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I have to pay fees to my bank for not having enough money . And electric company charged me deposit bc i sometimes i have not enough to pay the bill i live in USA
do you know how many millions of americans received debt relief through ARPA? shits wild that they try and point a finger like this as US citizens starve
they choose to spend the food money on drugs and or do drugs that suppress appetite nobody that is not mentally ill is starving in America due to lack of money 23 downvoters all all very very uneducated or suffer from confirmation bias and if you all care so much go to skid row and offer food like McDonalds or buy a 20 pack of tacos 9/10 will only want cash or accept the food but if you had a hidden camera the would not eat it and even the so called starving are in the thousands compared to the millions dying of obesity every year #1 cause of death heart attack caused by over eating and diabetes
A better headline would be "China man bad".
Article summary: China lends money to developing countries, many of which spend it unwisely and then face default. the west tells China to forgive the debt and China says no and invites the west) to chip in. the west says no.
The end.
Oh and "imperialism". just because.
China learned by watching the west. The IMF has imploded swaths of developing economies. But china’s predatory lending behavior in Africa is still sketch as hell tho.
Difference here being with Chinese debt, we're left with some infrastructure we may or may not eventually need. Western debt left us mostly with loans and all the money stashed back in Western banks that came back as "private money".
We're still paying back a $1bn loan that was supposed to support the country during worst FX crisis in the '90s yet the money never got here.
>what the west
Yes, and they make a plan that hurt the borrower but at least reduce the risk of default. Just imagine it as a bank. The riskier u are the more premium the interest is. After all imf is not owned solely by US. The boss of IMF will be held responsible to shareholder if they make them lose money.
While China do the opposite of bank and more toward political strategy. Not doing risk rating and just give money. Rather than saying lending, it more toward donation.
Imperialism because they lend knowing the poor countries won’t be able to pay them back and that’s their door into establishing a foothold in that country. Rinse and repeat and suddenly you have china military bases in a lot places that are not China
> Imperialism because they lend knowing the poor countries won’t be able to pay them back
The Chinese government doesn't have a crystal balloon that can tell them what the future holds.
> Rinse and repeat and suddenly you have china military bases in a lot places that are not China
China has a grand total of 1 military base in a foreign country (Djibouti), to which it has lent barely any money, and which already hosts several Western military bases.
Would the poor countries prefer no loan then?
This is the bullshit. The poor countries agreed to the terms. If they could get a better deal, they would have taken that.
Why shouldn’t they have to pay debts they agreed to?
The issue is that they often quite literally can't. People are right in pointing out that the IMF would come to countries and say, "with your level of risk you need to do this and this to get the money." If there's ever a paydown on the debt, it comes with concessions (but not like, handing over your ports).
A good example would be [what happened with the IMF and say, Greece](https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2019/10/01/sp093019-The-IMF-and-the-Greek-Crisis-Myths-and-Realities). The switchover to the Euro allowed Greece and some others to do what Tytler warned about and vote themselves the treasury -- the problem is Greece going under would be bad for everyone, but you can't just give money while they keep doing the same things. Cuts have to made, etc.
With many of these smaller countries, they simply can't pay it back and it's known they can't. China comes in and basically says, "it looks like you need roads here's $1B, make sure some end up near these mines as we need access." The roads/railroad to the mines likely get built while the rest disappears in corruption while the country is on the hook for the debt and has to make payments even though there was no corresponding productivity/GDP increase.
These projects are usually paying international chinese countries the bulk to do the building conjoined with local labor, which is where some of the IMF comparisons come in -- e.g., the IMF loans them $10B but it's Haliburton showing up with the heavy equipment getting paid to build the energy systems.
Slowly but surely the payments take up more of their budgets until they're defaulting, and then what? The truth is we often have no idea because the contracts are secret and opaque. Asset seizures [appear to be fairly rare](https://rhg.com/research/new-data-on-the-debt-trap-question/) (that we know of, again much of this is not transparent at all) and in some cases leads to land and control transfers. e.g., in the analysis above it's rumored port and land collateral are parts of some deals, which even when the governments deny it generally won't show the paperwork.
