Yves here. This story, by what can politely be called a US mouthpiece, illustrates the degree to which China is seen as a strategic competitor and any move that advances their interest, even if arguably mainly economic, is a threat to the West.
By Radio Free Liberty/Radio Liberty staff. Cross posted from OilPrice
- China has won the bid to build a deep-sea port in Georgia’s Anaklia, marking the country’s first Chinese-built and operated megaproject on the Black Sea coast.
- The deal strengthens Tbilisi and Beijing’s growing ties and pushes China’s presence closer to Europe.
- It also influences the future of the Middle Corridor, a global trade route that Georgia serves as a strategic node.
Georgia announced that a Chinese consortium submitted the sole bid to build a sprawling deep-sea port in Anaklia, marking the first megaproject on the Black Sea coast to be built and operated by Chinese firms.
Finding Perspective: The development brings an end to a multiyear political saga inside Georgia over building a deep-sea port at Anaklia, while the role of the Chinese consortium pushes Tbilisi’s growing ties with Beijing into the spotlight.
Georgian Economy and Sustainable Development Minister Levan Davitashvili made the announcement at a May 29 press conference, where he said the government had received bids from a Swiss-Luxembourgish consortium and a joint offer from China Communications Construction Company and the Singapore-based China Harbour Investment.
He added that China Road and Bridge Corporation and Qingdao Port International will serve as subcontractors to build the port.
Davitashvili said Tbilisi only received a final proposal from the Chinese consortium, though, which now looks set to build the country’s first deep-sea port. He said more details would be revealed “in the coming days.”
Why It Matters: Georgia is no stranger to awarding high-profile infrastructure deals to Chinese firms, but the announcement could have far-reaching implications.
For starters, it’s another sign of how close Tbilisi and Beijing are becoming. In July 2023, they signed a strategic partnership pact, and Anaklia marks another attempt to bring Chinese companies to Georgia’s Black Sea after a bid around Poti’s port broke down in 2020.
This deal will also affect the future of the so-called Middle Corridor, a global trade network that ships goods between Europe and Asia in which Georgia serves as a strategic node. The European Union has said developing the route is a goal, especially since Moscow’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine where it provides trade links that bypass Russia.
But China’s new role with a deep-sea port in Anaklia — which would allow larger ships to transport increased volumes at a more efficient rate — changes things and marks a setback for Brussels.
“This is not good news for the EU, and I think the fact that [China is now building] the port shows a lack of strategic thinking in Brussels,” Romana Vlahutin, a former EU ambassador-at-large for connectivity, told me.
What We Know So Far: Many of the details are still to be revealed, as is the actual contract and total price tag. The government said previously it will retain 51 percent ownership of the port project, with 49 percent going to the other partners.
The Chinese companies involved also come with an interesting history. China Communications Construction Company is a massive player in global infrastructure and one of the largest firms involved in construction projects for China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) over the last decade.
But from 2011 to 2019, the World Bank banned the firm and its affiliates from participating in World Bank-funded construction projects due to a fraud scandal in a road project in the Philippines in 2009.
For a more detailed look at the company’s history — and of some past scandals involving other firms involved in the Anaklia bid — check out this article by Luka Pertaia from RFE/RL’s Georgian Service and myself.
What To Watch: This deal marks the second attempt to build a deep-sea port in Anaklia.
Previously, a consortium formed between Georgia’s TBC Bank and the U.S.-based Conti International was canceled by the government in 2020 after years of political controversy that saw TBC co-founders Mamuka Khazaradze and Badri Japaridze facing money-laundering charges.
The pair were charged but released without jail terms, and Khazaradze has claimed the authorities were trying to sabotage the project. The contract for that deal was worth $2.5 billion.
Khazaradze is in the process of taking the Georgian government to an arbitration court in London over what he maintains were politically motivated charges to derail the port. He’s been an outspoken critic of the project’s revival and said in the past that he believes the legal roadblocks with how the previous consortium was pushed aside could derail the new attempt to build it.
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Did China finally buy the Piraeus port in Greece a while back?
