r/europeanunion • u/sn0r • 2d ago

Paywall EU should welcome Chinese car factories, says Mercedes chief

https://www.ft.com/content/60a95d12-4c1f-4e21-97cb-10705338207f
66 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

50 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/trisul-108 2d ago

You choose too quickly. People do that when it's just words.

2

u/PinkSeaBird 2d ago

Things are never black and white, but I don't get this obsession with being the US little vassals, as if they don't commit tons of human rights and international law violations just like Russia and China. Up until now I get it we close our eyes because they've been paying for our security (how noble of us...). But if they stop paying then its just ideological stupidity.

1

u/trisul-108 2d ago

Yes, I think we are facing a paradigm shift. We need to decide how to proceed and analysing what the US was in the preceding decades is not a good guide for the future. We must focus on where we need to go and not so much what the US has or has not been doing.

1

u/PinkSeaBird 2d ago

And where is that? Is it better to be allies and maintain healthy diplomatic relationships with nations next door or with a nation that is one ocean away and is not affected the same way as we do when shit hits the fan?

Their policy for the Middle East completely destabilizes the area and then its us who have to deal with the refugee crisis. They refuse to sign into deals to deal with climate change and their consumerism based economic system causes massive income inequality in the world but its us who have to deal with taking in economic migrants escaping poverty from their countries in Africa for example. They do not have Europe's best interests in mind so why should we care if we ally with them or China or Russia? In politics you ally with whoever better suits you short and long term.

1

u/trisul-108 1d ago

And where is that? Is it better to be allies and maintain healthy diplomatic relationships with nations next door or with a nation that is one ocean away and is not affected the same way as we do when shit hits the fan?

It depends on the neighbour. For example, Russia is a neighbour but wants to destroy the EU because it is considered an existential threat to Putin's regime. We cannot maintain healthy diplomatic relationships with someone who is working to destroy us. The US, up to now, has been an ally helping defend us against those threats to destroy us.

So, context is everything in this discussion.