But some of China's best laid plans

Are becoming its biggest failures

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. 

And it's kind of their own fault.

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,  

and the +1 is China. 

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?

I'll tell you why after the break.

Welcome back.

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.  

And at first, things were looking good.

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

There were big flagship projects  

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.

Uh, no Seamus. Their other 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.

That's after Hungary signed a  

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  

despite mounting criticism.”

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.

Which eventually led to US  companies taking over the project. 

In fact, the Romanian  government is now considering  

banning Chinese companies from bidding  on infrastructure projects at all.

That's something that's happening  in the Czech Republic as well.

But the Romania story shows another big piece of  

why the Chinese Communist  Party's 17+1 project is stalling.

And that is: successful diplomacy from the  United States. Under the Trump Administration.

During the Romanian president's  visit to the US in 2019,  

Romania became the first country to sign  a memorandum of understanding with the US  

that essentially banned Chinese telecom  Huawei from building its 5G infrastructure.

And that led to a ton of other  Central and Eastern European countries  

either doing the same, or joining the Trump  Administration's Clean Network Initiative.  

Which is also targeted at keeping Huawei from  building 5G infrastructure around the world.

And guess what, a lot of those  countries are 17+1 countries, too.

Well, that's awkward.

So it seems that the US and its EU allies like  France and Germany haven't been seeing eye-to-eye  

regarding the threat from the Chinese Communist  Party. But under the Trump administration, the US  

government spent a lot of effort reaching out to  these Central and Eastern European countries too.  

This picture was of course pre-coronavirus,  when we all still shook hands. And wore pants.

But that successful diplomacy, together with  the Chinese Communist Party's broken promises,  

have turned a lot of the region  against the Chinese regime.

Of course there are still countries like Hungary  that are holding out for some of that Belt and  

Road money, but the disillusionment  among many 17+1 countries is real. 

Will that affect the rest of the EU?  

I guess it depends on how much they believe  the Chinese Communist Party's promises.

And now it's time for me to answer a question  from the China Uncensored 50-Cent Army. Those  

are viewers of the show who support China  Uncensored on the crowdfunding website Patreon.  

We wouldn't be able to do these episodes without  you. Find out more at Patreon.com/ChinaUncensored.

Greg asks,  Chris would it help if more people were made aware  

of the investment firms that bankroll the Chinese  Communist Party??? I would think that if the  

average individual investor knew the funds they  are investing are either Directly or Indirectly  

supporting the Chinese Communist Party they would  demand that the practice would be stopped!!!  

It seems PUBLIC SHAMING would force the  businesses involved to question their strategy!!!!

Well Greg, I do think this type of  public shaming works for companies that  

have to answer to consumers. Like H&M,  which cut ties with their supplier after  

accusations that they used cotton  made with forced labor in Xinjiang.

But when it comes to big investment  firms, that's not as easy.  

Because for these companies, individual investors  are kind of small peanuts. You'd have to get  

big investors, like institutions that have  tens or hundreds of millions of dollars  

handled by these investment firms, to pull  out before it would make a big difference. Or  

the government would have to step in,  like when the Trump administration  

tried to ban Chinese military-linked  companies from trading on Wall Street.

But this is a huge problem that we need  to talk about. Because foreign investment  

is definitely supporting the Chinese Communist  Party and what they do. And it goes pretty deep.  

We've been thinking about doing an episode on  how you might be investing in China without  

even knowing it. Let me know in the  comments if you'd like to see that. 

Thanks for your question, Greg.

Be like Greg and support China Uncensored. Go  to Patreon.com/ChinaUncensored to learn more.

Once again, I'm Chris Chappell. See you next time.