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Belt-and-Road/Sold-to-China-Greece-s-Piraeus-port-town-cools-on-Belt-and-Road
Qiuk search would have told you this and more
What matter who builds the bloody port? The goods all come from Chinese ports in the first place, from inside China in fact. Are the shaving of profit from controlling a port in Georgia so critical to the EU’s current account deficit?
The stink of neocon pawing is strong on this one. I’m sure the local oligarchic fauna are involved too.
‘Georgian Economy and Sustainable Development Minister Levan Davitashvili made the announcement at a May 29 press conference, where he said the government had received bids from a Swiss-Luxembourgish consortium’
Unintentionally hilarious in that the two countries in that consortium that want to build a major port are both land-locked countries. The thing is, this article does not really go into how that new port would hook up with the Chinese trade network. Looking at a map, I can only guess that it would be through the port city/Capital of Baku in Azerbaijan which would receive Chinese goods from across the Caspian Sea for transporting on to Georgia. Armenia might have benefited by having a side rout from that corridor but that is not likely in the present political atmosphere.
Georgia is the “European” endpoint of two of the Designated Rail Corridors defined by Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) Program and their development is more or less funded by Asian Development Bank. All and all there are 6 DRCs, that 11 countries develop in collaboration for the economic benefit of all CAREC members.
Outside of The West there is still exists this concept of working together to create infrastructure and exchange goods.
I wonder if all those Georgian NGOs have money back guarantee.
In an unrelated news, Russians just happen to be making naval base about 30km to the north, in Abkhazia (formerly know as part of Georgia).
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67017375
The EU sees this as a geopolitical fiasco: China won a bid that the EU did not even apply for.
I find it informative to reference the fact that the greatest advancement of civil rights in the US came during the period of the reputationally strongest threat of the Soviet Union. We need the successful development of China into a real world power. We also greatly need Europe to wake up and break from the US, and become a real third world power. It would have been nice if the US had tried to help the economic development of other countries when it had the opportunity to become a real asset to humanity, rather than the leading mass murderer.
Well said, Carolina Concerned. You stated my perspective on U.S. foreign, energy, innovation and trade policy way better than I could have.
We could have been such a great influence on human development, but … we delegated our destiny to emotionally stunted people, and are now suffering the consequences.
Contrast Putin and Xi with Biden, Trump, Blair, Von Der Leyen. Not in the same universe.
Young people note well: to regain our standing in the world, we’re going to have to change our culture.
you forgot the one who got us here, bill clinton. he completely embraced fascism, and left america in the mess its in today.
https://qz.com/840973/everything-we-thought-we-knew-about-free-trade-is-wrong
“By the time Clinton became president, America’s free-trade crusade—backed by the IMF—broadened beyond simply slashing trade barriers, into clearing the path for foreign investment. Though it bore scanty resemblance to the simple model that Ricardo sketched out, its prophets—a.k.a. Davos Man, free-marketeers, the Washington Consensus—still touted free trade deals as benefiting all. When Trump blames US leaders for favoring “globalism” over “Americanism,” it’s this world order he is condemning. The North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) is its watershed.”
“Despite its many flaws, Nafta set the stage for the US-led multilateral trade pacts that followed. In addition to opening up developing nations to the fickle flows of global capital, US negotiators demanded excessively lengthy patent, licensing, and copyright protections that enriched corporate giants in pharmaceuticals, entertainment, and information technology, says CEPR’s Baker—at the expense of both American consumers and its trading partners’ industries. And despite the careful attention to those details, American leaders consistently avoided confronting a problem that, not long after Nafta, began warping the US economy into the unstable mess that brought Trump to power.”
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https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/03/nazi-germanys-american-dream-hitler-modeled-his-concept-of-racial-struggle-and-global-campaign-after-americas-conquest-of-native-americans.html
“British advocacy of free trade, he believed, was political cover for British domination of the world. A prosperous Germany required exchange with the British world, but this trade pattern could be supplemented, thought Hitler, by the conquest of a land empire that would even the scales between London and Berlin.
Once it had gained the appropriate colonies, Germany could preserve its industrial excellence while shifting its dependence for food from the British-controlled sea lanes to its own imperial hinterland.
