Posted on 09/28/2008 8:53:08 AM PDT by george76
The wicked thing that I believe is now happening in Africa.
Out of desperation, much of the continent is selling itself into a new era of corruption and virtual slavery as China seeks to buy up all the metals, minerals and oil she can lay her hands on: copper for electric and telephone cables, cobalt for mobile phones and jet engines - the basic raw materials of modern life.
It is crude rapacity, but to Africans and many of their leaders it is better than the alternative, which is slow starvation.
China offers both rulers and the ruled in Africa the simple, squalid advantages of shameless exploitation. For the governments, there are gargantuan loans, promises of new roads, railways, hospitals and schools - in return for giving Peking a free and tax-free run at Africa's rich resources of oil, minerals and metals.
'Africa is China's last hope.'
Everyone in Africa knows China's Congo deal - worth almost £5billion in loans, roads, railways, hospitals and schools ...
Sata knows the Chinese are unpopular in his country. Zambians use a mocking word - 'choncholi' - to describe the way the Chinese speak. Zambian businessmen gossip about the way the Chinese live in separate compounds, where - they claim - dogs are kept for food.
There are persistent rumours, which cropped up in almost every conversation I had in Zambia, that many of the imported Chinese workforce are convicted criminals whom China wants to offload in Africa.
Many in Africa also accuse the Chinese of unconcealed corruption. This is specially obvious in the 'Democratic Republic of the Congo', currently listed as the most corrupt nation on Earth.
Now a new great power, China, is scrambling for wealth, power and influence in this sad continent, without a single illusion or pretence.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
China: Imperialist and Colonialist....
They’re communists, so the media will have better things to care about. Too bad Africa. But you’ve heard that before.
What gets me is if you see a violent coup in any of these african countries, you’re going to see massacres and atrocities committed on these colonials reminiscent of what was done to white colonials in the Mau Mau Emergency or the Simba Revolt fifties and sixties.
It’s gonna happen somewhere and don’t look for any Western powers to get involved.
This is simply step one. I predicted here on FR two years ago that China intends no less than imperial conquest of Africa. Here’s how it will go down: Some country with a large Chinese immigrant population will foment an armed rebellion, then the PLA will use that rebellion as an excuse to invade militarily, to “protect our citizens”. Once the PLA has established bases and a presence, the political takeover will commence.
...or the Western Left.
In fact, the ruling Chinese oligarchy is the envy of the Western Left--whose Dream is a ruling oligarchy, composed of themselves, of course, dispensing "equality" and "justice", according to their definitions, of course, as they--the ruling oligarchy--luxuriate in opulence, which, of course, they will deserve because of their "good intentions" and assurance of "equality" and "justice".
No way, the article itself states clearly this is a deliberately different “business model.” The Chinese do not want the expense of actually running any of these places. They just want to attach themselves like a lamprey and suck out the juices.
Thomas Sowell has crunched the numbers and written that, forty years of anti-colonial liberal academic dogma notwithstanding, England’s Industrial Revolution and nineteenth-century prosperity came IN SPITE of its huge, globe-girdling empire rather than because of it. Full-blown colonial possessions ALWAYS suck more money and resources than they yield up.
What got my notice most of all, and the only vaguely “imperialistic” aspect to all this, was the large number of low-skilled Chinese laborers (”coolies” for those of you who know your politically-incorrect nomenclature) and maybe, maybe (Hitch isn’t sure here) political and criminal undesirables that have been exported to deepest, darkest at considerable expense to do much of the scut work that can be done far cheaper and just as well by the locals... which was one of the major bones of local contention.
Shades of “Devil’s Island” or early Australia (or us for that matter) there but, again, Hitch could only speculate.
And remember this is PETER Hitchens reporting.
Imperialist and Colonialist in Africa and and Fascists at home.
Sadly the things China is doing in Africa are an improvement. Africa has turned into a corrupt, defunct cesspool since the last colonists left.
There is nothing politically incorrect about the word "coolie," other than (perhaps) it's representation in English, using the Western alphabet.
Coolie is formed from two Chinese words: the first, pronounced "coo," means "cry," as in "shed tears." The second, pronounced "lee," means "force," as in the use of muscular force, or the force of will.
Thomas Sowell has crunched the numbers and written that, forty years of anti-colonial liberal academic dogma notwithstanding, England’s Industrial Revolution and nineteenth-century prosperity came IN SPITE of its huge, globe-girdling empire rather than because of it. Full-blown colonial possessions ALWAYS suck more money and resources than they yield up.
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Wow. Post of the week. Thank you.
Just look at our own post-Spanish-American War colonial experiences with the Philippines, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, etc.
Do you think we profited from those places?
This really wasn’t that hard to predict. Among many of us Americans of Chinese descent, we saw their strategy in the early Nineties, when Taiwan still had influence in many of these African countries. In order to isolate Taiwan (many in China were embarrassed that so much capital for labor training and manufacturing infrastructure was coming from a “renegade” province that the Chinese government wanted back) and take advantage of resources they would need in the future, the Chinese government began bribing and giving these countries an ultimatum: “Deal with us or we will isolate YOU, too.”
Just as much of the current financial debacle has its roots years ago in the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act and the actions of ACORN in the late Eighties and Nineties, so too did the Chinese strategy begin to take shape after the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. The Communists were criticized throughout the world and had few friends. As their economy opened up, they realized they could buy new friends, especially among impoverished nations like those in Africa.
Finally, why use the PLA if they don’t have to (the Chinese are tight with their money, as recent earthquakes have shown). Most of the countries with immigrant populations have well-assimilated groups. While our ties might be cultural, many of us have had personal experience under the Chinese system and are reticent to “invite” the PLA to any country in the New World, where most of the ex-pats are concentrated (you could probably squeeze all the Chinese in Australia into Monterey Park, Calif. and Scarborough, Ontario, where there are very dense populations of Chinese ex-pats).
.....I might have spent a little time there back in the 60's and I'm trying to figure out when it wasn't corrupt ........ and a cesspool.
btt
Western Civilization is still the best that the world has ever devised.
The Western Left is decadence and foolishness and offers a weary, frightened, and dangerous world nothing more than a Road to Hell with its good--perhaps!--but foolish intentions.
Thanks for the post and the perspectives.
Article posted 3 times. Here and 2 others.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2092405/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2092691/posts
Yes I see. But before I posted it I searched for the title and got ZIP....
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