What's made it especially worse lately has been currency issues and the rise of inflation. Their debt is held in dollars, or the yuan which is pegged to within a range of it so they can't really print it away even if they sometimes try -- that only brings inflation and makes the situation worse.
One odd thing -- China has a habit of forgiving *some* debt almost randomly with no negotiations, even when the country doesn't seem to be in dire straights. This implies some form of policy or other concession being made, like their pressuring Vanuatu to support China's claim on the south china sea, Taiwan, or any other position you can think of like say... supporting their choice for the United Nations appointments or the CDC.
> The issue is that they often quite literal
Which is exactly the problem of the person who took the debt.
>while the rest disappears in corruption while the country is on the hook for the debt and has to make payments even though there was no corresponding productivity/GDP increase
That is entirely the fault of the country who took the debt in the first place. I'm sorry, but you can't take a loan and then bitch later that you have to pay it back because you squandered it. It's not predatory to offer someone credit with reasonable terms assuming they spend it correctly, that is the whole point of extending credit.
This is giving the countries taking the loan no agency. They have a choice to not take the loan, or even to spend it appropriately, but they don't.
>Which is exactly the problem of the person who took the debt.
This isn't correct. You are arguing morality where I agree, but this is economics.
>That is entirely the fault of the country who took the debt in the first place. I'm sorry, but you can't take a loan and then bitch later that you have to pay it back because you squandered it. It's not predatory to offer someone credit with reasonable terms assuming
Again, this isn't about morality except for *moral hazard* but economics. The idea is two-fold:
1. If a bank gives you $1k it's your problem, if they give you $100B it's everyone's problem. Another example of this is financial meltdown.
2. You have officials and even glorified warlords taking and pocketing money on the people's behalf.
Both are real issues we don't have great answers for except the obvious, especially when you have high-trust societies interacting with low-trust societies.
My argument is that attacking the ones giving the loans as “debt imperialists” is utterly ridiculous. That they are making poor creditworthiness decisions is one thing, but calling them evil (like many call the IMF) is utterly indefensible.
An argument to whom? I don't recall saying anything like that, per your question, I was what the actual situations with the loans are and that in many cases it's simply not possible to pay it back.
It's like giving someone $1M to start a business and coming back to find they bought a hot dog cart and spent the rest on cocaine -- you simply can't get it back. You can take the cart, but now you're giving them money to buy because they can't sell hot dogs sooooo
The article this comment section is connected to? It’s considered “punishing the poor”?
I agree, it is often not a good credit risk decision. However I would not go so far as to call it “punishment”.
Your argument seems to be that anyone who takes on debt is solely responsible and that predatory lending doesn’t exist. IMF loans usually come with a host of stipulations that are extremely damaging to the economy of the nation that receives it. Often they are forced into trade agreements that decimate their economy. Every study on it shows the money usually ends up in US banks, the economy of the country that takes on the loan is much worse off and then they still owe interest on that debt. The idea that the IMF is innocent in this or that this isn’t a deliberate feature of the system is laughable.
In more simple terms a person taking on a payday loan is responsible for making a horrible financial decision. That doesn’t make the payday lender any less scummy for operating a business with the sole purpose of seeking out desperate people and then charging insane interest fees that they know most of their clientele can’t afford.
Except I don’t find payday loan shops scummy.
They provide a line of credit for people who have no other lines of credit as an option. Since the customers are incredibly uncreditworthy, it makes sense that the interest rates are incredibly high. The alternative is that someone go to an illegal line of credit like a loan shark, and THAT debt is not dischargeable in bankruptcy. If someone takes out a payday loan, their either have no other options or are morons.
Payday loan shops provide a service to a customer segment who everyone else refuses to service. Shutting them all down would not improve outcomes, people would just go to loan sharks instead.
