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The Great Belt Road. There are some good articles on it in reddit.com/r/geopolitics. But basically, China is willing to put up loans to build trade infrastruc
by ep103 9y ago
The Great Belt Road. There are some good articles on it in reddit.com/r/geopolitics. But basically, China is willing to put up loans to build trade infrastructure, in the sorts of places where it would be too risky for private capital to do so (dictatorships, failing states, etc). They then make two (but only 2) demands: We want to be the ones to build it, and 2) If you default on payment for it, we'll lease it from you from that point on.
Unstable countries see those two demands as far simpler than WTO / UN type development, which also tends to come with things like human rights requirements.
And if they can't repay the loan, China will pay THEM to lease it out? Seems like a win-win.
Fast forward a few years, and China has helped prop up their internal construction companies, by giving them state sponsored projects on foreign soil.
And when the countries ultimately fail to repay the loan, China acquires territory over important infrastructure in foreign countries, not unlike how the US has military bases worldwide.
- lainga 9y agoDid the PLAN acquire their base in Djibouti this way, or did they come by it conventionally?
- pbarnes_1 9y agoThey also allegedly bug the premises. C.f. https://qz.com/1192493/china-spied-on-african-union-headquarters-for-five-years/ https://qz.com/1192493/china-spied-on-african-union-headquar...
- dalore 9y agoJust assume every country is bugging every other country.
- oh_sigh 9y agoHaving infrastructure in foreign countries isn't too helpful if the infrastructure isn't actually useful. How would the Chinese government use the airport differently than the Sri Lankan government that would make it all of the sudden worthwhile?
- smacktoward 9y agoChina has ambitions of regional hegemony, and a large air force that would find forward-deployed concrete airstrips very useful if called upon to support those ambitions. Sri Lanka has neither.
- forapurpose 9y agoLook up China's 'String of Pearls' strategy. They want military infrastructure (civilian airports and ports fill that role) in the Indian Ocean, in part to contain India.
- oh_sigh 9y agoWould a lease allow military missions to land there? I'd assume the SL government would have final say in the type of missions allowed
- iamshs 9y agoChina already docked a submarine in Sri Lankan port that they were building in 2014 and later took the lease off. Sri Lanka later rejected the Chinese request of docking a nuclear submarine. So, I think it is on case-by-case basis and if local government has curried favours with Chinese Government. They are building military infrastructure (listening posts already exist) in Myanmar's Coco Islands, and Maldives too, in their strategy to surround India which is called, "String of Pearls".
- forapurpose 9y agoGreat powers have a way of persuading small countries. If China wanted it, there is little SL could do - China can 'make an offer they can't refuse'. Look at the South China Sea. For example, if SL resisted and China ignored them then the SL leader would be humiliated and might fall from power and/or China might replace them with someone more agreeable. I think SL's only protection would be if another power, India in particular, decided it was in their interest to push out China. I'm surprised India has allowed China to get a foothold there. Compare SL to Cuba: Castro survived, AFAICT, because the USSR supported him and used Cuba as a geostrategic base.
- forapurpose 9y ago> China acquires territory over important infrastructure in foreign countries, not unlike how the US has military bases worldwide. Well, China is an authoritarian dictatorship, while the U.S. supports democracy and human rights of the locals. In fact, the U.S. has done more for freedom and democracy in China than the Chinese government: 23 million Chinese people in Taiwan have those things because the U.S. protects them from China's own government. (Yes, the U.S. also does some bad things.) There is a big difference between a foreign government controlling a military base with the support of the local government, and a foreign government controlling the major ports and railroads due to a debt trap that the local government can't legally escape. Again, the U.S. is imperfect, but the world has seen enough expansionist dictatorships to know what they do.
- NedIsakoff 9y agoChina is a People's Democratic Dictatorship! Its by the will of the people, for the people! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_democratic_dictatorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_democratic_dictator... /s
- testvox 9y agoCan you point me towards the local government that supports the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base?
- mikeash 9y agoThat would be the Republic of Cuba. They’re local in space, albeit not in time....
- dalore 9y agoOne could argue that the form of democracy being spread by the US is in fact creating more instability and terrorism due to violent methods in which it is being spread.
- forapurpose 9y agoThe dictators like to associate democracy with disorder, but it's the opposite: We take for granted that the most stable, prosperous, and free countries in the history of the world are all democracies. Democracy has been an incredible success for humanity, beyond the wildest dreams of millennia (but still not good enough!). > violent methods in which it is being spread That is attempted sometimes (and usually with poor results), but democracy almost always spreads peacefully: India, Brazil, South Korea, most of Europe, South Africa (albeit still a one-party democracy), Mexico, etc. etc. It's the dictatorships that try to spread their form of government through violence. We can say that if there were no dictatorships - i.e., if all countries were democracies - there probably would be no wars. Even Trump and the GOP aren't threatening war with any democracies.