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How China's “debt traps” work

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Re: How China's “debt traps” work

#3

It's worth pointing out that debt trap diplomacy was pioneered by the US backed IMF. While China has been exploitative, it goes without saying, that the US has been even moreso.

I wish it got the same attention. I heard only vague rumors about it. You can take this as an open invitation for stories about it.

Re: How China's “debt traps” work

#5

It's worth pointing out that debt trap diplomacy was pioneered by the US backed IMF. While China has been exploitative, it goes without saying, that the US has been even moreso.

Since you went ahead and said what "goes without saying", how about you go further and actually demonstrate/document/prove what you say?

Re: How China's “debt traps” work

#6

It's worth pointing out that debt trap diplomacy was pioneered by the US backed IMF. While China has been exploitative, it goes without saying, that the US has been even moreso.

Any quick sources to back that up? IMF appears to set some conditions to put the economy back on track before lending.

Re: How China's “debt traps” work

#8
post #6

It's worth pointing out that debt trap diplomacy was pioneered by the US backed IMF. While China has been exploitative, it goes without saying, that the US has been even moreso.

Any quick sources to back that up? IMF appears to set some conditions to put the economy back on track before lending.

David Graeber: Oh, absolutely. After all, the alter-globalization movement grew out of a broad global reaction to the Washington consensus, which was never any sort of consensus, but rather, a vision of the world forcibly imposed on the global South through the third world debt crisis. I was involved in “drop the debt” campaigns of various sorts since at least 2000. What got me interested in some of the philosophical issues I ended up ex- ploring in the book was the peculiar moral power of the notion of debts. So many oth- erwise sympathetic people, even when told of the terrible, almost unimaginably inhu- man suffering inflicted on people in the global South because of the depredations of the IMF, would still respond, “well, that’s terrible that so many children died slow and painful deaths, but still—surely one has to pay one’s debts!

https://davidgraeber.org/wp-content/uploads/debts-history-im...

Re: How China's “debt traps” work

#9

It's worth pointing out that debt trap diplomacy was pioneered by the US backed IMF. While China has been exploitative, it goes without saying, that the US has been even moreso.

[flagged]

It expands the discussion to a very relevant area. Speaking as someone highly opposed to China on this front, I did not interpret it as a defense of China.

Re: How China's “debt traps” work

#10
"David Graeber: Oh, absolutely. After all, the alter-globalization movement grew out of a broad global reaction to the Washington consensus, which was never any sort of consensus, but rather, a vision of the world forcibly imposed on the global South through the third world debt crisis. I was involved in “drop the debt” campaigns of various sorts since at least 2000. What got me interested in some of the philosophical issues I ended up ex- ploring in the book was the peculiar moral power of the notion of debts. So many oth- erwise sympathetic people, even when told of the terrible, almost unimaginably inhu- man suffering inflicted on people in the global South because of the depredations of the IMF, would still respond, “well, that’s terrible that so many children died slow and painful deaths, but still—surely one has to pay one’s debts!"

https://davidgraeber.org/wp-content/uploads/debts-history-im...

Edit: responded to dead comment

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