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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

#121

Post by coldtea »

devoply wrote: post #25
NicoJuicy wrote: post #21

The belt is an excuse they use for modern colonization by debts. Also, this deal is an entry in the EU which I really dislike. I hope the EU will step up it's game against china, too bad that our normal partner currently has an unstable leader. While XI is without a doubt a hard-working leader. Unfortunate, I do not approve their world vision, at all.

There should be a collective effort to put pressure on China to politically reform.

Isn't that up to its citizens? Was there a collective effort to get YOUR country to "politically reform"? Would you appreciate one?

Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#122

Post by ddebernardy »

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.

Like what? The current US position basically amounts to telling the international audience to be wary of China's payday loan scheme. Are you suggesting the US should get in the payday loan business too, as an incrementally (?) better alternative to China? Or are you suggesting there's a bipartisan majority in US Congress to hand out charity or low interest loans by increasing foreign aid?

Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#123

Post by Barrin92 »

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.

The US has an overwhelmingly domestic economy and export driven global infrastructure development isn't exactly an American strength. In so far as the US influences European or Asian countries it appears to be mostly by military, cultural or political means.

Up until now the US, economically, has mostly functioned as a consumer of European and Asian goods, so it is hard to imagine how they could offer an alternative to OBOR. For China it's a way to offload their export driven surplus and creating new markets, which is something that the US isn't really positioned to do.

Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#124

Post by sampo »

BurningFrog wrote: post #110
makomk wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Germany only "forced" Greece in the sense that they didn't pay Greece's debts for them.

> 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.

Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#125

Post by MagnumOpus »

oh_sigh wrote: post #120
jjcc wrote: post #116

There is some information that usually won't show up in BBC but discussed in other places which might worth some attention for HNers: Some part of the cooperation is on development of Africa which probabley is part of China's current plan or even part of OBOR. We know that Italy is major victim of the wave of iligle immigrants accross the ocean. An inductrialized and stable Africa is also in the interest of Italy. Th…

Why aren't migrants shipped around proportionately to the various EU countries?

Because (a) borders in Schengen are open so migrants who get shipped can move somewhere else without issue and (b) many EU countries have xenophobic governments at the helm which would prevent such a solution (just like they prevent being a migrant destination by treating them as inhumanly as possible).

Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#126

Post by coldtea »

adventured wrote: post #93
coliveira wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The US is not an ally of China. It cooperates with China to maintain peaceful military and political relations in Asia and it has vast trade with China. There's a dramatic, fundamental difference between being an ally and being a global competitor that you try to get along with (ie try not to go to war with as you collide repeatedly on matters of perceived national interest). Britain, France, Germany, Poland, Canada,…

>There's a dramatic, fundamental difference

Yes, the difference being "when it suits the US it's OK, when it suits somebody else, it's bad".

Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#127

Post by walterstucco »

jjcc wrote: post #116

There is some information that usually won't show up in BBC but discussed in other places which might worth some attention for HNers: Some part of the cooperation is on development of Africa which probabley is part of China's current plan or even part of OBOR. We know that Italy is major victim of the wave of iligle immigrants accross the ocean. An inductrialized and stable Africa is also in the interest of Italy. Th…

Not really.

I'm Italian and, apart from political propaganda, Italy is not victim of immigration, the population balance has been negative since the 90s.

The Italian population has been constantly decreasing, even if we count in immigrants the net balance is still negative (almost -100 thousands people last year).

The effect is amplified by our own emigration: Italians have been leaving Italy at a rate of almost 200 thousands/year for the past 10 years.

In the end African development is desiderabile for Italy because it could mean more specialised work in an area very close to our borders (Italy is know for food, but we are very good at engineering), just like the old times when we built much of the Libyan infrastructures.

Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#128

Post by sampo »

Barrin92 wrote: post #123
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.

The US has an overwhelmingly domestic economy and export driven global infrastructure development isn't exactly an American strength. In so far as the US influences European or Asian countries it appears to be mostly by military, cultural or political means. Up until now the US, economically, has mostly functioned as a consumer of European and Asian goods, so it is hard to imagine how they could offer an alternative…

> The US has an overwhelmingly domestic economy

Of the 10 of the World's most valuable companies, 8 are American. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook didn't get there by concentrating only to American markets.

Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#129

Post by ricardobeat »

dmix wrote: post #62
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.

They weren't 'forgotten' they were made irrelevant through technology (airplanes, shipping containers, etc) and geo-political trends (the fall of the ottoman empire). As great as it sounds on paper there are quite a few economists who are skeptical about the ROI from all of these investments. But I do like how bold it is, which you rarely find in western countries (large scale infrastructure projects). They can barel…

Anyone who has bought chinese goods on AliExpress will disagree :) The journey takes > Over the past five years, China’s trade in goods with countries along the Belt and Road has exceeded $5.5 trillion

Re: Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

#130

Post by caprese »

MagnumOpus wrote: post #125
oh_sigh wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why aren't migrants shipped around proportionately to the various EU countries?

Because (a) borders in Schengen are open so migrants who get shipped can move somewhere else without issue and (b) many EU countries have xenophobic governments at the helm which would prevent such a solution (just like they prevent being a migrant destination by treating them as inhumanly as possible).

Yeah would like to add that asylum applicants are given very limited work privileges limited to a specific area within a country, where the countries try to distribute the load quite a bit.

But it's also easy to just keep walking to the country you want to be in since all the border controls are gone once you reach schengen area. Few easily avoidable exceptions. Further compounded by all these countries retaining their own asylum protocols, so even if a country is landlocked or access is limited by some other geographical feature, if you are able to show up then you are able to request asylum.

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