The west isn’t the good guy but you’re nuts if you think China isn’t sucking Africa dry.

I just watched a documentary recently (I will genuinely try to find it again and link here if I can) where Native African workers were being put out of business by China in their own country. China is mining for rare Earth metals using Chinese workers and trapping a lot of these countries in debts they won’t be able to pay back. Once I saw it coming from the mouths of Native Africans, I knew it wasn’t propaganda from either side. Straight to the source - people who live there and see it every day. They start out very grateful for China’s assistance and then later on realize the trap they are in.

Here is some other info: https://apnews.com/article/china-debt-banking-loans-financial-developing-countries-collapse-8df6f9fac3e1e758d0e6d8d5dfbd3ed6

It wasn’t intended to be condescending, I was just curious if you were going to be able to voluntarily describe why it isn’t an act of benevolence, and you did.

That’s why they are so popular in the global south.

All loans come with a fee. The fee is either a classic “interest”… Or “goodwill” and “political capital”.

Right now, China doesn’t need money. They have it. They want to spend it. And the thing they want to buy with it is geopolitical influence. They want people to look the other way in Hong Kong, in Taiwan, in Tibet. They don’t want nation states to talk about their concentration camps. You can buy those things at a pretty steep discount in the form of loans with exceedingly ~~~~favourable terms.

So, I dunno. Is it a win win? Sort of. It’s a win win lose. It’s a lose for groups that are under threat (or actual ongoing) genocide by the CCP. It’s a lose for everyone else along the South China Sea.

I’m glad developing nations are getting access to capital at terms that the west isn’t willing to provide, but I’m not so naive to believe this to be an act of pure benevolence. Trying to boil global acts into simple “good” or “bad” is…