As an aside Latin America has grown much faster since it started rejecting the neo-liberal model espoused by the one percent rulers of the USA.
China has been providing aid to Africa for a long time. I am not acting like the West has done more for Africa.... What I am saying is that it is the same be it the West or China. The motivation is the same. Also there is an element of China having to pick through the scraps of the West, after the West turned their attention in another direction, China swooped in.
How is Venezuela doing? Any holiday plans for Caracas or afraid you will be robbed, beaten and set on fire? Spend much time in Latin America? Especially Brazil, Venezuela and Hondo? It was bad before, but it has only gotten worse. Right now Latin America is the most dangerous region of the WORLD. I am not a Right Wing freak or Milton Friedman is a diety believer.... but a lot of what you post as black and white is simply false.
China is busy using its huge trade surplus to insure both access to natural resources, and to acquire access to ports and other facilities in key areas for its ever expanding military. Its motives are not altruistic. Not in the least. We have done much the same thing for decades, but far less that we once did a long time ago. We don't have nearly the resources, or inclination, to do what China is doing now thanks in large part to the mad adventure of George W. Bush in Iraq, a mad adventure that damaged our military, damaged our standing around the world, and damaged our economy by sucking up hundreds of billions of dollars that could have been better used elsewhere, or not spent at all. That, and a lot more, in my humble opinion.
What point are you trying to make here. Hard to compare motivations when the actions and results aren't the same. The Western World doesn't care about countries in Africa being built up. Africa is just a slave continent to the West... The Arabs are still running a slave trade out of Africa and the West let's them do it.
My point is that China is not really different. The motives are obvious, and the results really are not that different either. Ultimately Africa is being granted loans, which will be very difficult for them to repay, in exchange for natural resources, political viability in the region and preference is given to Chinese companies. China is using Africa to exploit natural resources from, peddle their goods on and to gain strong political influence. The results are very mixed, and there is a great deal of research on it. At the end of the day, it is another nation exploiting the natural resources of Africa.
Like I said before, China isn't doing this out of the goodness of their hearts because it's about business. Countries in Africa need some help from somebody and help will come with a price. But the past decade is still showing that China hasn't been operating over there the same as those other countries. And with the resources Africa has they can pay back those loans instead of straight up being robbed.
You are always asking others to back up things which go against what seem to be your long unexamined orthodoxy. Still waiting for trickle down, I assume. Perhaps because of laziness? or fear of cognitive dissonance? Nevertheless one site for you. Latin American economies generally recovered from mid-2009 to the present. Economies commonly post good growth numbers coming out of recessions as they make use of under-utilized capacity. The Latin American nations that came through this episode the most quickly were those that employed counter-cyclical Keynesian government spending programs designed to stimulate the economy. Ecuador, for example, greatly expanded its housing assistance and cash transfer programs to poor households.[20] Accordingly, some conclusions regarding the performance of neoliberalism are warranted. Neoliberalism achieved poorer GDP growth records than did prior state-led development policies in Latin America. Latin America under neoliberalism did worse in GDP growth than did other developing areas that used the government to guide or assist in the development process. State-led development policies achieved a much stronger record of success in Latin America than did free market policies. http://www.coha.org/the-free-market...way-forward-the-first-of-a-three-part-series/ Dr. Ronn Pineo, Senior Research Fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, and Professor and Chair of the Department of History at Towson University
I don't agree with you. China has been operating very much like the West has in recent history. China has provided funding to particularly politically unstable rulers in Africa in exchange for very favorable access to natural resources, the loans (which China doesn't like to call loans) then are used on Chinese corporations to do the work and when the loans inevitably are not paid back, China gets resources at a cut rate. The African population is almost entirely cut out of the benefit of employment, the building of an infastructure or the proceeds. Indeed the money that is given to these heads of state in Africa, a huge majority goes to the relatives of the head of state.
Ehh...your article is old...... you do know that as a region Latin America has seen growth slow to a 20 year low? The economies in Latin America are doing WORSE than they have in a long time. Virtually all of the data supports this. You can do a simple google search and you will find it to be the case. Hell, economic growth in the region has slowed for 16 straight quarters as commodity prices continue to fall. Also, crime is at an all time high in a majority of the Latin American nations, especially Honduras, Venezuela, Brazil. A majority of Latin American countries are doing as bad as ever. Is that because of politics? I don't think it is that simple as they have done poorly under Left and Right leadership..... there is a lack of education, foundation and safety in all of these nations. Corruption and crime as as prevalent as ever.
They spend less as a percentage of GDP than the US. Value & Rank The Government expenditure (% of GDP) of China is 14.1 (% of GDP) with a global rank of 112. China compared to other Countries The Government expenditure (% of GDP) of China is similar to that of Fiji, Bahrain, Armenia, Mauritius, Belarus, Korea, Thailand, Ecuador, Niger, Malaysia with a respective Government expenditure (% of GDP) of 14.6, 14.6, 14.5, 14.4, 14.2, 13.9, 13.8, 13.8, 13.7, 13.6 (% of GDP) and a global rank of 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117.
Thanks for finally responding in a non hysterical way, though the article is not that old and it is talking about a fairly lengthy period both before and after the 2008 financial crisis. BTW neoliberal policies are famous for wanting to decrease spending on health and education to repay often time unneeded foreign loans. Are you walking back the obviously wrong claim that Latin America is the most dangerous part of the world?
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China is using the same tactics with countries that are coming out of conflict in Africa that Japan used on them when they were coming out of conflict and needed help and couldn't get help from anyone else. Also some of those countries in Africa have their loans secured with things like coco and sesame seeds and not oil and or minerals. I understand the building of the infrastructure isn't helping unemployment but with better infrastructure comes more factories (especially with labor cost on the rise in other parts of the world... factories will eventually start to leave China and other countries just like they left here) that will hire people who live there (which is already going on in some places), and it will make it easier for them to ship out their goods. China is also building hospitals and schools over there... Which will all bring better technology. I disagree with you because most of the western countries and the middle east mainly go in there with guns and military training to start and or keep conflicts going while getting their resources and people. What are they actually building over there since you're saying China is doing the same thing as they are...??? And yes... I know it's mixed feelings amongst the people there but that's understandable.
Well, China is a lot more like the US than the Middle East or Russia. They love making money, love watching Hollywood movies, NBA, ... similar size, often cites the US as the best country, and looks to the US to solve their problems. Of course, there is going to be some circle running by China building roads to access resources, investing here and there for good will, but that's not exclusive to anybody and quite frankly is not surprising. In my view, the rise of China is an opportunity for the US.