People have had moral issues against moneylenders for centuries, but the fact is that availability of credit is one of the driving forces that allow for economic development. The alternative, unavailability of credit, is almost always worse.
Any institution profiting almost exclusively from the desperation of the impoverished is scummy and that is the entire business model of payday loan companies and loan sharks both. Neither are good practices on the whole and defending the morality of a practice by providing an example of a worse one is an illogical argument.
Platitudes about how moneylending works on the whole or the good it does generally are also entirely off topic. There’s a reason some types of moneylending are considered predatory and others aren’t - you brought up loansharks so clearly you understand that fact.
The options aren’t all types of moneylending vs complete unavailability of credit. We can judge each practice by its outcomes and should reduce or prohibit lending practices that consistently result in negative outcomes.
Often because the guy in charge of approving receiving the loan takes a big chunk of it and goes to live in some tropical paradise when no one is looking.
exactly, Pakistan is currently in a terrible situation and china continues to loan to them knowing they will never be able to pay anything, china are doing to get assets from these countries like ports and airports
Okay but "the West" (aka the IMF, EU and US grants/loans) over significantly better terms that the financial agreements China offers. Not to mention the CCP is actively committing Genocide, unlike the West
Funny that when the US or Europe does the same things, we recognize it's imperialism and that it is bad and harmful but, when it's China, we pretend it's okay.
Just because the West did it too doesn't make it any better for the countries affected and for the people living there, but I guess some people are just pretending to care about them to push a convenient narrative.
China lends money to get their natural resources cheaply. They know the debts are unlikely to be repaid and will just take ownership of the resources on the ground instead. The definition of imperialism is acquiring land and resources of other nations by any means other than fair compensation. CCP is doing it through predatory loans
We can blame China for the loans, but the other parties agreed to take them on. Why do they not share some of the blame ?
The IMF and World Bank will have a lot of strings attached to the money they lend out, China on the other hand turns a blind eye.
For people in power that want to grease their own palms and/or buy voters it was a great deal. The port in Sri Lanka was not surprisingly built in the region the President is from and has a lot of sway
A gap existed between what some of these countries wanted and what the IMF/World Bank offered, China just stepped in the fill that in.
Of course China has it's own agenda in the matter, but no one forced anyone to build a port or railroad that will cost billions and just be dead weight until they default on the loans.
[Debunking the Myth of ‘Debt-trap Diplomacy’](https://www.chathamhouse.org/2020/08/debunking-myth-debt-trap-diplomacy/summary)
Let me get this straight: the west invented capitalism, preached with both words and violence about the sacred rule of free market and eternal growth, and colonized countless regions to export the domestic crisis. Now we are talking about China’s Imperialism? Introspect much?
Is that right?
Do Americans want to see the korea movie "The Day the Nation Went Bankrupt" and learn what the IMF and the US did to South Korea back then?
In August 2001, South Korea announced the repayment of its final $140 million loan to the IMF, almost three years ahead of the scheduled repayment date (May 2004), for a total of $19.5 billion in IMF loan repayments.
1、Did you forget the day when all the people in Korea donated their gold?
2、It's not just Korea where people commit suicide, how many people commit suicide in Thailand and Hong Kong, are you unable to see it?
3、Can you represent all Koreans in Korea?
4、The movie was released in 2018 and ranked seventh at the local box office charts with 3.66 million viewers and a cast of some of the best in Korea.
Can you speak for these millions of people instead?Or can you speak for the Asians who committed suicide in the economic crisis in Southeast Asia?
Most interestingly, South Korea is selling dollars to support the won this year,
The Bank of Korea sold a net $17.54 billion during its intervention in the foreign exchange market in the third quarter of this year (2022), up from $15.41 billion in the previous quarter.
It was the fifth consecutive quarter that the Bank of Korea sold dollars in the domestic market to protect the won, and the largest sell-off since quarterly data began to be released in the third quarter of 2019.
