China’s global spending spree

中国全球消费狂潮

The Documentary Podcast

2025-11-18

26 分钟
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单集简介 ...

China has been on a giant global shopping spree. Since 2000, Chinese state banks have fuelled investments and acquisitions at a surprisingly rate - some four times what was previously thought. Brand new data, shared exclusively with the BBC, reveals that many of Beijing’s state-backed spending has targeted rich countries. Such deals are strictly legal, though not always easy to trace. Observers in the United States, Europe and elsewhere are alarmed at the potential for Beijing to dominate key technologies and turbo charge its technological might. Celia Hatton investigates the sometimes murky ways in which Chinese state money can be traced to sensitive industrial sectors. But she also discovers that shutting out Chinese influence is not easy or desirable.
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单集文稿 ...

  • Imagine that you work for CIA and you're coming under investigation because of something you did in the line of duty,

  • but it is now being questioned.

  • BBC World Service, welcome to the documentary.

  • You say, I better get a lawyer and there's legal insurance you can buy.

  • This specializes in government employees and intelligence personnel,

  • and it was founded by an FBI agent.

  • Over a long career, veteran U.S.

  • journalist Jeff Stein had heard it all,

  • but in 2016 he uncovered a story even he could scarcely believe.

  • Why would you suspect that an insurance company founded by an FBI agent is secretly owned by a Chinese person with close connections to the Chinese Communist Party?

  • The world of insurance isn't often exciting, but listen to this.

  • An American company called RightUSA caters for top-secret US government agents,

  • and it's privy to all their personal details.

  • Yet, a few years ago, Fosun Group, a major Chinese firm with top-level connections,

  • bought it, quite legitimately and seemingly without many noticing.

  • The purchase was legal at the time, but still,

  • it raises the question, what happens to all the agents' personal data?

  • It was in the open, so to speak,

  • but it's still because everything's intertwined so closely in Beijing.

  • You're essentially giving it up to Chinese intelligence.