You see – it’s a standard business model they use
Does anything in this report sound familiar? It’s practically identical to what we have just read in our own newspapers about the China-Malta MOU. Except that in our case it isn’t a transcontinental railway but a monorail, a breakwater and a bridge.
This is not some massive and unprecedented achievement by the Maltese government, but China’s standard way of operating in the Third World, or any place where democracy is weak and corruption is high.
Muscat boasted that Malta is the first EU member state to conclude an agreement like this with China. Of course it is: other member states do not have governments with a Third World mentality or a system weak enough to allow these things to happen.
The Maltese government’s agreement with China is unique in the European Union, of course it is – but it is far from unique in those parts of the world where the checks and balances are not as strong. It is, in fact, the standard operational model for China. In China’s eyes, we are now unofficially part of the Third World, with the added benefit (to them) of being part of the European Union.
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http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/international/chinese-president-offers-to-build-rail-network-across-s-america/article6221769.ece
Malta is China’s Bangladesh in the EU.
http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/2014/07/16/45496
The China Communications Construction Company Limited (CCCC), in its proposal submitted to the MoC last April, recommends government-to-government arrangement to establish the country part of the BCIM link.
Sources said the government is now taking preparation to sign a memorandum of understanding with the CCCC soon, evidently as the prime minister’s recent Beijing trip set the ball rolling at a higher pace.
“It would be non-binding MoU under which the company will conduct the study on the Bangladesh part of the BCIM economic corridor within a year,” said one official, preferring not to be named.
Jozef – comments, please.
http://allafrica.com/stories/201406231584.html?viewall=1
Kenya: Exclusive – How Italian Firm Was Shut Out of Kenya’s SGR Project
BY JOE ADAMA, 21 JUNE 2014
Controversy is flaring up once more over the construction of the multibillion-shilling Standard Gauge Railway Project, with far-reaching implications for transparency and a genuinely competitive bidding process.
The highly experienced Italian firm TEAM Group has protested that it was ruthlessly locked out of a key Kenya Railways Corporation tender bidding process by top insiders working for cartels.
What can I say, three weeks from tender issue to adjudication is an astonishingly fast decision.
Hence my insistence that China is interested in Malta because Malta is of interest to China.
Let us all be honest and with our hand on our heart declare that ” Malta has never ever made it beyond being a third world country”.
However much a lot of us would have liked to, we never made the grade. Not as a country anyway.
We would like to believe we do not belong to the Maghreb because historically our ties have been to the North.
However, geographically and anthropologically we lean to the South. We are, for all intents and purposes, Berbers.
This is, sadly, incontrovertible.
In this respect we cannot, in any way, compare our country to the other EU member states.
I totally disagree with you. You have to define what makes a country third world. If you are referring to ignorance, then it opens up a huge discussion. Quality of life? Malta is small and I agree that a huge chunk of the population has no idea ofwhat life is all about, but it does not mean that everyone is like that!
Quality of life in Malta is shit. You need to be rich to live well here. Because most of it involves creating your exclusive bubble, to keep the ugliness out. In other European countries, you can live very well on an average wage.
Define “live very well”
@ baxxter
I do have a very high opinion of your comments. You write very well. I think we are in competition who despises this government most. I dislike it immensely, but I sense you resent the whole Maltese population. Up till now there are still decent people who choose right from wrong. I do not know which countries within the EU you have been. But I can assure you that there are worse countries than we are. It does not mean that we should just be thankfull. We should encourage this momentum towards living decently. Thanks to the Nationalist Government we were upgraded, anb our quality of life can now be compared, if it wasnt, we wouldnt be able to avail ourselves of this blogg and air our opinions freely.
It is a fact, that like mould and poisonous fungus this disgusting government is worming its way towards all that makes us decent. This evil is taking advantage ov er an opposition who has not yet come to terms with itself. Sadly the greed for power has taken over proper behavious within politicians. They stop at nothing to get what they want, even scheming with the enemy to achieve their aims
This is not about the decent people. but about beauty. Malta is clogged up – in every way.
