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this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2024
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chapotraphouse
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Isn't this just bribing local governments so they can continue to exploit and export Africa's natural resources?
I think calling it a "bribe" is needlessly antagonistic. China's policy towards small governments is pretty clear and consistent - "we don't care if you're a colonial puppet, a postcolonial nationalist movement, or religious fundamentalists, we want to do trade with you and we're willing to offer better deals than the Western countries are, up to and including building the infrastructure needed so that we can do more trade with you in the future."
Fair, but everyone seems to be ignoring the fact that these investments/loans are often tied to the extraction and export of Africa's natural resources. (lithium, cobalt, timber, etc.) I understand that global trade is vital for Africa to develop, I just fear people are seeing China's actions in the region through rose-tinted glasses.
There's a lot of things pointing to China being less exploitative than Western trade, but it'd be nice if someone did a comprehensive analysis a la the Hickel study.
I hadn't heard of that study before, thanks. Its nice to see these things empirically proven.
China has no power projection, and has never toppled a sovereign country. The global capitalist economy fucking sucks, but China's strategy is to place itself inside of it and help third world countries develop their own infrastructure. Sadly these countries can only participate in the global economy through the export of raw materials, but through this process of production the wealth that is created is no longer being extracted solely to the monopoly capitalists in the first world and more and more of it is being kept within the countries the wealth has been created in, to further develop their countries.
If China kept solely to itself, the third world would have no options other than the neoliberalization and debt reforms of the IMF and world bank that has stolen from and destabilized them for decades.