China may take Mombasa port over Sh227bn SGR debt: Ouko
>The government borrowed the billions to construct the Mombasa-Nairobi standard gauge railway (SGR), against opposition that the project by China Roads and Bridges Corporation (CRBC), a Chinese State-owned company, could become a white elephant. The country's sovereignty is now at stake.
>In December 2017, the Sri Lankan government lost its Hambantota port to China for a lease period of 99 years after failing to show commitment in the payment of billions of dollars in loans. The transfer, according to the New York Times, gave China control of the territory just a few hundred miles off the shores of rival India. It is a strategic foothold along a critical commercial and military waterway.
>In September 2018, Zambia lost its international airport to China over debt repayment.
I mean, this is capitalism in action, granted it's not literally a foreign armada landing on the shores and seizing it for themselves, but this is still a pretty bad look, but on the other hand most of the governments in these countries willingly knew what they were getting into, we can only hope that the PRC is gentle I guess
Indebting a country and then using it as leverage is neo-colonialism and exactly what countries like France do to their "former" colonies.
Jack Moore
yeah but france has troops on the ground, and not long ago deliberately screwed with their former colonies, most famous being the murder of Thomas Sankara, granted what China is doing has stepped into imperialism, but the level of influence China has in these countries is much more newer than say, france, which quite literally has french as a primary language in mutliple african nations, so it isn't exactly the same with how france deals with it's former colonies
I never said it was ok, just that it was much more of a choice than say, french imperialism, plenty of countries on good terms with China have not just indebted themselves en masse
Plenty of african countries have increasing chinese investment. And just like the railway in this article, investment and debt, mostly likely agreed to by paid off government officials, lead to leasing of things like ports to china for military use, exclusive future rights to resources for china or chinese companies, trade deals, etc.
There are stories of Chinese mine bosses being killed by the African natives for not paying enough/good work conditions. I have also read that western owned mines in Africa apparently offer better pay and worker conditions than the Chinese. Could the chinese entering africa result in some sort of corporate cold war where west and east fight each other and the africans benefit by going with the one who makes the better offers and better working conditions?
Christopher Phillips
I admire your nuclear grade optimism but I think that with all corporate proxywars, it will end up looking like the middle east instead of a market utopia.
Easton King
which is the main problem, granted China should not talk or work with such corrupt officials but it still happens, which the biggest negative here
Kinda? I mean a big problem is a lack of formalization of how these companies are supposed to act in the countries they invest in.
But the primary problem in China is a lack of self-confidence in their past, which is now in a struggle with liberal tendencies in China (represented by born-rich children of officials, consumerism, US media etc.)
Honestly I'm far from a PRC apologist but it seems to me that Chinese dominance in Africa over Euro-American imperialism is vastly preferable. The kind of development and investment that China has been doing is way different than what we've seen from the US or Europe. There is actual industrialization, expansions of education, healthcare and transportation. Under western imperialism it was just stagnant and only extraction of resources.
Evan Flores
you can't make someone corrupt, I mean the person either stashes the cash of tells you to fuck off
It all worked out fine for Hong Kong in the end though. Might not the same be true of these Chinese concessions? They could become hubs for the further development of the host countries and integration into socialism with Chinese Characteristics.
Long as the Chinese are not enforcing their debts with gunships, we cannot speak of the same level of colonialism as practiced by capitalist powers. As noted above, unlike France now or the Europeans in the 19th century, China is not enforcing its claims at gunpoint. What they are doing still simply proceeds by consent of the host governments, which are not functionally Chinese puppet governments.
Ian Moore
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Angel Nelson
Read Lenin you idiot.
Nicholas Howard
Literally the excuse the British used to coup Iran in 1953.
Josiah Wilson
No one of these "countries" is sovereign. They are all colonies. China is taking them away from their government and their masters.
Kayden Green
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Chase Martin
Yeah, just enough to get them working in brand new Foxconn factories.
Christian Reed
What do you think China will do to them if they don't comply?
Nathaniel Morgan
Where did this happen?
