A new survey of Southeast Asian opinion leaders shows renewed trust in the EU after last year’s decline

Last year [2024] saw trust in the EU drop by nearly 10% among the participants, which some experts attributed to Brussels’ support for Israel in Gaza. But the latest ISEAS-Yusof [2025] report shows the EU has recovered and surpassed its previous standing.

“The levels of trust in the EU saw a significant improvement this year, rising from 41.5% in 2024 to 51.9% this year for ASEAN-10 respondents,” the authors noted in the 2025 survey.

“One of my takeaways is that the European Union retained its top spot as the preferred ASEAN partner to hedge the great power rivalry between China and the United States,” Sujiro Seam, the EU ambassador to ASEAN, said in a video he released this week.

Brussels also saw improvements in its trustworthiness as a defender of free trade and regional security.

Yeah, seems to be a biased narrative. There are 30 or so countries involved, some are far away from Europe (Canada, Japan, Australia and South Korea). It is sort of a global Western alliance (without the U.S.). I am not a military expert, but it may be reasonable them not to agree on all details in the first meeting of the first day.

Countries like Canada or Japan may contribute troops on Ukrainian soil (Japan already said it wants to join a Nato command in Germany for the support of Ukraine), while Poland, a direct neighbour of Ukraine and now in the process of building one of the largest armies in Europe, may feel better to reserve its troops to protect its own border. Others like South Korea, Japan may provide certain manufacturing and technology. And so forth.

There is a strong commitment not only to Ukraine, though, but to the collective security that goes far beyond of Europe as China is closely watching what happens in Ukraine, becoming increasingly aggressive against its neighbours in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.

I fully agree with @CAVOK@lemmy.world. Don’t throw in the towel. Nothing is perfect, just help us to improve.

Australia’s is the most balanced approach imo, it declined Beijing’s proposal to work together to counter U.S. tariffs, saying instead it would continue to diversify its trade and lower its reliance on China, its largest trading partner.

China is ensnaring Europe only for its own advantage, and this can be seen not only through Beijing’s support of Russia’s war:

China is wooing Europe with technology, investments - and a smile. But anyone who looks behind China’s rhetoric will recognize the conditions: no criticism, no questions, no objections […]

Human rights? Tibet? Xinjiang? Are elegantly omitted. Anyone who raises them is either a “gangster” financed by the USA or a naïve idealist. [Victor Gao, ex-interpreter to politician Deng Xiaoping and now Beijing’s mouthpiece that promotes China’s line in the West] prefers to sell the high-speed train network, the next 6G expansion and the bubbling growth figures. - Problems? “Of course there are,” he says - and immediately changes the subject.

Addition:

A Europe-China tariff axis would be a dead end

It’s difficult to overstate just what a watershed moment this was for Europe (and one that China, with its globalization happy talk, still seems not to have absorbed). Once the mask has slipped, the illusion can’t be seen again. The US may be acting in an unfriendly manner right now, but at least it doesn’t have a historical dedication to the subjugation of liberal democratic freedoms — and there is always the chance that it will return to its senses at some point. What such hopes can Europe have for Communist China?

Expediency dictates there will be some cooperation between Europe and China, but don’t mistake it for anything more profound or longer lasting. Some things are worth more than an extra battery plant or two.

No one knows how many they recruited, Ukraine says it knows of these ~155.

The digital euro won’t come before 2028, and even this is not sure as the legislation is not yet approved. Or did I miss something?

(That aside, there are many issues with digital fiat money to be solved yet, including privacy, financial censorship, and other things.)

[Edit typo.]

More diversification is certainly needed, without one big partner. The EU is currently in the process to discuss a free trade zone with Mercosur, it signed agreement with some countries in Central Asia, there is Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, South Korea, to name a few. We likely (hopefully0 will see a more decentralized global trade in the future which is a good thing imho.

Did China just completely abandon and betray the most succesful military alliance in the modern era… in the middle of an active war involving that alliance?

China is a decisive supporter of Russia in this war.

Yes, it’s even weird that any country voted against protecting the bloc’s economy. Maybe Volkswagen and other German car makers wanted to have access to the Chinese market, although they will likely never be successful there anyway (it’s clear, at least, that no foreign company has ever had meaningful long-term success in Chinese markets, in neither industry). But that’s my guess, maybe I am wrong.

