> I'm not saying it's "better" in the moral sense, but from the point of view of the dominant, it's definitely more effective

By what metric does the Belt and Road Initiative provide more soft power than USAID? Do you have any evidence of this?

> So, you do the next best thing which is to plant covert agents in NGOs. That's was the real purpose of USAID

That’s offensive to the men and women who worked hard as part of USAID and other foreign aid programs to help others. My wife didn’t spend 2 years in the middle of nowhere in Zambia teaching children to spy on them. My friends didn’t spend 4 years in Mongolia to spy on them.