The All Things Political Topic - We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office

[Zoraptor]

Historically you could do a far worse list for those fundamentally western institutions the IMF/ WB. The thing about Chinese projects, even the infamous Montenegran motorway to nowhere- or gold plated Sri Lankan ports, and a host of other things elsewhere outside of Africa- is that at least they actually do get built*. They may not bring the economic returns the countries' hoped for, but they did get built. In contrast...

Zaire, Mobutu and the IMF, as just one example. Though if you read that it's pretty obvious that it really is just one example. Real "Want a simple way to lose weight quickly? Then buy this cheap $100mn saw on credit and amputate your leg!" type stuff.

Amazing how consistently the IMF/ WB lent money that not only didn't produce anything positive at all, but the stipulated policies associated with it made things actively worse. For decades. Almost like it was deliberate policy, which of course it was. Most of the money lent to Zaire went to Mobutu, and everyone knew it. At least he wasn't a godless commie though.

Now they've just switched to "here's money to grow bananas, coffee and chocolate; don't worry about food you can just buy our cheap subsidised grain! What could possibly go wrong?"

*and just blaming China unfairly excuses the home grown politicians who approved the projects. What kind of numpty accepted that Montenegran project and how much cash ended up in his Cayman Is bank account? Oh yeah, it's their current President, who's a bit of a western darling.

Edited July 25, 2022 by Zoraptor

[BruceVC]

4 hours ago, Gorth said:

 

https://www.dw.com/en/china-backed-kribi-port-project-in-cameroon-leaves-locals-frustrated/a-42016788

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/12/08/china-africa-cooperation-investment-belt-road/

https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/china-and-africa-is-it-the-end-of-the-honeymoon-period/

https://www.fpri.org/article/2022/05/chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-in-kenya/

https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/China-s-expensive-bet-on-Africa-has-failed

https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/beijing-finds-itself-cornered-by-africa-as-they-cancel-china-led-projects-121092100753_1.html

https://thediplomat.com/2020/07/chinas-infrastructure-heavy-model-for-african-growth-is-failing/

https://eurasiantimes.com/chinas-200-billion-gamble-on-africa-has-failed-miserably-due-to-covid-19/

https://www.ft.com/content/ca4072f6-a79f-11e8-a1b6-f368d365bf0e

 

Tl;dr; China is leaving a trail of devastation through Africa, leaving behind poor countries with staggering debts to China for useless/pointless infrastructure and wrecked local economies and environmental, ecological (and economical) disasters, which the locals can't afford to clean up again.

 

Edit: The strategic objective appearing to be a mix of getting cheap African resources and dictating African local politics.

Agreed,  Chinas aid and loans to Africa can be very problematic and unhelpful. Not in all cases but in many countries and  especially when African countries end up being dictated to by China, its neo-colonialism 101 

So China  ends  up building infrastructure  and then been  given mineral rights concessions, therefore repeating the cycle of " foreigners own our resources ", or they provide loans to dictators without reforms but nothing gets better for the citizens of the country when you see this. Because without economic  structural reforms giving loans to any badly run country is like a bucket with holes in it

But end of the day its not Chinas fault that some African leaders have mismanaged there own  country. We should never forget its always bad governments that must take first responsibility for requiring foreign assistance without ensuring how this assistance is managed

 

 

[Gfted1]

CIA chief says chaos-hit Sri Lanka made 'dumb bets' on China (terradaily.com)

[HoonDing]

Meh, at least Chinese people don't rape, kill and mutilate.

[BruceVC]

12 minutes ago, HoonDing said:

Meh, at least Chinese people don't rape, kill and mutilate.

Do you have any links to confirm the veracity of this post ?

Edited July 25, 2022 by BruceVC

[Chairchucker]

8 hours ago, HoonDing said:

 

Meh, at least Chinese people don't rape, kill and mutilate.

Wow, China has completely solved rape? Impressive, what's their secret?

[Gorth]

The victims always seems to "disappear". Hence no allegations raised...