Lucas Lee
Stalin supported Chinese government in unification of China. Stalin gave Chinese weapons to fight against Japanese and even send volunteers and advisers. Stalin liberated Manchuria and gave it back to Chinese. Stalin gave education to a lot of Chinese bureaucrats like Chiang Ching-kuo and Deng Xiaoping. Stalin gave over billion of dollars aid to China. Stalin tought Chinese how to build a functioning state. He did it FOR FREE
Anthony Gomez
Probably refuse to extend loans, forcing the government to either accede to demands or go into default. Which is self evidently a lot less dire than a military intervention.
What the hell is the argument here, are the Chinese just supposed to gift infrastructure - congealed labour of mostly Chinese labourers - to a foreign bourgeois government for free?
US President Barack Obama has given South Africa 60 days to remove barriers to US farm produce or face sanctions in a long-running row over chicken exports. www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-34744729
Africa ‘subsidises’ the rest of the world to the tune of $41bn (£32bn) a year, according to a new analysis of the amount of money flowing in and out of the contine
Daniel Rogers
The Honest Accounts 2017 report by Global Justice Now, the Jubilee Debt Campaign and other groups estimated the total amount going into sub-Saharan Africa at $161.6bn, while the total amount going out was put at $202.9bn.
Cina is seizing means of production from the African Bourgeoisie but this is somehow bad.
Juan Edwards
Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is /ourguy/ thought. It's also very awful from China to terrorize them, because they had a very long and bloody civil war. It's also awful from China to terrorize African nations, because they have already been robbed by Asia.
Nolan Gomez
Yay litteral imperialism I guess
Christian Edwards
The US literally pushed decolonisation so it could imperially dominate territories held by France, Britain, and other colonial powers. Also the US cucked the British, French and Israelis during the Suez crisis to stop the former two from reasserting their power over international trade.
Hunter Brooks
It were the Soviet's. Americans gave marshal plan money netherlands,belgium,france,uk and even portugal, who later fought wars in Africa and Asia to maintain their holdings. US did send it's troops to Vietnam, and supported anti socialist forces in Congo,Angola and other countries.
That's untrue. Khrushchev threatened to Nuke france and uk and invade israel if they won't live Egypt alone. One user from /his/ explained it well- americans pretended to support Egypt so that it would not fully align with the Soviet Union, it's only major ally..
Jayden Parker
… which was only concluded because the massive purchases of Chinese weapons, part of this whole debt-debacle.
Levi Thompson
africa will be the new middle east.
Thomas Smith
capitalism is global, borders are spooks
Eli Price
What are they doing with the debt?
Levi Edwards
The US pushed for France to leave Vietnam so it could take control of it, it funded the Dutch while ensuring Indonesia got independence with an aligned dictator in power. Also the US supported nationalist forces in Angola against Portugal The US also supported Egypt because it was worried about an Anglo-French axis forming independent of it. Remember this is when De Gaulle and Eden were in power: who still thought they ran superpowers.
Ayden Baker
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Christian Gomez
No, they are american bourgeoisie stealing from syrian proletariat.
Jordan Ross
And the chinese bourgoiesie is stealing from the african proletariat
Logan Thomas
Can have them negroids taking free stuff without them at least making an effort to try and pay back their debts, this was explained to them countless times in the beginning of our relations and still they choose to try to fool the glorious People's Republic of China by abusing our kindness, thy should stop being inhuman thieves.
Elijah Roberts
Sure, buddy.
William Reed
There isnt a single difference between china stealing resources from africa and america stealing resources from syria
William Kelly
Sri Lanka is a Sinhalese fascist state, free Tamil Eelam
Except that african resources are already stolen, in the hands of global corporations, guarded by local bribed warlords while syrian ones are publicly owned. Except that China buys stuff, not bomb, invade, send Isis and Turds.
Landon Price
Ah yes that heart of warlord politics, Mombasa.
Ryder Nelson
Real talk.
Russia, Iran, China, Venezuela, and etc aren't close to being Socialist but really it's good that they are Imperialistic because now NATO has to deal with them and if they start a World War we can use it like Lenin and the Commies like the Yugoslavia Communists did or if they don't start a World War then it will become a muti-polar World.
