An interesting article about Red China's push into Africa

[fallout man]

PETER HITCHENS: How China has created a new slave empire in Africa

I'm not going to quote the article here, because the accompanying photos themselves say a thousand words.

China seems to be extending to Africa the safety-and-exploitation-concerns-be-damned approach that has worked for them so well back home.

What struck me most (credit is due to the writer), is how the scenes he describes are reminiscent of something out of Heart of Darkness or even some of Orwell's writing.

[Edit: spelling]

 

[bdude]

This, the brother of the famed Christopher Hitchens?
Rambling as always. Guess it runs in the family.

 

[soccerballtux]

So you suggest we take away those poor people's jobs? How will they put food on the table?

 

[Throckmorton]

China can't possibly fuck over Africa any worse than Europe did

 

[fallout man]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
So you suggest we take away those poor people's jobs? How will they put food on the table?

There are a couple of threads of thought woven into that article. I hope that you can follow them.

My opinion is as it has been for years--Africa is perpetually fucked. The intention of my OP is not as focused on the condemnation of what's propagated by China as much as it is about the regretabble occurrence of awful history coming around full circle to repeat itself within a century.

 

[CanOWorms]

Less European involvement in Africa = less genocides

 

[cwjerome]

China and Saudi Arabia are both pushing their agendas in this area with hope of increasing their sphere of influence and tapping potential cultural, labor, and military markets.

 

[Dari]

Last time I checked these were sovereign countries. Why should we give a fuck if their government don't?

 

[Oceandevi]

Open playing field.
Latin America is where we should be watching. You know, our backyard.

 

[noto12ious]

where are the whips and chains?

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: fallout man
PETER HITCHENS: How China has created a new slave empire in Africa

I'm not going to quote the article here, because the accompanying photos themselves say a thousand words.

China seems to be extending to Africa the safety-and-exploitation-concerns-be-damned approach that has worked for them so well back home.

What struck me most (credit is due to the writer), is how the scenes he describes are reminiscent of something out of Heart of Darkness or even some of Orwell's writing.

[Edit: spelling]

Besides the U.S. letting Africa down, the world has.

China is taking advantage of that. Can't blame them.

For their efforts they get additional resources on the cheap including gold and oil.

 

[cwjerome]

Originally posted by: Dari
Last time I checked these were sovereign countries. Why should we give a fuck if their government don't?

Totally rational argument. Why should we give a fuck what other nations do... they're sovereign!

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: fallout manChina seems to be extending to Africa the safety-and-exploitation-concerns-be-damned approach that has worked for them so well back home.

What struck me most (credit is due to the writer), is how the scenes he describes are reminiscent of something out of Heart of Darkness or even some of Orwell's writing.

The Chinese tend to have higher than average IQs and Africans tend to have the lowest IQs. Given that and the fact that the Chinese are self-interested and tend to have a superiority complex, I don't see why something like that should come as any surprise.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: CanOWorms
Less European involvement in Africa = less genocides

You're going to blame Rwanda and Darfur on the Europeans? You almost make it sound as though the Africans were civilized before prior to colonization. This list of average IQ by nation may be interesting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_Global_Inequality

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: bdude
This, the brother of the famed Christopher Hitchens?
Rambling as always. Guess it runs in the family.

Heh, yeah. I was going to send this to some folks and realized that I'm not going to send somebody a link if I need to qualify it with "Please just read the first 500 words, it's a bit confusing but slightly gets less so later". Terribly written, I frankly had no idea what he was talking about for the most part.

Anyway, we use China for cheap labor, it uses Africa!

Less European involvement in Africa = less genocides

Except that actually countries that were separated from the evil English empire almost always have become much worse after the fact.

The Chinese tend to have higher than average IQs and Africans tend to have the lowest IQs. Given that and the fact that the Chinese are self-interested and tend to have a superiority complex, I don't see why something like that should come as any surprise.

I'm sure that's going to go over well with some of the people here