It is overcrowded. Its buildings from 1960 onwards are massive concrete and stone things with all the aesthetic values of a Dubai shopping mall. Its countryside has bee reduced to a patchwork of RTO-marked scorched patched littered with construction waste. It is noisy. It is very hard to find a quiet corner in Malta.
So you see, it is an ugly place. Sure, you can have a superb meal with delicate aesthetic values at Xara Palace, in a quiet room surrounded by beauty. Or you can live in a villa in Fawwara, nestling beneath the cliff, with magnificent views all the way to Filfla.
But it costs money. The sort of money I’ll never have.
It could have been different. That’s what I resent. None of this was inevitable.
We could have had public parks, decent-sized, without the gebel tal-franka (so some fat cat bazuzlu can earn another lorry-load’s worth) walls everywhere. We could have had sandy beaches without the giant two or three restaurants per beach and the rows of illegal houses with the noisy families. I can’t afford to sail to Sicily for a day at the beach. I don’t even own a boat.
That many of the brighter Maltese have left Malta and settled elsewhere should give you a clue about the true quality of life in Malta. Anyone with non-hamallu aesthetic values and aspirations, and with less than 100k a year in disposable income, will live very uncomfortably indeed in Malta.
This one time I beg to differ, Baxxter. Most families in Malta can live well on an average wage if only our ideals and standard of living haven’t been blown out of proportion.
Couples who are preparing to get married spend thousands of euros for their wedding, nothing but the best suffices. Their house must be furnished and equipped with all the luxuries and modern technology.
They want it all, hairdressing, nail art, beauticians, dining out, branded clothes, luxury cars and whatever else one feels is his due.
If there is poverty in Malta, most of it is due to financial mismanagement within the family unit. Just talk with people in other European countries and see how astounded they’ll be when they see our way of life.
Again, you misread me. I’m talking about beauty. Living well requires beauty.
@Baxxter
Think of all the beauty still left around you, and be happy :)
Baxxter, what you mention is the total absence of any significant quality of work and its design.
Boundary walls were an excuse to employ people, those fortified restaurants ditto.
The first Mintoff’s, the latter the PN’s.
He did what he could, they left it standing. The result is an utter absence of interface between our activity and our surroundings. Everything has to delineate, emphasize our terms. That’s how fragile we are.
Organic reduced to expensive health food at Arkadia’s.
And the faculty of the ‘built environment’ (how sad is that, acknowledging our failure at architecture) beckons,
If only we were Berbers.
Regrading the Third World, Mintoff declared Malta was and should remain a part of the third World, ‘Post Malta huwa mal-pajjizi tat-tielet dinja’.
That explains how Airmalta and every other corporation and technology he was looking at were designed.
It was an ideological, conscious decision, a stance derived from the misguided decision that Malta’s size couldn’t allow it to be otherwise, thus begging bowl in hand and supposedly non-aligned.
It’s obvious Malta’s financial woes soon became the alibi to align to the communist bloc and scorn the ‘rich’ west.
Even because Ghaddafi was too close for comfort.
Terzomondismo then an intellectual trend, is now historically linked to the radical left, often nostalgics and perhaps some recent South American presidents.
What’s perverse is that Malta, EU member state, still suffers the same mindset, 25 years of nationalist rule have not restored any sense of a future to build.
Still, I really don’t think Mintoff would be that impressed with Muscat’s monothematic foreign affairs and global outlook, too many Chinese chapters for comfort.
It is absolutely true to say that once the EU became exclusively a question of kemm gibna flus u biljuni, the natural step was to go looking for more elsewhere, come what may.
And that is where the PN is to blame.
“It is absolutely true to say that once the EU became exclusively a question of kemm gibna flus u biljuni, the natural step was to go looking for more elsewhere, come what may.
And that is where the PN is to blame.”
How true. The EU was reduced to money grabbing. But is this what founders of the EU and the architects of the great leaps made since then had in mind?
Besides, there are European values which are not exclusive to the EU, and which are still alien to most Maltese. Human rights, for instance.