[Chilloutman]

@Lexxlooks like your nukes are not in that bad shape...

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-22/scholz-opens-door-for-extending-nuclear-power-in-germany

[BruceVC]

4 hours ago, Gorth said:

The victims always seems to "disappear". Hence no allegations raised...

Or after saying " I was raped " they say weeks later  " I wasn't  raped, I was  misunderstood " and that  was only  after they disappeared for those weeks between

Edited July 26, 2022 by BruceVC

[Zoraptor]

Meh, given the mention of Zaire Hoonding is almost certainly referencing the Belgian Congo (--> Zaire, under Mobutu). Which had a slight problem with, well, Belgians killing, mutilating and raping the populace. So much so that they had to stop. Not because it was a Bad Thing morally speaking, but because they were quite literally running out of people to mutilate, rape and kill so profits were being effected. As embarrassing as colonial history ought to be for most colonial powers they can at least bask in the glory of being better than Belgium.

Say what you like about the Chinese but they aren't building pyramids of severed hands because their loans aren't being repaid quickly enough. And indeed, they haven't fought a war for the right to sell opium while starving millions of people to death in the country growing the opium either.

Edited July 26, 2022 by Zoraptor

[BruceVC]

2 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Meh, given the mention of Zaire Hoonding is almost certainly referencing the Belgian Congo (--> Zaire, under Mobutu). Which had a slight problem with, well, Belgians killing, mutilating and raping the populace. So much so that they had to stop. Not because it was a Bad Thing morally speaking, but because they were quite literally running out of people to mutilate, rape and kill so profits were being effected. As embarrassing as colonial history ought to be for most colonial powers they can at least bask in the glory of being better than Belgium.

Say what you like about the Chinese but they aren't building pyramids of severed hands because their loans aren't being repaid quickly enough. And indeed, they haven't fought a war for the right to sell opium while starving millions of people to death in the country growing the opium either.

So the West funded pyramids of severed human hands, we all make mistakes ? 

[Elerond]

3 hours ago, Chilloutman said:

@Lexxlooks like your nukes are not in that bad shape...

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-22/scholz-opens-door-for-extending-nuclear-power-in-germany

Only problem with those three has been that they are filled with end of life uranium rods (uranium is reprocessed to max), so they need process new uranium rods for all of them and they all need be shutdown for fuel change in short time frame and it is possible that all three need to be offline same time. 

Reactivating already closed nuclear plants would be much bigger project.

[Chilloutman]

i thought that changing rods is normal procedure and every plant do it from time to time?

[Hurlshort]

The Uyghurs might disagree with y'all letting China off so easy.

Also if we want to go back in history to colonial times, we can talk about foot binding and eunuchs too.

[Chilloutman]

its not like killing, mutilating and raping the populace was something new Europeans brought to Africa

 

 

[Elerond]

1 hour ago, Chilloutman said:

i thought that changing rods is normal procedure and every plant do it from time to time?

It is but it means that power plant will be down several days and you need alternate sources to replace it, which may cause issues when you have multiple nuclear plants going offline same time during energy crisis. And things are made more difficult by fact that original plan was not continue use these plant, so there is not fuel in storage for them and some of needed maintenance breaks have been skipped because they were needed in original plan.

[Chilloutman]

2 minutes ago, Elerond said:

It is but it means that power plant will be down several days and you need alternate sources to replace it, which may cause issues when you have multiple nuclear plants going offline same time during energy crisis. And things are made more difficult by fact that original plan was not continue use these plant, so there is not fuel in storage for them and some of needed maintenance breaks have been skipped because they were needed in original plan.

sure, but its still better than if they just turn them off permanently. There must be some plan to replace their maintenance output anyway if they plan to disable them right?

[Elerond]

1 minute ago, Chilloutman said:

sure, but its still better than if they just turn them off permanently. There must be some plan to replace their maintenance output anyway if they plan to disable them right?

