Its like Hillary walking into a working class kitchen for the first time.

They’ve been shielded from even critical support of China and other AES for so long they literally, not figuratively, literally cannot process that people exist that have beliefs that aren’t Reddit Approved. They immediately assume it’s bots or wumao. Human beings can’t possibly hold these beliefs, so they must be Oriental hordes or actual robots.

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    No I think you’re just in an echochamber that didn’t wanna go full doomer because of how capitalist the entire world is. You wanted some hope for socialism so you clung onto China for false hope.

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        Well the world is almost all neoliberal hell so maybe that’d be better than supporting a fascistic hellscape because they have socialist aesthetics.

        I support Cuba and various socialist movements… I don’t pretend Xi is a well-meaning person.

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                Ofc indoctrinated citizens think they’re a democracy, they also probably have different understanding of democracy. America isn’t a democracy either but people are brainwashed into believing it is. Most of the Americans that choose “not a democracy” in that poll are Republicans that’ll say “democracy is mob-rule, we’re a Republic!”

                Does this look democratic to you?:

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                  Ah, fortunately we have you, the one and only person immune to indoctrination, to tell us ignorant foreigners what is and is not a democracy, because we’re just too damn indoctrinated to know for ourselves.

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                  Ofc indoctrinated citizens think they’re a democracy, they also probably have different understanding of democracy

                  How do you justify dismissing it as indoctrination? And if the majority think of it as a democracy, under what definition or understanding of democracy is the perspective of the majority not of prime importance?

                  America isn’t a democracy either but people are brainwashed into believing it is. Most of the Americans that choose “not a democracy” in that poll are Republicans that’ll say “democracy is mob-rule, we’re a Republic!”

                  The first part of this I agree with (other than the notion of brainwashing), but I don’t understand where you’re getting the second part. According to that poll I linked about perceptions of democracy, 73% of US citizens value democracy, which doesn’t fit with 51% thinking it’s not a democracy, but liking it that way because they think democracy is mob rule.

                  Does this look democratic to you?

                  I don’t consider the contentiousness of elections to be of primary importance when evaluating if a government is democratic, but given the measurable advancements that have occurred in China under Xi’s leadership, I can buy that he would have such immense support, particularly if there isn’t an equally appealing alternative with such a proven track record.

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                    And if the majority think of it as a democracy, under what definition or understanding of democracy is the perspective of the majority not of prime importance?

                    So, all the neoliberal western countries that largely believe their democracies are also democracies?

                    The first part of this I agree with, but I don’t understand where you’re getting the second part. According to that poll I linked about perceptions of democracy, 73% of US citizens value democracy, which doesn’t fit with 51% thinking it’s not a democracy, but liking it that way because they think democracy is mob rule.

                    So, 27% of US citizens don’t value democracy? That’s half of the 51% that say it’s not a democracy. Which means if it wasn’t for the 27% largely Republicans that think democracy is mob-rule, around 75% would say America is a democracy. A lot of Americans simply think it’s a “constitutional Republic.”

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          Nothing about Xi indicates that he isn’t well meaning, and much more importantly the lives of hundreds of millions of people have been vastly improved during his governance as head of a dedicated communist party.

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            If you think the CCP is genuinely dedicated to communism I cannot take you seriously.

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              It’s CPC and of course they are, there’s no reason to believe otherwise apart from being a dumb little racist baby who thinks only white people can do socialism properly.

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                It’s CPC

                What are you on about, it’s both?

                there’s no reason to believe otherwise apart from being a dumb little racist baby who thinks only white people can do socialism properly.

                Maybe the fact it’s a dictatorship with no power to the people? Tell me, what Chinese factory workers own their means of production?

                Call me a racist? Cuba and Burkina Faso are true attempts at socialism, while the USSR under Stalin was not (Lenin was good though).

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                  CPSU, CPV, CPK, etc… CCP is a weird, racist neologism coined by the west to emphasize the “Chinese” part of the moniker. CPC is the standard nomenclature.

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                  So you want Xi to press the communism button?

                  On a serious note, through a communist party controlled state, Chinese workers clearly have greater control over the means of production than workers anywhere else in the world. That’s why they were able to use the resources their own labor created to do things like have an effective covid response.

