China Economy: News & Discussion

MiG-29SMT

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We spoke with the president of the National Chamber of Commerce, Services and Tourism, José Rodríguez Cárdenas, about the invasion of Chinese products in the Historic Center of Mexico City. Generating losses of up to 100 billion Pesos are reported.
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EFE Agency
January 24, 2024 3 min read
In this article:

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Mexico City, Jan 23 (EFE).- Electronic commerce through Chinese platforms such as Alibaba, Shein and Temu has affected the sales of department stores and supermarkets in Mexico and has even affected tax collection in the country due to practices unorthodox and disloyal, denounced this Tuesday the National Association of Self-Service and Department Stores (Antad).

The executive president of Antad, Diego Cosío, pointed out that these Asian companies take advantage of schemes for individuals that allow them to import products without paying tariffs and taxes.

Manuel Cardona, director of Government Relations at Antad, explained that these players are not orthodox in complying with their tax obligations and declare the entry of products below $50.

Which allows them to import without paying taxes, tariffs and even bypassing official Mexican regulations that may be related to safety or health compliance.

“This is for the purchases that all of us make in our daily lives and there are players, mainly Asians, who take advantage of this scheme, not correctly declaring imports. For example, I can buy something for 500 or 1,000 dollars, they put the request that is 49.99 dollars, it happens with this tax benefit, compliance with regulations,” he commented.

In accordance with the Mexico, United States and Canada Treaty (T-MEC), products of origin with a value of up to $50 are allowed to enter the country exempt from paying tariffs and value added tax (VAT), while The limit for 'duty free' shipments is up to $117.

Cardona emphasized that this not only represents an impact on businesses and stores established in Mexico, but also represents an impact on the Mexican Government and the public treasury, since taxes are no longer collected.
"But there is a fourth affected and it is probably the most affected, which is the consumer, because this product does not comply with official Mexican standards for commercial information, safety (among others)," he added.

That is why the representatives of ANTAD detailed that they already work hand in hand with Mexican authorities with the aim of generating equal conditions for all companies and businesses that operate in the country.

“The only objective is to have an even playing field, so that we all pay what we have to pay and the most important thing is that we always make products of the highest quality and price possible available to the consumer,” he said.

In this sense, they also revealed that in two weeks they will meet with authorities from the Secretariats of Economy and Finance and Public Credit, as well as the Tax Administration Service (SAT) and the Federal Consumer Prosecutor's Office (Profeco).

Cosío also specified that, although they have not quantified the damage to the public treasury due to taxes that are not paid or the damage to Mexican commerce, they are aware of the speed of growth of platforms such as Temu, Shein and Alibaba in electronic commerce. .

Insecurity is also a problem to address

For his part, Cardona also highlighted that insecurity also affects retail sales, with more than 68,890 events in 2023.

He said that the losses represented 1.17% of his total sales last year, due to up to 26 incidents, such as robbery with violence, counterfeiting, extortion, theft of merchandise in stores, among others.

 
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MiG-29SMT

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May 13, 2024, 12:20

BY:
Ramon Ramirez

GUSTAVO A. MADERO, Mexico City.- Just a few days before a warehouse and commercial establishment with Chinese products opens, merchants from Gustavo A. Madero are dissatisfied and are blocking roads to demand its immediate closure.

The vendors in the Gabriel Hernández Market area decided to close the crossing from Centenario Avenue to the intersection with Ferrocarril Hidalgo, as a measure of pressure for the authorities to attend to them.

They assure that this is unfair competition and that they have remained for decades serving the inhabitants of the area of the Town of Santiago Atzacoalco and surrounding neighborhoods and that with the launch of the establishment with Chinese products, their sales would decrease.

Staff from the Gustavo A. Madero mayor's office, from the Government Directorate area, arrived at the location and were offered to carry out a verification of the warehouse and verify that it complies with all the required regulations.

