4 ms·

I don't think it's either of those things. I suspect China is doing it as a way to get a foothold in EU politics. Smaller, poorer countries are easier to bribe,

by sbacic 7y ago

I don't think it's either of those things. I suspect China is doing it as a way to get a foothold in EU politics. Smaller, poorer countries are easier to bribe, coerce or just plain intimidate than say France or Germany. Furthermore, those investments will do nothing to fix the problems those countries have. My biggest concern is that those countries will not be able to honor their obligations to China and the consequences of that.

microcolonel 7y ago
> Smaller, poorer countries are easier to bribe, coerce or just plain intimidate than say France or Germany. Not to mention, many of those countries are already being bullied and coerced by France and Germany anyway, so they may see some international abuse as the lesser of two evils. Now, if countries like Romania could get their act together and stop accepting the free outward movement of people who they've just paid to educate, maybe the equation changes.
- sbacic 7y ago
  To be fair, some of that bullying is for good causes - such as human rights and rule of law. Free movement is one of the cornerstones of the European Union. If Romania were to restrict it, I think that the people most pissed with that decision would be the Romanians. This might even be a blessing in disguise, as it could generate enough outrage to fix the problems ailing the country. Though considering the apathy and disillusionment with democracy in much of Europe, I'm not sure that even that would work.
  - microcolonel 7y ago
    > To be fair, some of that bullying is for good causes - such as human rights and rule of law. I'm all for human rights and the rule of law, but the rule of law without sovereignty is just tyranny, and human rights without sovereign rights deteriorate inevitably. > Free movement is one of the cornerstones of the European Union. If Romania were to restrict it, I think that the people most pissed with that decision would be the Romanians. The suggestion from other member states to Romania (which, I should clarify, I have no real personal attachment to), is that they should take on migrants from even poorer economies; the problem with this is that poorer economies generally do not produce the educated people Romania is losing, but a further set of people who they must educate, and who will ultimately be able to simply hop on a bus and setttle in a place where even low-skilled work is better compensated than high-skilled work in their home country. I don't think it's great when countries try to trap their citizens arbitrarily, but by the same token, they can not simply allow their best and brightest the option to take their skills somewhere more developed, and have that cost those people nothing. Furthermore, the end result of brain drain is a country full of nationalists and wretches, which seems to me like a bad thing to aim at, even if the process seems fair.
    - sbacic 7y ago
      And what is the absence of rule of law and (in some cases) human rights abuses coupled with full-throttle sovereignty? Because that's exactly what you get with much of EE and the Balkans. Lots of talk of sovereignty and lots of examples on how that sovereignty is being squandered and misused. I honestly think that a lot of those countries (my own included) would be better off without that sovereignty.
      - microcolonel 7y ago
        > And what is the absence of rule of law and (in some cases) human rights abuses coupled with full-throttle sovereignty? A national tyranny, which I'd argue is still better than an imperial tyranny. > Because that's exactly what you get with much of EE and the Balkans. Lots of talk of sovereignty and lots of examples on how that sovereignty is being squandered and misused. I honestly think that a lot of those countries (my own included) would be better off without that sovereignty. I'd argue first that that's not your call to make; but failing that, we don't know what the enlightened sovereign Eastern Europe looks like, because the people you probably like the most (educated, middle and upper class) are busy leaving, and it seems to me that the people are fighting politics on two fronts (as far as I gather, the local politicians who use their weak constitutions and electoral systems to win elections with minor vote buys to crooks and desperate elderly people in the countryside; and Eurocrats who do effectively the same thing but with better haircuts).
