeds 12,000.

[...]

Imported equipment came primarily from mainland China. Of the 10 contracts we identified, eight involved products supplied from China. In one of them, the goods came from a Chinese factory owned by a Taiwanese manufacturer.

[...]

Taiwan-branded equipment intended for the missile plant was shipped to Russia by a Chinese company named Zhangzhou Donggang Precision Machinery Company, also known as Zhangzhou Dong Iron Precision Machinery Co.

This company operates as a subsidiary of the Taiwanese manufacturer Ecom — effectively, its Chinese production facility.

[...]

China provides more than machines

It is no secret that China is the largest supplier of equipment, electronic components, and materials that Russia seeks for weapons production.

The Kyiv Independent has reviewed the latest non-public report by the Ukrainian think tank Economic Security Council of Ukraine (ESCU) on the production of Iskander missiles, which are assembled at the Votkinsk Plant.

The report examined the supply of titanium, carbon fiber, and missile fuel components for Iskander production in 2024.

“Titanium is used to make the aerodynamic rudders that control a missile at launch, as well as for the body, nozzles, and combustion chambers of the engine,” explained Denys Hutyk, ESCU’s executive director.

The organization’s researchers found that the main flow of titanium products reached the Votkinsk Plant through a supply chain originating in China.

Russia’s largest titanium producer, VSMPO-AVISMA Corporation, operates a subsidiary in Beijing — VSMPO Tirus Beijing Metallic Materials — which imports titanium ore from major Chinese manufacturers.

In addition, the Russian producer purchased primary titanium products through China’s Tianjin Chengan International Trading Company and India’s DCW. It then supplied Russian military plants, including Votkinsk, through a subsidiary trading house in Russia.

[...]

In a process akin to "dumping" to gain market share, China's EV manufacturers are pocketing government sales bonuses, then dumping "sold" EVs in foreign markets at low prices.