But at what cost?
Probably 1,000x less than the US occupation
inb4 a truther on reddit shares this and says something like “they’re expanding the Uyghur concentration camps to foreign nations, how evil!!” or some shit.
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To be honest, if the west doesn’t like China building schools in Iraq then they should perhaps start building their own schools in Iraq. I’ve got no problems with an “education race”.
Its part of china`s debt trap.
China’s debt trap is literally a myth that’s been thoroughly disproven by tons of evidence at this point, I don’t know why people keep parroting it
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3745021
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/02/china-debt-trap-diplomacy/617953/
A hyperbole perhaps, but a myth no. As evidenced in your links, China would definitely be gaining more short term if they operated the loans like a death trap, but instead have been quite generous. In Sri Lanka, initial reports suggested it would be profitable and even when things went south China didn’t go for asset forfeiture.
However - China is objectively trying to gain power in these developing countries and make these countries rely on China.
Is this a bad thing? In my opinion, there’s nothing inherently bad about it, and it’s objectively better than what the US has done. However, if you’re fearful of Chinese values, I can see you being fearful of their loan program.
Right, China obviously isn’t doing this out of sheer altruism. My key point is that there is no indication that anything nefarious is happening here.
Every time I read “debt trap” and it isn’t followed or preceded by “IMF” I get a tiny bit more cynical.
Even a cursory glance at US monetary policy reveals most about what you need to know about so called “debt traps”.
Folks in the US write best sellers about it every few years (economic hit man, smedley butler, etc) but it never sticks.
The only time a country ever came close to default on one of China’s infrastructure projects, was Sri Lanka. And they didn’t default because China helped Sri Lanka cover the costs by leasing the port they financed.
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This is what Trump and Pompeo said. That they want a military base. But it’s wrong. It’s not effective as a naval base. The harbor entrance is narrow, only wide enough for one ship to pass through at a time. To house naval ships there would be foolish. It would be easy for enemy to block the entrance off and then bomb. And in the case where ships need to scramble somewhere, they can only do so very slowly.
