David Craig, on April 9th, 2020(Thursday blog)
As we struggle to survive the Chinese Covid-19 plague, we might risk failing to prepare for some unwelcome consequences.
One of these is that many Western companies will emerge from the lockdown on their knees or even bankrupt. This will present a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for anyone with cash to buy up these companies and their assets at rockbottom prices.
But with the West in economic meltdown and Western governments spending tsunamis of money to offset some of the worst effects of the Chinese Covid-19 plague, there aren’t any Western countries which will emerge with loads of cash to spend.
But what about China? China holds trillions in Western debt. And China is awash with cash from having deliberately and methodically destroyed most of Western manufacturing sector by sector. What’s to stop Chinese companies (all of which are controlled by the corrupt, predatory, power-hungry Chinese Communist Party) from swooping into Europe and the USA and buying up huge numbers of crippled businesses at bargain basement prices?
In Australia, there’s a government body called Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB). Its remit is to assess any major takeover of an Australian business by a foreign company to see if this may harm Australia’s national strategic interests. Over the last five years the FIRB has, reportedly, just been a toothless, self-serving bureaucracy which has only rejected about five of over 10,000 foreign takeovers. This has allowed foreign companies – mainly Chinese companies – to buy huge numbers of Australian businesses especially in property, agriculture and food production and in the natural resources sector.
In Europe, most of us are unaware just how much is owned by Chinese companies (controlled, of course, by the corrupt, predatory, power-hungry Chinese Communist Party). For example, Chinese investors have bought about 40 per cent of Bordeaux vineyards put up for sale in recent years, and an estimated 160 French wine estates are now Chinese-owned, nearly all in Bordeaux. And many people have recently learnt to their surprise that there may be over 300,000 Chinese working in the Italian textile and fashion industry for companies that look Italian and sound Italian but are actually owned by Chinese companies. The label “Made in Italy” should probably be changed to “Made by Chinese Workers for Chinese Companies in Italy”.
The Chinese Covid-19 plague has woken up the Australian government to the threat that, as Australian companies struggle because of the Chinese Covid-19 plague, this presents the Chinese government using Chinese companies with a possible bonanza – grab what’s left of Australian industry, property and agriculture at bargain-basement prices. To try to prevent a Chinese smash, grab and takeaway, the Australian Government has lowered the threshold for FIRB reviews to zero dollars (I don’t know what it was before) and told the FIRB to grow a set of balls. But it may be too late as China already owns much of Australia and Tasmania – one thing that struck me on my last visit to Australia was the huge number of Chinese in the main cities.
Meanwhile here in the UK, every time a foreign company buys up some British assets, we’re told this is good for us as it’s “foreign investment”.
But is selling off key assets to foreigners really beneficial for Britain? For example, now most of our energy and water companies are foreign-owned. They have deliberately loaded themselves up with debt while paying massive dividends to their foreign owners. Moreover, any profits they do make are immediately shipped offshore – UK households are making the foreign owners of our water and energy companies very rich indeed.
The Chinese now own what’s left of British Steel and recently completed the purchase of Sunseeker Yachts. Here is an outdated (from 2015) list of some other Chinese ‘investments’ in UK companies:
As we crawl out of the economic hole we have been pushed into by the Chinese Covid-19 plague, will our Government have the sense and courage to protect British businesses and prevent them being snapped up by cash-rich Chinese companies controlled by the corrupt, predatory, power-hungry Chinese Communist Party? I think you all know the answer to that question – especially as many leading and influential Establishment figures have lucrative positions on the Boards of Chinese-owned companies.
I’m not for a moment suggesting that the release of the Chinese Covid-19 plague was deliberate economic warfare. I’m sure the virus was accidentally leaked due to poor hygiene practices at either the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control or the Wuhan Institute of Virology. But I’m also certain that the dirty, corrupt, lying, power-hungry Chinese will not let an opportunity like this go to waste and we can expect a massive Chinese smash, grab and takeaway of many major Western businesses over the next few months.
