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On August 12 2023 04:48 Manit0u wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2023 21:48 Salazarz wrote:On August 11 2023 21:41 JimmiC wrote:On August 11 2023 21:39 Salazarz wrote:On August 11 2023 18:38 Manit0u wrote:
You can't really take poor African countries views as indicators here. China is doing a lot of investment there and using corrupt governments to for example build roads in exchange for mining rights on precious metals and gems.
I was talking to some friends from RSA and Zimbabwe and generally it's pretty much useless to ask about the public opinion there or the official one for that matter. Most governments in Africa are terribly corrupt and easily swayed (it blew my mind when RSA's foreign minister response to the potential terrorist threat was that they're not worried because ISIS, Al-Quaeda and such have training camps in their country so they're safe - at this point I'd be worried about USA taking note). As for the general population one of the biggest problems in Africa is very poor education levels. Most of them have no idea what's going on in their own country and asking them about broader geo-politics is futile.
But it's clear to see all over the globe really. Most poorer countries where China has made investments due to the Belt & Road initiative for example are now in some deep crisis and facing bankruptcy. The only beneficiary of those "bilateral" investments is China. Yeah, them poor people in third world don't know what's good for them and have no agency of their own, if they knew better they'd stick with white man's imperialism. /s Sarcasm aside, even Western scholars generally agree that despite its numerous flaws and challenges, Belt and Road Initiative is generally successful and continues to expand because it's seen as a superior alternative to IMF and other Western-led initiatives; even developed European nations are signing up to participate in BRI or BRI-related projects -- yet mainstream media in the West continues to drone on about 'Chinese debt traps' and folks on social media everywhere continues to parrot those completely nonsensical statements. Wasn’t Italy one of the first and are they not trying to get out of it because it was not what they thought? Italy is looking to back out, meanwhile Ireland, Denmark, and I think it was Portugal? are looking for closer cooperation. Poland, Greece, Croatia, and some other countries that I can't remember names of in Eastern Europe are participating as well. Sure, there are some higher profile countries involved in BRI but you can't ignore the fact that vast majority of countries involved in those projects are also topping the economic decline index. Just checked it myself and out of top 30 hardest tanking economies 27 are part of BRI (didn't bother to check the entire decline index). According to economics articles foreign debt is quite often one of the most impactful factors in killing low income/developing countries' economies.
150 countries out of the world's 195 are associated with BRI at least in some way. Not exactly surprising that majority of whatever list you can think of would be chiefly populated by BRI-associated countries, lol.
If you want to discuss the harm, economic or otherwise, that Chinese-led initiatives are causing somewhere, let's talk specifics, with examples and numbers; otherwise you're just walking proof of the anti-Chinese bias in the Western world.
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You could start with yourself instead of doing the classic bad faith "You need to bring something to the table for me" argument. Do you want to elaborate on why the BRI isn't Neocolonialism via debt trap? You can't just handwave arguments, bring nothing to discuss, and then expect other people to find you even remotely persuading.
China loans nations money to pay Chinese companies to build things in exchange for Chinese companies getting rights to those nations economic assets. These loans are at a higher interest than IMF loans in order to force nations to negotiate down the road to reorganize these loans in order to acquire more economic assets from the debtor company.
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On August 12 2023 13:28 Sermokala wrote:
You could start with yourself instead of doing the classic bad faith "You need to bring something to the table for me" argument. Do you want to elaborate on why the BRI isn't Neocolonialism via debt trap? You can't just handwave arguments, bring nothing to discuss, and then expect other people to find you even remotely persuading.
China loans nations money to pay Chinese companies to build things in exchange for Chinese companies getting rights to those nations economic assets. These loans are at a higher interest than IMF loans in order to force nations to negotiate down the road to reorganize these loans in order to acquire more economic assets from the debtor company.
I'm sorry you feel that way. Personally, I think implying that everybody in Africa is so corrupt and uneducated that they simply don't know what's good for them is kind of racist and has no basis in reality, so there's not much discussion to be had about that, but what do I know, I've only been running a nonprofit in Kenya for 8 years.
As for Chinese companies taking over national economic assets... I mean, that's just not what actually happens, in Africa or anywhere else, so I'm not sure what do you want me to discuss here.
https://www.chathamhouse.org/2020/08/debunking-myth-debt-trap-diplomacy
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/02/china-debt-trap-diplomacy/617953/
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/15387216.2020.1726787
https://rhg.com/research/new-data-on-the-debt-trap-question/
As far as I'm concerned, handwaving is happening from the 'China bad!' side of the argument, because try as I might, I just don't see any real evidence for China 'debt trapping' countries and taking over their stuff. Some concessions happen, which is pretty natural considering the absolutely massive scope of the initiative and the number of actors involved. But it doesn't seem to be happening on such a scale or so regularly that one could claim they're organizing asset take overs via bad loans.
