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Chinese may take over Mombasa port: Ouko

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Re: Chinese may take over Mombasa port: Ouko

#211

Post by wangii »

kingkawn wrote: post #141
kolikotime wrote: post #63

West African American here (Ghanaian - American). This article actually isn't true, while the Kenyan Chinese pact that led to the construction of the Nairobi - Mombasa Port does have clauses related to penalties around lack of payment, there has been no actual announcement or any signs of China declaring possession of the Mombasa Port. In fact, the big issue in Mombasa right now is actually revolving around a Kenyan…

Everyone looking for justifications for anti-Chinese sentiment these days

it's not the full story. the full story is more like this: media operates on the hypothesis that this kind of material is on demand, it produces accordingly, generates buzz and hypothesis verified! what's next? product more!

I think market oriented media is really nothing about truth/fact/moral, its only job is to reflect what people want. here is the full list of what people want: - when we do well, tell me it's all my own hard work. - when we are in bad shape, it's someone else's fault.

Re: Chinese may take over Mombasa port: Ouko

#212

Post by forapurpose »

kolikotime wrote: post #120
afpx wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I seem to have missed the ‘well-laid out argument’. All I’m asking is that people read facts about the World Bank and make their own opinions.

The World Bank had free reign largely in Africa from the 1960s until the early 2000s. They and the IMF had an untrammeled monopoly for the most part, which was further supercharged by the 1980s Washington consensus. In that time period African states on the whole became poorer and state infrastructure crumbled. Now its not entirely on the World Bank/IMF of course, as in many countries there was misgovernance, but we…

Can you back up this claim? My understanding is that, speaking very generally about a large continent, most African countries did not implement the economic fundamentals preached by the World Bank and IMF, but failed to due to corruption and institutional problems, including a lack of the rule of law. What African country adopted the rule of law, open markets, stable monetary policies, a significant reduction in corruption, and failed to prosper?

> the countries that did ignore its orthodoxy, from China in the late 1970s to then India in the early 1990s, prospered

China and India did not at all ignore the 'orthodoxy', but enacted it and that is credited with their economic expansion. China and India adopted capitalism, opened their markets, and adopted economic fundamentals such as stable monetary policy.

Re: Chinese may take over Mombasa port: Ouko

#213

Post by kolikotime »

kuhhk wrote: post #208
kolikotime wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Invest in African growth businesses(stocks at the moment, African focused mutual markets). Purchase African products. Lobby your government/EU governments to continue AGOA(US)/open the door towards African food/crop imports (unlikely). And honestly, tourism, some great destinations on the continent, and a great way to actually spend in local economies. Africans don't need charity. The NGO industrial complex has faile…

> Africans don't need charity. The NGO industrial complex has failed to create modern states, it can deliver great help to badly affected communities but it can't leapstart growth. Since this is a startup/hacker forum, what do you think about entrepreneurs moving there to not only start a business, while being ethically charitable and involved in the locally community (rather than just being a digital nomad). Would t…

Certain countries are more open to this than others. It'd be tricky to start such a business in West Africa but Kenya in particular is a big tech hub which has quite many Western expats playing a role in it. Kenya would be my pick for where you could do something like that and not be seen as weird/not welcomed.

In other African countries the racial context would prevent it (Southern African countries) or they're more protectionist(Anglophone West African states).

I could also see Uganda and Rwanda also being quite welcoming of such an effort as they're making big moves on trying to grow their tech sectors. The latter two are repressive dictatorships though politically. Economically and socially however the people are largely free. Kenya by comparison is a deeply messy and perhaps perpetually corrupt democracy.