It was reassuring to Hitler that such an alteration of the world order, such a reglobalization, had been achieved before, in recent memory. For generations of German imperialists, and for Hitler himself, the exemplary land empire was the United States of America.”
“Globalization led Hitler to the American dream. In American idiom, this notion that the standard of living was relative, based upon the perceived success of others, was called “keeping up with the Joneses.” Behind every imaginary German racial warrior stood an imaginary German woman who wanted ever more.”
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yes yes, remove a mask off of a free trader and what do you see: The EU’s Architects: Nazis and Nazi Collaborators and Nazi credentials of EU founders like Schuman, Adenauer, and Hallstein
https://www.autistici.org/poderobrero/articulos/the-eus-architects-nazis-and-nazi-collaborators
The EU’s Architects: Nazis and Nazi Collaborators
Wayne Madsen
July 2, 2016
© Photo: Public domain
There is an old adage that pertains to the founding of the European Union «If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again». And for the Nazis and Nazi collaborators of the Second World War, viewing the post-war European death and destruction brought about by Adolf Hitler and his «Third Reich» alliance of Italian fascists, French Vichy, and others, the immediate decision was to «try again» with a European Union that would establish the same European super-state envisaged by Hitler but with a decidedly «democratic» aura.
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https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nationalism-is-rising-not_b_10281138
In a very real sense, Hitler and Mussolini believed in multinationalism, albeit with other nations submitting to their will. Fascism was an assault on the right of nations to pursue their self-interest, and an elevation of the fascists’ right to pursue it based on an assertion of their nations’ inherent superiority and right to rule.”
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it hilarious watching the dim wits who did this to us, flail and wail about the results of their own idiotic policies.
they have no clue about production, only the manipulation of paper for more and more money.
Boeings south carolina’s plant is a stunning expose’ of neo-liberalism(facism) comprehension of what production entails.
friendshoring, what idiocy!
otherwise just buy it from others, thats bill clintons stunning idiotology.
Spud: a very interesting post, and yes, I did forget to include Clinton.
So, here’s a magic wand you can use for a minute. Now, what’s 3 or 4 fundamental things you’d change about the U.S. to fix – not just remedy, but to fundamentally re-something our economy and (I’m guessing you’d include this) our culture to put us (or any other Western nation) on solid footing going forward?
Anyone else that wants to take a crack at it, feel free. I’m interested to hear what you’re thinking.
Highly progressive income tax. You can’t have sound government with billionaires existing . A wealth tax would be good too, altho I’m told that’ too easy to evade.
Ferocious anti trust enforcement (let’s make the big banks tiny!)
Balanced trade. Probably have to be done by an import tariff rate applied to all imports based on the deficit from the previous year. To do this country by country would probably not work.
if you free trade, forget about taxing them. you can do it for theatrics to fool people.
but if you think you can dent their wealth and power when under free trade, they have complete carte blanch to the world, with so called investments(exploitation) every where reaping untold billions.
there is a reason why the amount of billionaires has exploded right after 1993. a coincidence, i think not.
Spud: what happened in 1993 that caused the explosion in billionaires?
Return elections to paper ballots, hand marked, counted in public.
Eliminate Public Private Partnerships.
Ban advertising for prescription drugs. (“Ask your Doctor if opioids are right for you.”)
Ban money in elections. (Easy to say. Hard to do.)
The linchpin for the political, economic, military/industrial, cultural and other components of the American system is the political parties. The political parties are required to raise so much money in the 21st century to maintain their existence by getting donations. Because of everything flows through and is affected by the political parties, nothing else can be done with real success unless this weakness in the structure of the system is addressed. There will be no real success without some form of public funding of the elective process. The system will definitely not be meaningfully changed by electing “better people.”
Crowd fluffer: “But gee folks. He’s the best candidate money can buy!”
Crowd member: “I want one who is not for sale!”
Crowd fluffer: “If he’s not for sale, how can he be available on the shelf?”
Crowd member: “Then get rid of the shelf!”
Crowd fluffer: “What are you all? Commies?”
Crowd member: “And proud of it!”