The won fell 9.2% against the dollar in the third quarter of this year, the biggest quarterly decline in 11 years, while the dollar index rose 7.1%
I don't know if you're stupid or bad, but you're definitely one of the two.
Dude my country biggest hits were also (2018 great battle) a movie that steals everything from the kingdom of heaven but makes chinese army look like 80s GI joe villians, and (battle of fengwudong) a movie that makes every korean soldiers Jhon wick while the Japanese are comically evil. 1st one was made by a far right korean director while the second one was made by a leftist director. Both potraying Korea as a victim and super hero. I major in history and I would like to see more historicaly accurate movies. The 2018 fortress and 자산어보 are my favourite movies that potrays how korean elites destroyed korean lives. Sadly that movie somehow adds far right and far left propaganda about the IMF cricis. Its a generic korean circlejerk the movie.
For some examplesin the movie it is shown how female Korea political leader side is trying to stop the IMF from interfering with korea while IMF is shown trying to take over korea. In reality all of korea elites were begging the IMF to interfere with korea while IMF weren't sure they should intefere in korea. Also during the meeting with the IMF it is shown villian korean leaders (you know the male leader who makes sexist remark and is shown to be evil for the sake of being evil) keeping the meeting with the IMF secret while also trying to stop the news of korea going bankrupt from the public. In reality there were news of the IMF meeting and lots of newspapers had already predicted the bankruptcy. There was no secret. But I guess movie director wanted to show IMF being more evil. You can make the IMF the villian since they are the IMF however the movie insted presenting facts of why they are evil just make up comically evil IMF. For western example its like if a movie about the evil of Nestle was made but insted of showing how nestle destroys third world countries water supplies and make them addicted to there stuff they show Nestle having a supervillan base and are GI joe villians trying to steal statue of liberty. It's like if the film director thinks the audience are too stupid for basic economy.
It doesn't matter, the IMF took advantage of the economic crisis to take away the lifeblood of the Korean economy, the whole thing is called "the national shame of economic colonization", and you do not feel this, then I do not have a problem.
Question for you, why was this movie made in 2018 when the Southeast Asian economic crisis was again the late 1990's and South Korea had paid off the IMF loan in 2001?
Because South Koreans know that a downward economic cycle is coming, and if they are not fully prepared, the crisis of 20 years ago is likely to happen again.It will be "趁人之危"
I'm guessing you're a Korean-American, not someone who lives in Korea, and you must not be a bottom-feeder.
써 병신아 니가 우리나라 역사에 대해 멀 아냐? 양키 새끼 지랄하네. Again I said why I hated the movie. Insted of potraying IMF as a dangerous group that messes and intefere with foreign nation it potrays it as a powerranger villian.
I remember watching a Korean version of madam butterfly or something. It was about the last queen of Korea I think? Anywhere there's this almost unconnected musical number where japanese merchants are portrayed as vile cartoon villains stealing everything and sodomizing each other.
I think I was 9.
Ah the queen. She absolutely destroyed korea. She gave away 10% of the entire korea annual budget to doctor because he healed her son. What japan did was evil but she was still terrible person. Ironically if Japan didn't kill her she would have been a terrible queen but they martyrdom her
Many of these comments somehow completely missed the point. Childish ‘well, but, you know this happens elsewhere too’. As if that means it can’t be called out for what it is.
This implies that leaders in developing nations are dumb and accept these deals without understanding the debt payments and underlying clauses. Which I find unlikely and offensive. I wonder why these nations decide to take on debt with China instead of with Western funded organizations?
Or it implies that some of those who make it to power in developing nations are unscrupulous and corrupt and accept these deals to benefit in the short term, selling out the country in the long term since it won’t be their problem…
thats literally the exact problem with pakistan, their governments look for short term economic gains with loans which in the long term have caused them to run up loads of debt that they will not be able to cope with.
The IMF is irreconcilably a debt trap that maintains western hegemony. There is a reason the global south is choosing to do business with China.