The scary thing is that the more this government warms up to the likes of Shiv Nair, Henley & something, China’s CCCC and other shady players and blacklisted ones, the less proper investors will want to invest or remain here in Malta.
This means that the gap will then have to be filled with more Chinese investment with strings attached.
Unfortunately the downward spiral is well underway and can only accelerate.
Even more amusingly I sense panic in the PL camp to shut up critics with Taghna Lkollisms which only makes Malta look more like a banana republic and further accelerates the slide. This will soon come to a head.
Yes, there is a pattern, especially where Liu Quitao is involved. They also use the same phrases and the same general approach. They do like to stress that it is a ‘win-win’ situation for both countries.
http://jis.gov.jm/pm-welcomes-plans-by-chec-to-establish-offices-in-jamaica/
Win-win for government incumbents, not for the country or its people.
“China is playing a dangerous diplomatic game with the lives of millions of people in South Sudan. It has pledged to provide peacekeeping troops to protect civilians, and at the same time has sent more than 1,000 tonnes of arms,” said Elizabeth Ashamu Deng, South Sudan Researcher at Amnesty International.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/un-south-sudan-arms-embargo-crucial-after-massive-chinese-weapons-transfer-2014-07-17
Dr Muscat’s hiring of an individual who is blacklisted by the World Bank, and using companies that are also blacklisted by the World Bank, is proof that Muscat is not at all interested in fighting any sort of corruption.
In fact, it just proves that he not only sees nothing wrong with corruption, and thinks these people were misunderstood, but also that he is corrupt himself and willing to put all of Malta at risk.
Or maybe he doesn’t realise he si doing this, because to him the World Bank is a Western institution which means it is evil and hypocritical and is only out to protect Western institutions by inhibiting non-Western companies, countries and individuals by creating this blacklist.
As far as Muscat is concerned, since these people weren’t blacklisted by China itself, then it must be fine because to him China is a perfectly legitimate country with legitimate leaders.
If Muscat isn’t corrupt himself, then why does he employ the services of corrupt individuals and companies?
And now I hear that local council elections are to be put on hold till 2019.
This isn’t a case of putting a frog in cool water and slowly heating it. This is more like a frog jumping into boiling water and refusing to get out.
The Nationalists may have had their faults, like all politicians do, but this is unacceptable deliberate decisions being made which are clearly all part of a hidden agenda to entrap the Maltese people yet again.
“Dr Muscat’s hiring of an individual who is blacklisted by the World Bank, and using companies that are also blacklisted by the World Bank, is proof that Muscat is not at all interested in fighting any sort of corruption.”
The message from this lot to the Chinese was that the fault and eventual disappearance of the Mandarins lay in their adhering to certainties rather than possibilities.
“This is so, and this is so.”
Democracies tend to worked with established and accepted certainties and treat possibilities within that framework.
The relationship between China and Malta was founded on funded possibilities.
The platform of electoral certainty was paid for.
The terms of possibility relationships established by Labour in waiting were not democratically approved, nor were they democratically accepted.
Shiv Nair’s value to Labour is that he is the futures’ broker for such possibilities.
How very interesting, and warped, that the leading and globally influential UK financial daily has direct established links to this Chinese development perspective.
China’s corruption problem lies with the fact that it is promoting state owned enterprises and banks.
I don’t know if it is only me, but anyone who has been following what’s written here about China’s deals would have noticed a pattern in those deals which I described before.
China has developed a way to sell infrastructure deals which are definitely of benefit to China itself. But since those deals are usually carried out with poor countries, which cannot sustainably manage and maintain infrastructure, little benefit accrues to China’s poor counterparties.
China’s deals are structured so that China benefits in at least two ways:
1. It builds the infrastructure with its own state owned companies.
So for instance, the corrupt CCCC could help Malta carry out a Eur 4 million feasibility study for a Malta-Gozo-via-Comino bridge, but it could also actually build the bridge for the Maltese government. And it can do both “astonishingly fast.”
