What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence
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Re: What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence
#2It says nothing about China's influence. It just means China likes to throw good money after the bad. Just look at the loans it made to Cambodia, Nigeria, Iran, etc
http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/21P46wlPXj00K8VUKMu9oN/China...
Re: What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence
#3The slippery slope towards empire for the east India company didn't start by protecting dams and dredging or performing economic activities. It began by superior ammunition and military services that they provided to the various kings and nawabs who were warring with each other.taking sides, and extracting political power in return. Equity ownership means nothing if it's a business that has zero market value. Political power OTOH is what leverage is all about.
Arm's exporters have more leverage than ownership in useless ports or airports.
Re: What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence
#4Author has clearly never been to Pittsburgh's airport.
Re: What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence
#5It says nothing about China's influence. It just means China likes to throw good money after the bad. Just look at the loans it made to Cambodia, Nigeria, Iran, etc http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/21P46wlPXj00K8VUKMu9oN/China...
Part of that is waste, but surely a lot is corruption, and people dumping money offshore any way they can? It's all the same to the Chinese economy, but the motives are distinct.
Re: What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence
#6The slippery slope towards empire for the east India company didn't start by protecting dams and dredging or performing economic activities. It began by superior ammunition and military services that they provided to the various kings and nawabs who were warring with each other.taking sides, and extracting political power in return. Equity ownership means nothing if it's a business that has zero market value. Politic…
All influence is economic. Weapons and ammunition and soldiers cost money. China`s influence in the underdeveloped world over strategic raw materials should be of great concern to developed world strategic planners. Rare earth metals are a commonly cited example.
Re: What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence
#7As the United States beats a haphazard retreat from the world — nixing trade agreements, eschewing diplomacy, antagonizing allies — China marches on with its unabashedly ambitious global-expansion program known as One Belt, One Road.
This constant MSM need to connect everything on earth back to Trump is getting so fucking tedious. Construction of the airport this article concerns was finished (edit: begun) in 2009. It's almost as if China has been executing a long-term plan to build a web of neocolonial economic interests around the world for a pittance of the money the USA spent wrecking the Middle East & Afghanistan and killing hundreds of thousands of random people over the last 16 years; except framing the story that way wouldn't reaffirm NYT readers existing biases.
Re: What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence
#8As the United States beats a haphazard retreat from the world — nixing trade agreements, eschewing diplomacy, antagonizing allies — China marches on with its unabashedly ambitious global-expansion program known as One Belt, One Road. This constant MSM need to connect everything on earth back to Trump is getting so fucking tedious. Construction of the airport this article concerns was finished (edit: begun) in 2009. I…
Nothing in your post contradicts the thesis of that sentence.
Re: What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence
#9I assume another close contender is the Nay Pyi Taw airport in Myanmar.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BXvqis0htxH/?taken-at=277450644
https://www.instagram.com/explore/locations/277450644/naypyi...
The city was built as a showcase capital for Myanmar's military government, and has crazy sights like a 20 lane highway (with almost no cars):
https://www.go-myanmar.com/sites/go-myanmar.com/files/upload...
More pictures:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-304350...
The craziest part of the city to me was the amusement park. It was open, but only half complete. Ride operators would follow us around to turn on the rides we wanted to ride. One of the rides didn't have the female side of the seat belt buckle, so I just had to tie the straps together.
Very sad how much money was spent on this city, especially considering how poor the country is.
Re: What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence
#10A number of Chinese businesses are setting up 100%-Chinese factory compounds overseas. These compounds are located in a foreign country, but they are fully financed by Chinese, built by Chinese, employ only Chinese, have accommodation for the Chinese employees, have a completely sustaining internal economy where employees can buy food and entertainment and send mail, posts, banking, remittance, insurance, through Chinese companies etc. so that the Chinese never leave the compound and no-one else ever enters.
The reason for these factory-compounds is because China has challenging export quotas to places like the US and EU. But concentration of manufacturing know-how remains in China. The only way for these businesses to keep selling to high-value markets is to move manufacturing to another country where there is available quota. Although the goods are 100% made by Chinese, they are 0% made in China.
The Chinese government encourages business in this area because it is good employment for the Chinese. In turn, these businesses need better infrastructure in the countries they operate in. The infrastructural investment in these other countries is a wonderful side-effect that the government is happily playing up as part of its diplomatic strategy. When the textiles and the shoes and the fabrication factories are no longer making money, hopefully the ports, the trains, the roads, the power grid will continue generating interest income for the Chinese banks. And the recipient countries of these gifts, as it were, may extract benefit from this arrangement, eventually.