Keen-eyed readers of this incisive foreign policy blog will have noticed that empire building's gone out of fashion, unless you're Chinese.
Their little method goes like this, we call it Reverse Santa:
Lend Africans vast sums of money, with assets like airports, railways, energy companies and ports as security.
Africans remarkably fail to pay back the loans.
Chinese take all the Africans' stuff.
LSP
6 comments:
Welcome to the Chinese belt road, where all the good stuff on the planet should flow back to China. Empire building has a way of backfiring. Chinese history is replete with it. They think that they have it nailed this time. Maybe we'll all need to learn to speak Mandarin?
Prediction. At some point the Chinese will understand the saying, "Africa Wins Again".
I'm somewhat taken with the story "Seven Kill Tiger" by someone calling himself Charles W. Shao. Not because it's necessarily great science fiction as such, nor am I qualified to even have an opinion on whether the science is plausible, but the story has merit for two reasons:
1. I think the attitude of the Chinese regarding black Africans in the story is not only completely plausible, but realistic;
2. The slavering reflexive hatred of self-appointed net reviewers for both the story and the author.
Seven Kill Tiger can be read for free on Amazon as part of the preview for the anthology There Will Be War, Volume X edited by Jerry Pournelle.
https://www.amazon.com/There-Will-Be-War-X-ebook/dp/B019KYLOKQ
LL, I hesitated to post anything on China because I'm no expert, but Reverse Santa had a ring to it.
Will the Africans enjoy the beneficent rule of their new mandarins? Good question, don't say Year of the Monkey.
Good call, WSF.
I like that Pournelle series, MC. Thanks for the book tip, I'll check it out.
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