Presumably it could also sign a 1000-year maintenance contract, long enough to cover the entire Muscat dynasty which will rule Malta from 2013 to 3013.
2. It provides loans to finance the infrastructure via state-owned banks. Aha – they also have the finance in place. It’s called a Wan-Stop-Xop.
It works like this. They will introduce you to gentleman by the name of Shiv Nair who can help organise a tailored long term loan from the EXIM Bank, or if you are a small Mediterranean EU country which China considers to be another third world African country that has tried to escape from the African continent but was stuck half way on its journey across the Med, you can qualify for a loan from China’s nearby outlets at the African Development Bank.
So China makes money on two fronts. Likewise, it benefits from corruption on two fronts.
Second observation about China’s model is that China has effectively displaced the World Bank in financing underdeveloped countries. As we were told by Saviour ‘Peking Duck’ Balzan of Malta Today, China has trillions of US$ in reserves ready to spend. So China set up its EXIM (Export-Import) Bank and the African Development Bank so that it can channel part of those funds to its target countries.
Since it bypasses the World Bank, China and its counterparties avoid the World Bank Blacklist – the debarment for corruption and fraud in procurement. This is an important benefit for China’s counterparties: anyone who deals directly with the China-owned banks can engage in as much corruption as they like without any scrutiny by the World Bank.
This is the reason why Joseph Muscat’s dealing with China is very worrying. Muscat is dealing with a corrupt state and with its state-owned corrupt companies.
If Muscat is dealing with China via Shiv Nair, then the matter is even more serious.
Here in the EU, and in other democratic countries, governments are expected to LIBERALISE and REGULATE trade so as to create healthy and fair competition, and then to operate with that market through deals with private enterprises in manners as transparent as possible.
China Communication Construction Company is blacklisted by the African Development Bank too. And the Asian Development Bank, the Interamerican Development Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
The so-called Western institutions are a hindrance to China not only because several of its companies are blacklisted, but because those institutions impose conditions on borrowing countries that interfere with China’s influence.
For instance, feasibility studies should include an environmental impact assessment by default, not as an afterthought because the borrowing country’s prime minister needs a cop-out option. Borrowing countries are obliged to follow public procurement rules (open call for tenders, competitive tendering, transparency in selection, cost benchmarking, etc.)
It goes without saying that fraud and corruption should be excluded – hence Nair’s permanent debarment and Chinese companies’ blacklisting.
Chinese credit imposes no such conditions because its sole objective is to ensure that Chinese state-owned companies are contracted, usually directly and without any transparency or cost benchmarking.
The result is “astonishingly fast” and totally opaque selection of China’s companies as suppliers, financed by Chinese credit through China EXIM bank or China Development bank. (Expect Malta projects to be financed through China EXIM bank because that is Nair’s speciality.)
Such deals escape scrutiny – say, under EU procurement rules – because they are classed as government-to-government deals. CCCC’s “free” feasibility studies usually recommend a government-to-government deal, which means China’s state-owned companies, including their banks, get the contracts without any competitive tendering, without any conditions that are inconvenient to them, and without any sort of public scrutiny. (This is the tactic Konrad Mizzi said government will use on the Marsaxlokk power station to bypass EU rules on public procurement.)
It follows that project costs are inflated and graft is involved. It follows too that the borrowing country is unable to repay its debt directly – including the cost of graft money – so China takes all the benefits, including rights over the infrastructure it builds, leaving the host country at China’s economic and political mercy.
When you have gov-to-gov deals:
1. The government officials will want their part of the deals.
2. You have no independent regulatory and oversight by the respective governments, and this fuels corruption.
Joseph Muscat is not giving us transparency when dealing with China because China is not a transparent counterparty. This is the message that must be hammered home by the media, the opposition, the blokkers, the twitters, the switchers, and everyone else every time Muscat mentions China.
Muscat told Saviour Balzan (it’s in his interview) that government to government deals are efficient because they cut down on red tape.
So no checks and balances, then, and no public scrutiny of his very shady deals.
