The Italian company was the architect, not the builder. The civil work, aka C&S (Civil & Structural) is done by a whole different group of people, ranging from the C&S consultant to the C&S contractor (who is usually the main contractor), and other subcontractors. The China Railway No. 10 Engineering Group, despite being part of a JV, is the main C&S contractor, as far as I'm concerned. European companies doing the architect work and design, while Chinese firms doing the construction is actually quite common. 99% of the time, this works beautifully. But in this one case, most of the blame lies with the Chinese company doing the C&S work.Blame is 100% on the Italian company which had majority in the joint venture. Chances are the Chinese company was just there to take a profit share, not involved with whatever lazy shit euros + corrupt locals do. Its a match made in hell, sleazy euros coming more to watch ladyboys than do real work + ppl who don't give a shit how their own country stuff is built.
None of these developers from China ever experience issues inside China (or when working alone). It's when they expand profits by buying shares into things built by culturally lazy ppl that things can go wrong. And remember in all those countries, their domestic designed infrastructure is also bad. That tells me clearly where the problem sits.
I would defend the Chinese nation without question, but I will not defend Chinese bad actors, especially those who have a questionable track record. I'm not a Jai China. Majority of Chinese construction companies are okay, but there are still some bad apples. I do not know why the bad apples tend to be SOEs. I thought the Chinese government would hold them up to higher standards, but I don't pretend to know why.
Last edited: