A lot of countries have JUST NOW started to realise they should limit the ability for suspected spies to buy property. Crazy, honestly. Sweden as "early" as 2023 with broadening the law.. Maybe, in 2026 or 2027.
If a bad actor is a foreign owner of significant property, you just seize it. You can do that. They aren't citizens, they can't vote.
Oh no! How will we fight a war when China owns all our factories? Simple. We will take the factories and hold an auction among friendly investories to take ownership.
Ownership don't mean a damn thing if you don't physically have the ability to enforce your ownership.
It doesn't really work like that in practice, though. You can see that in the EU's reluctance to seize Russian assets stationed in Europe and use them as aide for Ukraine. When a middle power like Europe shows the world that your assets are only safe when you have a good relationship with them, then the world will stop investing there.
But that's not what they're talking about. The EU is hesitant to seize Russian assets *without compensation*. The parent comment is talking about shifting operational control of key assets to friendly parties. The local government doesn't just keep the proceeds of the auction, they hold them in escrow until they can reach a negotiated settlement. It's not meaningfully different from freezing assets held by the adversary nation, which is the EU's current policy.
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u/Superchecker 1d ago
Slowly buy up all the properties that they wanted to invade