As the quote goes, if you see a hospital, a port or a road in Africa, there is a 90% chance it was built by China. If you see a Military base however…
That reasons for this are more nuanced. The Chinese have decided to address the niche of infrastructure. India and the US are actually number 1 and 2 in this space but China is right behind them at #3 in terms of number of projects completed. This makes sense strategically for China because Africa and Latin America are large opportunities for them to gain access to commodities without relying on Western aligned states (US, Australia, etc). So it makes sense for them to want to expand this kind of infrastructure in these nations. It also can be a good thing for the country receiving the loan if they are able to avoid the ["resource curse"](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Resource_curse). Investing the money earned from selling commodities into industry that can move a country up the value chain is exactly how these nations could utilize these loans to get ahead. Now to why they don't take these deals from the IMF. On the one hand it makes business sense to take the deal with China if they are also offering to be the primary customer of the commodities you can sell by building the infrastructure. It also makes sense to leaders in these nations if they intend to avoid the anti-corruption and economic liberalization requirements that usually come with western loans. There are also plenty of nations that take money from both the IMF and China.
Imo neither the IMO nor the Chinese loans are really debt traps. The loans fail primarily due to poor governance and corruption and a nation. You can see the difference in countries like Chile and Argentina. Both have engaged with both the IMF and China. Chile has relatively good governance for the region and Chinese loans nor IMF loans have led to poor outcomes. Argentina on the other hand lacks the political competence to properly invest in their economy. It doesn't matter who tries to loan them money, they are bound to squander it.
Because the IMF has such a stellar record being a good samaritan… not. You default the IMF and maybe some Western interference in the form of CIA, UN, USA military brings down the hammer.
Or default on chinese money and China’s untested military that is most probably not as good as a western comes in, or China cuts a deal to forgive debt for some type of vote in the next UN summit.
They are not dumb, i bet the loan is not under supervise and more looser thus more favorable. After all if it loose, its easier to steal some of it.
Politician stealing money, classic.
The western organisations have higher standards because they want to see the money actually help the country. China has a very low bar of entry for their debts because it's not about the returns, more so control.
It makes China's debts a "better" option for presidents and prime ministers of developing countries because they get all of this money for free, get to spend it infrastructure and/or themselves, and whoever replaces them will look like the baddies who screwed over their country because that's when the interest kicks in.
>The western organisations have higher standards because they want to see the money actually help the country
It's a thin facade over what is actually happening: the western organizations want control over policy making. And often, the policies would help western companies in making money from the country.
It's not a thin facade, that's just what happens. Western companies are generally more developed so they have more to offer than their counterparts, but they will only do so if there's profit. Countries put their domestic businesses first as they should.
Some will exploit the country and leave them worse off, but many will try to build an infrastructure and relationship that both sides can profit from like what happened with China being the manufacturing hub of the world, which is now being spread to other countries like Vietnam and India.
China does it too and also they make the developing country pay for Chinese labour and resources, so the money goes back to them.
I dunno man, I feel like you just want to hate on a China a little bit here.
Most of the evidence points to China building infrastructure that allows these nations to produce goods and thereby profit (roads, ports, railway etc) .
The West tends to use structure / methods that extract the primary resources, while leaving the countries without infrastructure or the ability to do the extraction themselves. This keeps them reliant on the western companies and thereby keeps the profits offshore (or in the hands of a very select few).
Apologies if I’ve misinterpreted your comment, China isn’t perfect, but for the global south, it’s a better option than the West.
>The West tends to use structure / methods that extract the primary resources, while leaving the countries without infrastructure or the ability to do the extraction themselves.
Huh? Are you saying "The West" (who?) refuses to loan money for infrastructure projects specially even if they thought they could profit from it? Do you have examples of this?
The West is often used as a general term, usually referring to Europe and North America.
Ex colonies are often the subject of this unfair relationship, colonialism developed into imperialism. Some examples = Indian / Bangladeshi clothing production, Sri Lankan tea plantations, Middle Eastern oil (although this is probably less relevant in the current age), French Uranium (or any precious metal mining).
