[interesting_att]

China has become a significantly better partner for African countries than the West can ever hope to.

Having spent some time in international development, the stories are the same: Western loans are always tied towards 'education', which barely makes a dent when you figure out how much corruption there is on both sides of African and Western governments. Chinese funds are often for critical projects, which have clear measurable impacts, like roads and dams. In return, China gets access to Africa's plentiful resources.

[jamhan]

I too have worked in international aid in Africa, in anti-corruption, anti-money laundering. From what I have experienced, one of the big differences is that Western "Aid" doesn't go towards building palaces and palatial parliaments for the ruling elite, in places surrounded by abject poverty, something the Chinese clearly have no problem with.

http://www.economist.com/node/21525847

[codesushi42]

Did you even read the article? You know, the part where China is providing aide to and voicing their support for Robert Mugabe, one of the world's worst dictators. How is that good for Africa?

[woah]

Bad guy, but I think the point here is that dams and roads are useful, and will continue to be useful through many possible future regime changes. The western conception of good goverment mostly seems to be granted to those who are useful to the west.

[Blahah]

More than just useful, roads are a huge enabler of local economies. Many rural areas in Africa are so poorly served by roads that it is impossible to build any decent size of business there without access to a lot of starting capital. Even if a lot of the money disappears, having it tied to infrastructure deliverables is a win for the population.

[codesushi42]

Whose to say China isn't sending money straight to the regime? That's what it sounds like. How is that better than the West?

[nabla9]

Supporting bad dictators is not specially Chinese thing.

Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea is probably worse and he is supported by US.

[mwfunk]

The existence of an arguably worse dictator someplace else with US support does not excuse China from providing support to a terrible dictator in Africa. That logic doesn't work in either direction. For example, if I think the US is doing something bad, I don't feel any better about it if I discover that China is doing the same thing but worse.

[nabla9]

Tu quoque is fallacy only if we use it to justify our own actions.

I was not using the argument as a excuse. I was just pointing out that what China does is normal. National interest trumps human rights everywhere. The main difference is that western countries must justify their actions to the public. We use human rights to rationalize wars against enemy dictators while staying inactive towards our own dictators.

Moral arguments from every side in international politics should be seen as propaganda.

[HappyTypist]

Saudi Arabia.

[BurningFrog]

Supporting or condemning words has only symbolic value. Neither impacts real life in Africa.

This deal also seems to be mostly symbolic. China's real impact on Africa is found elsewhere.

[tossableaccts95]

Depends on how you define significantly better, I guess.

China gets access to their resources, loots them for pennies on the dollar, and has a big pool of cheap labor to do the work for them.

The education angle at least has the possibility of providing the future generations with tools to question their overlords behaviors. Not saying the result is gonna be that great, given the corruption both within African politics and Western politics.

How about this: China is just being less hand-wavey about what it wants... resources, cheap labor, and hey you also get to pay us back for helping to plunder your lands and people... and leaving the feel goods about "education" out of the conversation altogether.

The measurables look good on paper, but will leave future generations wondering what the fuck was going on.

[AnAfrican]

And stadiums. and hotels. and presidential palaces. and airports in the middle of nowhere. and presidential palaces in the middle of nowhere.

At the end of the day, any method will have its cons.