5 ms·

Does it really matter whether the boot crushing your throat was made down the street or across the sea?

by emidln 8y ago

coldtea 8y ago
That's not the difference that I wrote of, though. What I wrote amounts to that what China does in Africa not a "boot crushing their throat". And that's a nice change after a long period where foreign boots were crushing their throats regularly there in Africa.
- zer00eyz 8y ago
  Except the deal doesn't always work out well: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/sunday-finance/no-more-flights-from-sri-lanka-s-chinese-built-second-airport_135398?profile=1442 http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/sunday-finance/no-more-flight...
wahern 8y ago
Yes, it can matter quite alot. There's a reason British colonies faired better post independence than those of other powers. The British typically left behind a better developed local administrative apparatus, legal system, and business network. Japan's colonization of Taiwan followed a similar strategy, and it's a significant reason why Taiwan is today a very modern nation, industrially and politically. Imperial relationships that too heavily emphasize resource extraction--minerals, labor, etc--leave behind a tinderbox. China is in some ways the worst of the bunch in this regard because they completely abstain from any local development. Even when China "invests" in a country, they literally ship in their own workers and project managers.[1] The locals don't learn (and have no incentive to learn) how to do mundane stuff like project management and budgeting, and expectations that all government is corrupt are left entirely undiminished. Worse, the initiatives allow corruption on heretofore unheard scale.[2] I don't mean to equivocate the modern reality with colonialism. Colonial powers inflicted many unforgivable injuries upon local populations. In terms of national autonomy there's simply no comparison between 21st century Chinese imperialism and colonialism. But the aftermath of colonialism has taught us much about the dos and don'ts of national development. [1] Because Chinese development initiatives in Africa and South Asia are not only about securing resources for China, but also function as employment programs for the Chinese labor underclass. [2] Look at the 1MDB scandal. $1 billion was originally smuggled out of the country through Saudi Arabian channels. But the paper trail was too obvious. To cover his tracks it appears that Prime Minister Najib took a loan from the Chinese Development Bank, nominally to help pay for a Chinese Belt & Road Initiative-sponsored project. The loan was used to pay 1MDB debts, and the project costs (with a corrupt payment structure) born by the government using the regular budget. In effect the money was laundered after the fact because they did such a poor job of it the first time. It would be much more difficult to hide corruption this way using European, American, and Japanese banks and development programs; and if they did and the public caught wind, there'd be serious repercussions. Indeed, one reason 1MDB was discovered and the country able to hold the PM to account is because of the strong, British-derived technocracy and legal system, and the paper trails that passed through Western banks. The Chinese simply don't care, at any level. Their Belt & Road Initiative is in some ways like dropping fentanyl onto entire countries of heroin addicts.
- pasabagi 8y ago
  Where are you getting this idea of english colonies doing well after independence from? I can think of many english colonies that were left very dysfunctional post-empire, and not one where you could say they were left with a solid institutional foundation. If British colonies had a marginal advantage over, say, French ones - it's probably because the British were generally more reluctant and less capable of getting militarily involved with their affairs after the end of the empire.
  - wahern 8y ago
    There's a loose consensus in the foreign policy community that, relatively speaking, British colonialism was better. And it's backed by various studies. For example, This could suggest that the British colonial system, which had what Lee calls "greater levels of indirect rule and the granting of local-level autonomy to chiefs," was more beneficial — or at least less damaging — than the more hands-on French model, which involved a "greater level of forced labor." Source: https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/01/03/the-post-colonial-hangover/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/01/03/the-post-colonial-hango...
    - pasabagi 8y ago
      That, I can sort of see if I squint at it. Obviously, the less the colonizers were involved, the better for everybody. This, however: >The British typically left behind a better developed local administrative apparatus, legal system, and business network. is massively overselling it, I think, and is somewhat contradictory to the point that article is making. If the british left it behind, was it local? Or was it simply that the british did not utterly destroy local organizations in some areas they colonized?
      - wahern 8y ago
        It varied. Often times the British established a parallel administrative regime. Because the parallel regime was more functional in terms of the modern world (i.e. more conducive to the demands of commerce) it usually became the predominate facet of a post independence syncretic governance regime. Other times it was setup this way from the start. How is saying it was better overselling it? I never said it was extraordinary. I never said the countries were better off having been colonized. I simply made that point that 1) the British-style regimes were better relative to those of other colonial powers, and thus 2) what distinguished Britain's approach is instructive (independent of colonialism or imperialism) in terms of which policies are more conducive to political and economic development. What distinguished British colonialism wasn't that they were simply hands off. In many ways they were much more involved.[1] My original point was that being completely hands off can potentially result in the worst of all possible outcomes in terms of economic development if you're just handing a blank check to whoever holds power at the moment in a country suffering from endemic corruption. You may get what you want, but not all approaches result in the same outcomes for the local population. The British were at least as racist as the Dutch, French, or Germans; and they all believed the locals to be incapable of achieving and maintaining modern economic and political systems on their own. But for whatever reason the British nonetheless still developed the rule of law in their colonies, and built strong technocracies to a much greater extent than other powers, who were more prone to believe it was a useless and futile endeavor. [1] The British were more devious. They operated by a more complex playbook, which included installing a local minority group into power on the theory that minority groups would be beholden to Britain while also being more culturally competent and more capable of dealing with prosaic issues. They made a science of it. Other powers were more haphazard or simplistic in their approach.

