Any reading list I proffer might be accused of bias, your own search is probably best. My admittedly cursory understanding is a sort of asymmetrically beneficial soft debt trap colonisation of resources and services is proceeding throughout the continent. All sprinkled with a few examples the more old fashioned hard colonisation of the whip. Sadly none of it is likely good for Africans, just as what went before. This all may be a simplistic interpretation but I doubt Chinese minds lay awake at night thinking of ways to help Africa. But Western sleep is not much disturbed in this way either.
My admittedly cursory understanding is a sort of asymmetrically beneficial soft debt trap colonisation of resources and services is proceeding throughout the continent.
That’s the propaganda spin, but it’s worse than wrong—it’s unfalsifiable. Any loan given to an African nation for any reason can and will be sold as debt trapping with no falsifiable explanation of what that actually means.
I doubt Chinese minds lay awake at night thinking of ways to help Africa. But Western sleep is not much disturbed in this way either.
Obviously, but China’s interests align with those of African countries somewhat more than those of the West, since the latter wants cheap resources while the former wants middle class markets for its goods. Either way though there’s a far cry between non-altruistic loans and neocolonialism.
I hope you are right, you speak of propaganda and I do wonder if the worst case scenario I am imagining were to be the case then those perpetrating it would wish it not to be widely known and would write papers about how ludicrous the notion of debt trap economics was. I suppose you pay your money and you pick your propaganda. I tend to think the ones walking into another country with a great deal usually wear quite dark hats.
I think you need to do a little more reading.
Got any recommendations?
Any reading list I proffer might be accused of bias, your own search is probably best. My admittedly cursory understanding is a sort of asymmetrically beneficial soft debt trap colonisation of resources and services is proceeding throughout the continent. All sprinkled with a few examples the more old fashioned hard colonisation of the whip. Sadly none of it is likely good for Africans, just as what went before. This all may be a simplistic interpretation but I doubt Chinese minds lay awake at night thinking of ways to help Africa. But Western sleep is not much disturbed in this way either.
That’s the propaganda spin, but it’s worse than wrong—it’s unfalsifiable. Any loan given to an African nation for any reason can and will be sold as debt trapping with no falsifiable explanation of what that actually means.
Obviously, but China’s interests align with those of African countries somewhat more than those of the West, since the latter wants cheap resources while the former wants middle class markets for its goods. Either way though there’s a far cry between non-altruistic loans and neocolonialism.
I hope you are right, you speak of propaganda and I do wonder if the worst case scenario I am imagining were to be the case then those perpetrating it would wish it not to be widely known and would write papers about how ludicrous the notion of debt trap economics was. I suppose you pay your money and you pick your propaganda. I tend to think the ones walking into another country with a great deal usually wear quite dark hats.