The motive for Hamburg behind this is to bind COSCO to the port, by giving them enough operational say that they can be sure that their ships will be served with some priority so they can get in and out quickly, don’t have to port-hop, etc. Strategically it’s vital for Hamburg to keep the port busy to fuel all the secondary industry in and around the city, and its geographical position is not the best, definitely not compared to the Netherlands. To this end the city has (functionally) its own shipping company (Hapag-Lloyd), but it’s not like the Chinese are suddenly going to stop doing their own shipping and move everything to Hamburg’s control.
I cannot understate how much of a political fallout there would be if any politician in Hamburg would merely consider, not even float, losing control of the harbour. There is no Hamburg without the harbour, everybody knows that because it’s been that way for literally a millennium, and the Chinese aren’t the first foreign capitalists the city has dealt with. It’s like thinking that China would consider selling the forbidden city, u wot m8?
Not to mention that COSCO’s investment pales in comparison to that of MSC.
Everyone is acting rationally except Germany. The usual.
Ah yes, Poland and the Netherlands sold their ports but somehow Germany is at fault because they sold a stake in one single terminal in their port.
It starts to feel like r/europe here
COSCO owns 24.99% of the operations of one terminal in Hamburg. Not the brick+mortar, Hamburg would never sell that to anyone, and by far not 24.99% of the operations of the port but of one terminal – the smallest of four, in fact.
The motive for Hamburg behind this is to bind COSCO to the port, by giving them enough operational say that they can be sure that their ships will be served with some priority so they can get in and out quickly, don’t have to port-hop, etc. Strategically it’s vital for Hamburg to keep the port busy to fuel all the secondary industry in and around the city, and its geographical position is not the best, definitely not compared to the Netherlands. To this end the city has (functionally) its own shipping company (Hapag-Lloyd), but it’s not like the Chinese are suddenly going to stop doing their own shipping and move everything to Hamburg’s control.
I cannot understate how much of a political fallout there would be if any politician in Hamburg would merely consider, not even float, losing control of the harbour. There is no Hamburg without the harbour, everybody knows that because it’s been that way for literally a millennium, and the Chinese aren’t the first foreign capitalists the city has dealt with. It’s like thinking that China would consider selling the forbidden city, u wot m8?
Not to mention that COSCO’s investment pales in comparison to that of MSC.