Italy opens the European door to China

[luzribeiro]

Italy is desperately looking for solutions to its debt crisis. And it may have found them in... China. Italian representatives have reportedly negotiated with the largest sovereign investment fund in the world, China Investment Corp. Italy is hoping that the Chinese will invest in Italian debt and various Italian companies (source: FT).

This is

Comments

Have you seen "Gomorrah"?

[sophia_sadek]

One of the sub-plots in the movie involves a Chinese textile company that hires a mob-connected dressmaker in order to expand into the field of haut couture. The trailer includes a scene where the mob bump off the Chinese.

I can see it now: China eventually owning the Vatican. It would be the ultimate in ironic justice.

Re: Have you seen "Gomorrah"?

[luzribeiro]

Eh, the Vatican? Aren't you perhaps indulging into dreams too wild?

Re: Have you seen "Gomorrah"?

[sophia_sadek]

Where there is a will, there is a way.

Re: Have you seen "Gomorrah"?

[luzribeiro]

Aha, OK.

[ddstory]

Colonization of Europe - or sinking of China? ;)

[luvdovz]

The perseverance of the East is gradually overcoming the unjustified arrogance of the West. A bitter lesson to learn.

[underlankers]

It helps that the East's claim to prominence is built on more than having fancy, pretty weapons where the West's predominance was built on firepower and nothing else.

[harry_beast]

The East's claim to prominence is built on copying the West.

[mikeyxw]

I guess putting people on the moon, being the largest economy, launching the GPS, having a third of the fortune 500 companies, and creating the internet don't really count for much.

[htpcl]

Colonization, hardly. Not in the African sense of the word, anyway. More lika a psychological wake-up moment. That's what 4% out of 1.9 bn speaks to me. With some prospects of reaching as far as 10%. That's what they're talking about. The Chinese would be insane to expose themselves to too much toxic investment. They'd most likely invest into the more viable sectors and that's all.

[underlankers]

I wonder if China will start running in high-grade heroin into Britain and bomb London to smithereens if Britain objects if it starts colonizing Europe? Payback's a bitch....

[luzribeiro]

That's a typically Western way of thinking.

[mikeyxw]

iPhones are the new heroin.

Besides, we're back into the situation which caused the opium wars, China is sitting on a big pile of silver and we don't have anything they want to buy... or anything we can sell there anyhow.

[harry_beast]

Chinese trade barriers are the reason that we can't sell them anything. If we treated Chinese imports the way they treat our exports, the situation would be very different.