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Not all of these buys are the same kind, and the same risk: Chinese money parked in prime office space is perhaps frustrating to some, but isn't functionally an

Not all of these buys are the same kind, and the same risk: Chinese money parked in prime office space is perhaps frustrating to some, but isn't functionally any different than Qatari money, or Saudi money, or random Central Asian Republic money owning half of London. Infrastructure and resource-related facilities are an entire other concern: ports, power plants, mines, refineries: there's a national security concern here with the inconvenient subtext that China is potential geopolitical adversary, but there's been years and years of private ownership of critical infrastructure in Europe and it was always naively assumed that worrying about conflict of interest in ownership was never going to be necessary. It's somewhat ironic that free trade was apparently okay when Germans and Austrians were buying up Eastern European banks, or when the Spanish were buying up mines, or the Americans buying steel plants, but is suddenly worrisome when the Chinese want to renovate railways. The truth, of course, is more nuanced. Europe is noticing the influx of foreign money and asking, what's their ulterior motive, if anything? It's relatively easy to file Qatar or Saudi Arabia as genuine investors looking to accumulate money to diversify from petrodollars, and even accept their attempts to buy mindshare and increase their profile in the hearts and minds of average Europeans, but it seems outlandish that those states would try to leverage their foreign ownership in shows of might that go way beyond that. Meanwhile, some are concerned that in a particular turn of events, China might try to do just that. People put themselves into China's shoes, and it certainly seems more plausible.

adventured 8y ago
> It's somewhat ironic that free trade was apparently okay when Germans and Austrians were buying up Eastern European banks, or when the Spanish were buying up mines, or the Americans buying steel plants, but is suddenly worrisome when the Chinese want to renovate railways. China doesn't believe in free trade. They never have. The trade that exists today between the EU and China, or the US and China, is very far away from being free trade. The looming scale is probably the biggest concern. It appears China's economy is going to continue getting a lot larger, doubling in size in perhaps just the next 12 years to ~$26 trillion. It'll be far larger than the EU economy at that point. If China's activity in Europe is already at this scale with a $13.x trillion economy, what will it look like in another decade or so? Being under the economic foot of a Communist dictatorship that is very aggressively rolling back human rights, and Germany or Austria buying some Eastern European banks, are two dramatically different things. Germany and Austria are fairly liberal, democratic nations, with solid respect for human rights.
- vkou 8y ago
  > China doesn't believe in free trade. They never have. The trade that exists today between the EU and China, or the US and China, is very far away from being free trade. No country in the world actually believes in free trade. If they did, open, tarrif-free markets would be the default, as opposed to a patchwerk of five thousand different exemptions carved out in dozens of different treaties. What the West (And the United States in particular) believes in is 'Free' trade - which looks an awful lot like colonialism, by another name. Developing countries are free to sell their resources, or low-value-add, high-labour, low-IP goods, and and are free to import high-value-add, low labour, high-IP goods. 'Free' trade is a moat that protects this sort of arrangement. For some reason, when China adopts this same model, everyone gets into a panic.
  - opo 8y ago
    >...What the West (And the United States in particular) believes in is 'Free' trade - which looks an awful lot like colonialism, by another name. No, that is really a misrepresentation of the history of trade. While it is unfortunate the amount of tariffs, restrictions, quotas, IP transfers, joint ownerships, unneeded inspections, etc. that countries use to manipulate trade, overall trade takes advantage of comparative advantage. >...Developing countries are free to sell their resources, or low-value-add, high-labour, low-IP goods, and and are free to import high-value-add, low labour, high-IP goods. 'Free' trade is a moat that protects this sort of arrangement. This sounds more like a conspiracy theory than anything else. A poor undeveloped country can hardly be expected to start out as a major manufacturer of MRI machines, but that doesn't mean trade with western countries is a conspiracy to prevent poor countries from selling high value goods. The example of Taiwan since WW II is as illustrative as any. >...Except for a few coal mines, which are thousands of feet underground, and limestone for cement plants, there are almost no valuable mineral deposits in Taiwan. The availability of arable land is also a problem. The existing amount of cultivated land, around one-third of Taiwan’s total area, cannot be increased. http://www.nber.org/chapters/c6927.pdf http://www.nber.org/chapters/c6927.pdf Taiwan started out exporting only textile and other labor intensive products and now machinery, electrical equipment and computers are more than half of their exports and textiles are now a tiny part of their exports. Since WW II, international trade has not impoverished Taiwan - on the contrary it is usually credited as a reason for the large growth of the GDP in Taiwan. This growth in GDP can be seen here: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RGDPNATWA666NRUG https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RGDPNATWA666NRUG
themihai 8y ago
Well, you seem to forget that China is a communist country currently lead by someone sworn for life. See how the political landscape changed for Hong Kong to understand what kind of influence it may have in Europe.
cat199 8y ago
> it seems outlandish that those states would try to leverage their foreign ownership in shows of might that go way beyond that. Really? Who exactly do you think is funding wahabi mosques worldwide??
nradov 8y ago
Outside of Europe, China has also been lending huge amounts to developing countries with corrupt and incompetent governments. When those borrowers inevitably default years from now, China will have a lot of leverage including the ability to buy their votes in the UN in exchange for debt forgiveness. I suspect it's a long-term play to generate some international legitimacy around their ambitions to seize more territory.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- tomtomistaken 8y ago
  European companies, alike developing countries, strive for new financial sources as European banks got more restrictive in granting loans.
- zabana 8y ago
  Because europe and the US haven't ... ?
  - baq 8y ago
    i guess that's the point - china out-us-ed the US and out-europed Europe.
vbezhenar 8y ago
Almost all mines and oil fields in Kazakhstan are developed by foreign companies (AFAIK mostly western ones). And it's not like they bring us western values, they are known to exploit local workers, to put their people in high positions instead of locals, to bribe corrupted officials, etc. It's simple: they have power, they could invade our country and we can do nothing about it. So we let them to drain our national wealth for a temporary truce. I don't see why this is any different with China and Europe. US or Russia is a respectable force for China, but Europe - not so much, so China will monetize its power and it'll buy your factories and ports if it can push it (and China has a lot of power to push).
- noir_lord 8y ago
  > US or Russia is a respectable force for China, but Europe - not so much, so China will monetize its power and it'll buy your factories and ports if it can push it (and China has a lot of power to push). You over estimate the Russians and under estimate the Europeans, if you consider Europe to be the EU they outnumber the Russians on just about every metric, GDP, numerical and technological edge, population, logistics.
  - finebalance 8y ago
    That's not quite relevant. The question always is how much force can you pool together for the duration of whatever you need to do. For Russia and China, that run by the diktats of a central authority, there's little stopping them from pooling together whatever they can muster. For Europe, there are lots of little impediments.
  - vbezhenar 8y ago
    The question is should I consider Europe as a single entity or it'll fall apart if serious problems will arise. Are you sure that Spain people are ready to die to protect Romania? I don't know. Also Russia have tremendous nuclear power which will be used as a leverage. Can EU destroy the humanity? Anyway I don't want to compare Russia and EU, I just want to say that power and "balls" is what matters in the end. China buys Russia properties as well, so it might be the same there.

adventured 8y ago

> It's somewhat ironic that free trade was apparently okay when Germans and Austrians were buying up Eastern European banks, or when the Spanish were buying up mines, or the Americans buying steel plants, but is suddenly worrisome when the Chinese want to renovate railways. China doesn't believe in free trade. They never have. The trade that exists today between the EU and China, or the US and China, is very far away from being free trade. The looming scale is probably the biggest concern. It appears China's economy is going to continue getting a lot larger, doubling in size in perhaps just the next 12 years to ~$26 trillion. It'll be far larger than the EU economy at that point. If China's activity in Europe is already at this scale with a $13.x trillion economy, what will it look like in another decade or so? Being under the economic foot of a Communist dictatorship that is very aggressively rolling back human rights, and Germany or Austria buying some Eastern European banks, are two dramatically different things. Germany and Austria are fairly liberal, democratic nations, with solid respect for human rights.