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                    Chinese workers clearly have greater control over the means of production than workers anywhere else in the world

                    What makes you think this? Is that why their benefits and conditions are worse than succdem Europe?

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              Oh hey it’s you again, I think you forgot to answer me in the other thread as well: what is your solution to the Ukranian puppet government’s ongoing genoicide in the Donbas?

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                Honestly if Russia ONLY invaded Donbas I think I would support that. But you guys are clearly warmongerers that want as many dead Ukrainians as possible.

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                  you guys are clearly warmongerers that want as many dead Ukrainians as possible

                  This doesn’t even make any sense. People normally criticize us for wanting Ukraine to surrender to end the war – are you just making this up, or??

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                    Literally people endorsing Russia bombing major cities in Ukraine two seconds ago.

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                    I’ll rephrase it, Russia should’ve defended Donbas and nothing else. Going further than Donbas is an unequivocal invasion.

                    I’ve answered all your “questions” hexshit.

            • spectre [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              Few people here think that the CPC is “genuinely dedicated to communism”. It is a party with millions of members, including communists, liberals, nationalists, and others (happy to chat about the specific major factions in the party if you’re interested). Many in the party are not ardent communists, and have mediocre to poor historical and political literacy from the perspective of a lot of the Marxist nerds on here.

              Some people look at the party and see “hey they’re called communists, and many of them are communists, sure as hell better than whatever is going on in the US or wherever” and kinda hop on board with some enthusiasm that way.

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                I think they’re pretty clearly dedicated to communism. It’s a long process and a lot of work, especially in a hostile world. Anything I read where they state their intentions perfectly matches their actions. The challenge will be when the actual expropriations begin. The capitalist backlash will be extremely violent.

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                  Overall yes I’d agree that the communists are winning, I like most of what Xi is doing personally and respect him far more than any other world leader.

                  At the same time the ideological discipline isn’t there in the same way that it was during the Maoist period. Liberals and business owners are allowed to be party members. I don’t think it’s wise to give them such a foothold, but I don’t know enough to comment much further or offer any useful criticism.

                  At the end of the day, I’d love to see the PRC introduce a worldwide expansion of socialist principles as much as anyone else here, although my hope is more cautious than other comrades here. As you say, the result speak for themselves, and they still have a couple decades of runway to dial in their targeting systems and fire off the communism button at the right time.

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                    I think the big signs of hope are the anti corruption campaigns that Xi took, and the fact that billionaires are still losing their wealth (and lives) quite regularly, and will smash any outspoken ones like Jack Ma as well

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                  It’s an odd thing to think, like I said there are many communists, but it’s far from everyone, and the politics are not as straightforward as they are here on our site where we aren’t actually in charge of anything.

                  Many academic Marxists comment on this, read Wang Hui as an example

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                  See other comments, but I would suggest that statement is overly broad on it’s own. There is a large liberal continent within the party, although they are still on their heels.

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                    I see what you’re getting at, but even the Bolsheviks formed a broad front with liberals, no? Not that that’s a wholly comparable situation, but I’m sure the Party has its reasons, even if we aren’t privvy to them.

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                Hey, at least I didn’t say that most communists that support China are doing it because they want to be contrarian. That would be an incredibly ignorant statement to make.

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              Right? All these fucking tankies don’t even believe that there’s a current genocide against the Mongolians

              Bunch of fucking insane nutcases here

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      For me it’s like 5% desperately clinging onto China for false hope, 20% not wanting global thermonuclear war, and 75% the global poverty alleviation they’ve been achieving both domestically and worldwide.

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          Even beginning to compare the fucking mass transportation and enslavement of Caribbean peoples and Africans and the genocide of the native Americans to China is an unbelievable take even from liberals, holy fucking shit. If my brain conjured that up I would send myself to the gulag to punish it. Mass poverty alleviation is actually enslavement? Yeah, how dare the Communist Party of China bind all those hundreds of millions of people to this mortal coil by dramatically increasing life expectancy among the population. Devoting hundreds of billions of dollars in a hundred countries to building infrastructure and helping other countries use and develop their own resources, rather than having all the raw resources be shipped away to some European country for manufacturing so they can sell it right back to the people they exploit, is actually exploitation itself.