Re: Chinese may take over Mombasa port: Ouko

#214

Post by forapurpose »

marcosdumay wrote: post #171
ejanus wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am an African and I live in West Africa. I think China is doing great job for the continent and it is helping Africa upgrade her infrastructure. But we Africans should know that sustainable development and transfer of technology cannot come if we fail to build our own indigenous peoples and companies. Nobody is father Christmas, everybody is there to maximize his gains. So , we Africans should wake up and take our…

> If we use only Chinese oriented inputs what benefit is their for the local communities and businesses? When you buy a road, you get to transport things; when you buy a port, you get to do long distance trade. That happens even when no local job is created. The benefit is there as long as the loans are for fairly priced infrastructure with real value. People (across the world) suspect this kind of loan because it is…

> Here in Brazil people are starting to open up for the Chinese loans.

I read the opposite. What is that based on?

EDIT: In response to the reply below, a search shows plenty of research out there on this topic. (Sorry, I don't have time to read it myself right now.)

Re: Chinese may take over Mombasa port: Ouko

#215

Post by odiroot »

kingkawn wrote: post #141
kolikotime wrote: post #63

West African American here (Ghanaian - American). This article actually isn't true, while the Kenyan Chinese pact that led to the construction of the Nairobi - Mombasa Port does have clauses related to penalties around lack of payment, there has been no actual announcement or any signs of China declaring possession of the Mombasa Port. In fact, the big issue in Mombasa right now is actually revolving around a Kenyan…

Everyone looking for justifications for anti-Chinese sentiment these days

That's my impression as well.

After visiting China and reading a lot about their society I have to say, I wish our governments cared even 50% about their citizens' security as China does.

And don't even start me on infrastructure and digitalisation.

Re: Chinese may take over Mombasa port: Ouko

#216

Post by odiroot »

lumberjack wrote: post #77
kolikotime wrote: post #63

West African American here (Ghanaian - American). This article actually isn't true, while the Kenyan Chinese pact that led to the construction of the Nairobi - Mombasa Port does have clauses related to penalties around lack of payment, there has been no actual announcement or any signs of China declaring possession of the Mombasa Port. In fact, the big issue in Mombasa right now is actually revolving around a Kenyan…

>Speaking furthermore, I do find it highly concerning just how much of an echo chamber this place is in regards to this notion of "Chinese colonialism" and Chinese "debt - traps". Western media should not be trusted to report accurately about foreign non-western countries. They almost never do.

I would in general start being much more sceptical about Western media (especially Western-EU media). Especially in the last few years (e.g. illegal immigration issue).

Re: Chinese may take over Mombasa port: Ouko

#217

Post by forapurpose »

The amount of propaganda is damaging my experience here. Not unlike Facebook and other platforms, HN seems to resist discussing how its platform is being abused and how it damages user experience; users are forbidden from discussing it publicly (in fact, I hope this comment is on the ok side of the guidelines, as I'm not accusing anyone in particular). I'm confident that HN works on the issue, so perhaps my difficulty is with a lack of transparency (again, similar to Facebook) - we have no idea what is being done; we're in the dark. We can't trust that the content we see is in good faith; it's a constant frustration and struggle to read, and most of my time is spent on noise. Propaganda is the worst content; it's noise to the signal and it's worse than noise because it manipulates HN users; we also now know, if it wasn't clear before, that it's a danger to free, democratic society - which is not something abstract, but something that happens right here on HN.

The pattern I see, so often that it's predictable and a source of frustration: 1. It's easy to stay beneath the moderators' radar by sounding 'reasonable' (in fact, on other topics, that's an explicitly taught strategy to white supremacists [0], it's a well-established technique of propaganda going back decades if not centuries, and I expect that professional astroturfers in any domain have the same skills); 2. the astroturfers almost always appear; I expected to see many pro-China comments appear here, including from purported Kenyans / East Africans (I certainly wouldn't say all are propaganda, but the pattern over many discussions seems clear enough that it's predictable); 3. on issues about which few HN users have knowledge or expertise, such as this one, there aren't even many people who can rebut the astroturfers; it's one-sided.

EDIT: Major revisions; apologies to anyone who read an earlier draft.