Yes natural gas from Russia

[Hurlshort]

37 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

its not like killing, mutilating and raping the populace was something new Europeans brought to Africa

 

 

I kind of resent the implication that we don't teach those facts in school. I cover a number of those details in my Kongo Kingdom unit every year. Slavery is not an easy subject to teach about. In the US, it is much easier for students to identify with plantations and racially segregated slavery because it is more recent, it is more local, and it still resonates in the civil rights struggles of the last decades. 

Students also learn about ancient and medieval societies in 6th and 7th grade (11-13 years old.) In High School, the focus is on more modern eras of history. It is no surprise that most students forget the details of their middle school classes. Content is a just a tool for skill development. The hope is that a former student has the critical thinking skills to process a video like this. 

[BruceVC]

27 minutes ago, Hurlsnot said:

I kind of resent the implication that we don't teach those facts in school. I cover a number of those details in my Kongo Kingdom unit every year. Slavery is not an easy subject to teach about. In the US, it is much easier for students to identify with plantations and racially segregated slavery because it is more recent, it is more local, and it still resonates in the civil rights struggles of the last decades. 

Students also learn about ancient and medieval societies in 6th and 7th grade (11-13 years old.) In High School, the focus is on more modern eras of history. It is no surprise that most students forget the details of their middle school classes. Content is a just a tool for skill development. The hope is that a former student has the critical thinking skills to process a video like this. 

I think its important that all kids who learn history realize  that most  nations of mankind have  either been enslaved at some point or used slaves, thats the most important thing. The pyramids for example were built by slaves and Arab slave traders were prolific in Africa before the Europeans 

Because there is definitely a false narrative where many young people think only Europeans\white people  were involved in the slave trade

This is one of the aspects of selective history that concerns me

[Malcador]

Sherman should actually have been the war criminal Southern trash whine about.

Also, I thought the Pyramids being built by paid workers was the prevailing opinion. Other than aliens.

Edited July 26, 2022 by Malcador

[BruceVC]

8 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Sherman should actually have been the war criminal Southern trash whine about.

The killing and deliberate targeting of civilians is always unacceptable irrespective of what side you on 

And war crimes are war crimes 

 

[Malcador]

10 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

And war crimes are war crimes

Not if you win.

[Zoraptor]

5 hours ago, Hurlsnot said:

The Uyghurs might disagree with y'all letting China off so easy.

Also if we want to go back in history to colonial times, we can talk about foot binding and eunuchs too.

Foot binding etc was done to other Chinese as cultural practice, not to other nationalities.

Uighurs are a good example, but formally they have exactly the same problem that Taiwan has- they are acknowledged as being Chinese, by everyone. Not colonial possessions but part of China proper. Which is kind of fortunate for Taiwan too, as it has its own skeleton in the cupboard in that respect (their treatment of indigenous Formosans).

Does have to said that the Chinese benefit historically from being insular for ~4 critical centuries, which minimises the chances of inflicting harm on other nations.

5 hours ago, Chilloutman said:

its not like killing, mutilating and raping the populace was something new Europeans brought to Africa

Sure, and Europeans also did that a lot to other Europeans. Africans didn't colonise Europe though, outside of BNP type fliers.

[Chilloutman]

24 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

Foot binding etc was done to other Chinese as cultural practice, not to other nationalities.

Uighurs are a good example, but formally they have exactly the same problem that Taiwan has- they are acknowledged as being Chinese, by everyone. Not colonial possessions but part of China proper. Which is kind of fortunate for Taiwan too, as it has its own skeleton in the cupboard in that respect (their treatment of indigenous Formosans).

Does have to said that the Chinese benefit historically from being insular for ~4 critical centuries, which minimises the chances of inflicting harm on other nations.

Sure, and Europeans also did that a lot to other Europeans. Africans didn't colonise Europe though, outside of BNP type fliers.

I am tired of the word 'colonise' its just different meaning to conquer usually. And Iberia would like to have word with you in that regard. Is it Europeans fault that Africa got stuck in bronze age? Or south america in stone age? If it was not europeans it would be asians doing same thing