> China invests in creating infrastructure in countries to help make them future customers for Chinese products ...
Really? Because the vast majority of "Belt and Road" destinations connect China to raw resources. I'm sure that's just a coincidence. China is making it pretty damn clear that they do not intend to pay for those resources, or at least not in money, especially now that the "Belt and Road" initiative has turned into yet another Chinese money pit so deep it makes Trump look like a great businessman, and on top of that it made China so unpopular it makes it look like Europe loves Trump. And everyone reports another problem: CCP officials, even low level ones, make Trump look like a humble man.
Locals seem to hate the Chinese, and Chinese investments, everywhere the Belt and Road goes, whether it's Pakistani in Balochistan, Greeks in Piraeus, in Madagascar the people pretty much kicked out the government, largely over Chinese presence, China is now negotiating in Australia by openly threatening with warships in Sydney harbor firing live ammunition in the direction of the city and even their military base in Djibouti is not popular, despite being right next to a US, a French and a Japanese military base that ARE popular (despite middle eastern tensions. You know, you'd think the US base would be in the locals' bad graces given the last 2 years. It's not).
If this is supposed to build to a long lasting mutually beneficial trading relationship between China and these countries, they're not off to a great start. Not on the economic aspects, not on the political aspects, not on ...
But frankly, the answer to this weird state of affairs is brutally simple: China has no intention to turn this into a long lasting mutually beneficial trading relationship, and neither do those countries or those peoples.
China offers significantly better terms than the IMF and it comes with far less onerous conditions, most notably the IMF imposes "economic reforms" that tend to be absolutely devastating in the same way that economic austerity measures in the developed world have been devastating to working people and nothing more than a vampiric drain on the economy to the benefit of the wealthiest.
The IMF (and World Bank) is economic imperialism doing things like preventing African countries from growing crops to feed themselves. Instead they need to produce export crops and then they can buy excess food created by Europe and the US. This has resulted in famines and utterly destroyed, for example, the economy of places like Somalia [1].
Yes, China is seeking preferential access to natural resources and considering the strategic importance of the borrower. But the general consensus seems to be China's terms are better than the West's.
I read this article. Is this serious? This is Russian pseudo-communist propaganda meant to attack globalization. It is well written, remarkable even, but totally unreasonable:
1) Chossudovsky criticizes subsidized grain imports for undermining local markets, but in contexts of hyper-inflation or economic collapse (e.g., Somalia’s public sector wages dropping to $3/month), external food aid was the only means for households to survive. Criticism that it destroyed the market is dishonest. Markets ALSO don't survive if the customers die off. Obviously.
2) While imposed austerity measures that worsened inequality and local economies, the alternative—total state insolvency—would have been far worse. A teacher wage of $3 is still far superior to a collapsed state offering a wage of $0, and probably forcing locals to wage war on each other. PLUS the state needs to get back to surviving on it's own, without external help, or it would just delay total collapse instead of fixing it.
I was curious about this article. So well written, but it's a totally unfair attack piece, it's lunacy ... and here is the wikipedia page on the author:
"Michel Chossudovsky (born 1946) is a Canadian economist and author. He is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Ottawa[1][2] and the president and director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which runs the website globalresearch.ca, founded in 2001, which publishes falsehoods and conspiracy theories.[3][4][5] Chossudovsky has promoted conspiracy theories about 9/11."
"In 2017, the Centre for Research on Globalization was accused by information warfare specialists at NATO’s Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence (STRATCOM) of playing a key role in the spread of pro-Russian propaganda.[12] A report by the U.S. State Department in August 2020 accused the website of being a proxy for a Russian disinformation campaign."
Really? Because the vast majority of "Belt and Road" destinations connect China to raw resources. I'm sure that's just a coincidence. China is making it pretty damn clear that they do not intend to pay for those resources, or at least not in money, especially now that the "Belt and Road" initiative has turned into yet another Chinese money pit so deep it makes Trump look like a great businessman, and on top of that it made China so unpopular it makes it look like Europe loves Trump. And everyone reports another problem: CCP officials, even low level ones, make Trump look like a humble man.
Locals seem to hate the Chinese, and Chinese investments, everywhere the Belt and Road goes, whether it's Pakistani in Balochistan, Greeks in Piraeus, in Madagascar the people pretty much kicked out the government, largely over Chinese presence, China is now negotiating in Australia by openly threatening with warships in Sydney harbor firing live ammunition in the direction of the city and even their military base in Djibouti is not popular, despite being right next to a US, a French and a Japanese military base that ARE popular (despite middle eastern tensions. You know, you'd think the US base would be in the locals' bad graces given the last 2 years. It's not).
If this is supposed to build to a long lasting mutually beneficial trading relationship between China and these countries, they're not off to a great start. Not on the economic aspects, not on the political aspects, not on ...
But frankly, the answer to this weird state of affairs is brutally simple: China has no intention to turn this into a long lasting mutually beneficial trading relationship, and neither do those countries or those peoples.