In this regard, the merchants view this proposal with good will, however, they assure that they will not remove the blockade until they put closure seals on the commercial establishment.


Mexico loses millions of pesos due to ILLEGAL Chinese and Korean MERCHANDISE | MLDA | Complete Program 06/18
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MiG-29SMT

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New tariffs on Chinese imports in Mexico raised costs for Chinese companies producing in Tijuana.

The city faces a severe shortage of industrial space and logistics and infrastructure limitations. Rising wages and the appreciation of the Mexican peso make production even more expensive. Chinese companies are looking for alternative markets while waiting for the cities in northern Mexico to offer better conditions.
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These developments mainly benefit the neighboring United States, which is putting pressure on the Mexican Government to reduce the massive arrival of Chinese products to its market.
 

rockdog

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So in your book , civilian & military applications are the same , is it ? Good. When are you deploying the COMAC C - 919 for bombing missions ?
I mean, the European are the same, they imported drones from Shenzhen in the name of civil use, but then most of them will be in Ukriane.
 

rockdog

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I think most people here do not fall for their CCP trolls propaganda, In democracies there is many problems, repression and propaganda but in dictatorships is worst, to be honest most prople here do not beleive such CCP propaganda.
In many countries there are troubles but in dictatorships there is only one story, in democracies at least you have 2 or more stories of events
Actually, after Chinese government provide 14 days visa free to EU nations, people for western mostly gave very good feedback, which saved lots of "propaganda fee" from CCP.




 

rockdog

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Thanks for confirming that isIam is banned in occupied East Turkestan and has been turned to parody. Although I am happy china had the courage and ability to do the needful.
Not banned, but managing them. No body likes this religion in China, but you have to find way to force them peaceful anyway.

Actually, after Chinese government provide 14 days visa free to EU nations, people for western mostly gave very good feedback, which saved lots of "propaganda fee" from CCP.





Even lots Indian came there.



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MiG-29SMT

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Actually, after Chinese government provide 14 days visa free to EU nations, people for western mostly gave very good feedback, which saved lots of "propaganda fee" from CCP.




he Great Wall of China is one of the country’s best-known landmarks, designed to safeguard China’s people and national identity. But the country now has a more modern twist and, though it’s built far differently than its historical counterpart, it’s underpinned by many of the same reasons.
We’re talking about the Great Firewall of China – the colloquial term for the country’s extensive and globally unparalleled regime of internet censorship and control. With the aim of suppressing dissenting voices, maintaining social stability and promoting domestic companies, China’s digital Great Wall has blocked more than 8,000 websites to date.
And chances are, some of your favourites are among them. So below, we’re exploring the most prominent websites blocked in China in 2023 – as well as the ones that aren’t.
We’ll run you through why China bans websites and how – whether you’re heading to China on work or business, or reside there already – you can safely circumvent this censorship using a virtual private network (VPN) to retain access to the sites you need to live and work.
Why are websites banned in China?
The Chinese government blocks some websites (and censors material on others) for a variety of political, socio-cultural, and economic reasons.
Political reasons
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has retained leadership of the country since 1949, maintaining a one-party socialist system and holding firm over China’s political, economic and social structures. In 2023, China is, in international terms, officially considered a communist country, with the CCP limiting its citizens’ freedom of expression, assembly and association, and keeping an iron grip upon its political power.
To do this, the CCP must restrict the flow and spread of any information that contradicts its own views, policies, ideology or authority. This is why the CCP censors websites that criticise its government, or that promote democracy, human rights, or independence movements.
The CCP also blocks websites discussing sensitive issues from China’s past, including:

