Italy has been ravaged by the Wuhan
Coronavirus, but the reasons why are linked more closely to globalism than the
age of the infected.
Hundreds of thousands of Chinese
immigrants now live both legally and illegally in Italy, with 300K legally
registered and many more illegal.
Italy recently entered into a new
economic partnership with China called *“One belt, One road”*
China has revitalized northern Italian
ports in order to transport goods more efficiently to the rest of Europe
The mayor of Florence initiated a social
media campaign called *“Hug a Chinese”* using Chinese produced video as an
engine to dispel the “racism” against the Chinese in Italy.
*Thirty years ago,* Italy saw the
beginnings of what would become a serious issue with illegal immigration. What
was surprising, was that the immigrants couldn’t just walk over a border to
enter the country, they had to flock from China. It began with Italians hiring
the Chinese off the books at cheap wages to work making garments in towns and
villages renowned for their craftmanship, and morphed into Italians seeing the
Chinese learn how to do it faster and cheaper; often times watching as their
family owned businesses were shuttered because they were outbid. The Chinese
took over the Italian craft and made it their own. *What didn’t change was the
coveted “Made in Italy” label.* The NY Times began documenting the trend in
2010 writing:
Over the years, Italy learned the
difficult lesson that it could no longer compete with China on price. *And so,
its business class dreamed, Italy would sell quality, not quantity.* For
centuries, this walled medieval city just outside of Florence has produced some
of the world’s finest fabrics, becoming a powerhouse for “Made in Italy” chic.
*And then, China came here.*
Chinese laborers, first a few
immigrants, then tens of thousands, began settling in Prato in the late 1980s.
*They transformed the textile hub into a low-end garment manufacturing
capital,* enriching many, stoking resentment and prompting recent crackdowns
that in turn have brought cries of bigotry and hypocrisy.
The city is now home to the largest
concentration of Chinese in Europe; some legal, many more not. Here in the
heart of Tuscany, Chinese laborers work round the clock in *some 3,200
businesses making low-end clothes, shoes and accessories,* often with materials
imported from China, for sale at midprice and low-end retailers worldwide.
The trend continued as whole villages in
Italy became Chinese villages, with the Chinese displacing the Italians who
lived there, creating their own neighborhoods, and pushing out decades of
Italian family owned business. They weren’t known for following the rules.
It caused much local consternation; the
Italians were forced to pay their taxes and follow the employment guidelines,
while the Chinese seemed to have built flourishing enterprises by skirting the
rules, treating their people poorly, and engaging in rich human smuggling
operations, to boot. There was little accountability for the Chinese, and much
for the native Italians.
*Outside of the typical problems* one
would see with such an influx of immigrants from a far-off land, were also
other, more scandalous ones.
*In 2017, the Bank of China* agreed to
pay a 600,000 euro fine to settle a money laundering case involving its Milan
branch, court documents showed. The Florence court hearing the case gave four
employees of the Milan branch of China’s fourth biggest bank a suspended
two-year prison sentence for failing to report illicit money transfers.
Florence prosecutors leading the
so-called “River of Money” investigation alleged that more than 4.5 billion
euros ($4.78 billion) was smuggled to China from Italy between 2006 and 2010 by
Chinese people living mainly in Florence and nearby Prato. About half of the
money was sent via BOC, the prosecutors said. The court also ordered BOC to pay
back 980,000 euros which it said it had earned through the illegal operations.
According to the prosecutors, the
proceeds sent to China came from a series of illegal activities, including
counterfeiting, embezzlement, exploitation of illegal labour and tax evasion.
Bank of China said in a statement it had not committed any crime and was not
admitting guilt by agreeing to pay the fine, which was a way of closing the
case and saving time.
*The wheel of corruption kept spinning,*
and the Italian people became more and more angry. Sometimes, this led to
violence. It also led to a nationwide sentiment that something needed to
change, and the populist uprising we have been seeing across the globe also
began to take a foothold in Italy.