What does the man know? His only experience of investment was in Alfred Mifsud’s office.
Incidentally, Ciccio, you’re assuming that Muscat’s government-to-government deals with China precede corruption. Corruption is the reason for those government-to-government deals.
He wants to bypass all democratic processes. Konrad Mizzi said as much when challenged about the power station and Muscat did likewise when challenged about his bridge project.
Imagine what will happen once that major oil find in Maltese waters is finally announced for real.
China will be on the first floor with its tankers ready to load up.
China’s in Costa Rica too , developing a mine and the highway connecting Limon on the Carribean with the highways on the west coast. http://www.elfinancierocr.com/economia-y-politica/Costa-Rica-China-negociaran-proyectos_0_555544449.html
And China’s building a canal through Nicaragua to rival Panama’s.
How do you say Taghna Wkoll in Chinese?
How did the Soviet Union invade Afghanistan? First the comrade Brezhnev made a bilateral agreement with the King of Afghanistan that included construction of roads.
A main highway linking the Soviet Union to Kabul was constructed. In 1978 the King was overthrown in a coup by the Afghani communists that called themselves, as usual, The People’s Democratic Party following which the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan with military tanks, lorries and other military vehicles travelling over that same highway that the Soviets had built straight to Kabul.
I am not saying that China will invade these countries, but communist dictators are no mother Theresas. They don’t build you roads and bridges because they are philanthropists. If they were they would be building schools and hospitals. There scope is only self-centered, sinister.
The problem with China isn’t Communism. It’s their civilisation. Even before Mao, the Chinese were as cruel, tyrannical, cynical and duplicitous as they are today, and imbued with the same absolute certainty about their place in the world. And that includes the racism too.
I thought I’d make it clear that this isn’t a political football. This is about civilisations, my dears. The global liberal economy is a Western construct. Its rules are meant to be the rules of the West. But China takes full advantage of that global economy, minus the rules. Because the Chinese cannot stand the fact that everything that is good and useful in the last five hundred years was invented by someone else.
This is what it’s all about. It’s about whose civilisation will be the cultural attractor in the 21st century.
On thing I’ll tell you: the Chinese leadership all wear suits. We don’t wear Chinese robes.
Which is why I’m very wary of Confucius Institutes and Chinese language lessons. This is cultural colonisation, the precursor to supremacy.
Has this Shiv Nair thing been brought up in Parliament?
Not recently.
And so it is written:
“The meek shall inherit the earth”.
In this case the meek are buying their way into every impregnable society in the world. How do you think USA become so powerful (war and force) – The Chinese are just going about it a different way.
[Daphne – The US did not become powerful through war and force, but through economics. It is the world’s largest and richest liberal economy. China is not meek. It used the threat of war and force for years, and when it began to understand the benefits of industry and trade and use them, accumulating huge amounts of reserves and spending power, it began using that.]
I think you missed my point Daphne. Yes China has always ruled with an iron fist with their people and outsiders but have become meek in the world theatre, sly and yes they see a different method of gaining world financial power–They have become “The Meek”.
The USA on the other hand was not much different in mentality, they went into country after country in the name of democracy, human rights and to protect those that welcomed them into their country to fight their opponents. Tell me, why did the USA support so many ruling dictators in some Arab countires? I’ll tell you: The USA had their piece of the pie in those countries. The price? In every country the USA stepped into, throught their ecomonic policies and pre-waring campaigns, brokered/negotiated Sovereignty rights for themselves for the resources in each and every country. They took advantage in each country for their own strategic place in the world – thus their rise. If you think USA has the richest liberal economy, one look at their defficit will tell you the real story. They’re so called richest liberal economy is on the brink of a major implosion and of a disasterous adjustment; most financial institutions are predicting this to take place this year. Every country in the world will feel this adjustment. Why do you think almost every country in the world do not trust the USA? They are a dictating country under the guise/mask of Democracy. The USA mentality has rode for many years on how great they are – funny though – they live by the sword and they will die by the sword, all this under the meekness of China’s imminent take over of the world banks and there is not a thing that the USA can do about it. They’re greatness has run out – the economy will collapse and China is there picking up the pieces. Its brains over braun from here on in and it seems that China has the upper hand on the brains in this case.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=840687322626155&set=a.406969469331278.108990.100000546865217&type=1&theater
Aqra l-comments taht ir-ritratt. Ta’ min jaghmel post fuq il-website fuqha.