Elijah Edwards
Ironically, they are actually much better at it. They are putting on a facade of mutual benefit and fucking Africa in subtler ways to ensure complacency and long term stability. Western colonization was too chaotic and bloodthirsty for its own good.
Luis Garcia
Balkanization of small nations only serve megacorporation interest. For their own well-being they should learn to live together.
Wyatt Morris
Curious, what is the origin of this conspiracy? Expecially why would US want to conquer western colonies, when their megacompanies can exploit both the colony and the metropolit?
Isaiah Torres
analysis of the amount of money flowing in and out of the continent groups estimated the total amount going into sub-Saharan Africa at $161.6bn, while the total amount going out was put at $202.9bn. company profits, the ‘brain drain’ effect, illegal logging, fishing and poaching, and costs associated with climate change, a problem largely caused by Europe, America and other developed countries. biodiversity. Its people should thrive, its economies prosper,” the report said. continent’s wealth is being extracted by those outside it”
What you need to understand about Russia is that it is not a country, but a personal colony of few rich oligarchs that live in the west. All of the Russian' 'oligarchs' have multiple passports and reside and store stolen money in the western banks. Many children of Russian 'bureaucrats' also live in the west, where they also store their money. Afghanistan,Iraq,Libya, Syria and other countries have been bombed by Russian money.
Benjamin Sanchez
Soviet Union was the first and the largest anti-colonial power in Europe. Not only did it support, arm and help finance anti-colonial revolutionist and movements, it also provided education for 400000 students from Africa, and it also subsidized Cuban economy, which in turn send troops to help out revolutions in Algeria,Egypt, Ethiopia,Congo,Angola and South Africa. Cuba also engaged and still engages in it's legendary medical internationalism.
Well some backstory: during the early 1900s the British Empire tried to start to move along to a "Imperial Federalist" model, which would involve creating local government but with Westminster remaining in control. This would allow the empire to continue in the face of local nationalisms but also allow for its economic model to continue. They tried to introduce an empire-wide tariff and start the process with Imperial Councils but in the wake of WWI the idea was killed in the eyes of the "White colonies" who wanted more independence (also Ireland became independent but w/e). Still, Britain put up tariffs during the 1920s and 30s as a means to try and stimulate the economy (lol did not work) and ensure it maintained economic dependency between Great Britain and the colonies. I am not so great with French history, but they mostly did the same and started a move towards with that after WWII with the "French Union" (see the Algerian war and First Vietnam war for how that turned out). Now when the yanks rock up, they think they own Europe: Churchill and De Gaulle disagree because they still think their empires aren't dust. Now think about how they maintained economic control through tariffs? Well there were also various state-aligned companies that dealt in extracting resources (Ever heard of British Petroleum?). This really pissed off the yanks, and they had been trying to break into all of this since the 1920s. So, when the UN is founded, they (along with the soviets) put a part into the Charter about decolonisation. They push for European countries to leave their colonies and the US will help you and them don't you worry. Over time, the US effectively takes control of resource extraction as the French and British empires crumble: with the decisive moment being the Suez Crisis. If the British and the French had been effectively able to project their power to take control as something as strategic as Suez, US capitalist hegemony would have been shot to shit. Who needs NATO when the two empires are back baby and we don't need no Yanks. That was not acceptable for the US, as such they sided with Nasser and Khruschjov to end any possibility of Anglo-French imperial resurgence. In Britain this effectively killed imperial ambitions but in France they would carry on until De Gaulle died (although Francafrique is still a legacy of this. But yeah, decolonisation was allowed by the capitalist world mostly because it favoured the US.
Small land leases in the name of development are not necessarily imperialist if done between a socialist state and a Socialist-Aligned / Allied / Other socialist state To see this we just have to look at the Soviet Union continuing to lease Port Arthur from China for several decades before an eventual handover
Well they were still trying the imperial preference thing into the 1930s (the posters are evidence of this) and protectionism was the game of the day in the 1920s.
