While we in the West are busy discussing the benefits of globalisation and ways to break up global supply chains, China is busy increasing its global influence. And the way the country does that is through infrastructure investments. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) continues unabated. And if anything, the US-China trade war and the endless negotiations around Brexit have shown the world that when it comes to a being reliable trade partner, China is probably higher up the list than many countries in Europe or North America.
The biggest attraction of BRI is the "no questions asked" policy when it comes to the host nation. Also, pay offs to ensure that financially non viable projects are bid and build - example Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway which is nothing more than a White Elephant whose price shall be paid by the host nations and their citizens.
West cannot and should not compete in similar ways - what China seems to be doing is what Britain did when it first came to India. Start as a business and later start taking over assets (We have seen that in Sri Lanka).
There is a great book that demonstrates this perfectly. It is called the Economic Assassin. This is a path the US walked years ago. They used to fake GDP improvement as tactic to get these countries to take out massive loans. The projects would product lots of profits for the companies (US Before and now Chinese) building this infrastructure. Then the whole thing would fail and not produce the economic outcomes that were promised. Then the country would be impossibly indebted and have policy dictated by outside influences. This is not a new bad that leads to a pot of money at the end of the rainbow. All that happens in Chinese companies make a ton of money and lots of developing world politicians take down and bunch of bribes. The the nations people are left holding the bad. Just high level stealing masked in economic policy. The author of this article is a clown
The biggest attraction of BRI is the "no questions asked" policy when it comes to the host nation. Also, pay offs to ensure that financially non viable projects are bid and build - example Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway which is nothing more than a White Elephant whose price shall be paid by the host nations and their citizens.
West cannot and should not compete in similar ways - what China seems to be doing is what Britain did when it first came to India. Start as a business and later start taking over assets (We have seen that in Sri Lanka).
There is a great book that demonstrates this perfectly. It is called the Economic Assassin. This is a path the US walked years ago. They used to fake GDP improvement as tactic to get these countries to take out massive loans. The projects would product lots of profits for the companies (US Before and now Chinese) building this infrastructure. Then the whole thing would fail and not produce the economic outcomes that were promised. Then the country would be impossibly indebted and have policy dictated by outside influences. This is not a new bad that leads to a pot of money at the end of the rainbow. All that happens in Chinese companies make a ton of money and lots of developing world politicians take down and bunch of bribes. The the nations people are left holding the bad. Just high level stealing masked in economic policy. The author of this article is a clown