• freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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    1 year ago

    Are you implying that Chinese actions in Africa are harmful to Africa and that South America should look towards the School of the Americas instead?

      • zerfuffle
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        1 year ago

        Go look a bit closer. China’s wave of investment in Africa has coincided directly with a massive increase in development and industrialization in Africa, something that wasn’t achieved over the many decades of Western support.

        “Predatory loans” are disingenuous: the value of infrastructure often isn’t in the direct operation of it, but in the knock-on effects that has on the economy at large. If someone told me they wanted to build a subway system for free so long as they get all the fare revenue, I’d tell them to go right along. If someone told me they wanted to build a hydroelectric dam so long as they get all the revenue from selling that electricity to the grid, I’d tell them to get the project started already. Moreover, the entire point of this infrastructure is to move African countries off of their entirely resource-based economies.