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On August 12 2023 16:44 Salazarz wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2023 13:28 Sermokala wrote:
You could start with yourself instead of doing the classic bad faith "You need to bring something to the table for me" argument. Do you want to elaborate on why the BRI isn't Neocolonialism via debt trap? You can't just handwave arguments, bring nothing to discuss, and then expect other people to find you even remotely persuading.
China loans nations money to pay Chinese companies to build things in exchange for Chinese companies getting rights to those nations economic assets. These loans are at a higher interest than IMF loans in order to force nations to negotiate down the road to reorganize these loans in order to acquire more economic assets from the debtor company. I'm sorry you feel that way. Personally, I think implying that everybody in Africa is so corrupt and uneducated that they simply don't know what's good for them is kind of racist and has no basis in reality, so there's not much discussion to be had about that, but what do I know, I've only been running a nonprofit in Kenya for 8 years. As for Chinese companies taking over national economic assets... I mean, that's just not what actually happens, in Africa or anywhere else, so I'm not sure what do you want me to discuss here. https://www.chathamhouse.org/2020/08/debunking-myth-debt-trap-diplomacyhttps://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/02/china-debt-trap-diplomacy/617953/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/15387216.2020.1726787https://rhg.com/research/new-data-on-the-debt-trap-question/As far as I'm concerned, handwaving is happening from the 'China bad!' side of the argument, because try as I might, I just don't see any real evidence for China 'debt trapping' countries and taking over their stuff. Some concessions happen, which is pretty natural considering the absolutely massive scope of the initiative and the number of actors involved. But it doesn't seem to be happening on such a scale or so regularly that one could claim they're organizing asset take overs via bad loans.
Yeah if you're not going to argue in good faith and engage with anything I said I'm not going to keep replying to you.
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You asked me to elaborate why China isn't a neocolonialist empire using debt traps to steal other nation's economic assets then insisted that 'you can't just handwave arguments and bring nothing to discuss' (which is kind of ironic in itself since neither you nor the person I first replied to provided any real backing whatsoever to the claims about Chinese debt traps). I then provided links to multiple in-depth papers from well regarded sources explaining exactly why the widely propagated meme of Chinese debt traps is misguided and not grounded in reality... which somehow is a 'bad faith argument' that does not 'engage with anything you said'? Uhh, okay I guess.
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Agree with Salazarz - his sources directly refute the claim that the BRI thus far has been laden with debt traps and asset seizures. Reading about the BRI and responses by other parties such as the US, Japan, India and more, the west is unhappy but thus far seems to fail in offering competitive or better alternatives. US initiatives such as the B3W (2021) and BUILD (2018) are combined an order of magnitude smaller than the BRI.
But I think much of the West's criticism stems not necessarily from debt trap concerns. Economic partnerships are a channel for projecting power - in their simplest form simply by controlling the admission ticket. E.g., Nicaragua severed ties to Taiwan and supported the One China policy one month before joining the BRI (aljazeera, CFR). Whether this is good or bad depends on how you align with China vs US & allies in their Taiwan policies.
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Since the US considers China to be their number one enemy, it's not surprising that they are unhappy about China getting more influence and establishing more economic ties abroad. It's totally cool if you or anyone else think that China getting more influence is a bad thing, too, even if I might disagree with that; it's just not cool to use half-truths and outright fabrications to justify such an opinion the way various Western media sources and 'think tanks' often tend to do.
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The gaslighting from Serm is silly. I appreciate you calling out the racism too.
Even if people do buy into the childish and reductive "good guy vs bad guy" narratives, China as a competitive peer in a multi-polar world would act as desperately needed check to the US's unending "good guy flavored" invasions, coups, economic/military strong-arming, assassination attempts, ethnic cleansing campaigns, lingering colonialism, etc.
China being a socialist alternative for people around the world is definitely preferable, while also being far from certain imo. The obviously worst possible (yet overwhelmingly favored by westerners) outcome is for China to end up (arguably staying) in a subordinate capitalist role under US dominated hegemonic racial capitalism.
None of that means China is perfect btw, for anyone that needs that disclaimer.
