←back to thread

Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

(www.bbc.com)
132 points pseudolus | 7 comments | 23 Mar 19 13:13 UTC | HN request time: 1.257s | source | bottom
Show context
ardy42 ◴[23 Mar 19 15:23 UTC] No.19470821[source]▶
> "The seemingly innocuous move comes at a sensitive time for Europe and the European Union, where there is suddenly a great deal of trepidation not only about China, but about working out how Europe or the EU should adapt and react to a changing world," Prof Frankopan told the BBC.

Forgive my ignorance, but aren't many EU decisions required to be unanimous? So if China has close ties to Italy, could it use it's influence to convince Italy to "veto" hypothetical EU sanctions against Chinese human rights violations or other actions that are good for the EU but against Chinese domestic and foreign policy?

replies(5): >>19470935 #>>19471254 #>>19471382 #>>19471702 #>>19472239 #
eastendguy ◴[23 Mar 19 15:54 UTC] No.19470935[source]▶
Yes. That is my major concern. In fact, it has already happened! We have already Greece (with its China owned ports) blocking an EU statement:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-un-rights/greece-block...

replies(1): >>19471138 #
bilbo0s ◴[23 Mar 19 16:38 UTC] No.19471138[source]▶
In fairness, from the perspective of the average Greek citizen, the EU thing hasn't worked out terribly well for their homeland.

In the West what we need is to restructure our facilities such that if you participate you will prosper. We need for everyone to prosper. Not necessarily equally, but what happened to Greece went beyond simply not prospering as much as other nations. It was legitimately negatively impacted. (A lot self inflicted, but a lot inflicted by the structure of Western trade facilities as well.)

Having mentioned all that, I grant you, having all parties prosper at EU scale is a little difficult to pull off.

replies(4): >>19471416 #>>19471500 #>>19472275 #>>19476627 #
1. makomk ◴[23 Mar 19 17:40 UTC] No.19471416[source]▶
Also, the whole reason Greek ports are owned by China in the first place is that Germany forced the Greek government to sell them off to the highest bidder as part of their great economic fucking-over of Greece. So it's hard to have a huge amount of sympathy if this causes headaches for the core EU states.
replies(2): >>19471576 #>>19471728 #
2. eastendguy ◴[23 Mar 19 18:11 UTC] No.19471576[source]▶
...or maybe the reason Greece does not have enough money is because rich Greek don't pay their taxes?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Greece#Lagarde_l...

3. BurningFrog ◴[23 Mar 19 18:41 UTC] No.19471728[source]▶
Germany only "forced" Greece in the sense that they didn't pay Greece's debts for them.
replies(2): >>19472257 #>>19472299 #
4. coldtea ◴[23 Mar 19 20:42 UTC] No.19472257[source]▶
And in many other ways, starting from the ECU era, but that's too subtle for modern readers...
5. sampo ◴[23 Mar 19 20:50 UTC] No.19472299[source]▶
> Germany only "forced" Greece in the sense that they didn't pay Greece's debts for them.

Germany (and France) also knowingly gave Greece lots of loans, when it was obvious to everyone that Greece will never be able to pay them all back.

replies(1): >>19472582 #
6. BurningFrog ◴[23 Mar 19 22:02 UTC] No.19472582{3}[source]▶
Germany the country, or private german banks?
replies(1): >>19472990 #
7. sampo ◴[23 Mar 19 23:48 UTC] No.19472990{4}[source]▶
German banks.