Chinese Aid

So is it honest altruism? Self-serving colonialism in disguise? What do you think?

The second option. They've learned from the past. I give them that. Military imperialism is inefficient and, worse yet, costly.

What better way to make money than to bribe people into submission, and then dump your cheaply-made goods on them until they no longer have the will to resist?

Of course, the other nations could pull the rug from under Chinas feet if they just forgave 3rd world debt and gave aid instead of loans. The 3rd world would obviously turn west for aid. They couldn't afford to give China the finger but they'd remember who helped them without asking for anything in return.

It's really a mixture of both. The Chinese populace is somewhat happy to give aid to other countries (but not that enthusiastic), while the government is mostly just helping out allies. I don't see how it is colonialism. It's a weird form of trade, where an African country lets in Chinese investors and China dumps money on the country. You can scream bloody murder all you want, but it's way better than kowtowing to abusive Western countries who've treated them like shit all these years. That's the sad truth of why they're turning away from us.

I think we can definitely right our wrongs but we have to treat recipient countries as equals, something China is doing, whereas we treat them as colonies. It's demeaning and that alone kills a lot of our potential relationships.

Wow...isn't this pretty much...universal?

To be perfectly honest...I don't believe foreigns aids is ever purely altruistic 99% of the time.

Even if you don't ask for anything in return, even if you don't dump your goods into that country, many countries still have a number of things to gain that the populace wouldn't immediately notice. Better reputation, international relations, experience, etc. All of those will end up benefiting the helping country in ways most people can not imagine.

So yeah, when a country dumps a massive amount of aid and money to a country in trouble, the first thing in my mind isn't "awww thats sho shweet!", but rather "what does that country have to gain in doing this?", because there is ALWAYS something to gain.

edited 19th Aug '11 9:15:37 PM by Signed

The reason I referred to it as colonialism is because it seems to me like they're just bribing the governments into letting them get away with all the natural resources, at little benefit to the actual people of the countries being aided. Which is reminiscent of an earlier time.

China Aid actually much more smaller than its investment.

and it looks like Colonialism when China try to buy farmland for its farmer.

or have Resource for infrastructure project

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/05/the-next-empire/8018/

Also, something that hasn't been mentioned is that a lot of the hospitals and schools and stuff they promise are rather shoddy construction, assuming they even get built at all. Of course the roads are probably top quality, at least the ones going to the mines.

You all are making it sound like the Chinese are incapable of true compassion.

Pretty much, the same arguement is often used by people against the west how they are "trying to buy off popular support" etc etc.

The idea is that if you pretend everyone is as cynical as you want them to be you can feel better about being someone who never gives to charity.

I'm not saying they are incapable of compassion, just that they haven't demonstrated it much.

And I'm not saying everyone is equally bad. That's a strawman.

edited 20th Aug '11 9:30:21 AM by storyyeller

Would it have helped your bruised feelings if I had said "there appears to be an undercurrent of this in all discussions about international aid"?