          The impressive thing about China is that it explicitly DIDN’T require the imperialism of over half the global population to create the world’s biggest economy, it was achieved through the efficiencies and foresight of state-guided economics and Marxist theory. Instead of creating new, arcane mortgage scams to generate profit conjured out of thin air and nearly shatter modern capitalism in the process (2008).

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        What do you propose people do?

        Not support a capitalist hellscape.

        Is my religion a joke to you?

        • CloutAtlas [he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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          I thought your name was ironic, lmao.

          Didn’t the Rerum Novarum strictly reject socialism? Affirms the right to private property? Or was it the one time the pope was fallible?

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              Its one of the foundational documents of modern Catholicism how could you not have read the part where the pope says worker unions ok, but socialism is bad?

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                Look, they are what I, when I was a Catholic, would describe as a ‘bad Catholic’. Many liberal Catholics operate the same way, with a perverse attachment to the Church as it could be instead of seeing the Church as it has been and continues to be, that isn’t to say that good things don’t come out of the Church (hospitals, nursing homes, monasteries, etc), just that they are better the further they are away from the central worship and money-making operation. When I was a rigorous Catholic (10-15) I was a very conservative Catholic because I read the doctrine, listened to the scripture, and understood the scripture and how it ought to be interpreted.

                If was during my confirmation when I was continuing my theological study, when I stumbled upon Aquinas, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche and other metaphysical philosophers and it struck me that not only was my understanding of Catholicism incredibly shallow, but it confirmed my increasing suspicion that everyone else’s understanding of Catholicism was also, if not more, shallow. Upon reading, especially people like Hume and Kant, it became clear that not only did I not actually have very rigorous grounds for what I believed, but that in order to be a ‘good Catholic’ you had to be a ‘bad person’ and that ‘bad Catholics’ were constantly having to deal with this juxtaposition, fighting against the structure of a Church that wants their money, but doesn’t actually want them or their ideas.

                It wasn’t that they were ‘bad Catholics’ it’s that they were ‘good people’ attempting to be ‘Catholics’. That’s when I rejected the entire thing and tried to start from scratch to the best of my abilities. It’s been a long road and I still don’t know where I will end up ideologically, but I do know that I will not make the mistake of seeing ‘what could be’ for ‘what is’.

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                  I’ve met one person even sort of like you before, and I want to say that I appreciate your existence. There is such an amazing line of theological stuff that’s out there and most people (including me) don’t engage with. Please keep up your great work 👍.

                • CloutAtlas [he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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                  This kinda falls in line with my Irish Irish friend (to distinguish from Irish immigrants from the 19th and 20th centuries). She’s agnostic now, but has family who are a lot more devout. The Rerum Novarum is sometimes used by anticommunists saying socialism is incompatible with Catholicism. And that line of argument works for some people. The pope is infallible and Leo XIII said socialism bad. Stepping away from the church was one of the factors that led to her being radicalised.

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                    The Pope is infallible, even when he contradicts himself, or someone comes in later and contradicts him. I think if I was still Catholic I would likely be one of those cringe Catholics that only attends Latin mass. Although, to be fair, my personal idea for a reformed Church is to lean away from social conservativism and instead way into the occult, obscure and mystical elements of Catholicism, particularly the crazy ass medieval festivals, with a rigorous return to Latin. Rationalism is not and never has been a good fit for the Church, blame that I lay squarely at the feet of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

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                  Nietzsche and other metaphysical philosophers

                  There’s a little bit of metaphysics in Nietzsche, but what makes you call him a “metaphysical philosopher”? I struggle to think of any metaphysical statement from him that wasn’t just a rephrasing of Schopenhauer, which is fair enough since that wasn’t really what he was into as far as I know.

