I'm of two minds on this. ON THE ONE HAND this is exactly what you would expect from a country failing to escape the middle income trap, a nation staring down crashing demographics and a standard of living rising above their ability to employ themselves as the workshop of the world, a nation turning away from market reform and back towards the familiar totalitarianism that recognizes Han Chinese as humans, other Chinese as less-than-humans and non-Chinese as animals. A country that has a two thousand year history of "pay us tribute so that all may know our place in the heavens" and a steadfast, monastic refusal to embrace the market reforms its global counterparts presumed it would eventually adopt through pure osmosis. One Belt One Road was obviously and completely a trap, a bad economic deal intended to foreclose on the farmland and ports of the developing world. ON THE OTHER HAND it's exactly what the World Bank has been doing since 1944. lol who the fuck do you think owns the rest of it Ferreal this is the grinder the West has been stuffing everyone else into since the Dutch East India Company and pretending otherwise is shameless potkettling. "No no you can't genocide the indigenous people anymore we're done with it." "No no you can't poison the atmosphere anymore we're done with it." "No no you can't economically enshackle the developing world we're... well, not done with it so much as better at it than you." You can't even google "world bank debt" or "world bank debt ownership" or "who owes how much to the world bank" without seeing a bunch of shit about China. The Whataboutism on this one is strong, and I say that as a direct beneficiary of it. I mean, which VC firm basically made Argentina bankrupt because they could? Fuckin' Elliott Capital. At least when the Chinese do it they are ostensibly doing it as a country rather than a bunch of rich dipshits with predatory spreadsheets.Countries in AP’s analysis had as much as 50% of their foreign loans from China and most were devoting more than a third of government revenue to paying off foreign debt.
I’m not really surprised that it’s happening but I do find it interesting that it’s happening now. Like you said the world bank has been doing this shit forever and now the Chinese are doing what they do best, copying what we do. What I find insightful about this article is that we’re 3-6 months away from major defaults in a number of developing nations, which probably means we’re 9-18 months from a few more armed conflicts popping up. At that point the Chinese might get an opportunity to show off all that military tech they have been ripping off us and buying from the Russians. They are kind of due for show off force “peace keeping” demonstration as their capability has gotten quite impressive and they probably needs a practice run for Taiwan.
- I think the overwhelming majority of geopolitics right now are driven by scarcity. The Syrian civil war was the modern world's first water war. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a demographic issue. China's wolf warrior politics are an outcome of their exit from "developing market" status - there's a reason Apple is decamping for India. There are ample practical reasons to presume we hit Peak Oil in 2000 or so - fracking simply isn't a thing at $35/bbl. Scarcity causes war. - Armed conflict in the current political climate is more unpredictable than it's been for generations for the simple fact that the Russians are assed out. I mean, just yesterday Armenia said they'd give up Karabakh in exchange for Azerbaijan not kicking their ass... and that whole dynamic only went kinetic because the Russians are no longer in the picture. - The Chinese are likely loath to switch from "theoretical threat" to "practical threat" because uncertainty is a lot of their cachet right now. I guarantee you that Belgorod is in play for the simple reason that Khinzals are utterly ineffective against Patriots and Russia has shown themselves to be strategically and tactically incompetent. Ukraine is about to get a bunch of F-16s for the simple fact that Russia sucks. Should China be shown to suck - as they invariably are - their influence in the world will again diminish.