    - bjourne 7y ago
      EUs criticism of Romania has nothing to do with immigration! What Romania is expected to do is to abide by the provisions of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union which it agreed to when it joined the union. In exchange for this, they get billions upon billions in EU aid from rich EU countries tax payers' pockets - such as mine. Respecting the Charter is not an onerous burden.
- lifty 7y ago
  And how would you stop accepting the outward movement of people educated in Romania? Not sure if you are proposing to restrict freedom of movement, but that would be pretty hard to pass, and frankly scary. As I see it, the only reasonable way to fight the brain drain is to make it attractive for young people to stay in Romania.
  - microcolonel 7y ago
    > Not sure if you are proposing to restrict freedom of movement, but that would be pretty hard to pass, and frankly scary. My thought is that they should create some form of obligation or tuition option for the schools so that they don't subsidize people who ultimately leave their economy. You stay in Romania, your tuition is subsidized like normal, if you leave Romania and become resident elsewhere, you pay a bill to recover the cost of educating you. Obviously they can't, as a matter of civil rights, prohibit people who are not criminals from leaving the country, but they have tools to enforce agreements like that at least with EU member states, and states they generally have relationships with regardless (i.e. UK).
    - sbacic 7y ago
      A couple of problems with this idea - one, the people emigrating and their parents paid for that tuition through taxes. Second, what about all the people who finish college and stay in Romania, but work in some dead end job that doesn't even need higher education? And lastly, this would mean keeping the people most dissatisfied with the current state of the country in the country. No corrupt government would want that. Much better for them to leave and not cause any trouble.
      - microcolonel 7y ago
        > their parents paid for that tuition through taxes The way that (modern) governments finance programs like this is exactly the opposite of your model of it. Your parents didn't pay to subsidize your education, the next generation did (this is in part why birth/immigration rates falling is taken as such bad news). > Second, what about all the people who finish college and stay in Romania, but work in some dead end job that doesn't even need higher education? The next ones will know from that more about the demand for educated people, and adjust accordingly; at least they mainly wasted time and not money on getting into that dead-end job. > And lastly, this would mean keeping the people most dissatisfied with the current state of the country in the country. No corrupt government would want that. Much better for them to leave and not cause any trouble. Sure, but should we govern based on what the government wants? The people benefit when the legitimately dissatisfied are heard rather than just swept under the rug. As for it being a corrupt government that encourages the people most likely to become dissidents to leave the country, what does that say about the countries receiving those dissidents? Is it moral to accept masses dissatisfied people from a country that suffers more from politics than from geography? Is that moral even when that country does have enough semblance of free expression that you could conceive of dissidents making a difference from the inside?