*From 2018:*
At a time when Europe is filled with
anti-immigrant rhetoric, political extremists have pointed to the demographic
shifts in Prato as proof that Italy is under siege. In February, Patrizio La
Pietra, a right-wing senator, told a Prato newspaper that the city needed to
confront “Chinese economic illegality,” and that the underground economy had “brought
the district to its knees, eliminated thousands of jobs, and exposed countless
families to hunger.” Such assertions have been effective: in Italy’s recent
national elections, Tuscany, which since the end of the Second World War had
consistently supported leftist parties, gave twice as many votes to right-wing
and populist parties as it did to those on the left. Giovanni Donzelli, a
member of the quasi-Fascist Fratelli d’Italia party, who last month was elected
a national representative, told me, *“The Chinese have their own restaurants
and their own banks—even their own police force.* You damage the economy twice.
Once, because you compete unfairly with the other businesses in the area, and
the second time because the money doesn’t go back into the Tuscan economic
fabric.”
*In March of 2019,* Italy entered into a
new agreement with China, part of its *“one belt, one road”* initiative, a
sweeping economic agreement with the country that saw the port of Triesta in
northern Italy “revitalized” and managed by The PRC.
The project makes enormous
infrastructure investments to move Chinese goods and resources. *Italy became
the first of the Group of 7 nations that once dominated the global economy* to
take part in China’s “One Belt One Road” throughout Asia, Africa and Europe.
*The Trump administration, which tried
and failed to stop the deal,* focused in the days leading up to Mr. Xi’s visit
on blocking any Italian use of 5G wireless networks developed by the Chinese
electronics giant Huawei, which Washington warned could be used by Beijing to
spy on communications networks.
*Italy, which is saddled with crushing
debt, hopes to lift its lagging economy by exporting goods to China and
inviting more Chinese investment.*
But opponents of the project in the Trump
administration and in the European Union worry that Italy has turned itself
into a Trojan Horse, allowing China’s economic — and potentially military and
political — expansion to reach into the heart of Europe.
The detailed reporting on this slow
takeover is expansive, and we could continue here for many paragraphs, but let
us fast forward to *early 2020.*
As China withheld information about the
*seriousness and spread of Wuhan corona-virus,* many of these immigrants were
returning- and arriving – from China. Once news of the virus became mainstream
and China felt increasing backlash over the handling of the crisis, they turned
to one of their major economic hubs for some help.
It wasn’t chance. It wasn’t age. It
wasn’t overall health, and it wasn’t the good-hearted nature of the Italian
people that caused the virus to ravage their nation. *It was a leadership who
are now under the thumb of the Chinese government.*
On February 1, 2020, the mayor of
Florence initiated something called *“Hug a Chinese”* day.
(Sorry I could not get the video
downloaded)
This video was released on February 4,
and was *produced by the Chinese government.* Under the guise of being “woke”,
the *Italian government prodded their citizens to erase the stigma surrounding
the virus,* and hug one of the hundreds of thousands of Chinese who had been
living, recently returned, or recently arrived in Italy. *Italy had become
dependent on China, and their capital is a large percentage of the Italian
economy.*
When “One Belt One Road” began early in
2019, the Italians made clear they were willing to partner with China in their
quest for global dominance, and sadly it appears in their attempt to please the
purse strings, *they put a large percentage of their citizens in harms way.*
This may also explain the *enormous
amount of aid and assistance flowing into Italy now by way of China.* Far from
being compassionate, the *Chinese are likely looking to protect their
investment.*
So when folks ask, *“Why Italy?”* the
reasons are clear. Along with an ageing population who may not be the
healthiest, there is also a *government now beholden to China,* who acting at
their behest, *took extreme measures to the opposite of social distancing.* For
an in depth look at the cluster history inside Italy, please see here.
China’s global dominance has become
clear even to the average observer in recent months, as Americans have become
aware of the *supply line dependence on China for even our most vital
commodity; medicine.*
UncoverDC columnist Carol King detailed
some of those issues in a piece that you can read here. We have even witnessed
the legacy media seemingly hold water for the communist nation, choosing to
parrot the claim of “racism” against China because our President has chosen to
correctly name the virus what it is, the *Chinese virus* – rather than bow to
the propaganda of a foreign nation hell bent on our destruction.
*If one positive thing can come of the
Wuhan corona-virus,* maybe it will be that the world will finally open its eyes
to just *how sinister China has been over the past few decades,* slithering in
to our households, seemingly unbeknownst to us, and co-opting even our most
basic necessities.
Time will tell, but one thing is clear-
it appears that *“Why Italy?”* is more nefarious than anyone could have
initially thought.
*(Tracy Beanz is the
Founder and Editor in Chief at UncoverDC
