China Is a Dying European Shipbuilder’s Last Hope

Its portholes without glass and covered in rust and seagull guano, the Santiago I tanker sits moored in the Adriatic Sea abandoned by striking shipyard workers who haven’t been paid for eight months.

At the next dock, a Belgian dredger is partly enshrouded in scaffolding, though with no one around to finally make it seaworthy. Towering overhead, a crane has nothing to hoist. Such is the state of another one of Europe’s historic shipbuilding centers that finds itself at risk of extinction, unable to compete with Asia and desperate for investment.