On another subject, Times of Malta reports on public transport are so biased that they have now become a joke.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140718/local/passengers-endure-heat-but-praise-bus-increase.528168
Forcing Arriva out was a massive mistake when the way forward was to work with Arriva to address shortcomings. Getting bendy buses off the road was the one single decision which reduced efficiency, increased crowding on buses and increased costs. The bendy bus fires were very likely sabotage.
No amount of dubious vox pops will change that.
If Arriva were still around, the summer time table would have been introduced three of four weeks ago and not now.
Soon Times of Malta will be running headlines like:
“Passengers praise falling standards in public transport service and are delighted with a significant increase in bus fares.”
Wasn’t that the gist of the last bus service-related article?
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2014/07/the-general-consensus-on-the-buses-that-a-bad-service-in-smelly-and-dirty-conditions-run-by-maltese-people-is-preferable-to-a-better-service-in-clean-and-efficient-conditions-run-by-barranin-u-ingliz/
Chinese companies are seeking to finance infrastructure projects in many other EU countries. A sample:
UK: http://www.marinelink.com/news/infrastructure-transport371527.aspx
Cyprus: http://www.china-invests.net/20140221/32488.aspx
Hungary: http://china.org.cn/world/2014-02/14/content_31469015.htm
Bulgaria: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-01/15/content_17235756.htm
Greece: http://www.marinelink.com/news/infrastructure-transport371527.aspx
Claims that the agreement negotiated was a massive and unprecedented achievement are misplaced – as is the idea that China considers Malta ‘part of the Third World’ and that it only seeks to undertake these projects in countries ‘where democracy is weak and corruption is high.’
There are scores of wholly state-owned, partially state owned and privately-listed infrastructure companies in China and they are looking for commercial opportunities – foreign and domestic – driven by commercial considerations.
Of course there is a political element to all of this – but the point is that this phenomenon is part of a blueprint that is being executed all over the EU, and not just in Malta.
Your examples destroy your argument. Hungary, Cyprus, Greece and Bulgaria are weak and corrupt. The UK has a vigilant and aggressive press that will savage any attempts by China to take political control.
China’s projects in Malta ensure that the entire country is under its control. Our media are, for the most part, sycophantic, not critical.
First off: I have no monetary interest at stake in the China argument at all. I just don’t see the sense in crying wolf about every single aspect of our China policy such that the issue of China turns into a political football. That is not necessary just now.
I am also not trying to justify mercantilism and weakness vis-a-vis China as foreign policy – I think both are fundamentally misguided. However, thinking that these kind of sentiments only exist in the minds of our own politicians is factually incorrect and understates the seriousness of the problem – both attitudes are widespread across Europe. And you need only observe the EU’s China policy to see that on the whole it is trying to accommodate, if not facilitate, China’s rise and not looking to embarrass Beijing or to be unnecessarily antagonistic.
China is not specifically ‘targeting’ Malta (or the UK, Cyprus, Portugal, Greece, Hungary or any of the other EU countries where Chinese companies have a presence) because they are weak or corrupt (corruption exists everywhere – even in Malta prior to March 9, 2013). No, China is ‘targeting’ most of the rest of the world – that’s in the nature of increasingly powerful global hegemons.
What do you mean ‘just now’?
The reason discussion here focusses on Malta is because that is the topic of discussion. Why else would anyone be talking about China?
Your government signed an agreement with China FOUR YEARS AGO and that was when he was in opposition. He called it an agreement between two countries.
Now he’s signed a 5-year agreement which – and he thinks this is a boast – is unprecedented and subject to renewal.
