As Chinese investment pours into the EU, the Europeans are beginning to worry

I highly recommend Yannis Varoufakis&#x27; books, especially Adults in the Room. Varoufakis was the Syriza finance minister who resigned when Tsipras caved to Eurogroup pressure to accept another &quot;extend-and-pretend&quot; bailout (as in, extend the debt maturity, pretend that Greece will be able to pay when it comes due). At one point, as Varoufakis tells it, the Chinese informally committed to provide a large investment that would have allowed Greece to exert more bargaining power vs. the Eurogroup in debt negotiations. It was a good deal for Greece and China, but someone in the EU bureaucracy pressured China not to go forward with the deal -- the reason being that the Eurogroup wanted to preserve its own power to force extreme austerity on Greece in perpetuity.<p>Now of course this is just regurgitating Varoufakis&#x27; description, but I find it rather compelling. China is only a small player in the Greek debt drama, but it seems to me that they are one of the few friends that Greece has that is both willing and able to play a helpful role.<p>(But limited by political considerations within Europe itself!)

And Africa, the pacific and everywhere else. No doubt the long term goal is to colonize the world.<p>And they’re clever enough to do it slowly, lots of small transgressions, giving each time to be accepted before moving on to the next quiet domination. Perfect example is taking control of the South China Sea.<p>And they’re smart enough to colonize in the most modern of ways...... buy the politicians and thereby remove all possibility of government resistance.

Sometimes it&#x27;s hard to tell when propaganda begins and ends.<p>10 years ago, the media was scaremongering over chinese investment in brazil. I remember thinking that china was buying brazil and then I found out that the largest foreign investors in brazil was the US and the netherlands and china was a distant third. Don&#x27;t remember reading articles about how we were taking over brazil or how the dutch were though.<p>5 years ago, the media was scaremongering over chinese investment in africa. Oh no, china is taking over africa. Turns the largest investor in africa was the EU by far and that european business dominated the african market. Also, there was hysteria over china leasing farmland in africa. Turns out the saudis, koreans and a bunch of other countries also lease land all over the world.<p>Now it&#x27;s the chinese investment in the EU. Nevermind that the EU is a much larger economy than china and the EU invests far more in china than vice versa. I mean come on.

&gt;Last year Greece stopped the European Union from criticising China’s human-rights record at a UN forum. Hungary and Greece prevented the EU from backing a court ruling against China’s expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea.<p>Maybe if the EU hadn&#x27;t forced Greece to sell their largest port to the highest bidder they&#x27;d do better. Some German lobbyists thought they&#x27;d get it for pennies, then the Chinese stepped in and bought it for a half-decent price. Also Greece, Hungary and Czech Republic would be much fonder of the &quot;European&quot; side (a euphemism for &quot;Franco-German Bank interests&quot; at this point) if they weren&#x27;t treated like second-class colonies to be milked and dumped to the trash.<p>I can assure you that the cental European lobbies will abuse the periphery up until the very last drop of patience runs out.<p>In this case, they lost a piece of the carcass they were tearing up because they were too sure no other preditors were around. But if they keep pushing the smallest countries this way, nobody will care about allegiance to &quot;Europe&quot; (whatever that means) in the future. I wish the US would step in and stop them from destroying the EU, but I guess they don&#x27;t care much, which is disappointing.

<i>The Czech president, Milos Zeman, wants his country to be China’s “unsinkable aircraft-carrier” in Europe.</i><p>I understand a fuller quote is &quot;an unsinkable aircraft carrier of Chinese investment expansion&quot;. We have not yet reached the point where the ambition of European countries is to become a military base for China.

&quot;Last year Greece stopped the European Union from criticising China’s human-rights record at a UN forum. Hungary and Greece prevented the EU from backing a court ruling against China’s expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea. Faced with such behaviour, it is only prudent for Europeans to be nervous.&quot;<p>Well that&#x27;s one way of saying thanks for all those bailouts they received...

This is what you need a union for. We have a union. So instead of a single country being blacklisted from trade or diplomatic relations due to criticizing China (e.g on human rights) it should just do so as a union. China obviously can’t blacklist the EU.<p>A good first step would be for the EU to put its foot down and recognize Taiwan as an independent state with full diplomatic relations. As it stands, no individual country dares do it.

Interesting how everyone was in favour of FDI when it was flowing out of Europe and the US into Africa and South America, and now people are admitting that the downside is loss of autonomy?

2018: Greece accepts billions in loans from China, despite clear EU warnings.<p>2028: Greece wants help from EU after China strongarms it over loans. &quot;Why does the EU do nothing to help us?&quot;

Interesting overview of China as &quot;an island.&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;worldview.stratfor.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;geopolitics-china-great-power-enclosed" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;worldview.stratfor.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;geopolitics-china-gre...</a>

Huh. Is it really valid to think of investment or cash as tainted by the norms that they originate from, affecting the characteristic parameters of the system it flows into (norms of the institutions and people in the EU)? In what manner is it valid to think of the trojan-horse-cash as spreading, like a dirac pulse which only affects the first node touched by it (the person or institution who gets the cash), or as something with a long half-life, which spreads widely and with a lot of influence once in the system?

In Portugal we sold our electric grid and production. Lol.

&gt; Some Europeans take this to suggest that China is a useful counterweight to an unpredictable Uncle Sam. That is misguided.<p>Although misguided, it is quite easy to understand citizens&#x27; anti-Americanism which is borne out of effects they experience compared to China&#x27;s relatively domestic-only policies. Right or wrong aside, this has always been the cost of globalism and projection. I don&#x27;t think it helps to present it as an either-or, weight-counterweight situation (which the article doesn&#x27;t do and is warning against of course).<p>&gt; Transparency should be demanded [...]<p>I&#x27;ve found this is just too much to ask anyone dealing with China. I don&#x27;t care if you&#x27;re Marriott or Apple or a politician or whoever, the leverage of an entire country weighed against your ability to even disagree publicly is an unfair fight. Sadly, if you want to demand transparency you are in effect forcefully removing a market. Consumers and journalists are going to have to just continue naming and shaming, which does little good, until that transparency is demanded of the true oppressor.<p>&gt; That is misguided [...] however much Europeans may dislike the occupant of the White House.<p>&gt; Ideally the Trump administration would stop treating Europeans as free-riders on American power who deserve a good kicking.<p>While ideal, sure, I think the author should heed their own thoughts on not focusing too much on the current occupant. In general US policy has no anti-EU slant (though the inverse seems less true).

I have not read a single economist.com article in the last couple of months but the paywall tells me I&#x27;ve reached my limit. How badly can your paywall be implemented? This is I guess the most disencouraging thing from me getting a paid subscription.<p>Anyone else having the same issue?

The future is agreeable and unanimous.

Ah, cool, China bashing in HN again. These kind of things usually drop out of the homepage in seconds, if it is US- or UK-related, with the usual off topic arguments.<p>Let&#x27;s call it as it is: HN is a political instrument for anglocentric views. Not a particularly strong one, since topics are usually not about politics, but biased nontheless.<p>Which is fine, but let&#x27;s stop denying it.

Pity. Your worries actually come from not facts, but imagination. Just replace China with US in those sentences, much less worries will be arisen. Furthermore, there&#x27;s no facts about China&#x27;s threat emerging yet, compared to US&#x2F;NATO&#x27;s several military operations against quite a few sovereignties, and numerous military bases all over the world, which ensure their bombs to blow your bedroom wherever you are within 1 hour. Just be honest to your heart. You feel worries merely because they are yellow while you are white, and that uncomfortableness needs some time to be relieved.