ogc163
Superstar
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Beware of the dragon: Africa should not look to China IQ2 Debate
- Thread starter ogc163
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ogc163
Superstar
Yeah it may be too late, but I agree with most of his arguments here.
Ayittey is right. China is even more ruthless than the US and former colonial powers and even less democratic in its mode of capitalism, and their foreign business moves clearly manifest their lack of regard for African economic sovereignty/self-determination. Blindly praising Chinese investment and the infrastructural developments is wrong.
What have we seen historically that makes them less trustworthy then America internationally?
nice....will check out later...
Professor George Ayittey (3), President, Free Africa Foundation - Washington DC - YouTube
speaks about it starting around the 2:00 minute mark
a Chinese reporter wrote to him and asked if Africa is ready for an influx of Chinese
This i have a problem with. They are cracking down on African immigrants in their own country but are influxing theirs to africa. They must have come to an agreement with leadership in Africa.
Business-wise? Pretty much everything, to be honest. American capitalism is more ruthless than most, but China's is even worse, because it doesn't have the fragile ramparts of democracy, either at home or as an export (not saying that America necessarily spreads democracy, of course, but at least it claims to, which sometimes results in positive things) to guard against its more "negative" tendencies.
And as Ayittey says, make no mistake- China is a colonial power, and a brutal one, too. America doesn't even have militarized colonies on the scale of China's (Tibet) anymore, but even that aside, remember all of China's border-wars and attempts to claim parts of Kashmir, Myanmar, Vietnam, etc. This stuff is happening right now. I'm not saying that China will invade Africa with a military or anything like that, but that the colonial relation is very real and achievable through business and economics, too. Look at China's activity in South America as well.
How is this worse then puppets like Idi Amin? I dont see how it can get much worse.
Can you elaborate? Not sure what you mean by this.
The west has a history of propping up brutal dictators in African countries? How is China worse then this?
It remains to be seen whether they will be worse than the West in the specific matter of supporting dictators, but they're already working on it. Of course, they already do the puppet-leader thing in Tibet, etc. In Africa, though, look at what they are doing with Mugabe, for example- they are helping him cake off blood diamonds, funding various corrupt initiatives of his, and even affecting the "elections".
They have a long way to go before you can make a statements about them being more ruthless then western powers. Zimbabwe turned to China because they were getting treated like trash by the west. All developing nations cake off illegal money and civilize themselves after they have caked into properity. Whats wrong with that?
I said their Capitalism was more ruthless than the western form, not that they are more ruthless in general- something like overall ruthlessness is pretty much impossible to measure or compare in cases like these, especially since China's presence in Africa has not been nearly as long-lived as the West's.
Zimbabwe turned to China because the West doesn't like Mugabe of course, but Mugabe is a grade A despot/dictator regardless of the West's hypocrisy, and China is helping him maintain his power in a major way right now.
And he is only one of the corrupt African dictators being funded by China to exploit his own people. Notice how the countries with the most Chinese investment are also the ones with the most corrupt dictators- Zimbabwe, Congo, etc. That's no coincidence.