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What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence

nytimes.com

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Re: What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence

#111

Post by navinsylvester »

nl wrote: post #29

Pushing countries deeper into debt, even inadvertently, may give China leverage in the short run, but it risks losing the good will essential to OBOR’s long-term success. For all the big projects China is engaged in around the world — high-speed rail in Laos, a military base in Djibouti, highways in Kenya — arguably its most perilous step so far may be taking control of the foundering Hambantota port. This is a good…

Srilanka is stone throw away from India. I don't think Srilanka will ever allow a military base for China and antagonize India.

When Chinese submarines were allowed to dock twice in Srilankan port that was the last straw. Indian secret service RAW allegedly played an important role in toppling the oppressive, corrupt and Chinese leaning Rajapakse government[1]. I guess that is one serious warning to ignore.

[1] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/01/21/sril-j21.html

Re: What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence

#113

Post by tempay »

Boothroid wrote: post #86
tempay wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's what happens when EU starts giving away money. I'm unconvinced how bad this actually is. An organisation with a ~150 billion euro budget in going to inevitably have some abuse/waste of it's resources but equally I can think of dozens of projects that have positive outcomes. Sure, it's still not okay for the ones like the airport to exist but I think focusing on them undermines the good that can be done by ha…

I guess you would similarly dismiss the corruption etc that has led to auditors refusing to sign off on EU accounts for years? And as if the EU has morality at its core.. I don't see much of that when it comes to EU policies that impoverish farmers in developing countries.

> you would similarly dismiss the corruption etc that has led to auditors refusing to sign off on EU accounts for years?

So far as I can tell this is incorrect[1].

[1] https://infacts.org/mythbusts/auditors-havent-refused-sign-o...

Re: What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence

#115

Post by chiefalchemist »

hyperdunc wrote: post #28
princeb wrote: post #10

A 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 Chi…

China does a similar thing with agriculture. Huge plots of land in Australia and New Zealand are controlled by Chinese farming companies and staffed by Chinese. All the food they produce goes back to China.

Link? Please?

Re: What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence

#116

Post by crispyambulance »

scandox wrote: post #105
grecy wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you are being downvoted, you are absolutely correct. I would argue that many of the world's billionaires are not particularly nice people, but that doesn't stop them being immensely rich and powerful. I see no reason the same can't be true for a country. If it has an immense amount of wealth, it will be powerful, irrelevant of human rights, etc.

Political power is not something you can bank. It cannot be stored. It cannot be measured statically at a particular moment in time. It is rooted in networks of people and in ideas. Very rich people can exercise political power only by proxy in our culture: by effectively buying it from people who have the real thing. This is both expensive and limited. It can evaporate in a moment.

    > It can evaporate in a moment.
I think that's the most interesting weakness about power without democracy. China, obviously, has not collapsed and it is going stronger than ever but there are changes in progress.

Are the motivations that precipitated the Tienanmen Square protests still present in the minds of the people? I think so.

Re: What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence

#117

Post by selimthegrim »

Dravidian wrote: post #16

China's investment in Pakistan, Srilanka, Myanmar is clearly aimed to impose strategic advantage over India. Especially in Srilanka, apart from economic activities; they funded & trained Srilankan army to conduct one of the worst genocide on their ethnic tamil population in 4th elam war. Sadly neither the international community nor the Indian government did nothing to prevent it from happening on the contrary they e…

Indian government is probably still mad abut IPKF and Rajiv Gandhi

Re: What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence

#118

Post by ionised »

puranjay wrote: post #73
forapurpose wrote: post #57

> China promotes itself as a new, gentler kind of power, but it’s worth remembering that dredging deepwater ports and laying down railroad ties to secure new trade routes — and then having to defend them from angry locals — was precisely how Britain started down the slippery slope to empire. China should be deterred by the prospect of following the footsteps of the most powerful empire in history?

To add: an empire they also hated for what it did to China. One of my oldest friends went to China to study medicine. He's now a doctor in Shanghai. I visited him a while back and spent a lot of time with his Chinese colleagues. The overwhelming sense I got was that China believes it is their destiny to be the supreme power in the world, that western dominance is an aberration of history, and that it is China's right…

How original of them.

Re: What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence

#119

Post by pm90 »

grecy wrote: post #100
whazor wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this is better as well, once citizens have more welfare they have more power to acquire human rights.

Who said anything about citizens getting more welfare? China is stripping these countries bare, and the money goes straight into the pockets of the corrupt ruling class. It is staggering to see the countries with the multi-hundreds-of-billions in resources have the poorest citizens.

I think a distinction must be made between a completely extractive economy and one that is based on manufacturing. So if its simply raw materials being mined and shipped abroad, then yes I agree with the stripping the countries part. If they are actually manufacturing stuff....

Oh actually, if they're employing only Chinese citizens for manufacturing, then I agree with your assessment.

Re: What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence

#120

Post by pm90 »

happosai wrote: post #78
princeb wrote: post #10

A 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 Chi…

I think this is an urban legend, or at least a major hyperbole. The Chinese businesses (at least the ones I know in Kenya) all employ lots of locals. What is Chinese is management and most of the highly skilled workers. It's more about keeping the value-add than creating jobs for Chinese. We can argue that it's bad for locals, but unlike western colonialism, this happens under the rules the local governments have set…

Western colonialism happened pretty much among the same lines. Start as law-abiding traders, get pissed off by some local lord, build a fort, train a local army. Local army is better supplied and trained than local lords army, so now you engage in military games (either protection or outright conquest).

Certainly I don't see this happening in any of the African countries. What China can do is what most Western countries do today to get debtor countries in line: refuse access to credit, or increase the interest rates on future loans.

I'm interested to see if China plays regime-changing games that the US and (then) Soviet Union did when its interests were under threat. So far, it doesn't seem to be employing that strategy, but I wonder if they will...

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