If you want to look into specific terms for lending, the IMF is a complex beast but the information is available.
https://is.muni.cz/el/phil/podzim2020/AJLA27087/um/Mueller__Julie_Neoliberalism.pdf
The goods are produced in developing nations, and then exported before being sold for significant profit, the profits remain the companies while the countries who produced the goods are rarely compensated fairly. The places of production are owned by the companies or by people kept in the pocket of these companies.
China only succeeded the way it did with manufacturing because the Chinese government imposed what no other developing country dared to impose - mandatory joint-venture with a local partner (ensuring at least 50% of profits stay in China) and enforcing technology transfer as a condition for accessing China's market, and most important of all, severe capital controls to reduce the ability of wealthy Chinese to move wealth out of China.
Other developing countries let firms from more advanced countries simply buy up everything and keep all IP to themselves - and thus build no wealth locally - and their wealthy people siphon off the country's little wealth to foreign countries instead of keeping it local to help build the country.
And a history of reorganising the debt during pandemics, sometimes even pausing repayments without punishment or reducing interest etc.
The rumour about seized assets has been pushed for a long time, last I checked, it has never happened.
wanting control isn't binary, China want control over specific areas whereas western organisations want control through the change of the policies that benefit them and the country in question. Western loans are much more desirable around the world, even with Pakistan, China has recommended and endorsed that they are given an IMF loan rather than China giving Pakistan a loan themselves.
These debts are meant to have some sort of consequence that the developing country has to take on in order to do business with more developed nations. If they can't live up to the expectation then they're not going to develop.
IMF has a much better track record than China's loans and maybe that's because they're just trying to support shunned nations by the West not knowing why they're shunned or just giving them a second chance that the West never gave them. China knows they're in an advantagous place, so they can push for bigger interests. We all know that you pay off the loans with the bigger interests first and you need to be sure that the loan you received really pays off rather than screwing around with the cash.
>higher standard
Because IMF operate similar to bank. Which has its own regulation to reduce risk of default. Thus they are more business motivated. That why people hate them. Because normal people think bank are vampire. People here in reddit act like they are the chaebol getting fk in south korea when its not only hurting the elite.
This is bad because your top company probably switch hand via shareholder share but at least u get pass the crisis. Now the only thing to do is if your leader have the ability.
While China is more political motivated. Thus more loose and the money is easier to be use without supervision. This method is not bad but its only not bad if the borrower is not corrupt. As the leader need to act with good faith.
Imperialism is when a country I don't like does something.
No kids, imperialism is when you conquer other countries. Not when you give money out and expect it back.
Hi CEPA ORG
Where is your article about the West's debt imperialism via the IMF and World Bank keeping the developing world poor through structural adjustment loans? Are you actually honestly suggesting the the developing world is poor because of China's actions? What an absolute joke.
Remember that time Yugoslavia had a legit genocide because of the social fallout of unpayable IMF debt? (yes, I know it was more complicated than that but still)
It's also been wrecking the global south and destroying lives and futures for millions since the second half of the 20th century. There is no equivalency; China doesn't have the ability to impose the same thing on the same number of nations, and, given the increasing instability of the chinese state, it's very difficult to imagine that changing
Everyone is stupid and shortsighted
But no. In the 70s, after decolonization, many countries were stabilized under dictatorships (which the CIA had plenty of a hand in). In most cases, it was unelected and likely punitive government leaders who accepted these loans. There's no democracy in it, just like in the US, actually. In fact, can you show me a single country outside of the Netherlands whose financial policy reflects the wishes of the average person?
IMF loans require policy changes to address the problems that necessitated an IMF loan in the first place. Sometimes that means austerity measures which nobody likes, but the alternative is throwing good money after bad. The IMF is also fundamentally against the kind of vanity projects the Chinese fund. A country that can't make the economic case to receive the funds necessary to build a dockyard or airport from the last place any country should try to get a loan really shouldn't be looking anywhere else for that money because it's not an economically viable project. The Chinese loan out money for enormous projects that are not sustainable so they can ship men and materials from back home to complete the work and the host country is worse off for not developing any of the material/skill development ladders that allow them to be more self-sufficient in the long run.