Nathan James
Yeah because their ruled by corrupt dictators who don’t give two shits about their own people.
Joshua Garcia
Most European powers stopped doing Imperialism via gunships in the 50s.
Jace Edwards
One of the few things they did right. European Imperialism had to go. Neocolonialism was slightly more progressive than Europeans annexing the countries.
This is what America did in the mid twentieth century though. Look at where it is now. That’s what China will be doing by 2100.
Because Burgerland (being a former British Colony) can put up the facade of mutual benefit better than France and Britain can which is useful in preventing Communist anti-imperalist movements from seizing power.
Jaxon Anderson
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Thomas Jackson
I'm glad you are defending an imperialist government of the Commonwealth.
I consider Chinese domestic policy currently to be one of the best in the whole world,while their foreign policy is apathy towards leftist states, and imperialism towards weak and poor states. Having said that screw, Tibet. If it will become independent it will become mcdonalds colony the same day. Having said that, perhaps independent Tibet would force China to show more solidarity to it's neighbors. Necessity is mother of invention, and if china would be cornered it would be forced to maintain friendly relations and promote socialism to it's neighbors. TL;DR China is to strong for own and socialism's good.
Yes I do support that And no it wasn't Imperialism The Tibet was a Feudal theocracy before China annexed it and has suffered terror attacks by feudalist Tibetan Nationalists for decades after All you must do is see how the standard of living of the Tibetan people has increased
The only socialist state I know of that China is Apathetic / Hostile to is Vietnam asides from that it has no issue supporting socialist / Socialist-Aligned states like the DPR-Korea Laos Cuba Venezuela Nepal etc
Joseph Myers
>>>Zig Forums >>>/liberty/
Eli Hughes
Not really. I tried to google it, but since the end of cold war, China has done bare minimum to help other countries out. China has more than enough resources to fix Venezuela and shut up toile tpaper usa and prager with their vuvuzuela comments. They could help out North Korea to achieve same level as South, and of course they could help out Cuba with it's infrastructure and export electronics. Yet they rather bully Sri Lanka.
Ryan Cook
It is impossible for a socialist state to be imperialist.
Blake Hughes
Who are you quoting?
Jayden Sanders
I'm paraphrasing (You)
Jack Stewart
Dengism isn't socialism.
Michael Taylor
China does provide both Political backing and economic aid to Venezuela including the buying of Venezuelan oil at a deficit and just dumping it in some warehouse in Beijing Xi Dosent just have a button on his desk he can just push and tell the ministers to "Make Venezuelas economy good again!" It continues to support Korea both Diplomatically and Economically being its main trade partner and continues to supply them technicians and technology They still maintain relations with the Cuban Republic and one of the first trips made by the new Cuban President was to China Both countries still have open trade with each other And asides from US propaganda what evidence exists to prove Cuba DOSENT have modern electronics?
Then the USSR was not Socialist as it went through an NEP (State-Capitalist Period) Then Cuba is not Socialist as it allows a National-Capitalist class in the name of development
Modern China is effectivly what the Soviet had hoped the NEP would be it was only stopped because of the Unccoprative nature of the Russian Capitalist and ex-Feudal class and the Soviets inability to court them something China has succeeded at doing
Lenin himself admitted the necessity of a State-Capitalist stage for socialist development
Josiah Wright
The USSR's period of state capitalism was short and had a clear end goal. Cuba is an island with few natural resources and heavy reliance on tourism and trade. It literally can't afford to abolish capitalism. China seemingly has no end-goal for its capitalist development and has little excuses for it, seeing as it is now at a high level of development. Worse, they don't even implement moderate reforms like universal healthcare to make the period of capitalist development more survivable for its working class. What is China's excuse?
Levi Peterson
That only lasted a few years and was abolished by Stalin. Only on an extremely limited scale, nowhere even close to what China has. The state and planning still firmly dominate the Cuban economy. In China less than half of industry is publically owned. Of course he did, but he didn’t pretend that state capitalism was socialism.
William Kelly
Nice strawman nerd. Occupying a sovereign nation against their will is the definition of imperialism.
