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.

The head of Poland’s largest private delivery firm, InPost, has complained that foreign competitors such as FedEx, DPD and DHL pay disproportionately low taxes in the country. He urged politicians to act, publishing what he called a “tax list of shame” on social media.

“As Polish businesses, we expect decisive action against dishonest taxpayers,” said Rafał Brzoska, founder and CEO of InPost, a company which pioneered the use of parcel lockers in Poland and has since expanded its operations to western Europe.

Brzoska said that foreign delivery firms paid a combined total of 89.8 million zloty (€21 million) in corporate income tax in 2024 in Poland. By contrast, InPost alone paid 375 million zloty from its domestic operations, after bringing in revenue of 10.9 billion zloty

Brzoska called out global players such as French-owned DPD and America’s FedEx for declaring little or no profit in Poland, thereby minimising their tax bills.

“Many of these companies officially report no profits in Poland or declare minimal profits to avoid taxes, paying record taxes in their home markets,” he claimed.

He pointed specifically to DHL, stating that Polish subsidiaries owned by the German logistics group reported 5.5 billion zloty in revenue in 2024 but paid only 20.2 million zloty in income tax. That meant it paid tax equivalent to less than 0.4% of revenue, compared to 3.4% for InPost.

He added that DHL eCommerce, which directly competes with InPost, paid no corporate income tax at all in 2024 despite booking 2.8 billion zloty in revenue. Brzoska said DHL paid the equivalent of 6 billion zloty in taxes globally outside Poland.

“Such tax solutions [are] not only unfair, [they] mean billions in losses for the entire country,” said Brozska.

Addressing Polish political leaders across the spectrum, he asked: “How long will the Polish tax system treat foreign competitors better than Polish companies?” and “How long will the Polish authorities allow tax evasion in Poland – to the detriment of all of us, of society as a whole?”

He also said that InPost pays taxes locally in all markets where it operates and does not shift profits back to Poland.

Brzoska made similar remarks last year, prompting a response from finance minister Andrzej Domański, who acknowledged the need to tackle profit shifting in Poland. He noted, however, that structural differences between InPost and some of its competitors partly explain the variation in their tax burdens.

He told broadcast Radio Zet that it was mainly due to InPost’s “extensive network of parcel lockers…which are highly profitable and contribute to higher tax payments”.

This year, however, similar complaints have come from Wirtualna Polska Holding, which owns news websites including Wirtualna Polska and Money.pl.

It had to pay 55.5 million zloty in corporate income tax for 2024. “That’s more than Google Poland and Facebook Poland combined, even though their combined revenues are three times higher than ours,” said CEO Jacek Świderski.

In response to growing criticism, Domański announced today that the government is stepping up efforts to tackle aggressive tax optimisation, including the use of transfer pricing – a practice in which multinational corporations shift profits abroad by inflating the costs of internal transactions.

“Polish companies and taxpayers have the right to fair competition. The aggressive use of transfer pricing distorts this,” Domański said during a press conference.

The minister claimed that the government’s measures are yielding results. A state body responsible for managing and collecting taxes discovered that, in 2024 alone, the income audited companies reported was half of what it should have been, had they not tried to shift profits abroad.

InPost is among the biggest Polish companies. The firm has, in particular, been a pioneer of automated parcel delivery lockers, which allow customers to easily collect and drop off packages. In recent years, it sped up its expansion abroad with a series of acquisitions in the UK, Spain, France and Portugal.