                  In any case, immense respect for successfully parsing Kant. I can only get the extremely easy texts like Foundation of the Metaphysics of Morals

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                    I call him a meta-physical philosopher because much of what he talks about is derivations of ethics and the nature of religion and God in relationship to those ethical categories. It’s arguably more tangential to metaphysics than metaphysics itself, but claims like ‘God is dead’ and the historical-socio-ethical reasoning behind that are incredibly metaphysical statements. However, you are correct that most of his actual metaphysical work is derived from an re-phrasing Schopenhauer, but I didn’t read any Schopenhauer until college, so I didn’t know that and at the time it blew my little freaking mind.

                    I will be honest, my preference is for Hume, as Kant is an enormous windbag, though tiny compared to Hegel. That said, you really should give ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ another go-around, it’s one of those seminal texts that will be constantly referenced in everything forever, and really makes up the majority of his and everyone’s groundwork for literally everything afterwards particularly liberalism. Regardless if or not you think he actually solved Hume’s is-ought pincer and problem of causality, it is basically impossible to understand why Kant leans so hard into deontology without reading it. But if you really want to piss people off, just read and retort with Hume, he is basically the philosophical linebacker for Western philosophy.

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          A “capitalist hellscape” that has seen steady improvement year over year for the workers and peasants for like 50+ years?

          • CatholicSocialist
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            Go back to r/atheism. Why did you liberals federate with Lemmy in the first place?

            Catholicsm is no more pedophilic than any other religion.

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              I can’t, sorry, reddit banned me for being a little too aggressively anti Zionist

              If it was up to me we wouldn’t have federated, nothing you people have to post is very interesting

              Sorry buddy I know it hurts your feelings but it’s at least a little more pedophilic than some religions PIGPOOPBALLS

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          capitalist hellscape

          Give me a single piece of evidence backing this claim up.

          No, but almost all of the openly catholic folks I’ve met suck. Also, the eastern orthodox church got it right so idk.

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      “false hope”

      CatholicSocialist

      I think someone’s projecting a little lmao, sorry your religion is primarily known for protecting pedophiles, but you don’t need to assume everyone else is having a crisis of faith.

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      oh no, we’re fully aware of how dire things are globally. but that doesn’t mean we have to swallow propaganda whole and go “thank you, may I have another?” it’s a deeply servile attitude.

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      China is a capitalist country. I don’t disagree with that. However, if you get your head out of your ass and actually read some theory, you will realize that the form of capitalism that is being practiced in China is actually a left-liberal classical capitalism, fundementally grounded in principles of industrial growth discussed by Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Karl Marx, that, if it overtakes the U.S. as global hegemon, actually has the potential to transition into a socialist society.

      Their poverty reduction, infrastructure building, and general wheeling and dealing with underdeveloped countries is laudable and far outstrips the history and ability of the West, and while I don’t really like their foreign policy stances, particularly on MLM issues, refusing to actually analyze what is going on there and what has the potential to go on there is a sure sign of the typical, unread, left-com martyrdom complex where you have the audacity to criticize the projects of others without ever having done anything particularly productive or revolutionary yourself.

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        actually has the potential to transition into a socialist society

        LMFAO I’ve read plenty of Marx and it clearly does not.

        Their poverty reduction, infrastructure building

        Maybe tinges of social democracy in a fast-growing economy accompanied by mass human rights abuse.

        dealing with underdeveloped countries

        Ah yes because Xi is doing it out of the goodness of his heart, totally not getting anything out of it like imperialist influence in Africa and interest money.

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          Marx was incorrect about alot of socio-political things, in particular his specific model of social revolution. You clearly believe this otherwise you wouldn’t still be a Catholic.

          However his historical model for capitalist industrial development is sound, and eventually the internal contradictions will have to be solved, one way or another. My hope that it isn’t a violent struggle that overthrows the CPC, but it very well may be. It’s either that, aggressive internal reform (which wouldn’t be the first time that occured) or they will take a neo-liberal turn themselves and then I will re-evaluate my position, which will also be reflected in the mass degradation of living standards if they take that route. And who knows, that may happen. But it hasn’t yet.

          ‘Mass human rights abuses’. Ah yes, the country with a 90% approval rating even by Western studies is the one participating in mass human rights abuses. How is Zenz doing these days?