  • The Tiananmen Square protests: A series of pro-democracy protests in Beijing, in which the Chinese government – branding the protests a “counter-revolutionary riot” – killed or injured many of the protesters.
  • Tibetan independence: The CCP views Tibet – an autonomous region in southwest China with a long history of seeking independence from Chinese rule – as an integral part of its territory. It moves to quickly censor any information about Tibet (and its exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama) to quash discussions about its political status, human rights issues and cultural suppression.
  • Xinjiang: This autonomous region in northwest China is home to the Uighur ethnic minority – a people the CCP are oppressing through mass detentions, forced labour and cultural suppression. The Chinese government denies any allegations of human rights violations, instead framing its actions within a narrative of counter-terrorism and deradicalisation.
In modern China, the CCP retains strict control over all media, the internet, and public discourse within the country to maintain political stability and prevent the dissemination of views that contradict its own.
Social and cultural reasons
The CCP uses internet censorship to maintain social stability, blocking content that might incite protests, strikes, demonstrations or other forms of civil unrest.
Being a country with a diverse array of ethnic groups, cultural identities and languages, China also blocks any content promoting separatist movements or advocating for greater independence in autonomous regions (such as Tibet and Xinjiang). It wants a unified national identity and to promote perceptions of a single, unassailable China.
What’s more, China’s government censors content it deems at odds with its traditional values, blocking content it deems morally or culturally inappropriate to maintain a level of social conservatism. This includes pornography and any LGBTQIA+ content.
Economic reasons
While China’s censorship policies predominantly relate to political and social reasons, there are many economic motivations for it, too.
By censoring foreign-owned apps and websites, China protects and promotes domestic internet and technology companies.
Instead of WhatsApp, China has Tencent-owned WeChat; in lieu of Slack, it has Alibaba-owned DingTalk; rather than Wikipedia, it has Baidu-owned Baidu Baike. With homegrown giants dominating China’s tech space, the government can spur job creation, economic growth and increased tax revenue.
There’s also an argument that, by controlling online content, the Chinese government can ensure its online marketplaces operate smoothly and without disruption, engendering consumer trust and contributing to the growth of its digital economy.
The bottom line, though? That, while no companies operating in China can refuse to comply with China’s content censorship, foreign businesses can at least choose not to offer their services to its market. China’s domestic companies, however, don’t have this luxury; so, by blocking popular companies from overseas, China incentivises the businesses it does have under its control to profit – while remaining firmly under its thumb.
Top 10 websites banned in China
The top 10 websites, apps and tools banned in China are:
  1. The BBC
  2. Instagram
  3. Gmail
  4. Spotify
  5. Wikipedia
  6. WhatsApp
  7. YouTube
  8. Snapchat
  9. Quora
  10. Slack
1. BBC
BBC banned in China
BBC World News has been banned in China since 2021 (Adobe)
In 2021, China blocked the BBC from broadcasting to its citizens – banning BBC World News from Chinese airwaves.
At the time, the BBC had been reporting on a range of issues highly sensitive to China, including the alleged torture and rape of Uighur people in “re-education” camps, as well as the country’s aggressive coronavirus testing policies and misreporting of Covid-19 death figures.
Soon after, the UK’s media regulator, Ofcom withdrew China’s licence to broadcast its English language news channel, CGTN, in the UK. In a statement, Ofcom said CGTN is “ultimately controlled by the Chinese Communist Party”, and accused it of filing misleading statements regarding its ownership.
Among analysts – who concluded that, since BBC World News was already heavily censored in China, the move won’t have a huge impact – the BBC’s censorship is considered more a political, rather than a media-related move; a kind of ‘warning shot’ from the CCP reminding foreign news outlets that reporting that contrasts with China’s own views won’t be tolerated.
This principle has also seen the CCP block a huge range of other Western media outlets, and it reads like a who’s who of global news: CNN, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, TIME, The Guardian, and the New York Times are all unavailable in mainland China.
2. Instagram
China began blocking Instagram (albeit intermittently) in 2014, and the American image- and video-sharing social media app has been blocked full-time in China since September 2014 as part of its ongoing crackdown against Western forms of social media.
It’s a ban that, at the time of writing, also includes:
  • Facebook
  • X (formerly Twitter)
  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr
  • AO3
  • Reddit
Blocked amidst the rise of the Hong Kong protests of September to December 2014 – and the associated Umbrella Movement – China’s Instagram ban is in place to block the spread of potentially anti-Chinese content its users post. Censoring each piece of Instagram content as it comes through – the daily 1.3 billion images, 100 million posts, and more than a billion stories – would be impossible; a blanket ban is far easier.
3. Gmail
Following a spate of mysterious service interruptions, China’s Gmail users were abruptly – and finally – cut off from the popular email service in December 2014.
The block (which also includes Google Play and G Suite apps such as Drive, Docs, Sheets, Calendar and Maps) has its antecedents in a spat between Google and the Chinese government in 2010.
Google, when asked by the CCP to censor its search results for Chinese users, refused, upping sticks from its Beijing office and swiftly setting up shop over in Hong Kong.
Google and China have endured a strained relationship ever since. The biggest impact of the argument, however, has been the Chinese people – who miss out on an email service relied on by around 1.8 billion people worldwide.
Some of Google’s services remain, though – albeit in a censored form. China’s internet users can still access Google’s search engine from the mainland, but they’ll be redirected to its Hong Kong service (Google.com.hk), and the results they receive will be censored by the CCP.
Gmail and the G Suite range join a glut of other productivity apps – including Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, and Hootsuite – in being banned in mainland China.
4. Spotify
With more than 551 million monthly listeners as of Q2 2023, Spotify is the most popular music streaming service in the world. Yet, it registers these totals without mainland China-based listeners – for whom Spotify has been blocked since October 2008 ( just two years after Spotify was founded in 2006).
China has a long history of blocking foreign services that could pose competition to its own domestic alternatives. In this case, that alternative is QQ Music, China’s foremost music streaming service, which is owned by the Tencent Music Entertainment Group.
5. Wikipedia
After going live in May 2001, the Chinese Wikipedia – Wikipedia as the Western world knows it, but in written vernacular Chinese (a form of Mandarin) – was first blocked on 3 June 2004. Just 19 days later, access was mysteriously restored, before disappearing again (this time for just four days) in September that year.
Wikipedia was shuttered by China again in October 2005, before a convoluted decade of blocking, unblocking and availability with partial censorship. Ironically, there’s a whole essay on the topic on Wikipedia itself; albeit one inaccessible in China.
Since 2015, Wikipedia has been banned in mainland China. According to Wikipedia itself, this block is attributable to Wikipedia’s use of HTTPS encryption, which made it harder for the Chinese government to selectively censor Wikipedia’s content.
The free online encyclopaedia, which is maintained by its community of volunteers, attracts around 2 billion unique visits every month. Banning Wikipedia has enabled Baidu Baike (a Chinese-language internet encyclopaedia owned by Baidu, China’s 29th-largest company by market capitalisation) to thrive. Unlike Wikipedia, Baidu Baike complies with the CCP’s demands for censorship – so it’s easy to see why it’s the government’s preferred (and homegrown) option.
DuckDuckGo and Amazon Alexa are similar search engines blocked in China, while Bing is still available, albeit in a heavily censored form.
icons8-wikipedia-96