Crowd fluffer: “Security! I have a non-compliant to be removed!”
Dialectical struggle commences.
always start with clinton, always. he got through the republican agenda, when no one else could.
there is no chance at reform period. unless your willing to take the clintonites to the matt, and expose them and their economic and political advisors, and financial backers. like FDR’s percura reports, trumans commission, and the WWII war crime trials. then to reverse what bill clinton did. you would need to take a look, line by line, of every bill he siged, every presidential order.
most likely, not doable. other wise think of this, we got lucky in the lead up to WWII, germany got Hitler, italy Musolinni, japan got Tojo, we got lucky and got FDR.
today the leadership has switched, and we are the unlucky ones.
so there are others means, far less conventional, and not to appealing.
I have no idea why you are so focused on Bill Clinton when you totally ignore all the machinations going back too, at minimum, the late 1800s in economics and way before he was born.
Bill was just a product of all the elite machinations proceeding him, if not him, some one else would have filled the void.
All he did was hoodwink the Dem base into thinking thirdway neoliberalism was a platform for an economic platform for sociopolitical progressive change e.g. all identities had a chance at becoming billionaires.
You never ever ever look back spud … its just Bill … especially when Rubin was his handler … say some stuff about him …
You know like when bill was informed about productivity and wages diverging …
clinton is still held up as some sort of prosperity hero. as long as that is the case, the cranks that advised him get off scott free, and bill clintons policies are admired.
FDR faced what to do to educate people as to what happened to them.
the germans wanted to know how they got into the mess they were in in 1945.
so should the german people have just ignored hitler because it was his handlers?
the reason why the elites in this country do what they do, is because they never have to pay a price.
bill clinton is responsible for so much carnage world wide, so many many deaths, impoverishment and radicalizing tens of millions of people, to reform, he cannot be ignored.
there can be no reform in this country, till you reverse what bill clinton did.
to reform there can be no sugar coating, people will not stand for it.
your a apologist.
No – I just acknowledge the factors, before him, that created the issues and don’t attempt to hang it all on one guy. Per se the rolling back of FDR policies goes back before he was born, ideology that supported it goes back to the 1800s and before, Bernays and supply side, Powell/Citi memo etc, dominance of orthodox economic schools funded by its wealthy proponents, trickle down/pay to play, its a long list …
look, even carter nor reagan would go as far as bill clinton did.
why stop at the 1800’s, why not go back to the beginning of humanity. many humans can justify just about anything.
then you have absolved clinton of his crimes.
there were, are, and will be millions of cranks and charlatans in the human race, advocating for the policies that bill clinton enacted.
but most will fail. bill clinton did not fail.
i am not advocating he did it all by himself. he had lots of help. but like the percura report under FDR, Trumans commission, Nuremberg war crimes trials, lots of recent truth and reconciliation commissions. the truth has gotta get out. other wise the elites will never have to pay for their follies.
Ok. I’ll go:
1. No more capitalists. All wealth beyond a certain amount is seized. Employees (and only employees) own the concerns they work at. If you start a business and do not want to share ownership, then you have to accept maintaining the business as a sole proprietor/owner operator or family-only business.
2. Land reform. Land is distributed among the population properly- based upon climate/productivity. Noone may own more land than they can care for. Homesteads are OK. Family farms are OK. Any farm or other concern that uses land that finds itself in need of hiring employees must either reduce its size, or make the employee an owner of equal share.
3. Direct democracy/consensus at the local level. Confederalism at higher levels. Any representatives sent to any confederation are duty bound to vote based on the consensus of the people they represent. It must be accepted that decisions may take time.
4. No (family blogging) police. Should a crime or wrongdoing occur, the community/neighborhood will meet and decide how to address it. Should the situation require investigative or physical enforcement, the community will designate any individuals for this task, who’s remit will expire upon completion of the assigned task.
This shit may not be perfect, but by god it will be fair, and it will actually maximize real freedom and liberty.
Wow. There is some great material presented here, and thanks for your responses.