          Who the fuck ever said it was out of the goodness of his heart? It’s for multi-polarity, resource access and ally building. Again, as critical as I am in that regard, it is the diplomatic move to make if you are in China’s global position. They don’t need to shake the boat, because ultimately time is on their side. They are very cynical in that regard.

          Lol ‘imperialist influence in Africa’, where are the military bases? Where is the limited occupations, training camps, invasions and coups? Heaven forbid the Chinese build the things that they are paid to build. No please, keep spouting off IMF talking points.

          • emizeko [they/them]@hexbear.net
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            Marx was incorrect about alot of socio-political things, in particular his specific model of social revolution.

            could you be more specific, because if you’re talking about what I think you are ooh boy do I have a pasta for you

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          mass human rights abuses

          your source chain:

          mainstream articles, citing -> the victims of communism fund, citing -> adrien zens, citing -> “an anonymous source told me bro”

          go actually follow up on this shit you read

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            7% of 10-15 year olds are child laborers in China but keep pretending shit isn’t happening. “If a western website says it is must be false!”

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              The 7% statistic seems credible to me at a glance, though somewhat dated. The data are from Peking University’s 2010 China Family Panel Study, not RFA or Zenz pulling numbers out of their ass

              https://docs.iza.org/dp9976.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Family_Panel_Studies

              I’ll wager this statistic is declining over time, but I don’t know. I’m about to go to bed or I would do a deeper literature search.

              For me the more important question is: Why? Why is China like this? Why did China liberalize under Deng? What is the worldwide political and economic context? Is child labor in China possibly a difficult problem to address, when we look at the whole situation? What measures have been taken so far? I hope you are at least wondering.

              I’m no expert, but I’ll point out two things:

              1 ) Not long ago, China was still dirt poor and fighting tooth and nail to industrialize and modernize as fast as possible. China’s economic power today is a fairly recent development.

              2 ) China liberalized in order to survive in a hostile global economy. Liberalizing brought in a huge influx of foreign investment and industry expertise. The alternative was to be politically and economically strangled like most other socialist states have been. There’s only so much you can do with a self-contained economy in a hostile world.

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            Ok, they’re nicer than the west, that doesn’t mean it’s not still imperialism. Most of the time they don’t forgive debt and when they do it’s corrupt; they’re trying to win them over to become satellite states one day.

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              Most of the time they don’t forgive debt and when they do it’s corrupt;

              Almost like some kind of unfalsifiable orthodoxy is being used to make the judgement here

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              1 year ago

              Most of the time they don’t forgive debt and when they do it’s corrupt [emphasis mine]; they’re trying to win them over to become satellite states one day.

              What do you mean when you say their debt forgiveness is “corrupt”? And why do you believe that they want to win them over as “satellite states” and not as regular-old geopolitical allies?

              Ok, they’re nicer than the west, that doesn’t mean it’s not still imperialism

              What about it makes it imperialism to you? Do you see any difference at all between lending money for development projects and imperialism? How does forgiving loans facilitate economic domination of these places?

              From that news.com australian article I posted: “But the concept of a Chinese “debt trap” has also been criticised, with a study in 2020 finding China had restructured or refinanced about $21 billion of debt in Africa between 2000 and 2019. The study also noted there was no evidence of “asset seizures”and that Chinese lenders had not used courts to enforce payments, or applied penalty interest rates to distressed borrowers.” For a go at economic imperialism, they don’t seem keen on putting the choke-hold on.

              • CatholicSocialist
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                1 year ago

                It’s more like your billionaire friends gives you a $100k loan to buy a house and expects you to pay them back with interest.

                • GnastyGnuts [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  1 year ago

                  From that news.com australian article I posted: “But the concept of a Chinese “debt trap” has also been criticised, with a study in 2020 finding China had restructured or refinanced about $21 billion of debt in Africa between 2000 and 2019. The study also noted there was no evidence of “asset seizures”and that Chinese lenders had not used courts to enforce payments, or applied penalty interest rates to distressed borrowers. [emphasis mine]”

                  They’ve had the opportunity to really milk these countries if they wanted, and actively chosen not to.

                  EDIT: Here’s the study being referenced in that paragraph i quoted: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3745021