Comment by churchill | Hacker News Reader

Comment by churchill | Hacker News Reader

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I keep hearing people crow about how Africa is going to get re-colonized by China, but I just don't see it. For instance, in the last 50 years, America and her allies have:

-Overthrown Gaddafi and destabilized Libya in the process, leading to million of small arms washing into the Sahel. Jihadists groups have killed hundreds of thousands with those weapons, further destabilizing the region.

-Funded and backed murderous dictators like Hissene Habre who tortured, killed, and raped roughly 40k innocent Chadians.

-Other dictators that have held unto power with implicit/explicit American support include Mobutu, Amin, Barre, etc., and I'm not going to go into the atrocities they've committed.

-Continue to meddle in African countries, including their implicit support for the overthrow of popularly-elected governments like Egypt's Muhammad Morsi, and Congo's Lumumba, after which the country fell apart .

These are just a few examples off the top of my head. No matter how much you scaremonger about China, all they do is transfer technology, build infrastructure, and assist with explicit approval of local governments.

Do they have evil intent in the long-run? Who knows?

But, given their track record so far (of going heads down and building stuff) and the West's history of plain maliciousness, it'd be stupid to suggest anyone shouldn't partner with China.

I'm not denying the West has been quite bad to the Africans, but China isn't any better. They're in it for themselves. They get corrupt regimes to take loans (from China) for work (produced by China), deliver shoddy and useless results, let the local elite get their bribes, and then hold the country ransom over those loans, and demand payment e.g. in natural resources and political influence. All funded by the West's dependence on Aliexpress.

All of that self-dealing is still in the context of development projects, rather than military and paramilitary interference.

Would you rather have imperfect, corrupt development projects or the CIA fucking your shit up and definitely not building any dams?

What happens if you stop following the contracts? I bet military stuff.

Shoddy and useless according to who? I take it you haven't been to any of these African countries, where a Chinese-built dam generates the electricity millions use, or where a handful of bridges open up vast stretches of the country for trade.

Speaking of loans, most of Africa (and the developing world's) loans originate from Western lenders. They never cared about the borrower's ability to pay back or the fact that a huge chunk of the capital would be stolen. They'd simply demand payment anyway.

So, how is China responsible for loaning money on the same terms? In which specific cases has China demanded payment or strong-armed governments into making concessions for loans? Just one example, please. And don't mention the Hambantota port since you'll lose any credibility left.

If any African country lets their leaders steal dev. capital, it's not China's fault, and it's not different from what has happened with Western loans. In fact, with Western loans, there's an understanding that it will not get to the people, but is seen as a payoff for the puppet leaders to stay loyal.

China builds usable infrastructure that can be used for decades, and you can't argue against infrastructure.

I’ve been to Ethiopia and seen Chinese highway projects that were obviously unusable (caving in) before they were even open to traffic.

Ethiopia spans over 1 million KM2 and has over 144,000 Km of roads. How much of the country did you cover to determine this is a general trend? I can walk into large swathes of America or Europe and pick out badly damaged roads. So...

We drove from Addis to Arba Minch and back, which is about 900km total. We also drove from Gondar to Bahir Dar and… lots of other driving.

But the main point is what you ignored. Have you ever seen miles of brand new highways falling apart before a single vehicle has driven on them? Spread over hundreds of kilometers, not a one-off mistake.

Furthermore, the only reason I know it was a Chinese-built road is because our guide was explaining the differences (pro and con) between the Chinese (cheap, fall apart, but built quickly) vs Ethiopian (decent quality, but incredibly slow progress and never completed) road projects.

Judging by their actions vs the west’s actions, China is far better. Be serious.

> I'm not denying the West has been quite bad to the Africans, but China isn't any better.

If the western countries want to clean up their acts and offer something better than what China is doing, I am sure the doors of the African governments are open.

The problem is that the West has abandoned Africa, destabilized the region and then complains that Africa is looking for new partners.

What is the West doing to make amends? What are they offering? If those questions cannot be answered then it's no wonder that China is making gains in Africa.

> They're in it for themselves.

As opposed to the West who does things out of the goodwill of it's heart, I am sure. Do we live in the same world?

China's not "going down and building," they are bribing officials to take on massive loans that must be spent on Chinese contracts. The West does this with the IMF (minus the bribery?).

Maybe let the people who live in these countries decide that? Whatever your opinion, Chinese companies leave these forsaken countries with lots of infrastructure. In many cases, if they can't pay, it's forgiven. So, what's your problem?

People who live in a lot of African countries don't play much of a role in deciding what their governments do. That's the issue I take with anything involving bribery.

>People who live in a lot of African countries don't play much of a role in deciding what their governments do.

Holy fuck, are you saying this as someone who lives in the UNITED STATES? Incredible

Most infrastructure spending in the US happens at a local level. Cities don't build ports or railroads here but a big stadium or roadworks project would show up on the ballot.

Any time you hear an assumed Westerner talking about China's rising presence in Africa, it reminds me of an abuser whose love has left him for good. The speech is riddled with "he won't love you like I do", "He doesn't really love you", "He's actually worse than me".

More that the west has a better understanding of exploitation (from experience) and is generally against it now.

China still has to learn these lessons, and it will in time. It will need to shake its authoritarian ways first, because lessons can never learned this way. Authoritarianism repeats the same mistakes over and over by reenforcement of dogma.

It’s not jealousy, it’s a warning of lessons learned.

> More that the west has a better understanding of exploitation (from experience) and is generally against it now.

You must no be aware of the CFA francs that is used in some parts of Africa and de facto controlled by France. Control that in turn has been proven to actually channel money out of Africa towards France. I guess the end of exploitation memo must not have reached Paris.

The West doesn't like that China is going to Africa because it creates competition for them. Before France et al could just call the shots and the African continent was simply supposed to shut up and take it.

Now China is there and is trying to offer something better potentially. The West doesn't want to up it's offers so the complaining starts and with it comes the moralizing.

As if the West has any lessons to give to someone else regarding anything moral.

> It’s not jealousy, it’s a warning of lessons learned.

Maybe the West should just let these people live and choose for themselves instead of whining about unfair the competition is.

I keep hearing people crow about how Africa is going to get re-colonized by China, but I just don't see it.

It already happened[0] through massive predatory loans that Africans were never realistically going to be able to pay back. Of course, you could also frame those loans as China believing in Africa and investing heavily in stalwart people who had long been exploited by other countries. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative

> massive predatory loans

Were they forced to use them?

So China has learned how the US did it using the IMF and World Bank.

Loans with strings attached to ensure ongoing dependence.

Your source is literally stating the opposite:

>This policy has been alleged by the U.S. Government to be a form of debt-trap diplomacy; however, the term itself has come under scrutiny as analysts and researchers have pointed out that there is no evidence to prove that China is deliberately aiming to do debt-trap diplomacy.

>Research from Deborah Brautigam, an international political economy professor at Johns Hopkins University, and Meg Rithmire, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, have disputed the allegations of debt-trap diplomacy by China and pointed out that "Chinese banks are willing to restructure the terms of existing loans and have never actually seized an asset from any country, much less the port of Hambantota".

>Academic Jeremy Garlick concludes that there is no reason to believe the BRI framework is worse for developing countries' debt than Western lending frameworks.

Just because we were wrong does not automatically make our enemies right. Both sides can be equally wrong in some or all of their actions. As for the rest of it, determining intent depends on the evaluator and whether or not it's their job to assume the worst intent.

I don't assume China is right because the West was wrong; there's verifiable proof that China is better for developing countries, judging by their infrastructural footprint.

>I keep hearing people crow about how Africa is going to get re-colonized by China, but I just don't see it. For instance, in the last 50 years, America and her allies have

China financially and politically backed Pol Pot who murdered more than 1 million Cambodian civilians plus Vietnamese civilians on the border with Cambodia.

China kept quiet when Putin invaded Ukraine because they get oil, gas and minerals from Russia.

They all sin, not just US, UK or whatever great power from the West.

Now do the same, but for West's alternative...Russia.

Umm... the few developing countries where Russia has a presence has been at the explicit demand of the local authorities. The same way Americans say certain questions should be left to the state, I think national governments should be left to choose who they work with.

And now fully sponsoring Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in Idlib, since Ukraine isn't doing well - best to get the Russians to look elsewhere!

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