On this episode of China Uncensored,
how the Chinese Communist Party is infiltrating Greece.
Hi, welcome to China Uncensored.
I'm Chris Chappell.
What do you do when you're burdened by debt
and on the verge of bankruptcy?
You move back into your parents basement
or if you're a country, you ask China for help.
And that's exactly what Greece is doing.
But when you're feeling desperate,
do you really make the wisest choices?
Shelly Zhang reports from Athens.
Thanks Chris.
Greece, the cradle of Western civilization,
home of gorgeous islands,
big fat weddings
and a pantheon of gods straight out of a daytime soap opera.
And also the worst government debt crisis in any developed country.
One that led to 13 rounds of spending cuts,
a new government
and 30,000 euros of debt for every Greek citizen.
Greece needed a hero
and an unlikely one emerged to save the day...
sort of,
the Chinese Communist Party.
For decades, the party has wanted to get a political foothold in Europe.
But it's been difficult because of the European Union's powerful influence.
But in late 2009,
Greece entered an era best described as
"Holy Zeus we have no more money!"
It became clear that Greece might not be able
to pay back those billions of dollars
it had borrowed from the rest of the EU.
So it was basically a situation
where after the Greek financial crisis,
nobody wanted to swipe right on Greece anymore?
Nobody wanted to lend money to the Greek government anymore.
john Psaropolous is an independent journalist
who has covered Greece for two decades.
He says that as the EU backed off from Greece,
China started to move in.
Think of it as a friendship
within the generation of people
who go back at least 3,000 years.
Hmm, yes, let's be friends because we have so much in common, babe.
Like we haven't heard that one before
am i right ladies?
The CCP's courtship started in about 2009
but it got serious in 2015
after the Greeks elected Alexis Tsipras as Prime Minister.
At first, the CCP was concerned
because Tsipras' party was radical leftist,
they were afraid Greece might not be open to Chinese investment anymore.
And the CCP knows better than anyone
- never trust a communist.
But it turned out there was mutual affection,
Tsipras was very interested in Chinese investment.
Hey just because we're both communists
doesn't mean we can't make a little profit right?
Prime Minister Tsipras immediately bent over backwards to be friends with China.
Just 24 days after taking office,
Tsipras welcomed a Chinese warship to the Greek port of Piraeus.
He told Chinese officials that
he wants Greece to serve as China's gateway into Europe
Tsipras even flew to China twice.
Once in 2016 and then again in 2017.
Look, I know it looks like the same trip.
But Tsipras only owns one nice outfit, okay?
Greece is short on cash.
Behind me is Piraeus port, just outside Athens.
It's the largest port in Greece
and one of the largest in the Mediterranean.
In 2016, the Greek government allowed Chinese state-owned shipping giant - Cosco
to buy a 51% stake here
for three hundred and thirty million dollars.
Within five years, they will own 67%.
Costco had already been renting part of the port since 2008.
Now they effectively own it.
The Chinese government is building Piraeus
into a key gateway to move Chinese products
into the rest of Europe.
They call it a "Dragon Head" for the One Belt One Road initiative
the series of massive infrastructure projects
that aims to export Chinese goods around the world.
I visited the Dockworkers Union
and sat down with Giorgos Gogos.
We took the management of a very profitable organization
in a very strategic place in Mediterranean Sea.
for a very low price.
Yes, Chinese people know a good deal when they see one.
But Mr. Gogos is concerned
that letting a Chinese company take over the Greek port
was maybe not such a great idea.
Sure, things are a lot more efficient from Costco's perspective .
They've cut salaries dramatically
and moved a lot of full-time workers to being on-call.
But the work is more demanding and with less job security.
I think it's a big mistake from European Union
and the Americans
that are leaving space for Chinese companies to enter.
But we are too small to deal with these things.
Even captain Fu Chen Chow, the Chinese guy who runs the port,
admitted that selling Piraeus port to Costco
maybe wasn't such a smart move on Greece's part.
Apart from this, he said that in China,
we wouldn't privatize such a port because it's a big asset.
But Chinese investment doesn't stop at the port,
I think Cosco has opened the door.
It's a state-owned company, it has deep pockets,
it has a close relationship with the government.
That signals to other Chinese companies
that if their investment does well,
Greece is okay to invest in.
In December last year,
China bought a 24% stake in Greece's public power grid operator.
While Prime Minister Tsipras was in Beijing in May 2017,
he signed an agreement with a Chinese firm
that will invest half a billion dollars over seven years
to build a fiber optic telecommunications network in Greece.
And in September,
Greece honored China at the Thessaloniki International Fair.
Six thousand square feet of pavilion space
was dedicated to Chinese companies.
Now from an economic standpoint,
the relationship between China and Greece over the last few years
has been mostly positive.
Who doesn't love cheap handbags made in China?
And millennia of Greek history made in China?
Even Mr. Gogos' Union,
which has had issues with Cosco in the past
is willing to work with the Chinese
as long as they are willing to adapt.
I think now, if they want to have a better face in Greek society,
we have to respect certain things.
And among these things
are labor relations, environmental issues
and national sovereignty of the country.
So could this become a friendship
that's mutually respectful and beneficial?
Well, like every friends with benefits relationship,
it eventually gets complicated,
am i right ladies?
Well, the political ramifications of China's investments in Greece remain to be seen.
At the moment it's just business.
But business is never just business forever,
particularly what it is, a state condemned.
There's growing concern in Europe over Greece's relationship with China.
It's kind of like watching your best friends start dating this guy.
Let's just say the CCP might not be in the best influence.
For example, in July 2016,
Greece was one of only two EU countries
that sided with the CCP after a controversial South China Sea court ruling.
And in June 2017,
Greece stopped the EU from condemning the CCP's human rights abuses.
And then opposed the EU
doing tougher screenings of Chinese investments in Europe.
So there is a European concern now,
about what the pattern of Chinese investments going to be?
How much power Chinese investments will have,
taken as a whole, as a sum.
Now ironically, it was the EU that had forced Greece to privatize,
to sell off some of their state-owned assets
as part of their debt repayment.
But now that the buyer is the CCP,
the EU is having sellers remorse.
Now China isn't just investing in Greece,
but in many other Eastern European countries as well.
And that's causing enough alarm for the EU
to take a closer look at these deals.
Meanwhile, Greece is still a little upset at the EU
so they're not exactly taking the EU's warning seriously.
I don't think that the Greeks are afraid of too much Chinese influence
at the moment.
They're happy to have a country, a major country
an upcoming superpower, really, in the world,
been interested in them,
and have seen Greece is a promising place.
That's always nice to be nice.
It's always nice to be nice,
particularly when your old friend criticize you.
And the chinese have seen that opportunity,
they've seen the changing psychology in Greece.
that isn't lost for them.
Look, I understand,
it's been a tough few years you've lost a lot of jobs,
you're going through a big recession
you've gained a few million extra pounds of... debt
and here comes this exciting new guy.
He definitely wants a strategic investment partner with benefits kind of relationship.
And you have a lot in common,
like you're both ancient civilizations.
And everything's going fine.
He doesn't care about your bad reputation,
he's showering you with investments.
And okay, your friends are trying to warn you about this guy
but they don't know him like you do.
And no, he didn't ask you to stop them from
pointing out his human rights problems.
That's just what you do when you're in a relationship, right?
Look, I'm not telling you to break up with him,
that's your business.
I'm saying you're like 3,000 years old.
It's time to pull yourself together,
you've got to figure out if this is the kind of relationship you really want.
Just think about it, okay?
Or not?
Thanks Shelly for taking time out of your vacation to do this story.
Look like you had a really marvelous time.
I crack myself up.
So what do you think of Greece's relationship with China,
friends with benefits or something more?
Let me know in the comments below.
Thanks again for watching this episode of China Uncensored.
Once again I'm your host Chris Chappell,
see you next time.
Thanks for watching,
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