Italy’s far-right prime minister has said she will not allow the country to become “Europe’s refugee camp”, after thousands of people seeking refuge landed on its shores, prompting France to tighten controls at its border with Italy.
Giorgia Meloni told the UN general assembly in New York that the huge numbers arriving in Lampedusa, a tiny Sicilian island that for years has been the first port of call for people crossing a perilous stretch of the Mediterranean Sea from north Africa, had placed Italy “under incredible pressure”.
Western economies are built on the exploitation of cheap labour abroad for both manufacturing (China, India) and resource extraction (most of Africa). In contrast, the Chinese economy is built on cheap domestic labour and cheap domestic resources so that it can build things for export. The incentive structure is vastly different, because while the West basically has to act out of altruism, it’s in China’s best interest to create more demand for your production.