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I recently had dinner with a friend who spent 8 years working for the US State dept all over Africa. His take was simple. When the US shows up offering to buil

I recently had dinner with a friend who spent 8 years working for the US State dept all over Africa. His take was simple. When the US shows up offering to build a road to the oil refinery we want to build we first ask them to make human rights reforms and so forth. The Chinese just start handing out cash until they get what they want. This strategy will result in the wholesale ownership of several African states by China if it hasn’t already happened.

anigbrowl 8y ago
Maybe, but it's also likely to accelerate human rights development although it will at first result in concentrations of wealth..
- pofjer 8y ago
  How so? The P. R. of "China" is the second/first economy (depending on the measure) and one of the worst offenders of human rights.
  - anigbrowl 8y ago
    Agree completely, but demand for rights tends to increase once median per-capita income rises above a threshold.
zwkrt 8y ago
It is very interesting to me how the perspective of the Chinese government seems to be that they should run their entire sovereignty like a business. Some politicians in the US claim to want to run /government/ like a business, but China seems happy to run the entire country as one. In China we effectively have a CEO in Xi Jinping, beholden to the board of investors that is the global economy. And the same forces are at play. China can punt on ethics so long as the return is good, and they have pressure to keep growing. So long as the banks are happy the game continues. The global investment-backed economy is efficient for allocating resources for the purposes of increasing monetary value but it will always introduce a moral hazard since short term returns will usually be better when corners are cut.
- talloaktrees 8y ago
  Xiang?
  - digibo 8y ago
    Autocomplete from Xi probably.
    - zwkrt 8y ago
      yes, thank you
- wonderwonder 8y ago
  China runs it's country exactly like a business. People are just widgets they make. If the widget is defective they throw it away. If an entire batch of widgets is defective, they will throw away (kill or put in camps) the entire assembly line rather than risk it damaging the other widgets.
- tivert 8y ago
  > In China we effectively have a CEO in Xi Jinping, beholden to the board of investors that is the global economy. I don't think Xi or the Communist Party view themselves as "beholden to the board of investors that is the global economy." Maybe they have use for those investors now, but they're working to make that temporary.
ptenk 8y ago
You should ask him about the World Bank and IMF debt traps to developing countries that have stricken those nations in poverty for decades. The Chinese are building critical infrastructure in many of these African countries, where there was none and immensely increasing ease of business and trade. Africa's going to be the next economic boom despite the West having done all they can to suppress African growth.
DenisM 8y ago
Will it do them a lot of good though? Soviets ended up controlling East Germany, but the didn't capitalize on that. US did much better with the culturally identical West Germany. This isn't exactly Socialism / Capitalism battle we have here, but if China ends up controlling most corrupt states while the West ends up with the least corrupt states the long-term outcome might be similar.

anigbrowl 8y ago

Maybe, but it's also likely to accelerate human rights development although it will at first result in concentrations of wealth..

pofjer 8y ago
How so? The P. R. of "China" is the second/first economy (depending on the measure) and one of the worst offenders of human rights.
- anigbrowl 8y ago
  Agree completely, but demand for rights tends to increase once median per-capita income rises above a threshold.

zwkrt 8y ago

It is very interesting to me how the perspective of the Chinese government seems to be that they should run their entire sovereignty like a business. Some politicians in the US claim to want to run /government/ like a business, but China seems happy to run the entire country as one. In China we effectively have a CEO in Xi Jinping, beholden to the board of investors that is the global economy. And the same forces are at play. China can punt on ethics so long as the return is good, and they have pressure to keep growing. So long as the banks are happy the game continues. The global investment-backed economy is efficient for allocating resources for the purposes of increasing monetary value but it will always introduce a moral hazard since short term returns will usually be better when corners are cut.

talloaktrees 8y ago
Xiang?
- digibo 8y ago
  Autocomplete from Xi probably.
  - zwkrt 8y ago
    yes, thank you
wonderwonder 8y ago
China runs it's country exactly like a business. People are just widgets they make. If the widget is defective they throw it away. If an entire batch of widgets is defective, they will throw away (kill or put in camps) the entire assembly line rather than risk it damaging the other widgets.
tivert 8y ago
> In China we effectively have a CEO in Xi Jinping, beholden to the board of investors that is the global economy. I don't think Xi or the Communist Party view themselves as "beholden to the board of investors that is the global economy." Maybe they have use for those investors now, but they're working to make that temporary.

ptenk 8y ago

You should ask him about the World Bank and IMF debt traps to developing countries that have stricken those nations in poverty for decades. The Chinese are building critical infrastructure in many of these African countries, where there was none and immensely increasing ease of business and trade. Africa's going to be the next economic boom despite the West having done all they can to suppress African growth.

DenisM 8y ago

Will it do them a lot of good though? Soviets ended up controlling East Germany, but the didn't capitalize on that. US did much better with the culturally identical West Germany. This isn't exactly Socialism / Capitalism battle we have here, but if China ends up controlling most corrupt states while the West ends up with the least corrupt states the long-term outcome might be similar.