He’s sold Malta to China, making the country dependent on
China’s whims, rather than developing existing and new existing economic sectors.
Now please tell me exactly what it is you are waiting for to actually say there is something intrinsically wrong about this government’s behaviour especially – but not exclusively – where China is concerned.
Now be a man and declare your interest.
I could not find the UK example you claim here. Check your link.
As It-Tezi ta’ Mario told you already, the countries you mentioned (excluding the UK for which you gave no information), are not known for their leading democratic credentials. China is not going to help them improve their image overseas.
Joseph Muscat promised “l-aqwa fl-Ewropa.” Since when do we look at Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus and Hungary for the best in Europe? My informed guess is that they are always towards the bottom in the EU rankings on many leadership issues.
@Ciccio: UK link: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27882954
I have neither the time nor the inclination to feed you information on every single recent example of China’s investment in infrastructure in EU countries. Even the most superficial of searches will prove to you that this is widespread. The overriding point is that Chinese investment is occurring everywhere – so pretending that it is a Malta-only phenomenon is wrong.
@Tezi’ ta Mario i) I don’t think it makes sense to act as if the world is going to end right at this minute because of the signing of a non-binding and unenforceable Memorandum of Understanding. Such documents are a dime a dozen in international relations (notwithstanding any claims to the contrary by our government). If we do start making binding commitments with China that are unfavourable to us across a wide swathe of our economy (I don’t think this is likely) I will revise my opinion.
ii) the document signed in 2010 was non an agreement between countries but if anything an agreement between political parties (the Communist Party of China and the Malta Labour Party). It was therefore not signed by ‘my government’
iii) The fact that this memorandum of understanding is subject to renewal is trivial – that’s common practice in international relations. I’m not sure how any calm reading of the terms of the MoU indicates that Malta has been sold – the two sides have made plain their intention to explore cooperation in certain areas, but neither side has committed itself to anything.
iv) I don’t view this government’s China policy as a huge departure from the policy of the Gonzi administration. The main difference is in results (but this has more to do with decisions being made by the Chinese side). My two main criticisms of our policy – both then and now – are i) we know what we want from China (students, tourists, investment) but are not devoting sufficient resources to achieve it – we seem to expect that everything will be presented to us on a silver platter and ii) as a rule, our foreign policy is mercantilist and in our dealings with China (and other ‘difficult’ countries) we place very little emphasis on promoting human rights and the rule of law
@fautdemieux
I am not the type to be fed information – I normally process information. I was merely pointing out that your reference to the UK was unsubstantiated.
In fact, your argument remains unsubstantiated even now that you have provided your link. Let’s see, it says that China signed £14bn of trade deals with the UK, and in the detail, it says that this includes a deal signed between BP and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation worth £11.8bn – that’s almost 90% of the total value of deals. There is not enough detail about the other £2bn but it seems that it consists of private deals as well.
Now the last time I checked, BP was a privately held multinational corporation, regulated by several governments around the world, not least by the US government which has fined BP on several occasions. The oil giant is publicly listed – and therefore is subject to shareholders’, media and public scrutiny – and although it is of British origin (hence the name), its current Chairman and CEO are not even British.
If the Chinese counterpart is state-owned, it is not BP’s problem – it is China’s problem, although, having said this, it is not uncommon for national oil corporations to be state-owned even in the democratic west. Besides, it is BP which is selling to China, not the other way round.
Is this the type of deal that Joseph Muscat signed with China?
When I make my arguments on this topic, I am not only seeking to keep Joseph Muscat and China accountable to their publics, but I am also defending the Maltese business entrepreneurship (please note that the term is slightly different from ‘businessmen’).
fautdemieux, if you are Mario Vella please change your nickname, because the correct phrase is “faute de mieux” and you should know better.
The agreement Muscat signd in opposition in 2010 was an agreement between two leaders in waiting. Its significance is not its legal enforceability but that it was signed at all.
Muscat called his MOU an agreement between two countries. Given that there is only nominal separation between party and state in China, that is literally true on their side and in their view.
