China’s infrastructure triumphs prove West has much to learn from Beijing

In Southern China, workers are putting the finishing touches on a major high-speed rail project. The Guangzhou-Zhanjiang line is one of many that links cities across the country’s vast terrain with modern, rapid transportation, and a new undersea tunnel beneath Zhanjiang Bay has just set a record as the country’s longest.

The achievement provides a stark contrast to rail transport in the United States. Although the US and China are comparable in size and geography, America has struggled to build lines that even approach the speed and modernity of those elsewhere. A high speed rail project in California, considered perhaps the country’s best prospect of achieving anything analogous, has been bogged down by repeated delays, endless reviews and massive cost overruns.

How does Beijing excel in infrastructure where others flounder? Chinese newspaper the Global Times attributes the country’s achievements to a few key factors:

1) China possesses a great diversity of homegrown manufacturing capabilities;
2) China has a greater appetite for long-term investment;
3) China has much greater flexibility in financing because of its unique public institutions.

China’s rise has seen it transformed from one of the world’s poorest countries to a force able to challenge the United States in a single lifetime. Learning from its example is essential, but will require a rejection of binary thinking and Cold War hostility.

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🇸🇰 Slovak prime minister urges parliamentary vote against sending troops to Ukraine

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico strongly rejected European interference in the Donbass conflict, urging Slovakia’s congress to pass a resolution against the sending of troops to Ukraine.

“Some European politicians talk about the need to directly participate in the war in Ukraine against Russia with such intensity that I am beginning to take it as a reality,” said the leader in a video posted on social media. “And that's why I would consider it right if the National Council takes a decision as quickly as possible that it does not agree with such a military adventure.”

Fico, often considered a voice of dissent against the increasingly Russophobic tilt of the European Union, took the opportunity to criticize the tenor of debate surrounding the subject. “If you are in favor of peace and stopping the killing of Slavs, you are Putin's man,” Fico observed, responding to frequent characterizations of himself as an ally of the Russian president. “If you are in favor of killing and involving the EU and NATO in the war in Ukraine, you are in the right place.”

The Prime Minister claimed there is no military solution to the Donbass conflict and urged negotiations for a peaceful settlement.

“I refuse to have an iron curtain built between the EU and the Russian Federation,” said Fico in remarks made late last week.

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🇷🇺🗳 Putin leads the Russian presidential election with 87.31% of the vote after 99.70% of the ballots have been processed, according to the Central Election Commission.

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🔺The latest results of Russian presidential election.

🔺What awaits Russia under Putin’s new term? Scott Ritter shares his view

🔺The record turnout in Russian presidential election is ‘powerful endorsement of Putin’s leadership’

🔺What unites Russian people behind Putin?

🔺Ex-CIA officer explains what earned Putin animosity in the West

🔺Putin’s victory to ensure Russia's economic rise and military-technical development, experts agree

🔺Putin’s speech at his election HQ after the results showed his landslide victory

🔺What did Putin tell the media at his election campaign headquarters?

🔺What is Putin’s stance on the likelihood of a conflict between Russia and NATO?

🔺If our enemy likes a ‘meat grinder’, we are ok with that, Putin said

🔺How much is to buy a mail-in ballot in the US? Putin knows the answer.

🔺Putin: Taiwan is part of China

🔺Looking back: how Putin faced the challenges and triumphs that marked his decades-long leadership.

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Who has already congratulated Putin on his victory:

🇻🇪 Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro congratulated his Russian counterpart on winning the presidential election: "Our hugs to all the Russian people and the United Russia party," he wrote on X.

🇰🇵 North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent congratulations to Putin via the DPRK embassy in Russia, Korean media reported.

🇳🇮 Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega called Putin's victory "a contribution to the necessary stability for humanity."

🇧🇴 Bolivian President Luis Arce congratulated Putin on the "resounding victory," saying it "confirms the unity of the brave Russian people around their sovereignty."

🇹🇯 The President of Tajikistan, Emomali Rahmon, sent a congratulatory telegram in which he emphasized the "high political authority and broad support of Russian society for Putin's course of state."

🇻🇦 Pope Francis has congratulated Vladimir Putin on his re-election as president of Russia, demonstrating that the Holy See's approach to Russia and the Ukraine conflict differs from that of the collective West.

🇨🇺The head of Cuban diplomacy, Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, said that Putin's re-election primarily represents "convincing proof of the recognition of the country's leadership by the Russian people."

🇺🇿Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev congratulates Putin on his convincing election victory.

▪️The head of the autonomous region of Gagauzia, Evgenia Gutsul, congratulated Putin on his "convincing victory" in the Russian presidential elections and thanked him once again for his attention to the autonomy.

🇲🇲 Myanmar's Prime Minister Min Aung Hlaing expressed his full support for Russia's foreign policy course and the President of the Russian Federation, in his opinion, Putin's victory speaks of the popular support of the Russians.

🇭🇳 The leader of Honduras, Ciomara Castro, in a congratulatory message called Putin's victory convincing.

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📹💥The Su-34 destroyed the Ukrainian command post with M62 bombs with universal planning and correction modules, the Russian Defense Ministry reported.

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Russia's air defense system destroyed 10 Vampire MLRS rockets fired from Ukraine over Russia's Belgorod region at about 9:30 a.m. Moscow time, the Russian Defense Ministry reported.

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Construction of the largest NATO base in Europe, at a cost of 2.5 billion euros, has begun in Romania, Euronews reported.

The base will cover an area of 2,800 hectares and have a total perimeter of 30 kilometers. Up to 10,000 NATO troops and their families will be able to live there permanently.

According to Euronews, he new base is almost 20% larger than Europe's largest air base, Ramstein in Germany.

Situated on a mountain plateau, the facility will become the command center for NATO forces in Southeastern Europe and a serious springboard for the Alliance in the Black Sea region.

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🗳🇷🇺 Latest results of the vote count.

A quarter of a percent remains to be counted.

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The Chinese Foreign Ministry congratulated Putin on his victory: "We are confident that relations between Russia and China will continue to develop."

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🇨🇳🇷🇺China highly appreciates the position of the Russian president on Taiwan - Chinese Foreign Ministry.

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WATCH LIVE: Chairwoman of the Central Election Commission Ella Pamfilova holds a meeting on voting in the presidential elections in Russia in 2024.

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⚡️Voter turnout in the last elections was a record in the history of modern Russia: More than 87.1 million Russians came to the polling stations, that is, 77.44% of voters, Chairwoman of the Central Election Commission Ella Pamfilova said.

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⚡️In the West, they impose the myth that elections in the Russian Federation are "not free," but we are convinced that our country is free, Chairwoman of the Central Election Commission Ella Pamfilova said.

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⚡️Russia's Central Elections Committee head Pamfilova: 99.74% of the ballots have already been introduced into the State automated system "Vybory (lit. -Elections)"

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President of Iran has congratulated Putin on his reelection – Iranian embassy in Moscow.

❗️The official meeting of the Central Election Commission on the results of the presidential elections will be held on Thursday, Pamfilova said, adding that at the moment the precinct commissions across the country have almost completed their work.

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⚡️These elections are unprecedented in the intensity of external aggressive influence, head of the Central Election Commission.

The most striking difference between these elections and the previous ones are the DDOS attacks: there were 150 times more than usual, Pamfilova added.

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"There has never been such a turnout in the history of modern Russia," Pamfilova commented on the turnout for the 2024 Russian presidential elections.

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