4 ms·

China Builds EU Beachhead With $5 Billion City in Belarus

44 points by bangkoknights 13y ago

koenigdavidmj 13y ago
We're on a dictatorship kick today, it seems.
- wcfields 13y ago
  Ain't no party like the people's party because it's mandatory.
  - hoprocker 13y ago
    Hilarious. Although it's projected to be 140% the size of Manhattan, the article states that the city will accommodate only 150,000 residents. Indeed, the article also says that the entire country of Belarus is only 9.5 million inhabitants, just 15% or so larger than all of NYC.
bangkoknights 13y ago
> The hub will put Chinese exporters within 170 miles of EU members Poland and Lithuania and give them tax-free entry into Russia and Kazakhstan, which share a customs union. It will also let them draw from a workforce that’s 99.6 percent literate and makes $560 a month on average, half the Polish wage. Imagine a Shenzhen on the edge of Europe. This is probably a hammer blow for domestic manufacturing in EU countries. Chinese outsourcing and freedom from EU regulation will be just an hour or two away from every single entrepreneur in Europe.
- rayiner 13y ago
  The bottom, meet the EU. The EU, meet the bottom.
- JMCQ87 13y ago
  Yeah, because you can freely import anything you want into the EU... /s Not worried in the slightest, to be honest.
- jpatokal 13y ago
  You've got to be kidding me. Belarus is a landlocked tinpot dictatorship with an unreformed state-run economy, notoriously arbitrary government, strangulatory red tape, sanctions up the wazoo and virtually no access to EU markets, as it's outside every single European institution: http://boingboing.net/2011/03/12/venn-diagram-illustr.html http://boingboing.net/2011/03/12/venn-diagram-illustr.html Hint: Belarus's flag is not in there at all. Add in a near-total lack of workers skilled in post-1950s technology, English, or for that matter any language except Russian, and I'm hard pressed to think of a worse place to locate a factory.
  - bangkoknights 13y ago
    Everything you describe sounds like China in 1980. They designated Shenzhen as a special economic zone and it became a model for the rest of the country. Whether or not Belarus benefits in the long run, who knows, but it's a good deal for China. The EU sanctions expire in a few months, and currently only target individuals and companies, there is no general trade embargo so access to EU markets should be fine. Also China and the US are outside every single European institution but there is plenty of trade. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/15/belarus-eu-sanctions-idUSL5E8LFON820121015 http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/15/belarus-eu-sanctio... Being landlocked won't be an issue for exporting finished goods to the EU, but perhaps there will be an issue for raw materials and component supplies.
    - jpatokal 13y ago
      Pop quiz, hot shot: if you're looking for an export powerhouse next to the EU, what's Belarus got that Turkey doesn't have?
      - bangkoknights 13y ago
        Belarus doesn't have civil war and terrorists blowing things up on its border.
  - yread 13y ago
    > near-total lack of workers skilled in post-1950s technology [citation needed] >I'm hard pressed to think of a worse place to locate a factory. How many factories have you placed? Would you put one in Bangladesh?
greenyoda 13y ago
Manhattan isn't that big as far as cities go. It's only 23 square miles, less than 8% of NYC's land area. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan
tarkin2 13y ago
This is very interesting development in European politics and "Europe's last dictatorship". Especially since the 'threat' of China often seems to be one thing that can unite the member states.
glut 13y ago
I, for one, welcome our new Chinese overlords!
raldi 13y ago
That [edit: was] an extremely misleading headline. It'll only be 40% larger than Manhattan in acreage. In terms of population, it'll be 1/10th the size of Manhattan. (Still pretty impressive, though!)
cadalac 13y ago
> Last year, Germany’s openly gay foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, called Belarus “the last dictatorship in Europe,” prompting Lukashenko to quip that he’d “rather be a dictator than gay.” Probably the first and last time I'll ever agree with a dictator.
wyck 13y ago
Some fun facts about Belarus: - 51.2% of Belarusians are employed by state-controlled companies. - Political opponents have been violently suppressed - Per capita income $6.8k - A fifth of Belarusian land (principally farmland and forests in the southeastern provinces) continues to be affected by radiation fallout from Chernobyl
- jvm 13y ago
  It's fairly accurate to think of it as a place that has tried as hard as possible not to move away from the Soviet economic/social/political model.
revelation 13y ago
A beachhead is a temporary line created when a military unit reaches a beach by sea and begins to defend the area while other reinforcements help out until a unit large enough to begin advancing has arrived. Sometimes, bias is only in language.
stevoski 13y ago
This piece reads like a press release.
cinquemb 13y ago
I wonder if this will end up like the other cities that sprung up in china that have yet to have any inhabitants… Well, congrats to whoever gets awarded with the contracts…
salemh 13y ago
China, which signed a $3 billion currency swap deal with Belarus in 2009 to boost trade, agreed to finance the venture with low-interest loans as long as half the money is spent on Chinese materials... Can someone explain the four-year planning of the currency swap related to the actual build-out? Or am I seeing something of insignificance related to the whole of the article?
IsaacL 13y ago
Is anyone else reminded of the "charter city" they were going to build in Honduras? (Paul Romer had the idea, inspired by Shenzhen, of having third world countries set aside land to be under the jurisdiction of first world countries with more stable legal regimes. The plan being that this would attract international businesses and then bootstrap the rest of the countries development). In Honduras they ended up cancelling the idea, to the cheers of many in the Western press who thought it had echoes of colonialism. I doubt this Chinese city will get the same negative backlash.
- ihnorton 13y ago
  This American Life did a story on the idea and backlash: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/483/self-improvement-kick?act=2 http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/483/s...
make3 13y ago
So what, China wants to move some of its industry there, or does it simply want to enable its companies to send their stuff there and re-export it from there, dodging EU taxes in the mean time

