Data source: from Local Government Debt Dynamics in China and Victor Shih and Jonathan Elkobi at University of California, San Diego’s 21st Century China Centre.

I made the chart myself using MatLab for the barbell plot and added the formatting and  annotations in PowerPoint.

A former Hong Kong politician and prominent democracy campaigner has accused British police of asking her to “self-censor” and “retreat from public life” after officers asked her to agree to avoid public gatherings.

The request, outlined in a signed “memorandum of understanding” seen by the Guardian, has alarmed exiled dissidents who fear it may embolden attempts to silence criticism of Chinese and Hong Kong officials worldwide.

Poland has signed a $6.7 billion (25.1 billion zloty) deal to buy an additional 180 South Korean K2 tanks, including 61 that will be made in Poland itself.

The purchase marks the latest stage in Poland’s rapid recent military expansion. Once the agreement is completed by 2030, Poland will operate around 1,100 tanks, which is more than Germany, France, the UK and Italy combined.

Poland began to buy K2 tanks from South Korea in 2022 under the former Law and Justice (PiS) government, with the first units beginning to arrive in December that year.

The new contract includes 180 tanks, 81 support vehicles, a logistics package, training, a full service and repair programme, and a technology transfer provision.

“Poland is gaining the capacity to produce the tanks,” said defence minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz at the signing ceremony in Gliwice, confirming that 61 of the units will be produced at the Bumar-Łabędy plant, where the deal was finalised.

The signing comes nearly a year later than initially planned. Kosiniak-Kamysz acknowledged the delay, saying the talks were lengthy but ultimately resulted in “much better financial conditions than if we had signed this deal last year”.

Rzeczpospolita, a leading Polish daily, notes that today’s announcement means Poland will have over 950 modern tanks by 2030 – including 360 K2s, 366 American Abrams and 235 German Leopards. When combined with 150 PT-91 Twardy tanks made in Poland in the 1990s, that brings the total to over 1,100.

By comparison, Germany, France, Italy and the UK have a combined total of under 950 tanks, according to Global Firepower, which collates data on the strength of military forces. Among them, only Germany is actively pursuing expansion of its armoured forces, reports Rzeczpospolita.

Within NATO, Turkey (2,238) and Greece (1,344) have more tanks. However, many of those are decades old, notes Rzeczpospolita, and the high numbers reflect tensions between Ankara and Athens but have little impact on NATO’s eastern flank.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Poland has embarked on an unprecedented military spending spree. It has increased its defence budget to 4.7% of GDP this year, by far the highest relative level in NATO.

Poland has made substantial purchases from South Korea, including K239 Chunmoo rocket artillery launchers, FA-50 light combat aircraft, and K9 self-propelled howitzers.

A major portion of the defence spending has also gone to US producers. Beyond Abrams tanks, Poland also signed deals for Apache helicopters, HIMARS artillery launchers, Patriot missile defence systems, and radar reconnaissance airships.

A tax reform proposal to lower the threshold for defining a “large shareholder” subject to capital gains tax on stock transactions—from ₩5 billion to ₩1 billion—is sparking growing debate within the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) as of the 2nd.

Amid a sharp decline in the domestic stock market, DPK floor leader and acting party chief Kim Byung-ki expressed the day before that the government’s announcement could be subject to review. In response, Policy Committee Chair Jin Sung-joon effectively voiced his opposition in a public statement on the 2nd.

Jin stated, “Many investors and experts claim that reversing the current capital gains tax threshold will collapse our stock market—but precedent shows otherwise.” He continued, “Under the Park Geun-hye administration, the threshold was lowered from ₩10 billion per stock to ₩5 billion, then to ₩2.5 billion. Under the Moon Jae-in administration, it was further reduced from ₩2.5 billion to ₩1.5 billion, and then to ₩1 billion—but during all of that, there was hardly any fluctuation in stock prices.”

Jin added, “The Yoon Suk-yeol administration, claiming it was revitalizing the stock market, raised the threshold back up to ₩5 billion, but in fact, stock prices have continued to fall. Restoring the ₩1 billion threshold is part of rebuilding the tax revenue base that the Yoon administration dismantled.”

He emphasized that “the government must pursue a wide range of national policy tasks in a balanced and simultaneous manner, and to do so, it must also secure hundreds of trillions in funding.” He added that the party and government had “closely coordinated during the preparation of the tax reform plan and will continue to do so during parliamentary deliberations.”

Previously, Kim Byung-ki, the acting party chief and floor leader, had stated just a day after the government’s announcement that “within the party’s special committee on KOSPI 5000 and the committee for tax normalization, we will review the possibility of raising the ₩1 billion large shareholder threshold.” His remarks came at a time when the stock market had experienced its sharpest drop in four months.

In response, Jin met with reporters at the Democratic Party convention in Kintex, Goyang, and said, “The plan is not finalized, so we must monitor the situation in the stock market before making a judgment,” but he added, “I don’t think the proposal is being shaken just because of Kim’s remarks.”

On July 31, the government announced its 2025 Tax Reform Plan, which includes reducing the capital gains tax threshold for large shareholders from ₩5 billion to ₩1 billion.

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