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United States43203 Posts
Your anti Americanism is showing. China is worse than the US on all of those factors you named. Your theory that they’ll act as a check against the US makes no sense. It’s like believing that adding a leopard to the lion you’re sharing a raft with will somehow make things better because at least then it’ll be a multipolar raft.
China is an expansionist imperialist power that has territorial disputes with literally all of its neighbours, constantly exchanges fire with several of them, and has recently annexed a previously free democratic territory. Following that annexation it imported its own government loyalist police, contrary to its agreements, and ruthlessly cracked down on the populace. In the next 50 years you’re far safer as a Mexican living next to the hegemonic American empire than as a Vietnamese citizen living next to China.
China is dangerous and is largely constrained by a current inability to achieve its most violent ambitions. Cheering for China’s increasing power is cheering for the next war. It’s not just not perfect, it’s an actively negative force for the world in general. You could argue the US is too, though I would disagree with that, but even then, why would you want a younger, more vigorous, more imperialist, second US thrown into the mix.
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On August 14 2023 15:13 KwarK wrote:
Your anti Americanism is showing. China is worse than the US on all of those factors you named. Your theory that they’ll act as a check against the US makes no sense. It’s like believing that adding a leopard to the lion you’re sharing a raft with will somehow make things better because at least then it’ll be a multipolar raft.
They objectively aren't and you know this.
Salz just illustrated the bogusness of this line on the economic strong-arming through debt traps. The US has invaded and overthrown more governments since it's creation than any other country in the world (save maybe Nazi Germany depending on how/what you count). No other country comes close to the number of assassination attempts (let alone plans) the US made on Castro, even the worst accounts of what's happening to Uyghurs is less bad than Indian boarding schools, let alone the overt attempts to exterminate indigenous people, and China has more claim to Taiwan than the US does to Hawaii (and that's just the tip of neo/lingering colonialism iceberg).
The notion that China is just as bad as the US or worse on everything all the time will get you plenty of upvotes on reddit, but it doesn't match reality. The demonstrable fact is that China's efforts in Africa haven't been anywhere near as exploitative as the west's.
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United States43203 Posts
The US today isn’t doing the same stuff as your historical examples and a unipolar world has been extremely good for world peace. The world has never been more peaceful than it has been under US hegemony. The US is far from a perfect hegemon but it hasn’t annexed anywhere in a few decades and doesn’t plan to.
Your problem seems to be that you’re confused by the linear passage of time. The US has been getting less shitty over time, China more shitty. I expect this trend to continue. You point to US boarding schools for the indigenous as if you think they’re about to bring them back. You point to Hawaii as if the US is on the verge of colonizing the Philippines again. It’s not. Whereas China’s historical trend of weakness is very clearly reversing. Looking at China’s previous inability to turn its imperial ambitions into military victory and projecting that forwards is as absurd as assuming the US is on the verge of setting up boarding schools in the Philippines.
Perhaps you could take a minute to listen to the nations who have borders with China before deciding that you, as an educated western intellectual, must know better than them. Perhaps you’re not the best qualified to address the issue of whether China’s claims to Taiwan have merit. You cheer for the Chinese tiger to be unleashed on the people of east Asia without the slightest notion of what it means for those people. But you don’t care because you, as an American, believe you know better. Not because of how you feel about China either, simply because of how it makes you feel better about America’s place in the world. If they must suffer for you to see America humbled then that’s a price you’re willing to pay.
It’s pure horseshoe with you. You arrive in the exact same arrogant western mindset as those you despise because ultimately these places only exist in your mind insofar as they’re relevant to American hegemony.
The US (and the other western imperial powers) were extremely shitty in East Asia in 1930. Would you cheer for Imperial Japan?
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I obviously disagree with your perspective/assessment of my perspective, but considering the US is in a statistical coinflip (against someone that literally tried to forcibly and illegally keep power, ostensibly for the first time in US history) for fascism, you might at least want to temper your own confidence about it "getting less shitty".
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United States43203 Posts
On August 14 2023 16:25 GreenHorizons wrote:
I obviously disagree with your perspective/assessment of my perspective, but considering the US is in a statistical coinflip (against someone that literally tried to forcibly and illegally keep power, ostensibly for the first time in US history) for fascism, you might at least want to temper your own confidence about it "getting less shitty".