[0] ... he presented himself as polite, articulate and interested in cultural politics, and though his views are abhorrent, he stated them all so laconically you might forget that he actually believes in the concept of a white ethnostate. And that’s the point: The genius of the new far right, if we could call it “genius,” has been their steadfast determination to blend into the larger fabric of society to such an extent that perhaps the only way you might see them as a problem is if you actually want to see them at all.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/03/magazine/FBI-charlottesvi...

Re: Chinese may take over Mombasa port: Ouko

#218

Post by joejerryronnie »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #178
maypeacepreva1l wrote: post #31

As with any sales there could be that factor of China trying to sell more of their product/services(just like US does to sell weapons in various nations) but I find it strange that people are trying to politicize it being debt trap and trying to garner sympathy towards the defaulter than towards the victim who didn't get paid.

>> but I find it strange that people are trying to politicize it being debt trap and trying to garner sympathy towards the defaulter than towards the victim who didn't get paid. I find it strange that new accounts are defending China using academic language that is not commonly used in HN discussions. Debt trap explains the victim and defaulter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt-trap_diplomacy

50 cent army.

It’s interesting that HN is showing up on the PRCs radar.

Re: Chinese may take over Mombasa port: Ouko

#219

Post by marcosdumay »

forapurpose wrote: post #214
marcosdumay wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If we use only Chinese oriented inputs what benefit is their for the local communities and businesses? When you buy a road, you get to transport things; when you buy a port, you get to do long distance trade. That happens even when no local job is created. The benefit is there as long as the loans are for fairly priced infrastructure with real value. People (across the world) suspect this kind of loan because it is…

> Here in Brazil people are starting to open up for the Chinese loans. I read the opposite. What is that based on? EDIT: In response to the reply below, a search shows plenty of research out there on this topic. (Sorry, I don't have time to read it myself right now.)

It's based on talking to people and watching them change their opinion though time.

It may be completely off due to sampling bias, but I don't think there is any source out there with better confidence, as I have never seen anybody doing a serious poll of the subject.

EDIT: Well, in reply to your edit, how did you search for that research? All I can see is trash news about some huge investment coming from China to Brazil in the future or how the next Brazilian president is a xenophobe that will reject money from anywhere. I still haven't seen any serious handle of the subject, by researchers or the press.

Re: Chinese may take over Mombasa port: Ouko

#220

Post by AsyncAwait »

simplecomplex wrote: post #204
AsyncAwait wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone on 'the left', the criticism are both of the IMF and the local governments. Pretending however that the IMF does not play a role in many 'misfortunes' is laughable. It is also ignorant to pretend that because Africa has been more or less 'independent' for over 40 years, that the history of colonialism should be discounted as having no effect on the present anymore. This does not mean that the countries the…

And what's the left's proposed solution? More forgiving terms or no money at all available?

Since 'the left' isn't a monolithic entity, it's hard to describe a singular solution that we all agree on, or even name everything off the top of my head, but in my view, a good start would be to stop overthrowing people that do not open markets sufficiently to our interests, try to limit trade in USD/EUR etc. or otherwise do not align with 'our' interests.

More favorable terms would also certainly help, so would actually listening to the local populace, instead of handing money to a corrupt central government. Corruption itself mostly stems from lack of sufficient resources and progression for everybody, which is not helped by pouring more money into the very machine powering it. NGOs can also be incredibly corrupt and wasteful, see Haiti.

Instead of sending in money, fund concrete projects to build infrastructure and provide good paying jobs by having locals build it. Work with local communities to set up small businesses and help them set up networks to export their goods etc.

There's plenty of failures to study from and some successes that need to be expanded. The big problems with such projects tends to be that even when the "grand goal" is good, if you will, locals are not consulted, farmers are displaced etc. which only breeds hatred towards the people telling themselves they're helping.

Stop being arrogant and thinking that we "know better" than the people who actually live in the area. Might be a good starting point.

What is the right's solution? Repeat what was done till now and expect a different result, do not participate at all...?

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