China hasn’t been alone in blocking Wikipedia. In 2013, Iran blocked at least 963 articles (including Emma Watson’s bio) citing moral and social objections, while in 2017, Turkey banned Wikipedia for almost three years in objection to a Wikipedia article on state-sponsored terrorism, which described Turkey as a sponsor for Al-Qaeda and Isis.
6. WhatsApp
Used by more than 2.7 billion people around the world every month, Meta-owned WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app in the world. Not so in China.
The CCP has joined fellow countries Syria, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, and the UAE by blocking WhatsApp in mainland China in 2017.
WhatsApp is blocked because it utilises end-to-end encryption to safeguard the privacy of its users’ messages – meaning the Chinese authorities can’t tap into them for a peek, or to censor their content.
Instead, most Chinese people communicate through WeChat, which boasts more than 1.32 billion active users. WeChat (which, like China’s Spotify-alternative QQ Music, is owned by Tencent) is subject to the stringent oversight of CCP’s internet censors and must comply with China’s intelligence laws. It’s yet another example of the Chinese government blocking Western apps in favour of its own companies – companies which, in turn, it can compel to cooperate with its authoritarian censorship regime.
In its ban by the Chinese authorities, WhatsApp is joined by fellow messaging apps Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Signal, Line, Viber, and the Korean app KaKao Talk.
7. YouTube
With Google on China’s red list, it comes as little surprise that one of the companies it owns – video-sharing colossus YouTube – is also blocked in China.
YouTube was first blocked in China for a five-month period between October 2007 to March 2008, before being banned again – this time indefinitely – from late March 2009.
The reasoning? That on YouTube, around 3.7 million new videos are uploaded each day – so censorship becomes, a logistical and resource-intensive nightmare, if not impossible. With much of the Western world – including many Chinese expatriates – critical of the state’s insular and oppressive political, social and economic policies, many take to video-sharing platforms, like YouTube, to share their views. And they’re not views China is willing to allow its citizens to entertain.
Along with YouTube, other video-sharing platforms banned in China include Vimeo, DailyMotion, Twitch and Periscope, plus music streaming services such as Pandora, Bandcamp and SoundCloud.
It isn’t just songs or videos being censored, either – but the written word, too. China has also banned its mainland-located citizens from accessing popular blogging platforms, including Medium and Blogspot, as well as non-privately hosted WordPress.com websites.
8. Snapchat