Trump is awful, of course. But is he historically awful? The US has had some real monsters in charge. Plus that time it broke into two countries because half of them wanted to own people. Trump mainly just wants to force the media to suck his dick because he’s a narcissist with a gaping void where you’d expect a soul. He’s motivated entirely by ego, he lives for the rallies and the Twitter arguments and the petty name calling. Bush 2 also stole an election and then he killed a quarter million people.
America is getting better.
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China sends North Korean escapees right back into North Korea without any exceptions. Several neighbors of China wouldn't dare to send a single soul back. That alone already says so much about the country.
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On August 14 2023 16:44 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2023 16:25 GreenHorizons wrote:
I obviously disagree with your perspective/assessment of my perspective, but considering the US is in a statistical coinflip (against someone that literally tried to forcibly and illegally keep power, ostensibly for the first time in US history) for fascism, you might at least want to temper your own confidence about it "getting less shitty". Trump is awful, of course. But is he historically awful? The US has had some real monsters in charge. Plus that time it broke into two countries because half of them wanted to own people. Trump mainly just wants to force the media to suck his dick because he’s a narcissist with a gaping void where you’d expect a soul. He’s motivated entirely by ego, he lives for the rallies and the Twitter arguments and the petty name calling. Bush 2 also stole an election and then he killed a quarter million people. America is getting better.
That you could see Trump win the coinflip in 2024 and sincerely tell people "don't worry, this is evidence the US is getting better" might be the scariest thing I've seen you say, depending on how you rationalize it (I don't want you to attempt to thread that needle no matter how potentially amusing it might sound, though The American Civil War is a fun bar I don't think you can be sure we'll clear anyway lol).
I do hope we can at least agree that China's work in Africa through the BRI has demonstrably been less exploitative than Europe's and the US's through the IMF and the like according to the evidence provided/available thus far (this is even with slavery, King Leopold II, their legacies, etc. notwithstanding)?
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United States43203 Posts
On August 14 2023 17:37 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2023 16:44 KwarK wrote:On August 14 2023 16:25 GreenHorizons wrote:
I obviously disagree with your perspective/assessment of my perspective, but considering the US is in a statistical coinflip (against someone that literally tried to forcibly and illegally keep power, ostensibly for the first time in US history) for fascism, you might at least want to temper your own confidence about it "getting less shitty". Trump is awful, of course. But is he historically awful? The US has had some real monsters in charge. Plus that time it broke into two countries because half of them wanted to own people. Trump mainly just wants to force the media to suck his dick because he’s a narcissist with a gaping void where you’d expect a soul. He’s motivated entirely by ego, he lives for the rallies and the Twitter arguments and the petty name calling. Bush 2 also stole an election and then he killed a quarter million people. America is getting better. That you could see Trump win the coinflip in 2024 and sincerely tell people "don't worry, this is evidence the US is getting better" might be the scariest thing I've seen you say, depending on how you rationalize it (I don't want you to attempt to thread that needle no matter how potentially amusing it might sound, though The American Civil War is a fun bar I don't think you can be sure we'll clear anyway lol). I do hope we can at least agree that China's work in Africa through the BRI is demonstrably been less exploitative than Europe's and the US's through the IMF and the like according to the evidence provided/available thus far (this is even with slavery, King Leopold II, their legacies, etc. notwithstanding)?
Trump is difficult to be objective about because he’s so nakedly abhorrent. So utterly, openly, shamelessly abhorrent. So completely lacking in class and basic human decency. So frustratingly stupid too. Not just dumb but a really offensive kind of dumb where he’ll talk down to everyone on subjects that he clearly knows nothing about. He’ll accuse the entire military staff of the US Army of being idiots because he feels that they’re underutilizing the element of surprise in Iraq because he feels like if he was a general he would use the element of surprise and defeat ISIS. The way he unfailingly takes the absolute worst stance on every issue and then dominates the information space with it is exceptionally annoying. I hate Trump. Like I really, really hate Trump.
But is he more evil than Bush 2? Than Nixon? His death count is lower than either of those. Are his policies worse for the nation than Reagan’s? In part I think he’s too petty to be properly evil. He believes in a kind of small scale personal evil where he wants to engage in vindictive feuds with random people. Whereas Bush 2 will just let Enron write energy legislation. That’s a less offensively stupid kind of evil, but is it any better?
I think you can describe an upward trajectory that includes Trump on it. You just need a sufficiently low starting point and America has plenty of those.
