[cmdshiftf4]

Sub-Saharan Africa feels like a missed opportunity now for Europe and the US.

While the US and EU has been focused on donating aid, or through NGOs merely shipping Africans into Europe without much of a plan and then shrugging their shoulders when problems arise, China has been making deals there and investing an utterly staggering amount on an on-going basis into its development and future prosperity.

Some will proclaim "But they'll owe China! That won't end well!", which is shortsighted, lacking in self-awareness and playing into the "everyone that isn't us is the boogeyman" narrative the West likes to maintain.

In the same time that China has been spending its money on African investment, the US has been spending literally trillions on literally baseless wars, directly costing the lives of a countless amount of people in doing so and upending the lives of countless others.

Good on China, and good for Africa. I hope to live to see that continent prosper, although if any success is in sight I'm sure we'll see the US find some reason to deploy the so-richly invested military there.

[throw_m239339]

> While the US and EU has been focused on donating aid, or through NGOs merely shipping Africans into Europe without much of a plan and then shrugging their shoulders when problems arise, China has been making deals there and investing an utterly staggering amount on an on-going basis into its development and future prosperity.

If these really cared about Africa, they would have stopped subsidizing their agriculture. They don't. "Aid" here is a way to hinder development.

China is being scummy, but who's criticizing China here? Europeans who did far worse to the African continent and their inhabitants? talk about lacking of any sense of self-awareness.

[threeseed]

Aid is also a way to keep these people from dying.

And we can be critical of what China is doing is now as well as critical of all of the colonial misadventures over the years.

[throw_m239339]

Aid is a way to keep these people in servitude and dependent of the west, and it's actually killing their agriculture, that and the west subsidizing their own agriculture. Africa need foreign investment, not foreign aid.

> And we can be critical of what China is doing is now as well as critical of all of the colonial misadventures over the years.

No, you can't, it's hypocrisy. Whatever you think China is doing, European did 1000% worse by dehumanizing africans for profit.

[privateprofile]

>> Some will proclaim "But they'll owe China! That won't end well!"

That's being "proclaimed" in that case because there's increasing and obvious evidence of that country's government using debt being to control governments, political decisions and societies:

- https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/world/asia/china-sri-lank...

- https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/02/re...

- https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-16/are-china-cheap-loans...

- https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/...

- https://qz.com/1223768/china-debt-trap-these-eight-countries...

[taobility]

Is there any western medias pro China? Or another questions, did you get any good words from those media about Trump?

[threeseed]

Yes when China does something worth being positive about.

But it's a bit hard when they trap poor countries in debt, detain millions of Muslims in death camps and try and bully their way into every situation e.g. South China Sea, Hong Kong.

[rb808]

China is a big investor but its just one of many. European companies always had a big footprint. https://unctad.org/en/pages/newsdetails.aspx?OriginalVersion...

[mc32]

There was a time, probably late 60s to early 80s when western firms went into LatAm and had moderate success and the economies began to transition from (subsistence) farming to light manufacturing, but due to pop explosion ran into a gringo go home resistance. Wonder if China will manoeuver around that kind of thing.

[Omnitaus]

"due to pop explosion ran into a gringo go home resistance"

I wonder what else happened in the 60s...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor

[mercurysmessage]

People on this site really don't know anything about history. And if you try to show them, they just ignore you. There are lots of libertarian tech bros on this site.

[tines]

> Some will proclaim "But they'll owe China! That won't end well!", which is shortsighted, lacking in self-awareness and playing into the "everyone that isn't us is the boogeyman" narrative the West likes to maintain.

Exactly. There aren't many Uighurs in Africa, so Africa should be fine.

[bilbo0s]

Do you know what Uighurs are?

I mean, I guess China doesn't so much mind them when they are in Africa. Thousands of miles away. But they're all muslim.

[threeseed]

Pretty sure it was a joke.

And China doesn't care about who they are dealing with in Africa or anywhere else. As long as you have money, are willing to ignore China's human rights abuses and aren't a threat to the stability of the Chinese governing structures you're all good.

[simlevesque]

Is this a joke ? Uighurs are muslims and Africa is full of them.

[lainga]

You'd better stay away from Istanbul then, it's full of unspayed Socrates-es.

In seriousness, China's problem is not with all Muslims, it's with the Uighurs as a threat to their national integrity (especially in a region with such strategic importance, bordering Pakistan and India, and containing many railheads linking China to the rest of Eurasia). One of China's largest partners is Pakistan -- which is in its own words an Islamic republic -- and whose government generally turns a blind eye to what's happening in Xinjiang.

[mercurysmessage]

> or through NGOs merely shipping Africans into Europe without much of a plan and then shrugging their shoulders when problems arise

What, exactly, are you trying to say here?