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Comment by xbmcuser | Hacker News Reader

Western countries look the other way when their companies exploit poor countries. Then let the same corrupt money to be be taken out from those poor countries and hidden in their banks and property markets. Microsoft is not alone in this many other companies do the same. I personally feel the biggest hate from the west for the chinese so called road and belt initiative is not that China is exploiting these countries rather China has pushed them out and taken over their scam.

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Well there is a geopolitical perspective to this as well right? Wouldn't want our biggest adversary to have strategic influence over these nations. Not to mention the potential intelligence capabilities from installing our equipment rather than theirs. Whether one country is more righteous than the other doesn't matter at this point - you should be rooting for the country that your survival depends on.

People like to imagine that international relations are completely amoral; it's a sort of thrilling, Game-of-Thrones type fantasy. But that's not the case at all.

Look at the EU, NATO and other US alliances (e.g., with Japan). They are connected held together by values. They are very imperfect and corrupt, but these alliances have lasted so long because there is no way, for example, Germany is attacking France again. It just doesn't make any sense, because of the values.

International relations are fundamentally (but certainly not wholly) anarchy, but anarchy doesn't exclude values - perhaps it makes them even more powerful, relatively. As some have said, to a great degree, right makes might.

In practice, blowback is one result of ignoring it: The US supported the Shah, a brutal dictator in Iran. When the Shah lost power in ~1979 - well, you can see that the US is still paying a price. The US supported some unsavory people to fight the Soviets in Afganistan; some of those people became Al Qaeda. The US armed and trained brutal right-wing militias in Central America to suppress enemies; some of them became today's Central American drug gangs. Meanwhile, while the US promotes democracy and freedom, it draws many, many into its orbit around the world.

> Meanwhile, while the US promotes democracy and freedom

Didn't the US overthrow many democratically-elected governments (usually because they were leaning towards communism/the Soviets) and install undemocratic dictators in their place?

I pointed out times the US has done 'right' and when they have done 'wrong'. Promoting democracy and freedom in some times and places is not incompatible with overthrowing it in others. Right isn't incompatible with wrong; you can't find a single individual who doesn't contain both, much less an entire government. We can't wait for purity to start doing right, or we might as well withdraw to a monestary and pray.

at least you're honest, most people don't get this far. but doesn't make your stance moral, I cannot justify keeping poor countries poor because of petty concerns like "we must remain #1"

> Then let the same corrupt money to be be taken out from those poor countries and hidden in their banks and property markets.

Coincidentally, here is an article that very issue in US property markets:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30805296

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