Name: China’s Big European Failure
Uploaded: 2021-05-11T15:02:05.000Z
Duration: 13 min 36 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Welcome to China Uncensored. I'm Chris Chappell.  Remember to support the show by liking this  

episode, subscribing, or re-subscribing if  YouTube secretly unsubscribed you—it happens,  

and sharing this video with  your friends and family. 

Speaking of our friends and allies, you might  think that China is doing pretty great when  

it comes to Europe. After all, they signed a  new investment deal with the European Union  

that pretty much lets them off the  hook when it comes to human rights. 

Ok, sure they had to promise to try to maybe think  about possibly getting better at human rights,  

but that's not a big deal for the Chinese  Communist Party. They're good at promising things.

But their promises of win-win mutual cooperation  across all of Europe have hit a big snag. 

Last week the Chinese Communist Party held  a virtual summit for the leaders of the  

17+1 group of nations. And many of those  leaders just...didn't bother showing up.

What is the 17+1? Well the 17 is a group of  17 Central and Eastern European countries,  

The Chinese Communist Party  established the 17+1 back in 2012.  

It's a group that the Party has essentially tried  to use to divide and conquer Europe—by using  

infrastructure investment, trade deals, and other  economic incentives to influence these countries.

12 of these 17 countries are  part of the European Union,  

which the Chinese Communist Party was  definitely looking to get on its side.

We actually talked about this 17+1 group  in this episode from three years ago.

Back then it was only 16+1, but  then Greece was invited to join.  

After all, Greece proved it  was a true friend of China  

after blocking an EU statement condemning  China's terrible human rights. 

Which is exactly the kind of influence that China  was hoping these countries would have on the EU. 

But three years after our  last episode on the 17+1,  

the relationship has soured a little bit  between the 17 and the 1. That's one reason why  

some of the leaders of those countries skipped  a virtual summit that China held last week.

In fact, “Half of the 12 EU national leaders  

invited to the club failed to show up to  pay homage to Chinese President Xi Jinping.”

Sure, everyone hates Zoom meetings.  But these European leaders  

didn't skip the meeting just because  they didn't want to put on pants.

The six countries sent a lower-level  representative instead of their top leaders.  

They were Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, and the  Baltic countries Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. 

And apparently the Baltic states, in  particular Lithuania, took the lead.

It figures. Those Baltic  countries are such troublemakers. 

This situation was especially embarrassing  for the Chinese Communist Party because  

Xi Jinping was personally hosting the meeting. 

Look, Xi Jinping doesn't host Zoom  meetings for random Lithuanian ministers.  

He expects to see the Lithuanian  president, President...Nauseda.

And now it looks like President Nauseda just  

didn't think Xi Jinping was worth  the effort to put on a pair of pants.

The point is, the Chinese Communist  Party wasn't happy about this.

“Only a day before the event, Chinese diplomats  were piling pressure on these capitals to send  

'a higher level representation,' according to  a diplomat from one of these six countries.”

And apparently the Lithuanian  and Estonian ambassadors  

were summoned to China's foreign ministry  for a dressing down. Which they ignored. 

So why did these European  countries snub the 17+1 summit?

Why did so many European countries  snub China's 17+1 summit?  

It's because instead of being China's gateway to  Europe, the 17+1 has become a zombie mechanism.

Hey, back in 2012 it sounded like a great  idea! China wanted to come to Central and  

Eastern Europe, and it was looking to spend.  It promised to build new infrastructure,  

to build new factories, to buy lots  of Central and Eastern European stuff.  

China set up a 10 billion dollar  credit line for the 17+1 countries.

like a deal to build and develop new nuclear  reactors in Romania at the Cernavoda power plant.

Or the Budapest-Belgrade railway project,  

which is eventually supposed to link  to the port of Piraeus in Greece.

The infrastructure projects that  were promised to the 17+1 group  

were linked to China's Belt and Road  Initiative, also known as One Belt, One Road.  

But after almost a decade, most of these countries  would call it One Belt, One Road to Nowhere. 

That's because the Chinese  Communist Party continued to do  

something that they do so much  of, it's practically their motto.

That's right. Overpromise and underdeliver.

A lot of the big flagship  infrastructure projects that the  

Chinese Communist Party promised have either made  very little progress, or haven't happened at all. 

“Instead of infrastructure, they  received forums; instead of factories  

they received exchange programs; and instead  of exports they received summer camps.”

So these countries were expecting investment  and economic revitalization but instead  

they just get invited to boring  Zoom meetings. Which explains why  

they don't think it's worth putting  on a pair of pants for Xi Jinping. 

Well, that and none of us fit into our pants  anymore after a year of coronavirus lockdowns.

Speaking of overinflated waistlines, that  flagship Budapest-Belgrade railway project  

has been called a white elephant—a project  whose cost outweighs its usefulness.

1.9 billion dollar loan with China  to complete the project last spring.

And then classified all of the details  about the project for 10 years.

That's after the project was “relaunched  and pushed through with extra government aid  

And fun fact, the railway is designed “to ship  Chinese goods from Greece to western Europe,  

but key sections in the Balkans are missing.”

I'm sure they'll get around  to building those...later.

What about the Romanian power plant deal? 

Well, funny story. Romania decided to get the  US to build those plants instead of China.

Back in 2015, the Romanian government signed  a preliminary agreement with state-run China  

General Nuclear Power Corporation, known  as CGN, to build the nuclear reactors.

Then in 2019, the US government blacklisted  CGN and other Chinese nuclear firms  

for using US technology to help China's military.

This happened right around  the same time as Romania's  

president was visiting the  US. And in a joint statement,  

both countries pledged to “work closely together  to support Romania's civil nuclear energy goals.”

Then in late 2019, a new Romanian government was  elected that was a little less friendly to China.  

And the new prime minister announced that he was  

cancelling the deal with CGN  to build the nuclear reactors.