@boycottchina

That aside, what kind of content is this?

(10 or so hours ago I posted a report on a UK intel warning of transnational repression on European soil by China, and it was removed because the mod wrote in the modlog it is not really EU-relevant. This is here for hours.)

This is not new.

Stellantis e-car Leapmotor B10 will not be built in Poland (November 2024)

Stellantis could build the electric car in Eisenach or in Slovakia instead of Poland because China is planning countermeasures to the EU’s punitive tariffs […]

The new plans were made after the Chinese Ministry of Commerce advised manufacturers on October 10 against producing in European countries that have voted in favor of introducing additional tariffs on electric cars produced in China. Poland is among them. Five EU member states, including Germany and Slovakia, had rejected the tariffs, while twelve other EU states abstained. Chinese companies have to obtain Beijing’s approval for their direct investments abroad anyway.

Unlike North Korean troops, who have fought on Russian soil, the Chinese nationals were captured on Ukrainian territory, marking a potential escalation in foreign involvement.

North Korea sent around 12,000 troops to Russia’s Kursk Oblast in 2024 to reinforce Russian lines after a Ukrainian cross-border offensive. Kyiv has said it captured two North Korean soldiers in January, estimating 4,000 casualties among the deployed units.

In addition to comments by others in this thread I may draw your attention to the quote:

“Beijing knows about this. Russians distribute advertising videos about recruitment through Chinese social networks,” Zelensky said.

How is is possible that Russians “distribute advertising videos about recruitment through Chinese social networks” without the Chinese party-state knowing this? - The answer is, it isn’t. Everything that is only slightly critical of the government or inadvertently referencing to historical issues like the Tiananmen Square massacre is being censored on Chinese social media immediately. But Russia can run advertisements offering money and citizenship without Chinese censors catching on? And despite, according to Chinese officials, “Chinese citizens are prohibited from participating in foreign armed conflicts”?

(The answers to these two questions can only be, "No, because it is not very credible that this goes unnoticed by the Chinese censorship machine. ")

[Edit typo.]

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) conducts the most sophisticated and comprehensive campaign of transnational repression among all countries on the globe, pressuring Chinese diaspora overseas, e.g., members of ethnic and religious minorities, political dissidents, human rights activists, journalists (and often simply the family members of these people in sort of collective punishment) by using direct attacks like renditions, to co-opting other countries to detain and render exiles, to mobility controls, to threats from a distance like digital threats, spyware, coercion.

For example, in a new study published in February 2025, the rights group Freedom House has documented 1,219 incidents of transnational repression carried out by 48 governments across 103 countries between 2014 to 2024. A smaller number of countries account for the vast majority of all documented physical attacks on dissidents, with China the most frequent offender, responsible for 272 incidents, or 22% of recorded cases (Russia, Turkey and Egypt also rank among the worst perpetrators).

A good source for this and similar issues is also safeguarddefenders.com.

@Pirata@lemm.ee

with zero counter arguments

Where are your arguments? You just made two statements out of the blue with nothing that backs them, supposedly parroting the propaganda your overlords taught you: “China bad okay.”

Russia and China’s common interest in Georgia is the country’s shift toward authoritarianism, and away from the EU and democratization imo. Moscow and Beijing may have a lot of differences in the region (including China’s territorial claims for a chunk of Siberia), but their common and real enemy is democracy.

… saying Russia’s war on Ukraine underscores that security risks in Europe and Asia are inseparable.

Your consent has been manufactured …

No, we do not consent. This is what your propaganda media is telling you to justify its own campaigns. Chomsky and Herman - with all the good points they make - are wrong in their conclusion as they paint too simple a picture. In a pure projection of their own misinformation and disinformation campaigns, this is used by Chinese propagandists to justify their activities.

Whataboutery

[…] Protesting at hypocrisy; responding to criticism by accusing one’s opponent of similar or worse faults […]

Downvote for whataboutery. Someone argue here on Lemmy that slrpnk.net is the new lemmy.ml, it really seems they are right.