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Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

bbc.com

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Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#71

Post by echevil »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #64
coliveira wrote: post #57

China is doing what is a great advancement for the world: integrating east and west, and in the process bringing the long forgotten areas in the middle east into the world trading order. The more investment in the Silk road, the more we will have a robust economic system integrating countries that until now were forgotten by the previous world order.

A train road can't handle economic scale like ships can. The belt is a excuse for modern colonization through debts

Trains are way faster than ships and handles much bigger scale than airplanes

Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#72

Post by seppin »

throwawawua4234 wrote: post #16

Is there any knowledge on why East Asian Tiger economies do so well with state backing ? The major takeaway from the 'Princes of Yen' by Richard Werner is about how Japan soared from a destroyed country to an economic powerhouse, before being brought down by the bankers at the BOJ, ostensibly to change the system from a 'state backed economy' to a US-styled one. Ditto with the Asian tigers in Thailand, S Korea etc. S…

> Japan soared from a destroyed country to an economic powerhouse, before being brought down by the bankers at the BOJ, ostensibly to change the system from a 'state backed economy' to a US-styled one. Ditto with the Asian tigers in Thailand, S Korea etc.

You're talking about some of the most successful economies in the world, vs a China that grew a lot in a short time and now faces real problems (debt, slowdown, political crackdowns, etc.)

I'd still rather be a citizen of SK or Japan than China.

Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#73

Post by bilbo0s »

eastendguy wrote: post #48
ardy42 wrote: post #32

> "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 infl…

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...

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.

Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#74

Post by stefantalpalaru »

ReptileMan wrote: post #67
Leary wrote: post #26

If the US wants to counter China's Belt and Road Project, it should offer a suitable alternative instead of merely talking about how it's debt trap diplomacy.

Ahem, Marshall's plan? It also left the affected countries better off, not indebted (although I doubt that China will have many attached strings in Italy's case)

> Ahem, Marshall's plan? It also left the affected countries better off

There was a price to pay, though: secret paramilitary organisations operating outside the law, organising terror attacks and military coups in the "liberated" countries:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_military_junta_of_1967%E...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golpe_Borghese

Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#75

Post by sremani »

Leary wrote: post #26

If the US wants to counter China's Belt and Road Project, it should offer a suitable alternative instead of merely talking about how it's debt trap diplomacy.

Countering OBOR is only on the agenda of DoD and some policy wonks. What happened here ? Almost nothing.

An ailing economy that has high youth unemployment rate and anemic growth and cannot control its monetary policy is willing to take money from who ever is willing to give. Big Deal! When Italian Navy is doing war games with China.. call me.

This is a whole lot of symbolism and a costly one for those putting money. Its not Americans who do not want this dog and pony show, its the Germans.

Russians and Chinese are playing the same game, with different tactics and some elements of western media are eating it. They are weak internally and use these external symbolism as a "proof of strength" back home.

Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#76

Post by screye »

The biggest problem with the BRI initiative as sold by China, is it puts money in the hand of the least trusted entity with developing economies. The Government.

China for certain, knows that the optimistic promise of the BRI initiative will be met, and that they are trading long term debt with strong political influence.

What happened in Srilanka should be a warning to any other country intending to enter BRI.

There is a reason these countries would never start these projects without outside support. It is because, within the framework that the country operates, such a project will objectively speaking, never be profitable.

Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#77

Post by _ptgt »

Leary wrote: post #26

If the US wants to counter China's Belt and Road Project, it should offer a suitable alternative instead of merely talking about how it's debt trap diplomacy.

Right, Italy should leverage an Orwellian authoritarian regime to start a bidding war to build its infrastructure in exchange for implied future foreign relations favors and it's clearly the US's fault here for not playing its role as bidder.

Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#78

Post by bobthepanda »

throwawawua4234 wrote: post #16

Is there any knowledge on why East Asian Tiger economies do so well with state backing ? The major takeaway from the 'Princes of Yen' by Richard Werner is about how Japan soared from a destroyed country to an economic powerhouse, before being brought down by the bankers at the BOJ, ostensibly to change the system from a 'state backed economy' to a US-styled one. Ditto with the Asian tigers in Thailand, S Korea etc. S…

More state backing is great when starting out on the path because it’s relatively straightforward; provide education, infrastructure and stability and your country will take care of itself. You can even goose the figures a bit by boosting a select few companies to be your champions.

The problem is that as you get richer and move up the value chain, you start requiring industry that is more creative, or entirely new creative industries. When creativity is required state backing is horrible at picking winners. And then those industrial champions are now sucking up a lot of the capital within a country.

Eventually the champions become slow and sluggish. But they’re too big to fail; as an extreme example, Samsung’s revenues are 17% of South Korean GDP, to say nothing of their suppliers.

Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#79

Post by NicoJuicy »

echevil wrote: post #71
NicoJuicy wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A train road can't handle economic scale like ships can. The belt is a excuse for modern colonization through debts

Trains are way faster than ships and handles much bigger scale than airplanes

2 weeks by train is still no alternative for planes.

2 weeks is also no replacement for ships, because of scale. It's something in the middle where there is no alternative.

It's also insignificant alternative in the scale against ships.

Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#80

Post by outwebbyyou »

coliveira wrote: post #56
outwebbyyou wrote: post #20

Hmm. Italy allies with an evil dictatorship that has a concentration camps for millions of minorities, and prosecutes religion by shutting down churches and jailing pastors. Sounds familiar...

The US has allied itself with China since the 80s...

US declared China as main competitor last year (as declared by VP pence), enforced high tariffs as punishment on China, and the US military is on high alert with China as the main enemy focus for years to come. Because they realized Xi Jing Ping the dictator was a paradigm shift.

Europe is now just doing the paradigm shift, urging its member states to act as a unified front against China. Something that Canada, Australia, Japan, Taiwan, India, New Zealand, and Vietnam has started to do

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