this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2024
106 points (95.7% liked)

Europe

1583 readers
397 users here now

News and information from Europe 🇪🇺

(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)

Rules (2024-08-30)

  1. This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
  2. No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
  3. Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
  4. No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism.
  5. Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
  6. If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
  7. Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in !yurop@lemm.ee. (They're cool, you should subscribe there too!)
  8. Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
  9. No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)

(This list may get expanded when necessary.)

We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.

If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.

If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the mods: @federalreverse@feddit.org, @poVoq@slrpnk.net, or @anzo@programming.dev.

founded 5 months ago
MODERATORS
federalreverse
poVoq@slrpnk.net
anzo@programming.dev
106
Chinese takeover of European seaports: EU turned a blind eye on security risks for years, experts say (www.ftm.eu)
submitted 4 months ago by 0x815 to c/europe
15 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Download the report (pdf)

[You need to register -it's free- for reading the linked article or you can use the link in 12ft.io.]

Concerns about China’s government gaining insight into the operations of foreign governments, segments of the economy, or citizens have been sufficient to cause the US House of Representatives to pass legislation requiring the sale of a social media platform or face a ban from US app stores. And a few experts have warned the European Commission of the risks entailed by Chinese state-owned companies owning infrastructure in the 27 member states. But oversight mechanisms the EU has put in place to guard against outside influence have not been enough to keep China's Cosco and CMG out of major European ports.

When Jacob Gunter, an economic analyst at the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies (Merics) heard about the 67 per cent controlling stake Cosco had managed to amass in Piraeus by late 2021, it set alarm bells ringing. “It seems bizarre to me that Cosco has managed to take complete control of a strategically located European port,” Gunter said. “Being dependent on a foreign power is always risky – we learned that after the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” when Moscow threatened to cut off its outsize share of the European energy supply in response to sanctions.

Shanghai-based Cosco owns 496 container ships and has 17,000 employees worldwide (including subsidiaries), which makes the state-owned company the fourth largest shipping company after Mediterranean Shipping Company S.A (Switzerland), A.P. Møller-Maersk A/S (Denmark) and CMA CGM (France).

Together with the Vienna Institute for International Economics, Merics was commissioned by the European Parliament to analyse Cosco and CMG’s acquisition strategies for critical infrastructure in Europe. Gunter found that state-owned companies’ interest in the Union is not limited to Greece. The 2023 report he co-authored determined that Cosco and CMG together have invested more than 9 billion euros just in the maritime infrastructure of member states, including the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, and Greece.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments