UAE becomes Africa's largest investor, overtaking China | Hacker News Reader

UAE becomes Africa's largest investor, overtaking China

middleeastmonitor.com

3 pointsmadihaa4 comments

This feels like a risk for America, Europe, India, and others. Africa is rich in resources, is strategically located in many ways, and will have a lot of the world’s population by the end of this century. Bringing them into the fold of liberal, freedom valuing societies is important. Letting them be controlled by or allied with the CCP or Islamic authoritarian regimes is a danger to everyone else.

It isn't up to the US, Europe or anyone else to decide on Africa's behalf who they should ally with or whose investments they should accept.

Let's not pretend the West has any interest in "Bringing them into the fold of liberal, freedom valuing societies." We're interested in colonizing, exploiting and undermining them in exactly the way we have for centuries, in tapping into another pool of resources and cheap labor.

And so are China and UAE to be fair, but at least they're investing in infrastructure. What is the US doing other than funding the dictators who work child slaves to death in the rare earth mines that feed our tech industry?

> It isn't up to the US, Europe or anyone else to decide on Africa's behalf who they should ally with or whose investments they should accept.

No one is claiming it is up to them. I talked about the present situation being a risk and suggested they try to change it. You’re arguing against a strawman.

> We're interested in colonizing, exploiting and undermining them in exactly the way we have for centuries, in tapping into another pool of resources and cheap labor.

This just seems like such an extreme and cynical claim, that I can only say that it is disconnected from reality. Sure colonization by western powers was terrible and a major crime against Africans. But that’s not the agenda of today’s people. And yes the West has an interest in spreading its foundational values like the idea of free societies. There have literally been wars over that.

> What is the US doing other than funding the dictators who work child slaves to death in the rare earth mines that feed our tech industry?

This makes it pretty obvious you have a bias against the US and perhaps a bias in favor of China. First off China is the world’s biggest and most dangerous dictatorship. If you think the US is funding dictators - beyond having trade with China - share your hard evidence. But it is obvious you’re not seeking a factual conversation, since the rare earth industry is almost entirely owned and controlled by China.

>This just seems like such an extreme and cynical claim, that I can only say that it is disconnected from reality.

I urge you to take some time to actually study the history of Western colonialism in Africa. Look up the "Scramble for Africa" or Belgian Congo, or the history of De Beers. It is very much connected to reality. Western powers have never treated Africa as anything but a resource to be consumed, and there is no reason to trust any Western nation to do otherwise in the future.

> There have literally been wars over that.

There have been wars with that pretext, such as the war in Afghanistan, but the US has never actually waged a war to "spread American values" anywhere. The US doesn't actually do that. You might feel like bringing up Japan and Germany, but America didn't go to war against either to spread American values. Indeed, much of Nazi Germany's values came from the US. Hitler shouts out the US specifically for their wars of genocide against Native Americans and policies of segregation in Mein Kampf. The premise that the US is somehow a guardian of democratic or liberal values is absurd. We have literally overthrown liberal democracies and installed dictatorships because the democracies might have aligned with the Soviets.

>This makes it pretty obvious you have a bias against the US and perhaps a bias in favor of China.

Anyone with a conscience and even a passing awareness of history has a bias against the US, particularly where its treatment of any non-white majority culture is concerned.

I'm not in favor of China, I honestly couldn't care less about China. We can assume China doesn't have Africa's best interests in mind, simply because nations only ever act in their own interest. I criticize America and not China because I'm American and not Chinese.

>If you think the US is funding dictators - beyond having trade with China - share your hard evidence.

Obviously your use of the qualifier "hard" is meant to lead you to dismiss any evidence presented as not "hard" but sure I can scare up something.

https://www.iol.co.za/news/opinion/how-us-nurtured-dictators...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._policy_toward_authoritari...

https://truthout.org/articles/us-provides-military-assistanc...

> But it is obvious you’re not seeking a factual conversation, since the rare earth industry is almost entirely owned and controlled by China.

This doesn't mean the US government or American companies haven't been complicit, because they always are. China simply stepped in and took over a system already created by Western interests to be exploited, which the West continues to participate in. And realistically, given American companies' eagerness to outsource to China explicitly because of the poor human rights and weak labor laws, I doubt the US actually wants to confront China in any meaningful way, because American companies can continue to profit while having a scapegoat.

Which is what they will do. As opposed to, you know, that "bringing them into the fold of liberal, freedom valuing societies" thing you said. Because again, that isn't a thing the US actually ever does.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_the_Democrat...

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/dec/16/a...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/22/us-export-im...

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