Muscat, on the other hand, was leader of the opposition in a democratic country, or was supposed to have been. It was incumbent on him to behave accordingly.
When Muscat called his 2010 MOU an agreement between two countries, he really meant that. He signed it knowing he had China’s backing to become Malta’s next prime minister.
That 2010 MOU did not bind Malta. It bound Muscat to serve China’s interests once China helped him become PM.
As someone who has lived in Beijing and worked in Malta’s diplomatic service, you must be acutely aware of the country’s cynical regard for democratic systems as weaknesses to be exploited, a view Muscat himself shares, by no small coincidence.
You must also be acutely aware that what a democratic system views as corrupt and anti-democratic, China views as the legtimate means to its own ends.
When Xi Xinping signed his MOU with Muscat in 2010, he did so knowing that three years later, he would call in his favours from Muscat as PM.
Muscst owes his position to China and you know it, so dump your facetiousness on the matter.
Incidentally, isn’t there some rule in the diplomatic service at obliges diplomats to keep their politicsl opinions to themselves?
@fautdemieux
I am posting this separately because it is very point you seem to miss – deliberately.
Malta was not sold under the terms of Muscat’s recent MOU with China.
Malta was sold when Muscat signed an MOU with China in 2010.
China is now calling in its favours, and Muscat is making Malta pay.
From the slogan “Malta is more European than Europe” used by Muscat to laud his own achievement in the pressed-hard-gay-lobby Bill, we have become less European and more like a Third World country. China is mocking us; the whole of Europe is mocking us.
And Muscat inflates his ego and is mesmerised by his four-page memorandum signed with China.
The PN really needs to wake up. Muscat is treating the Opposition like a prostitute with his “who’s your daddy?” attitude. It must not accept Muscat’s way of treating it or democracy. If the need arises, the PN should boycott Parliament. Muscat is like a bulldozer and he overstepped every limit.
The PN should make a stop to all this. Now before it is too late.
For me these observations imply one of two characterisations: E
EITHER, Muscat is a naive and silly man whose mentality of living on handouts has blinded him to the obvious machinations of the Chinese government. In addition, what’s wrong with making a buck or two while receiving the aid that is much needed after a quarter of a century of EFA/GonziPN destruction.
OR, Muscat is an evil and manipulative man whose lust for money and power is such that he is completely clear about the obvious machinations of the Chinese government but couldn’t really give a damn because he’s making a ton of cash. After all isn’t that what happened during a quarter of a century of EFA/GonziPN destruction. In add, he gets to hobnob with his man crushes like Cameron et al. His attitude remains silly.
I subscribe to (b). Muscat knows everything and he’s in on it. He is the ONE to have sold out Malta to the highest bidder and not the PN. Muscat does not care about the future welfare of Malta and how these shady deals will have very bad consequences on us and on future generations when push comes to shove.
(Example, in the early 1990s, I met a number of Japanese potential investors who refused to even visit Malta because of what Mintoff had done in the 1970s.)
Muscat cares less about what other nations will think about Malta or what leaving the EU would mean to our economy and liberty. He is a pragmatist only insofar as he recognises that power is transient. For that reason Muscat is making the best of it. He will have amassed a considerable fortune to be able to live comfortably wherever he likes when there is trouble. The rest of us and many of our children are tied to this godforsaken rock.
And yet the electorate claps and cheers. And yet the electorate will probably vote for exiting the EU when the time comes.
From now on it is easy to identify who the real traitors to Malta are. Unlike Mintoff who is loved by a portion of society, Muscat will go down in history as Malta’s most hated man. And that is by no means an easy feat given the feelings of the portion of society who blessed the day Mintoff died.
PN where are you?
In the meantime Mario De Marco proudly declares in parliament that it wouldn’t have made any difference had Enemalta had been sold to the English, Italian or any other country. What’s wrong with China? Pff. All this could even be a positive development.
I despair.
What happened to Eddy Privitera? His comments have disappeared from here.
Perhaps he’s joined the choirs invisible.