44 points by bangkoknights 13y ago

koenigdavidmj 13y ago

We're on a dictatorship kick today, it seems.

wcfields 13y ago
Ain't no party like the people's party because it's mandatory.
- hoprocker 13y ago
  Hilarious. Although it's projected to be 140% the size of Manhattan, the article states that the city will accommodate only 150,000 residents. Indeed, the article also says that the entire country of Belarus is only 9.5 million inhabitants, just 15% or so larger than all of NYC.

bangkoknights 13y ago

> The hub will put Chinese exporters within 170 miles of EU members Poland and Lithuania and give them tax-free entry into Russia and Kazakhstan, which share a customs union. It will also let them draw from a workforce that’s 99.6 percent literate and makes $560 a month on average, half the Polish wage. Imagine a Shenzhen on the edge of Europe. This is probably a hammer blow for domestic manufacturing in EU countries. Chinese outsourcing and freedom from EU regulation will be just an hour or two away from every single entrepreneur in Europe.

rayiner 13y ago
The bottom, meet the EU. The EU, meet the bottom.
JMCQ87 13y ago
Yeah, because you can freely import anything you want into the EU... /s Not worried in the slightest, to be honest.
jpatokal 13y ago
You've got to be kidding me. Belarus is a landlocked tinpot dictatorship with an unreformed state-run economy, notoriously arbitrary government, strangulatory red tape, sanctions up the wazoo and virtually no access to EU markets, as it's outside every single European institution: http://boingboing.net/2011/03/12/venn-diagram-illustr.html http://boingboing.net/2011/03/12/venn-diagram-illustr.html Hint: Belarus's flag is not in there at all. Add in a near-total lack of workers skilled in post-1950s technology, English, or for that matter any language except Russian, and I'm hard pressed to think of a worse place to locate a factory.
- bangkoknights 13y ago
  Everything you describe sounds like China in 1980. They designated Shenzhen as a special economic zone and it became a model for the rest of the country. Whether or not Belarus benefits in the long run, who knows, but it's a good deal for China. The EU sanctions expire in a few months, and currently only target individuals and companies, there is no general trade embargo so access to EU markets should be fine. Also China and the US are outside every single European institution but there is plenty of trade. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/15/belarus-eu-sanctions-idUSL5E8LFON820121015 http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/15/belarus-eu-sanctio... Being landlocked won't be an issue for exporting finished goods to the EU, but perhaps there will be an issue for raw materials and component supplies.
  - jpatokal 13y ago
    Pop quiz, hot shot: if you're looking for an export powerhouse next to the EU, what's Belarus got that Turkey doesn't have?
    - bangkoknights 13y ago
      Belarus doesn't have civil war and terrorists blowing things up on its border.
- yread 13y ago
  > near-total lack of workers skilled in post-1950s technology [citation needed] >I'm hard pressed to think of a worse place to locate a factory. How many factories have you placed? Would you put one in Bangladesh?

greenyoda 13y ago

Manhattan isn't that big as far as cities go. It's only 23 square miles, less than 8% of NYC's land area. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan

tarkin2 13y ago

This is very interesting development in European politics and "Europe's last dictatorship". Especially since the 'threat' of China often seems to be one thing that can unite the member states.

glut 13y ago

I, for one, welcome our new Chinese overlords!

raldi 13y ago

That [edit: was] an extremely misleading headline. It'll only be 40% larger than Manhattan in acreage. In terms of population, it'll be 1/10th the size of Manhattan. (Still pretty impressive, though!)

cadalac 13y ago

> Last year, Germany’s openly gay foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, called Belarus “the last dictatorship in Europe,” prompting Lukashenko to quip that he’d “rather be a dictator than gay.” Probably the first and last time I'll ever agree with a dictator.

wyck 13y ago

Some fun facts about Belarus: - 51.2% of Belarusians are employed by state-controlled companies. - Political opponents have been violently suppressed - Per capita income $6.8k - A fifth of Belarusian land (principally farmland and forests in the southeastern provinces) continues to be affected by radiation fallout from Chernobyl

jvm 13y ago
It's fairly accurate to think of it as a place that has tried as hard as possible not to move away from the Soviet economic/social/political model.

revelation 13y ago

A beachhead is a temporary line created when a military unit reaches a beach by sea and begins to defend the area while other reinforcements help out until a unit large enough to begin advancing has arrived. Sometimes, bias is only in language.

stevoski 13y ago

This piece reads like a press release.

cinquemb 13y ago

I wonder if this will end up like the other cities that sprung up in china that have yet to have any inhabitants… Well, congrats to whoever gets awarded with the contracts…

salemh 13y ago

China, which signed a $3 billion currency swap deal with Belarus in 2009 to boost trade, agreed to finance the venture with low-interest loans as long as half the money is spent on Chinese materials... Can someone explain the four-year planning of the currency swap related to the actual build-out? Or am I seeing something of insignificance related to the whole of the article?

IsaacL 13y ago

Is anyone else reminded of the "charter city" they were going to build in Honduras? (Paul Romer had the idea, inspired by Shenzhen, of having third world countries set aside land to be under the jurisdiction of first world countries with more stable legal regimes. The plan being that this would attract international businesses and then bootstrap the rest of the countries development). In Honduras they ended up cancelling the idea, to the cheers of many in the Western press who thought it had echoes of colonialism. I doubt this Chinese city will get the same negative backlash.

ihnorton 13y ago
This American Life did a story on the idea and backlash: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/483/self-improvement-kick?act=2 http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/483/s...

make3 13y ago

So what, China wants to move some of its industry there, or does it simply want to enable its companies to send their stuff there and re-export it from there, dodging EU taxes in the mean time