
How China Is Buying Its Way into Europe - adventured
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-china-business-in-europe/
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temp-dude-87844
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.

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nradov
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.

~~~
zabana
Because europe and the US haven't ... ?

~~~
baq
i guess that's the point - china out-us-ed the US and out-europed Europe.

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vasco
It's weird the map is shaded by number of deals rather than amount of money
invested, or even amount of money per-capita or vs GDP. Portugal for example
with 8.6B invested would in my mind be darker (and taking into account GDP)
than Spain with 7.1B, although Spain has a higher number of deals.

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sandworm101
>> are pressing for a common strategy to handle China’s relentless advance
into Europe...

I guess I missed something. When exactly did we decide that China advancing on
Europe was a bad thing? Was that before or after the trade deals? Was it
before or after every world leader went to china begging for them to invest in
western economies? If we are going to have some grand plan to deal with
something, we need to first decide whether the thing is good or bad. We
haven't done that. Do we want to limit China's spread or not? I have my
opinion, but my opinion is not consensus. Before we move to limit China's
growth, I want to see the open statement as to why that growth is a bad thing.

At the moment stories like this seems to take for granted that the reader will
understand it as some nebulous evil that must be addressed. I worry that that
assumption relies upon fears that we dare not express openly. Gut feeling and
"smell tests" are too often cover for darker motivations. Few complain about
middle eastern or american companies buying up europe. What exactly is so
different about China?

~~~
ed_balls
> What exactly is so different about China?

The companies are fully or partially state owned, so the political pressure
may be greater. [https://qz.com/1000541/norway-wants-china-to-forget-about-
th...](https://qz.com/1000541/norway-wants-china-to-forget-about-the-human-
rights-thing-and-eat-salmon-instead/)

You do not want to give too much power to a single actor. Doesn't matter if
this is China, USA, EU.

~~~
adventured
A recent write-up of some of the political complexities and problems cropping
up from China's broadening influence over parts of Europe:

"Greece was one of the early flashpoints for Germany's concern about the
growing competition from China. Benefiting from Beijing's large direct
investments, Greece blocked last June an EU statement at the United Nations
about China's repressive human rights policies."

"Hungary, where China is building a high-speed railway line from Budapest to
Belgrade, joined Greece to block another EU statement criticizing China's
territorial claims in the South China Sea, after The Permanent Court of
Arbitration in The Hague ruled against Beijing in July 2016."

[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/16/chinas-growing-economic-
pres...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/16/chinas-growing-economic-presence-in-
eu-causing-concern--commentary.html)

~~~
taobility
For Greece, just like when they were begging in the street, all his neighbors
are not care. At that time, someone from far east helped them to avoid the
bankruptcy. As the return, they helped the friends if there is any chance. And
right now his neighbors blamed him that he should not help that far east
friend. What the fuck?

~~~
notfromhere
China's not your friend.

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jhou2
Look through the typical house in Europe or practically anywhere else in the
world. Note how many things are made in China - clothing, TV, furniture,
appliances, etc. All that money has to go somewhere. Ideally, it would flow
back into that original country as investment.

~~~
thefounder
>> Ideally, it would flow back into that original country as investment.

That's what taxes are for.

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snarfybarfy
No surprise there, if you look at the trade surplus China has.

They send us a few million metric tons of stuff each year and we give them a
few numbers in a computer in exchange (USD or EUR).

Now they try to get something real for a small part of those fiat numbers. If
they were serious and sold all their treasury bonds (1.2 Trillion USD) they
could probably buy all beach-front properties in the US.

1.2 Trillion USD buys you 1/20th of all US real estate (estimated at 25
Trillion USD in 2013), or it buys you 1/8-th share of all NASDAQ companies.

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sytelus
China is overflowing with investment money and its findings home in properties
around the world with stability, reliability and great potential for returns.
Why should this be concerning? I bet one can make similar article on foreign
investments in China.

~~~
mac01021
Why is China overflowing with investment money? Where does it all come from?

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imtringued
Simplification: When americans and europeans buy chinese products then china
has dollars/euro and we have physical goods. Dollars/euros can only be used to
invest into usa/european companies or to buy usa/european products.

~~~
pzone
On top of that: Chinese financial markets are strictly controlled and the
rates of return on safe investments like bank deposits are artificially kept
down. Chinese citizens have very few trustworthy investment options outside of
housing or sole-proprietor entrepreneurship, and the latter is only feasible
for the politically connected.

~~~
monocasa
Are non politically connected Chinese citizens sitting on any money to invest?

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youpassbutter
It's so funny how propaganda works. When we do it, we call it investing. When
china does it, the propagandists spin it as something nefarious or underhanded
- "buying it's way into europe".

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thefounder
There is a difference between state investments and private investments...or
better said between private investors and a communist state "investor"

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jaschen1980
This article has an undertone of China "taking over" the west, as it raises a
"red flag at the European Union level".

Yet if you look at the data objectively, Chinese companies (both private and
state-owned) are just playing by the rules of the western market economy. They
are purchasing and investing, playing the capitalist game just like everybody
else.

The west also has state-owned enterprises. In Canada, we call them crown
corporations (e.g., Bombardier). Yet whenever a corporation is owned by a
western government, tons of waste happens and somehow our companies rarely
make products that are competitive with the global market. They are just not
competitive.

So it seems to me that China and their companies are playing the capitalist
game better than EU, and the core of EU are being sour grapes.

