[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.
@bungalowtill@lemmy.dbzer0.com
The title I have chosen in the link above is the original title. Which other title did I edit? (Post the original title here and my supposed edit, and then explain how it is misleading.)
Which ‘other think tanks’ have criticized Merics?
Merics’ ‘involvement’ in the Munich Security Conference should not come as a surprise as the institute’s research is -among other topics- focused on European security. So what is the problem?
What are alternative, better sources on that topic that you don’t consider as propaganda?
[Edit typo.]
I am talking about this post:
https://feddit.org/post/1019342
Original title: Europe must end its quantum technology research with China
Title of the post: Europe must end its quantum technology research with China over security and military risk of collaboration, researcher says.
I think „researcher says“ is misleading, because it makes it seem as if a quantum research researcher is warning about the collaboration, which would be relevant. In fact it is the article‘s writer referenced in the title.
The critique of Merics by other experts in the field is pointed out in the German Wikipedia article.
I can‘t point to a single source for trustworthy reporting on China, there are articles I feel are informative, others I deem to be propaganda.