this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023

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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz backs China, ignores government warnings in Hamburg port deal, report says (www.politico.eu)

submitted 1 year ago by 0x815@feddit.de to c/europe@feddit.de

34 comments fedilink hide all child comments

An investigation by German regional public broadcasters reported Wednesday that Scholz's chancellery is pushing to approve efforts by Chinese state-owned shipping giant Cosco to buy a foothold in a container port in Hamburg, ignoring warnings from six federal ministries, including the Greens' Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, amid fears of risky economic over-dependence on Beijing.

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[–] Wirrvogel@feddit.de 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

ignoring warnings from six federal ministries, including the Greens’ Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, amid fears of risky economic over-dependence on Beijing.

Reality:

Cosco and HHLA have been working together for more than 40 years. Cosco and HHLA had entered into initial talks about a shareholding in June 2021. Cosco originally wanted to take over 35 percent of the terminal operating company. However, several federal ministries protested against this, so that the cabinet set the quota at below 25 percent in October last year to prevent Cosco from acquiring a blocking minority.

You should not use politico for your primary source of information. In the best case they get it half right, often not even that.

[–] me_ow@feddit.nl 4 points 1 year ago

Thanks for the fact check. Always crazy to see such an (at first glance) respectable medium spread such fake news.

[–] gencha@feddit.de 15 points 1 year ago

Fuck Axel Springer publications. Why even spread this major source of misinformation here?

[–] KpntAutismus@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (4 children)

how much are they paying him?

or is he really that stupid?

[–] Lileath@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This happened in 2022 and it was a minority share at one terminal, so hardly as worrisome as suggested in the headline.

[–] zaphod@feddit.de 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In itself probably harmless, but the general trend is concerning. We need a common european strategy to reduce chinese influence. Too often in the EU individual members act too much in what they think is their own best interest without considering what's best for the EU, forcing other members to do the same leaving everyone worse off than if they had all acted together.

[–] not_exactly@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

Perhaps, but in this case OP could have shared an article that objectively analyses the general trend, rather than a year-old article that exaggerates a single decision.

[–] glorpster@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

He's the former mayor of Hamburg and Hamburg's current mayor that he gave over the reigns to really wants it because I would assume that from a pure money perspective it might be lucrative for the city.

[–] KpntAutismus@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

but when has privatizing public infrastructure ever gone well, especially under foreign leadership?

[–] glorpster@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't know, I'm not condoning the move. But either way it's already owned by a private company.

[–] KpntAutismus@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

yeah, didn't really think about the definition of "public" at time of commenting. still, selling off any piece of infrastructure to china is just plain dumb.

[–] Quacksalber@sh.itjust.works -1 points 1 year ago

He already had shady deals going on when he was mayor of Hamburg. He may not be corrupt in the legal sense, but he is definitely in politics for himself first and foremost. I'd compare him to Hillary Clinton.

[–] Banik2008@infosec.pub 8 points 1 year ago (5 children)

First they decide to get all their gas exclusively from Russia, which, as it happens, turned out not to be such a great idea. Now they want to sell their biggest port to China.

It seems that Germans just never learn.

[–] CookieJarObserver@sh.itjust.works 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lets be real, China owns a minor share on one terminal, not the entire fucking harbor like in other EU countries...

[–] Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.de 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Thats one too many.

[–] CookieJarObserver@sh.itjust.works 17 points 1 year ago

Yes but setting things into perspective is important. Everything else is just populists shit.

[+] silvercove@lemdro.id -13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Better than Americans owning it.

[–] Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.de 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you say that with a straight face, then you have no idea how bad china is.

[–] silvercove@lemdro.id -5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

China did not invade Iraq, bomb half the countries in the Middle East or spend 60 years trying to starve Cuba.

If we wanted to list every invastion, coup or regime change change America did, it would take a very long time to do it.

Anything is better than that evil.

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The CCP has killed far more people through outright negligence and stupidity than the US has killed since the CCP became a thing that existed in the world. The CCP is, as we speak, ethnically cleansing one of its ethnic minority groups in reeducation (concentration) camps. The current leadership of the CCP ascribes to a “might makes right” school of thought in the geopolitical arena, much to the serious dismay and concern of its neighbors. The CCP is potentially going to start a war with the rest of the world over Taiwan, which at this point is not feasible to even consider reintegrating.

We can keep going, if you want.

Anything is better than that evil.

[–] silvercove@lemdro.id -5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The CCP is potentially going to start a war

potential wars are not as bad as real wars that Americans has waged.

There are millions of refugees in my countries from places that America has bombed: Iraq, Afganistan, Syria, Libya...

You're just too brainwashed to see that your country is a murderous tyrant.

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Oh, that’s how we’re playing it? Ok:

The CCP killed somewhere between 15M and 55M in 1959, 1960, and 1961 with absolutely criminal levels of negligence which lead to the “Great Leap Forward”.

Your move.

As an aside: there’s a fuckton of things in America today and its history that are super fucked up and indefensible. I’m not blind to that, and I think part of being a good citizen of a country is looking at its failures in an objective and honest fashion, in the interest of learning from those failures. I do that as a matter of habit, as history is one of my latent passions. You seem to just be mastrubating in front of Chairman Mao propaganda posters.

[–] silvercove@lemdro.id -3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Chairman Mao has been dead for almost 50 years. That mass murderer George W. Bush is still alive. It's too late to condemn Mao, but it's not too late to condemn Bush.

The horrible things CCP did 50 or 70 years ago is a matter for historians. The murders American thugs are committing today are a topic that affects our lives.

America is a murderous nation.

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So you’re conflating leadership with country here - understandable, given how the CCP has gone to great lengths to erase that distinction within Mainland China.

The US has had, at times, some apocalyptically bad leadership, and over the years we’ve had varying flavors of “bad”. But the idea of what the country is supposed to be and what it stands for is distinct from the leadership that holds the reins for any given interval. This is absolutely not the case with China.

[–] silvercove@lemdro.id -1 points 1 year ago

Apocalyptically bad leadership does not excuse mass-murder, invasion or coups.

[–] Chup@feddit.de 24 points 1 year ago

That is just a big fat lie.

Russia supplied about half the natural gas in 2021 and from 2022 on it went to zero anyways. Why would you make up such crap that everyone can just Google that it's a lie?

[–] barttier@feddit.de 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We didn't agree. He is elected and we can't do anything about it. Trust me, most of us aren't happy about that decision. We try to get rid of him in the next election. Selling tax payed public stuff to our disadvantage sadly has tradition in Germany (telephone lines, railroad)

[–] Muetzenman@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Railroad is still 100% Bund owned.

[–] barttier@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah, but for profit. This really turned out great...

[–] JoCrichton@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

One terminal 35% stake It’s still not great but let’s not blow things out of proportions.

[–] geissi@feddit.de 5 points 1 year ago

Any specific reason to post a year old article?
Never mind that politico is agenda driven trash.