Kenya will start teaching Chinese to elementary school students

[Asaliah]

China is siphoning Africa: in some countries they are taking all the wood and the minerals, buying countries' debt and then arrange very unbalacend deals to recover the money. But once in a while they build an hospital so the people is happy...

The return to reality will be damn tough... I feel like they want to empty Africa from its population to put Chinese instead.

[Vatrilian]

It's only bad because the US didn't do it first. Our POTUS is a baby and all he's missing is a crib in the Oval Office.

To be constructive our planet has never been more connected and disconnected at the same time in human history. IMHO the entire planet needs to stop having kids for a few years. I say this because a Pixar movie made years ago showed us what happens if we keep consuming. The the most deadly disease on earth is the human existence.

So in your warped scenario the president is bad because he isn't industrializing Africa and China is causing more population growth and carbon emissions? China causing more consuming USA is not therefore Trump bad?

[Harry Botter]

To be honest I thought the title was "Kanye will start teaching Chinese to elementary school students."

Ill see myself out and stop shitting up the thread.

[Kaleredar]

China isn't perfect.
But seeing as genocide is Europe's favourite hobby right after starting world wars I don't think we have the right to tell them what to do. But hey, telling Africans what to do is another one of our favourite hobbies.

What about China's modern political track record, versus Europe and the US' modern political track record, gives you an iota of an notion that China will treat African countries with anything approaching human dignity?

China wont even treat its own people that way.

China is an intensely authoritarian and censorship-based state. If its global power grows, so too does the notion of authoritarianism and censorship being "the norm."

You can rant and rave about Trump or Merkel or whatever stinted political point you have, but neither of them come close to the iron-fisted stranglehold China holds on its own country. Restriction of speech, restriction of religion, restrictions on internet, TV shows, you name it; China's got it. And I'm sure they'd love to make it so fewer and fewer countries feel safe to reproach them.

And that you apparently think "yeah, you know, that probably wont be too bad for a historically exploited country with little infrastructure or economic sway to resist."

The problem with you pointing out that The US and Europe used to do bad things 300 years ago and then handwaving off China's own nefarious aims is that you're not demanding that China, in the modern day, act any better.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

The history of Africa should teach any growing power one lesson.. try to avoid at all cost.. or cost you a lot for not a whole lot it will.

[Kaleredar]

The history of Africa should teach any growing power one lesson.. try to avoid at all cost.. or cost you a lot for not a whole lot it will.

China isn't rolling in with the express intent of building schools and hospitals and founding colleges and promoting a middle class. Not even close.

Their intent is to get countries on predatory loans to annex things like harbors, coerce local governments into doing whatever they want, and generally come in, strip out resources, and then leave.

[Airlick]

China isn't rolling in with the express intent of building schools and hospitals and founding colleges and promoting a middle class. Not even close.

Their intent is to get countries on predatory loans to annex things like harbors, coerce local governments into doing whatever they want, and generally come in, strip out resources, and then leave.

I'd say if it was all that obvious, noone would be dealing with China. They are definitely going into Africa with the clear intent of profitting from their investments, but they ARE in fact promoting education there, at the very least. They are blowing outrageous amount of money on scholarships for Africans and invest in schools in given countries as well. That is because having educated, and therefore richer societies, is profittable for them - not only can they spend more on their goods, but also the infrastructure gets better, making their goods more widespread and transportation and marketting cheaper and easier. It's a win-win situation, ASSUMING Africans are able to use Chinese investments to their own profit. If they are not and end up getting colonised by China, the fault lies with them. It's silly to assume western countries would do any different.

And then they obviously aren't there to catch some slaves, strip all the easily accessible resources and leave, they are there to stay.

[nymphetsss]

The Europeans used to run Africa, now it's the Chinese.

Do you think Chinese involvement in Africa is a good thing?

Has any countries involvement in Africa ever been a good thing?

[ashblond]

I read that as Kanye (as in West). Was expecting an entirely different thread, disappointed.

lol. that will never happen

[Kokolums]

The Europeans used to run Africa, now it's the Chinese.

Do you think Chinese involvement in Africa is a good thing?

Western civilization is fracturing between left and right, its people are losing all trust in its own institutions, and it seems hell bent on civil war between itself. Its ability to put pressure on China has never been weaker and continues to weaken. In fact, what probably happens is civil unrest breaks out in the US and China gets involved by supporting the alt right.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

China isn't rolling in with the express intent of building schools and hospitals and founding colleges and promoting a middle class. Not even close.

Their intent is to get countries on predatory loans to annex things like harbors, coerce local governments into doing whatever they want, and generally come in, strip out resources, and then leave.

So... the exploitation of African nations for their own means? I don't think Europeans first came to Africa with the intention of building schools either. End of the day China will face those loans going belly up and then in any property they seize being filled with the population they just robbed it from. It won't be cheap.

[Techno-Druid]

Again, I'll point out the fact that heavy investment and influence =\= colonialism. China is trying to "play the game" that the US and Soviet Union did in the 20th Century with nations under their sphere of influence, philosophy and pop culture.

[Strawberry]

Lol, Africans just can't get out of slavery.

[valax]

I'm fine with that as long as they start migrating to china instead of coming to europe

[ashblond]

I'm pretty sure I didn't. I simply noted that the people of Africa (a large and diverse place though it may be) aren't just helpless pawns. The Africans that I know are trying to get ahead and make deals, they're well aware of how that works. If they're choosing to make deals with China, it is because they think that's in some way a better deal.

If the Africans can learn some Chinese merits (diligence, persistence, organized, education, etc.) from doing business with China, they are already awarded.

[sopeonaroap]

Africa is and will always be a shithole, the people there aren't capable of making the continent anything else. All investments there have been a waste

[Vorkreist]

Being uneducated and spouting nonsense seems to be your hobby. The Chinese have done equally aweful things over the years, It's almost like they're as human as anyone else.

He studied alternate history in school. Communism only brought happiness and prosperity to everyone.
Also its risky to talk bad about china, your social score might drop and you get kidnapped by the state overnight

[Techno-Druid]

Africa is and will always be a shithole, the people there aren't capable of making the continent anything else. All investments there have been a waste

Grouping together Africa is like grouping together all of Asia from every Han Chinese person to every Jarawa tribesmen to every Kurd or Persian. Different regions of Africa experienced different levels of civilization and much of that is due to geography.

West Africa was historically very economically prosperous due to the Trans-Saharan Trade. Mandinka kingdoms traded gold from mines for salt and other items with the Amazigh peoples which would transport it to the coasts of North Africa where it would circulate across the Mediterranean and Arab World. The Malian Sultan Musa once even singlehandedly caused inflation in the Venice on his pilgrimage to Mecca.

On the other side of the continent, the Bantu-speaking Swahili City-States formed across Eastern Africa and traded as far east as China and the Malay Archipelago on the Maritime Silk Road. That's of course ignoring Ethiopia which at one point one was one of the greatest empires in the Old World, almost conquering the Pre-Islamic Mecca for Christianity (which they largely adopted before Western Europe).

[Vorkreist]

China isn't perfect.

What about holding muslims in concentration camps today?

[NED funded]

Im not surprised at all that the usual apologists come and justify Chinas actions in the developing world (wrt BRI)

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What about holding muslims in concentration camps today?

I think you meant EXTREMISTS muslims that are under a literal police state because *checks notes* they refuse to eat ham.