Here are some key points I gleaned from your replies:
a. Public funding of elections
b. Prevent too much wealth accumulation
c. Anti-trust with major teeth
d. Creators get benefits of their work; no rentiers
e. Redistribute land
f. Reduce federal power (confederalism: new term for me, thanks)
g. Put law enforcement into the hands of the local community, with enforcement powers limited to remedying a specific offense, and revoked after the problem’s been dealt with
The thread that runs thru these ideas seems to be “re-distribute power” away from centralized control by the apex social order members toward … the rest of the population.
The power-sharing agreement between the strong and the relatively weak has broken down, right? That explains a good bit of the dysfunction we’re experiencing.
If – I said “if” – you buy into that assertion, here’s the next set of things I’m wondering.
If taking back power can’t be done systemically / comprehensively without a well-executed revolt, and the apex players are well-prepared to deal with that, then I ask myself:
“what’s another way to re-balance the power relationship that doesn’t arouse too much repression?”
That sounds like the same old cat herd to me. Why not go for some serious enlightenment and establish strict laws preserving Nature and encode Nature’s Rights so that extraction of resources is controlled all along the chain of commodification and manufacturing and follow it through to dust-to-dust industrial recycling. No pun intended. And to create a system that cannot cheat, institute a financial paradigm that directly represents the value of the commodity, not the various tokens which function as media of exchange and can be so easily fudged. And adjust as required. Guaranteeing a sustainable environment and a minimum level of well being for all. And etc. Ecosocialism. Ecosophia?
Oh, please. Chinese companies own and/or operate most of the world’s port infrastructure, including in the United States. There was no other bidder for the job. The competing Conti Group mentioned in the money laundering case was sold to the French ENGIE Group in 2023 — you can be certain that the economics of the Georgian project suffered as a result because building ports is not what ENGIE does. The U.S. government forced a performative divestiture of “ownership” of U.S. ports by Chinese companies, but they still effectively operate them.
Why not? The U.S. consumer economy is completely dependent on goods manufactured by Chinese-owned or operated enterprises, either in China or in other low-wage countries.
Oceania needs enemies…
‘ “…This is not good news for the EU, and I think the fact that [China is now building] the port shows a lack of strategic thinking in Brussels,” Romana Vlahutin, a former EU ambassador-at-large for connectivity, told me…’
One could say this is not so much a threat to EU interests, but a threat to US geostrategic interests. The pieces of the Grand Chessboard are not moving the way the US wants. Georgia signed up to the BRI, so this looks like no surprise. As noted, no one else bid on the project, so why all the fuss?
The US and vassals “want their cake and eat it too”. The kids in the sandbox are going to have to learn to share and play nice, it not, the spoiled brats will kick over the sandcastle and blow up the whole sandbox. But that benefits no one.
When China bought the port of Piraeus, the biggest port in eastern Mediterranean the EU was ok with it.
Thanks for the information in the post. A request – if possible – Please include maps or a or a map link link to a map in such posts. I personally find it is clearer to sea a picture or map with the text.
As a very visual person, I often look up the region referred to in a post in plain old Google Maps (and I sometimes wind up spending more time snooping around the map than reading the Post!).
In this case, I also found a cool map of (China’s?) planned Rail links:
https://www.carecprogram.org/uploads/carec-designated-rail-corridors.pdf
Good point.
The Chinese have an advantage. Their piers do not break apart and float away in rough weather.
EU is a vassal to the US. It is not a counterpart to China, especially in terms of Geopoplitics.
Before the war in Ukraine the EU used to be an economic actor that, given the size of its economy, matters, but was never an independent political entity.
With the war in Ukraine it ceased even to be a credible economic actor.
The arrogant and incompetent way the US is handling its relations with China and Russia will only embolden them and make life difficult to itself and its vassals.
I think Russia and China have split responsibilities within SCO to develop land trade corridors. China will be responsible for east/west, Russia for north/south. Between them they will link most of the countries of Asia. The northern sea route will tie into some of the land routes.
Georgia seems to have smelled the coffee , Armenia may be a lost cause.
“Full scale invasion”
Oh c’mon, this is a term all the legacy media uses. No one seriously believes Russia went at Ukraine and NATO with full force.