European Economics Thread

[ZeEa5KPul]

If Europe is willing to tone down the rhetoric against China, then there may be opportunity for them to work with each other. But if Europe remains as strident as it has been, I imagine China won't try too hard.

It's always a good idea to leave the door open. For example, I've been pleasantly surprised by the warming relations between China and the GCC, something I didn't expect given how the Gulf petromonarchies are also in America's pocket. Looking back, I shouldn't have been so surprised given that these are fundamentally self-interested countries, so there's scope for cooperation with them. I don't believe the EU or European countries by and large act in this way - they're far more ideologically driven and act on "values" rather than self-interest. They're being robbed blind by the US under the guise of supporting Ukraine, but they'll bleat happily as they're being fleeced because they're acting according to their "values." The only way I can characterize it is autism on a national scale.

Given all this, I don't expect much in the way of improvement, but keeping the door open and making a minimal effort is sound. Scum like Michel getting an audience with Xi is a more than generous gesture.

 

[Blitzo]

It's always a good idea to leave the door open. For example, I've been pleasantly surprised by the warming relations between China and the GCC, something I didn't expect given how the Gulf petromonarchies are also in America's pocket. Looking back, I shouldn't have been so surprised given that these are fundamentally self-interested countries, so there's scope for cooperation with them. I don't believe the EU or European countries by and large act in this way - they're far more ideologically driven and act on "values" rather than self-interest. They're being robbed blind by the US under the guise of supporting Ukraine, but they'll bleat happily as they're being fleeced because they're acting according to their "values." The only way I can characterize it is autism on a national scale.

Given all this, I don't expect much in the way of improvement, but keeping the door open and making a minimal effort is sound. Scum like Michel getting an audience with Xi is a more than generous gesture.

I think it is important to not allow greivances make one unable to spot rare potential opportunities.

In this case, it appears to be a relatively rare case of European dissatisfaction with US economic and geopolitical strategy.
It may not bear any fruit, but tphuang is not wrong in saying it is worth exploring.

 

[emblem21]

The deterioration in relations is the EU's problem. They can improve the relationship any time they want because they were the ones to unilaterally damage it. The fact that it hasn't happened means they don't want to. So fine.

China has no real interest in a block that is about to destroy itself. Also with the USA about to under go shortages itself, China would prefer to trade with nations that have something, like south east Asia, Oceania, middle east, Africa and South America. Even Australia and NZ with its issues has something worth trading. It’s probably for the best that China puts any attempts at a relationship with the EU and the USA on the back burner until they learn some humility and a maybe a good perspective on what constitutes to a good ally because I can see that the USA has a bit of ways to go until they can ruin there relationships for good. Let’s see how the winter turns out. If the west does itself in, well it simply shows that Chinas way is the best and that the western civilization simply got lucky. I am surprised and how quick the decline took

 

[name]

China saved usa after they created the American financial crisis in 2008. China was repaid with the us military pivot to China (military provocation), a biological weapons attack, an endless global smear campaign, and multiple economic nuclear bombs trying to kill the Chinese semiconductor industry.

As if sending Chinese tourists would reduce anti China resentments. They hate you. Have you seen what they say about you before the pandemic? They hate the Chinese and only want your money. Look at the bosses of European corporate giants working in China. There were numerous cases of them caught being racist towards the Chinese people. And they're doing this while making a killing scamming you with over priced Caucasian crap before the (totally not CIA biological weapon) "natural pandemic".

But yes, let's save Europe now. Do you just enjoy being stabbed in the back?

 

[TK3600]

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This to me is a big question. the current trajectory of Europe is one where they are going to just give America all of their industries while they become impoverished. It seems to me a good time for China to come in (maybe in a couple of months when situation just get really bad there). Bring someone important, but not Xi. Say that you want to mend your relationship with EU and that you want to partners and that you want to invest in Europe. Announce some plans to build factories outside of Hungary. Buy some airbus planes, eurocopter helicopters, sign nuclear reactor with EPR and some other large JVs. Say that Chinese tourism is coming back and welcome Europeans to visit China.

The thing is that covid has really killed China's reputation in these countries. Now that people are focused and angry on the effects of the Russian sanctions and the economic issues, this is a good time to heal things. On top of that, if you have more chinese tourists europe and vise versa, it's just harder for China to get demonized.

Chinese tourists will make these countries more racist lol.

 

[vincent]

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sign nuclear reactor with EPR and some other large JVs.

Isn’t EPR suck? Based on what I remember from reading posts here, EPR has designed flaws and isn’t safe.

 

[tphuang]

Isn’t EPR suck? Based on what I remember from reading posts here, EPR has designed flaws and isn’t safe.

can't be worse than AP1000. The basically ended up picking the worst design when they chose AP1000 back in 2008. It was probably a political decision to lower trade deficit. If China got AP1000 working eventually with CAP1000, then fixing EPR shouldn't be that hard. All it takes is China willing to work with the French again and Xi certainly verbalized that to Macron in the G20 meeting.

At this point, China has 4 plants under construction with CAP1000 or CAP1400 technology. And quite a few of the upcoming plants are proposed with CAP1000 technology. Which means, they are reliant on components from America. Given what we've seen recently, this seems like a horrible idea. The current reactor mix is a lot of Hualong-1, a good chunk of CAP1000 and a few VVER.

 

[gelgoog]

EPR has been a mess because European industry had neither made nor designed a nuclear reactor in decades.
French and German nuclear reactors were originally based on licensed US technology. In the case of the French reactors, designs by US Westinghouse and then modified by the French. EPR is a supposedly Generation III reactor designed by French and German engineers which is supposed to be safer than older models. But to make it economic they decided to increase the size of the reactor so it is hugely complex and expensive. Since the nuclear industry in Europe has been dead for like two decades, they had to restart operations which had been closed down for yonks. They are basically relearning everything again. So they make mistakes all the time and mess up in the production of components.

AP1000 is supposed to be cheaper than EPR because the whole intent of that design was for components to be mass produced at a factory and then assembled on site and use as few parts as possible. The reactor is smaller precisely because they made it as large as possible without increasing the number of parts needed to manufacture. AP1000 is a two-loop reactor and EPR is four-loop. So EPR has basically twice the parts. But EPR does not generate twice the power. EPR generates 1650 MWe and AP1000 generates 1117 MWe. AP1000 is a much cheaper to produce design than EPR per unit of power generated. Russian VVER-TOI reactor is four-loop and generates 1300 MWe. But the Russians have more experience actually building reactors over past two decades so they simply do not mess up as much as the West in building them.

 

[Topazchen]

Chinese tourists will make these countries more racist lol.

They even have subreddits for denigrating Chinese tourists ..smh

 

[tphuang]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1598317689222709257

Well, greens are not going to like this. We just hit December and scholz is already talking about future with Russia. I mean I think it is absolutely the right thing for Germany, but his coalition partners are not going to like this.

For china, I think a Germany that's more pro world engagement and anti NATO is always a good thing.