Here’s a 16-minute clip from an Australian TV programme trying to get to grips with this coming problem:
Category: 
At least the Australians seem to be waking up to reality,or at least some are and a MSM outlet is giving it serious air time.Will we see a similar response from UK politicians and the Conservatives in particular? Will any of our MSM ? Our strategic safety is seriously compromised as has been pointed out over the years by many,only to be ridiculed by the usual individuals.If one good thing comes out of this virus,it is that it openly displays how our sovereignty and integrity as a nation has been irresponsibly weakened by the actions and policies of all the main political parties.Making Brexit happen quickly is the first and easily obtainable objective and then, how are we going to rebuild our industries to give us greater self reliance and independence.The ordinary people of Britain I am sure would really behind such developments,because they actually believe in their country and its resourcefulness to build and create,as our history so clearly illustrates.However we need politicians with courage,vision and practical experience in engineering and business.Too many lawyers only produce hot air and create non existent reasons for inaction.The swamp needs draining.Where is the promised bonfire of the quangos?Lots of talk without action as usual.
It’s puzzling how huge cities in China like Beijing and Shanghai have only 8 and 7 coronavirus deaths between them, but we in the UK thousands of miles away, have over 7000? But we in the West are a dying civilisation anyway, so the question is, is it better to be taken over by the Chinese or Islam, as what is happening to us right now? Of the two, I would vote Chinese every time, at least they don’t follow a religious creed that commands them reject all civilised values and (eventually) kill us all. According to Paul Craig Roberts, democracy no longer exists in the West anyway: In the US, powerful private interest groups, such as the military-security complex, Wall Street, the Israel Lobby, agribusiness and the extractive industries of energy, timber and mining, have long exercised more control over government than the people. Much the same here I venture.
Well done. This should be on the desks of all our MPs, business leaders and bankers, but it is perhaps too late. You’ve been concerned about Muslim immigrants taking over our culture but it is nothing compared to the socialists destroying our economy. It does not matter whether the leak of the virus was accidental because socialists worldwide have been working for more than 150 years to achieve a world socialist government. They replaced revolution with evolution. They infiltrated all western universities and then schools, the UN, the central banking system, the media and political parties. It was a waiting game with no specific end date. They knew their aim would be achieved one day. It was democracy itself, which everybody believes in, that has been the key to the socialist dream. It encourages politicians of all parties to expand the state by offering benefits because it is the only way they will get elected. This is how Boris was elected and why Trump is hated because he seems not going along with it, but he is also handing out money he hasn’t got.
In a consumer based society, people want cheap goods and our government has given us that by importing goods and exporting jobs, all possible because of debt. When Thatcher privatised the nationalised industries she wanted the people of this country to be the owners and she wanted them to own their own property. This is the true basis of capitalism, the private ownership of capital by the majority, together with free trade. The masses have been encouraged to squander income and capital on consumer goods and leisure. Even home ownership has dropped because the wealth creating jobs don’t exist in the UK. We are renting what we used to own; we have sold the family silver and almost everything else. Interest rates are too low to encourage the accumulation of capital or its retention. The green revolution has not created jobs here, they are all in China and the result is even higher energy costs here with an increasingly unreliable energy system.
The western governments, except apparently Sweden, have now delivered the death blow which socialists have wanted, the complete closure and destruction of our economies. China will do nothing and watch it all get worse because socialists don’t care about human life. The ones who die from the virus might be the lucky ones.
China did not intentionally arrange for the Coronavirus to leak out of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. However the economic damage to the US and UK who are now running up huge debt, will enable China to buy up assets at far lower prices than before.
Same problem here in Canada. Western Countries do have a solution. If and when the Wuhan Stealth virus subsides, the personal and economic damage needs to be added up. Then, using government and class action lawsuits, we sue the hell out of the CCP. The trillions can be paid by confiscating CCP owned companies and eliminating all of western debt to the commies.
All the countries affected by the pandemic now have to fork out billions for the medical equipment needed to cope with it, to the original source of that pandemic.
‘Feeding the hand that bites you’?