Does it really matter whether the boot crushing your throat was made down the street or across the sea?

by emidln 8y ago

Does it really matter whether the boot crushing your throat was made down the street or across the sea?

That's not the difference that I wrote of, though. What I wrote amounts to that what China does in Africa not a "boot crushing their throat". And that's a nice change after a long period where foreign boots were crushing their throats regularly there in Africa.

zer00eyz 8y ago
Except the deal doesn't always work out well: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/sunday-finance/no-more-flights-from-sri-lanka-s-chinese-built-second-airport_135398?profile=1442 http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/sunday-finance/no-more-flight...

wahern 8y ago

Yes, it can matter quite alot. There's a reason British colonies faired better post independence than those of other powers. The British typically left behind a better developed local administrative apparatus, legal system, and business network. Japan's colonization of Taiwan followed a similar strategy, and it's a significant reason why Taiwan is today a very modern nation, industrially and politically. Imperial relationships that too heavily emphasize resource extraction--minerals, labor, etc--leave behind a tinderbox. China is in some ways the worst of the bunch in this regard because they completely abstain from any local development. Even when China "invests" in a country, they literally ship in their own workers and project managers.[1] The locals don't learn (and have no incentive to learn) how to do mundane stuff like project management and budgeting, and expectations that all government is corrupt are left entirely undiminished. Worse, the initiatives allow corruption on heretofore unheard scale.[2] I don't mean to equivocate the modern reality with colonialism. Colonial powers inflicted many unforgivable injuries upon local populations. In terms of national autonomy there's simply no comparison between 21st century Chinese imperialism and colonialism. But the aftermath of colonialism has taught us much about the dos and don'ts of national development. [1] Because Chinese development initiatives in Africa and South Asia are not only about securing resources for China, but also function as employment programs for the Chinese labor underclass. [2] Look at the 1MDB scandal. $1 billion was originally smuggled out of the country through Saudi Arabian channels. But the paper trail was too obvious. To cover his tracks it appears that Prime Minister Najib took a loan from the Chinese Development Bank, nominally to help pay for a Chinese Belt & Road Initiative-sponsored project. The loan was used to pay 1MDB debts, and the project costs (with a corrupt payment structure) born by the government using the regular budget. In effect the money was laundered after the fact because they did such a poor job of it the first time. It would be much more difficult to hide corruption this way using European, American, and Japanese banks and development programs; and if they did and the public caught wind, there'd be serious repercussions. Indeed, one reason 1MDB was discovered and the country able to hold the PM to account is because of the strong, British-derived technocracy and legal system, and the paper trails that passed through Western banks. The Chinese simply don't care, at any level. Their Belt & Road Initiative is in some ways like dropping fentanyl onto entire countries of heroin addicts.

pasabagi 8y ago
Where are you getting this idea of english colonies doing well after independence from? I can think of many english colonies that were left very dysfunctional post-empire, and not one where you could say they were left with a solid institutional foundation. If British colonies had a marginal advantage over, say, French ones - it's probably because the British were generally more reluctant and less capable of getting militarily involved with their affairs after the end of the empire.
- wahern 8y ago
  There's a loose consensus in the foreign policy community that, relatively speaking, British colonialism was better. And it's backed by various studies. For example, This could suggest that the British colonial system, which had what Lee calls "greater levels of indirect rule and the granting of local-level autonomy to chiefs," was more beneficial — or at least less damaging — than the more hands-on French model, which involved a "greater level of forced labor." Source: https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/01/03/the-post-colonial-hangover/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/01/03/the-post-colonial-hango...
  - pasabagi 8y ago
    That, I can sort of see if I squint at it. Obviously, the less the colonizers were involved, the better for everybody. This, however: >The British typically left behind a better developed local administrative apparatus, legal system, and business network. is massively overselling it, I think, and is somewhat contradictory to the point that article is making. If the british left it behind, was it local? Or was it simply that the british did not utterly destroy local organizations in some areas they colonized?
    - wahern 8y ago
      It varied. Often times the British established a parallel administrative regime. Because the parallel regime was more functional in terms of the modern world (i.e. more conducive to the demands of commerce) it usually became the predominate facet of a post independence syncretic governance regime. Other times it was setup this way from the start. How is saying it was better overselling it? I never said it was extraordinary. I never said the countries were better off having been colonized. I simply made that point that 1) the British-style regimes were better relative to those of other colonial powers, and thus 2) what distinguished Britain's approach is instructive (independent of colonialism or imperialism) in terms of which policies are more conducive to political and economic development. What distinguished British colonialism wasn't that they were simply hands off. In many ways they were much more involved.[1] My original point was that being completely hands off can potentially result in the worst of all possible outcomes in terms of economic development if you're just handing a blank check to whoever holds power at the moment in a country suffering from endemic corruption. You may get what you want, but not all approaches result in the same outcomes for the local population. The British were at least as racist as the Dutch, French, or Germans; and they all believed the locals to be incapable of achieving and maintaining modern economic and political systems on their own. But for whatever reason the British nonetheless still developed the rule of law in their colonies, and built strong technocracies to a much greater extent than other powers, who were more prone to believe it was a useless and futile endeavor. [1] The British were more devious. They operated by a more complex playbook, which included installing a local minority group into power on the theory that minority groups would be beholden to Britain while also being more culturally competent and more capable of dealing with prosaic issues. They made a science of it. Other powers were more haphazard or simplistic in their approach.