by sbacic 7y ago

microcolonel 7y ago

> Smaller, poorer countries are easier to bribe, coerce or just plain intimidate than say France or Germany. Not to mention, many of those countries are already being bullied and coerced by France and Germany anyway, so they may see some international abuse as the lesser of two evils. Now, if countries like Romania could get their act together and stop accepting the free outward movement of people who they've just paid to educate, maybe the equation changes.

sbacic 7y ago
To be fair, some of that bullying is for good causes - such as human rights and rule of law. Free movement is one of the cornerstones of the European Union. If Romania were to restrict it, I think that the people most pissed with that decision would be the Romanians. This might even be a blessing in disguise, as it could generate enough outrage to fix the problems ailing the country. Though considering the apathy and disillusionment with democracy in much of Europe, I'm not sure that even that would work.
- microcolonel 7y ago
  > To be fair, some of that bullying is for good causes - such as human rights and rule of law. I'm all for human rights and the rule of law, but the rule of law without sovereignty is just tyranny, and human rights without sovereign rights deteriorate inevitably. > Free movement is one of the cornerstones of the European Union. If Romania were to restrict it, I think that the people most pissed with that decision would be the Romanians. The suggestion from other member states to Romania (which, I should clarify, I have no real personal attachment to), is that they should take on migrants from even poorer economies; the problem with this is that poorer economies generally do not produce the educated people Romania is losing, but a further set of people who they must educate, and who will ultimately be able to simply hop on a bus and setttle in a place where even low-skilled work is better compensated than high-skilled work in their home country. I don't think it's great when countries try to trap their citizens arbitrarily, but by the same token, they can not simply allow their best and brightest the option to take their skills somewhere more developed, and have that cost those people nothing. Furthermore, the end result of brain drain is a country full of nationalists and wretches, which seems to me like a bad thing to aim at, even if the process seems fair.
  - sbacic 7y ago
    And what is the absence of rule of law and (in some cases) human rights abuses coupled with full-throttle sovereignty? Because that's exactly what you get with much of EE and the Balkans. Lots of talk of sovereignty and lots of examples on how that sovereignty is being squandered and misused. I honestly think that a lot of those countries (my own included) would be better off without that sovereignty.
    - microcolonel 7y ago
      > And what is the absence of rule of law and (in some cases) human rights abuses coupled with full-throttle sovereignty? A national tyranny, which I'd argue is still better than an imperial tyranny. > Because that's exactly what you get with much of EE and the Balkans. Lots of talk of sovereignty and lots of examples on how that sovereignty is being squandered and misused. I honestly think that a lot of those countries (my own included) would be better off without that sovereignty. I'd argue first that that's not your call to make; but failing that, we don't know what the enlightened sovereign Eastern Europe looks like, because the people you probably like the most (educated, middle and upper class) are busy leaving, and it seems to me that the people are fighting politics on two fronts (as far as I gather, the local politicians who use their weak constitutions and electoral systems to win elections with minor vote buys to crooks and desperate elderly people in the countryside; and Eurocrats who do effectively the same thing but with better haircuts).
  - bjourne 7y ago
    EUs criticism of Romania has nothing to do with immigration! What Romania is expected to do is to abide by the provisions of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union which it agreed to when it joined the union. In exchange for this, they get billions upon billions in EU aid from rich EU countries tax payers' pockets - such as mine. Respecting the Charter is not an onerous burden.
lifty 7y ago
And how would you stop accepting the outward movement of people educated in Romania? Not sure if you are proposing to restrict freedom of movement, but that would be pretty hard to pass, and frankly scary. As I see it, the only reasonable way to fight the brain drain is to make it attractive for young people to stay in Romania.
- microcolonel 7y ago
  > Not sure if you are proposing to restrict freedom of movement, but that would be pretty hard to pass, and frankly scary. My thought is that they should create some form of obligation or tuition option for the schools so that they don't subsidize people who ultimately leave their economy. You stay in Romania, your tuition is subsidized like normal, if you leave Romania and become resident elsewhere, you pay a bill to recover the cost of educating you. Obviously they can't, as a matter of civil rights, prohibit people who are not criminals from leaving the country, but they have tools to enforce agreements like that at least with EU member states, and states they generally have relationships with regardless (i.e. UK).
  - sbacic 7y ago
    A couple of problems with this idea - one, the people emigrating and their parents paid for that tuition through taxes. Second, what about all the people who finish college and stay in Romania, but work in some dead end job that doesn't even need higher education? And lastly, this would mean keeping the people most dissatisfied with the current state of the country in the country. No corrupt government would want that. Much better for them to leave and not cause any trouble.
    - microcolonel 7y ago
      > their parents paid for that tuition through taxes The way that (modern) governments finance programs like this is exactly the opposite of your model of it. Your parents didn't pay to subsidize your education, the next generation did (this is in part why birth/immigration rates falling is taken as such bad news). > Second, what about all the people who finish college and stay in Romania, but work in some dead end job that doesn't even need higher education? The next ones will know from that more about the demand for educated people, and adjust accordingly; at least they mainly wasted time and not money on getting into that dead-end job. > And lastly, this would mean keeping the people most dissatisfied with the current state of the country in the country. No corrupt government would want that. Much better for them to leave and not cause any trouble. Sure, but should we govern based on what the government wants? The people benefit when the legitimately dissatisfied are heard rather than just swept under the rug. As for it being a corrupt government that encourages the people most likely to become dissidents to leave the country, what does that say about the countries receiving those dissidents? Is it moral to accept masses dissatisfied people from a country that suffers more from politics than from geography? Is that moral even when that country does have enough semblance of free expression that you could conceive of dissidents making a difference from the inside?