 

helin

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Chile’s RCEP application 'fresh sign' supporting globalization
By GT staff reportersPublished: Jun 16, 2024 07:44 PM
RCEP Photo:VCG

RCEP Photo:VCG
Chile has officially submitted an application to join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the world's largest free trade agreement (FTA), and it looks forward to becoming the first Latin American country to join the pact, the China Central Television (CCTV) reported on Sunday.

The application is being filed as the FTA ends its first full year of implementation, during which it promoted broader, higher-level and deeper regional cooperation and openness, while also bolstering confidence in the global economic recovery. These fruitful results are an important reason behind Chile's application, observers said.

Various industries from raw materials and agriculture to fishing in Chile will benefit greatly from joining the RCEP, analysts said. Chile's application also sends a fresh sign in promoting global free trade and multilateralism, despite certain countries' protectionist moves, they said.
 

MiG-29SMT

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it is funny how democracy and dictartorships mold people.

In Mexico there have been massacres by the governments, in 1968 there was a massacre in Mexico city.

for a while nobody could talk about it, there have been many massacres in modernt times in Mexico and a lot of repression and inpunity, however since parties change, before we were ruled by PRI, later PAN later Morena, each new government at least lets you critize the old government specially if it was from another party, for example Morena lets you talk about PRI and PAN governments and you can critize Morena because PAN and PRI still hold some power.

I mean Mexican politics are dirty, but compared to CCP the repression is not to that level.

Another thing I see is the atheist CCP governement has made people very materialistic, thus many Chinese are ultra materialistic and basically fanatics.

Some of the Chinese posters in this forum are like that, they think life is to eat and defecate, spirituality has none sense, thus they become the closer thing to fascists.

Will you change them, maybe not, the CCP is basically a rotten corrupt party.
 
