I think it is also worth highlighting that unlike most foreign investment that goes into an economy and helps it to grow, the money invested under this programme largely goes to Chinese businesses who recruit chinese labour, so there is less money actually going into the local economies to spur growth, making that debt all the more burdensome.
In all honesty, this is the Chinese version of Colonization. Throughout history, more advanced and powerful countries go to another one, supposedly offers benefits in return for being âadministratedâ. In modern days, the old western style of colonization would not be accepted of course, so the Chinese used all these economic and infrastructure help and in return âadministrateâ these important elements of the countries. This has happened in the past and is now happening in another form with China.
Is that true though?
It doesnât seem to happen like that in S. America for example and a good number of African states appear to be in dire straights despite having petrol and other mineral wealth.
Or is that more a case of giving with one hand and taking away with the other (which is the same thing in the end, no?)
Yes. There is always an attempt to link investment in a country to trade of some sort but there are plenty of examples where foreign investment has been a postiive force (for example the Asian Tigers). It often relies on the receiving country to have a proper game plan on how that incoming flow will help development though such as controlling not opening its banking system up too early, and/or restricting competition in particular industries for example - this has been harder for countries reliant on petrol and mineral wealth.
So if itâs not developing a manufacturing base leading to a flourishing financial sector itâs all a big downer anyway. 
There will be other positive examples, maybe on a much smaller scale. These are the ones though that have had the biggest impact that I can think of.
Does anyone share the view that the Hong Kong protests were likely under western support?
There are a lot of interesting points in the paper, and much to applaud. Whether a fractured US is capable of implementing these ideas is debatable. I hope so for the reasons stated in the paper;
âFrom a wider perspective, there is an additional reason why the United Statesâ core objective must be the retention of US global and regional strategic primacy for the century ahead. It is not just in the national interest. Whether this nation likes it or not, US leadership remains the only credible foundation for sustaining, enhancing, and, where necessary, creatively reinventing the liberal international order. An authoritarian state in a position of global leadership will not only lead to the demise of the current order, but will, in the process, curtail US interests as well. Ultimately, it would degrade the American soul, including the innate understanding of who Americans are as a people and what the nation stands for in the world. To abandon this mission would mean âthe city upon a hillâ would fade from view as the United States became just another nation-state in narrow pursuit of its national self-interest.â
As oxymoronic it might sound, the world needs a strong West as much as it needs a strong China. I think this world is imperfect as it is, 2 imperfect powers countering each other might be the best we can hope of a balanced world. The old days of power balance in favour of one party is over. I donât want China to be the domineering force in the world but I also hope that its rise can be a threat to Americaâs traditional domination in world politics.
EDIT: In short, keep each other on each otherâs toes without ever being able to overpower each other. The best result might be a tense inter-dependence on these major powers.
I just took this from the âKey Pointsâ:
The foremost goal of US strategy should be to cause Chinaâs ruling elites to conclude that it is in Chinaâs best interests to continue operating within the US-led liberal international order rather than building a rival order,
Iâm not sure about the US but Europe is too late on this. China has been taking the piss out of our liberal economic order for decennies, they have fully intergrated it into their philosophy. We can only stem the flow now.
My major worry is that we havenât analysed what Chinaâs strategy is, if we had we would have diverted from this liberal order. My reasonning is that strategically China has integrated all but the highest of high tech. They own enormous production as well as research and development in the west. The only way to have prevented this was imo to do that thing that we scorn so much and nationalise the companies that China ended up buying. Yet this must read is advocating to sell the liberal order to China (the one they have understood and used to get to where they are).
Without debt protection all hell is about to be set loose. How the hell are we going to sell to the public that nationalisation is the way to go?
If we continue liberalising as we have 2008 is going to look like a party.
It might be wishful thinking to hope that US policy makers would suggest socialist solutions
We should at least contemplate integrating the Chinese way into our system. There really isnât any high ground in the âliberalâ appraoch as liberal equates to greed as it stands.
A first strike response.
Drip drip worse and worse
While the Worldâs attention is on the shitshow in Washington