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On August 14 2023 17:49 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2023 17:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 14 2023 16:44 KwarK wrote:On August 14 2023 16:25 GreenHorizons wrote:
I obviously disagree with your perspective/assessment of my perspective, but considering the US is in a statistical coinflip (against someone that literally tried to forcibly and illegally keep power, ostensibly for the first time in US history) for fascism, you might at least want to temper your own confidence about it "getting less shitty". Trump is awful, of course. But is he historically awful? The US has had some real monsters in charge. Plus that time it broke into two countries because half of them wanted to own people. Trump mainly just wants to force the media to suck his dick because he’s a narcissist with a gaping void where you’d expect a soul. He’s motivated entirely by ego, he lives for the rallies and the Twitter arguments and the petty name calling. Bush 2 also stole an election and then he killed a quarter million people. America is getting better. That you could see Trump win the coinflip in 2024 and sincerely tell people "don't worry, this is evidence the US is getting better" might be the scariest thing I've seen you say, depending on how you rationalize it (I don't want you to attempt to thread that needle no matter how potentially amusing it might sound, though The American Civil War is a fun bar I don't think you can be sure we'll clear anyway lol). I do hope we can at least agree that China's work in Africa through the BRI is demonstrably been less exploitative than Europe's and the US's through the IMF and the like according to the evidence provided/available thus far (this is even with slavery, King Leopold II, their legacies, etc. notwithstanding)? Trump is difficult to be objective about because he’s so nakedly abhorrent. So utterly, openly, shamelessly abhorrent. So completely lacking in class and basic human decency. So frustratingly stupid too. Not just dumb but a really offensive kind of dumb where he’ll talk down to everyone on subjects that he clearly knows nothing about. He’ll accuse the entire military staff of the US Army of being idiots because he feels that they’re underutilizing the element of surprise in Iraq because he feels like if he was a general he would use the element of surprise and defeat ISIS. The way he unfailingly takes the absolute worst stance on every issue and then dominates the information space with it is exceptionally annoying. I hate Trump. Like I really, really hate Trump. But is he more evil than Bush 2? Than Nixon? His death count is lower than either of those. Are his policies worse for the nation than Reagan’s? In part I think he’s too petty to be properly evil. He believes in a kind of small scale personal evil where he wants to engage in vindictive feuds with random people. Whereas Bush 2 will just let Enron write energy legislation. That’s a less offensively stupid kind of evil, but is it any better? I think you can describe an upward trajectory that includes Trump on it. You just need a sufficiently low starting point and America has plenty of those. Am I supposed to infer that post had a "Yes, but..." or a "No, btw..." at the beginning of it ,or did you just ignore the question altogether in favor of rationalizing (despite my protest at the expense of my own entertainment) your argument that Trump winning in 2024 would be evidence the US is improving?
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It's rather wild to claim that it's 'anti-american bias' to say that the US has a rather nasty track record in regards to invasion, coups, assassinations, or strong-arming other nations whether via brute force or economic measures. You could argue that China is worse in terms of ethnic cleansing campaigns (in my opinion, even that one is debatable but at least there's grounds for discussion there), but every other one of those things? I mean, it's not even close. It's cool if you believe that the US is 'improving' and that going forward, they'll behave better than China does... in my opinion, though, a strong China is the biggest incentive ever for the US to actually start behaving better, just like a strong US keeps China from just walking over and taking whatever they please.
The example of Vietnamese people living next to China being in more danger than Mexicans living next to US is once again quite ironic, by the way. The American War on Drugs is one of the main reasons for existence of Mexican cartels, and the US has supplied the vast majority of guns that the cartels have used to murder hundreds of thousands of people. And that's not some '50 years down the line' prediction, it's the reality that we are living in, right now.
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On August 14 2023 22:28 JimmiC wrote:
How about a comparison in how the US and its free media is handling Maui in comparison to how China and media is handling the floods?
How many less naturally disaster level events are being suppressed in China? We barely know the surface and that is on purpose.
Speaking on that, with the recent floods as expected there's now problems with disease (hospitals are overburdened) and apparently most people in the country don't even know there was a flood. When asked about it people from other provinces say they just heard some rumors and all they know is they can't travel to Beijing because of rain or something but nothing past that. The amount of censorship going on in this country is staggering.
There are even reports that posts about the flood on Twitter got spammed with porn so they would get taken down and accounts posting any info about it suspended.
I guess one of the saddest things about all of this is the government's mentality that we can trace back to Mao: "Even if half of the Chinese people will die there will still be 600 million Chinese left." (updated the quote for current numbers) They don't give a shit about their own people, the only thing they're interested in is staying in power and they'll sacrifice everything for it.
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EPT