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helin

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KEY TAKEAWAYS
China intends to build 150 new nuclear reactors between 2020 and 2035, with 27 currently under construction and the average construction timeline for each reactor about seven years, far faster than for most other nations.
China has commenced operation of the world’s first fourth-generation nuclear reactor, for which China asserts it developed some 90 percent of the technology.
China is leading in the development and launch of cost-competitive small modular reactors (SMRs).
Overall, analysts assess that China likely stands 10 to 15 years ahead of the United States in its ability to deploy fourth-generation nuclear reactors at scale.
China’s innovation strengths in nuclear power pertain especially to organizational, systemic, and incremental innovation. Many fourth-generation nuclear technologies have been known for years, but China’s state-backed approach excels at fielding them.
Analysts assess that America and China are likely at par when it comes to efforts to develop nuclear fusion technologies, but warn that China’s demonstrated ability to deploy fission reactors at scale gives it an advantage for when fusion comes online.
Looking narrowly at scientific publications on nuclear energy, China ranks first in the H-index, a commonly used metric measuring the scholarly impact of journal publications.
From 2008 to 2023, China’s share of all nuclear patents increased from 1.3 percent to 13.4 percent, and the country leads in the number of nuclear fusion patent applications.
 

srevster

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KEY TAKEAWAYS
China intends to build 150 new nuclear reactors between 2020 and 2035, with 27 currently under construction and the average construction timeline for each reactor about seven years, far faster than for most other nations.
China has commenced operation of the world’s first fourth-generation nuclear reactor, for which China asserts it developed some 90 percent of the technology.
China is leading in the development and launch of cost-competitive small modular reactors (SMRs).
Overall, analysts assess that China likely stands 10 to 15 years ahead of the United States in its ability to deploy fourth-generation nuclear reactors at scale.
China’s innovation strengths in nuclear power pertain especially to organizational, systemic, and incremental innovation. Many fourth-generation nuclear technologies have been known for years, but China’s state-backed approach excels at fielding them.
Analysts assess that America and China are likely at par when it comes to efforts to develop nuclear fusion technologies, but warn that China’s demonstrated ability to deploy fission reactors at scale gives it an advantage for when fusion comes online.
Looking narrowly at scientific publications on nuclear energy, China ranks first in the H-index, a commonly used metric measuring the scholarly impact of journal publications.
From 2008 to 2023, China’s share of all nuclear patents increased from 1.3 percent to 13.4 percent, and the country leads in the number of nuclear fusion patent applications.
Right before USSR collapse their manufacturing was 2x the size of USA.
 

helin

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China builds world's largest transport networks with record investment



China's transportation networks grew to over 6 million kilometers in length in 2023, with the world's largest high-speed rail network, expressway network, postal express delivery network and an interconnected network of world-class port facilities, according to a report released by the Ministry of Transport on Tuesday.
The country's transport sector has undergone rapid development, fueling robust transportation services that underpin China's economic growth. In 2023, the sector saw significant investment, with 3.91 trillion yuan ($539 billion) in fixed-asset investment, reflecting a 1.5-percent year-on-year increase, said the report.
This investment has yielded impressive results. By the end of 2023, China boasted the world's largest railway network, reaching 159,000 km in total length, with 45,000 km dedicated to high-speed travel. The country's extensive road network also saw significant expansion, reaching 5.44 million km, with 183,600 km of freeways. Additionally, China added five new commercial airports in 2023, bringing the total to 259, the report noted.
The year of 2023 wasn't just about building new infrastructure, it also focused on improving existing networks. The year saw a significant expansion of high-speed rail lines, with 2,776 km added, and expressway networks grew by 6,394 km through new construction and expansion projects. Rural areas also benefited, with 188,000 km of new or rebuilt roads completed, according to the report.
This robust infrastructure translates into real-world benefits. In 2023, China achieved a staggering 8.1 percent year-on-year increase in commercial freight transportation, reaching a total volume of 54.75 billion metric tonnes. Passenger movement also saw a significant surge, with cross-regional passenger trips reaching 61.29 billion, reflecting a remarkable 30.7 percent increase from the previous year, said the report.
The Ministry of Transport also highlighted the achievement of full postal service coverage in China, ensuring all established villages across the nation have access to essential postal services.

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rockdog

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Black Myth: Wukong has taken the top spot in the weekly Steam chart.


“Black Myth: Wukong” topped the global sales chart again for the second consecutive time, and the latest weekly sales chart of Steam is released – Passionategeekz

 

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