vkou 8y ago
> China doesn't believe in free trade. They never have. The trade that exists today between the EU and China, or the US and China, is very far away from being free trade. No country in the world actually believes in free trade. If they did, open, tarrif-free markets would be the default, as opposed to a patchwerk of five thousand different exemptions carved out in dozens of different treaties. What the West (And the United States in particular) believes in is 'Free' trade - which looks an awful lot like colonialism, by another name. Developing countries are free to sell their resources, or low-value-add, high-labour, low-IP goods, and and are free to import high-value-add, low labour, high-IP goods. 'Free' trade is a moat that protects this sort of arrangement. For some reason, when China adopts this same model, everyone gets into a panic.
- opo 8y ago
  >...What the West (And the United States in particular) believes in is 'Free' trade - which looks an awful lot like colonialism, by another name. No, that is really a misrepresentation of the history of trade. While it is unfortunate the amount of tariffs, restrictions, quotas, IP transfers, joint ownerships, unneeded inspections, etc. that countries use to manipulate trade, overall trade takes advantage of comparative advantage. >...Developing countries are free to sell their resources, or low-value-add, high-labour, low-IP goods, and and are free to import high-value-add, low labour, high-IP goods. 'Free' trade is a moat that protects this sort of arrangement. This sounds more like a conspiracy theory than anything else. A poor undeveloped country can hardly be expected to start out as a major manufacturer of MRI machines, but that doesn't mean trade with western countries is a conspiracy to prevent poor countries from selling high value goods. The example of Taiwan since WW II is as illustrative as any. >...Except for a few coal mines, which are thousands of feet underground, and limestone for cement plants, there are almost no valuable mineral deposits in Taiwan. The availability of arable land is also a problem. The existing amount of cultivated land, around one-third of Taiwan’s total area, cannot be increased. http://www.nber.org/chapters/c6927.pdf http://www.nber.org/chapters/c6927.pdf Taiwan started out exporting only textile and other labor intensive products and now machinery, electrical equipment and computers are more than half of their exports and textiles are now a tiny part of their exports. Since WW II, international trade has not impoverished Taiwan - on the contrary it is usually credited as a reason for the large growth of the GDP in Taiwan. This growth in GDP can be seen here: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RGDPNATWA666NRUG https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RGDPNATWA666NRUG

themihai 8y ago

Well, you seem to forget that China is a communist country currently lead by someone sworn for life. See how the political landscape changed for Hong Kong to understand what kind of influence it may have in Europe.

cat199 8y ago

> it seems outlandish that those states would try to leverage their foreign ownership in shows of might that go way beyond that. Really? Who exactly do you think is funding wahabi mosques worldwide??

nradov 8y ago

Outside of Europe, China has also been lending huge amounts to developing countries with corrupt and incompetent governments. When those borrowers inevitably default years from now, China will have a lot of leverage including the ability to buy their votes in the UN in exchange for debt forgiveness. I suspect it's a long-term play to generate some international legitimacy around their ambitions to seize more territory.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
tomtomistaken 8y ago
European companies, alike developing countries, strive for new financial sources as European banks got more restrictive in granting loans.
zabana 8y ago
Because europe and the US haven't ... ?
- baq 8y ago
  i guess that's the point - china out-us-ed the US and out-europed Europe.

vbezhenar 8y ago

Almost all mines and oil fields in Kazakhstan are developed by foreign companies (AFAIK mostly western ones). And it's not like they bring us western values, they are known to exploit local workers, to put their people in high positions instead of locals, to bribe corrupted officials, etc. It's simple: they have power, they could invade our country and we can do nothing about it. So we let them to drain our national wealth for a temporary truce. I don't see why this is any different with China and Europe. US or Russia is a respectable force for China, but Europe - not so much, so China will monetize its power and it'll buy your factories and ports if it can push it (and China has a lot of power to push).

noir_lord 8y ago
> US or Russia is a respectable force for China, but Europe - not so much, so China will monetize its power and it'll buy your factories and ports if it can push it (and China has a lot of power to push). You over estimate the Russians and under estimate the Europeans, if you consider Europe to be the EU they outnumber the Russians on just about every metric, GDP, numerical and technological edge, population, logistics.
- finebalance 8y ago
  That's not quite relevant. The question always is how much force can you pool together for the duration of whatever you need to do. For Russia and China, that run by the diktats of a central authority, there's little stopping them from pooling together whatever they can muster. For Europe, there are lots of little impediments.
- vbezhenar 8y ago
  The question is should I consider Europe as a single entity or it'll fall apart if serious problems will arise. Are you sure that Spain people are ready to die to protect Romania? I don't know. Also Russia have tremendous nuclear power which will be used as a leverage. Can EU destroy the humanity? Anyway I don't want to compare Russia and EU, I just want to say that power and "balls" is what matters in the end. China buys Russia properties as well, so it might be the same there.