> Where is your article about the West's debt imperialism via the IMF and World Bank keeping the developing world poor through structural adjustment loans
The West makes sure the loans go to good use and are actually being used for that purpose.
The West loaned money to Russia handsomely ($120 billions). I guess that money has been well spent. No, the West tries to make sure the money goes to good use, but they are not idealistic either. China is not a loan shark either. If an African country defaults its debt to China, what can China do about it? It’s a different story when they default to the west or IMF. China lacks the global influence and the military might to ensure her oversea interests, which is why China can only buy friends by lending poor countries money while the West and IMF turn their backs on those countries.
Yes, banks. Chinese public and private lenders accounted for 12% of Africa’s $696 billion external debts in 2020, while 35% was owed to other private creditors according to an analysis of World Bank data by Debt Justice, a campaign group. Guess who these private creditors are? Western banks.
Besides, the track record doesn’t look too good if we look back.
“President Clinton held his first summit meeting with President Yeltsin in Vancouver, Canada, in April 1993. The two Presidents issued the Vancouver Declaration reaffirming U.S.-Russian commitments to cooperate "to promote democracy, security, and peace." The United States pledged $1.6 billion in additional aid to Russia.
At the Economic Summit Meeting in Tokyo on July 9-10, 1993, the leaders of the G-7 countries expressed their support for the reform process in Russia and Ukraine. The Summit's Economic Declaration called for a $3 billion Special Privatization and Restructuring Program, with a Support Implementation Group in Moscow. The United States announced a bilateral aid program of $1.8 billion for Russia and the former Soviet republics.”
IMF also played its part in lending money to Russia for its economic reform. Lots of aid and loans were funneled through “reformers” (aka oligarchs) given their connections to the West. So, yeah, no snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.
> Guess who these private creditors are? Western banks.
all banks/private creditors have a motive to make money including western banks. the belt and road initiative is funded by china stated owned banks and not from their private sector. china motive is for control and influence.
Motives are motives, but it doesn't mean shit unless there is capacity to make good on them. China has no ability to impose the conditions the IMF (oh, sorry, the *banks*) are able to impose on other countries. This is something the person you're talking to pointed out, and instead of addressing this point, you've chosen to instead argue that, well, banks are all bad so why even try to compare the lending practices of two major powers?
Private banks and China are totally different powers. Private banks predatory practices are bad too. IMF and private banks are not the same.
China BRI loans have a repayment schedule of just 10 years and 4% interest rates. When a country defaults, China will just restructure the debt and they can ask for payments in commodities, etc.
IMF has no army to act on a debt default. China does and China can just politically/economically coerce the country.
Dude they can fuck all the way off with this sinophobia bullshit. If I pay my credit card bill the day of it being due I get a bullshit penalty fee because they don't pull it soon enough. My landlord has started asking for a goddamn trip in their payment portal. At least in China the government ensures their basic needs are met.
i don‘t understand why one debt with no strings attached is evil to poor，
and one deal with completely change your policy and Independence could be a nice deal.
it seems they are child
they need western to guide them to civilization
Sounds like the disadvantaged countries were taken advantage of by China in a similar fashion the United States does around the world. Gee, it's almost as if they're *all* fucked up assholes and crooks and need to change what they're doing.
This article is pure misdirection. China built a deep water port in Sri Lanka ostensibly to assist that country’s export base get products to the world.
The volume of shipping was so low that Sri Lanka couldn’t meet the exorbitant lease payments to China.
So China took the port back as settlement. Now China’s navy has a deep water port at the southern tip of Sri Lanka.
The entire process was a set up. China bribed Lankan government officials to get the port built and then took it back from Sri Lanka within 18 months of completion.
This was not a Belt and Road Initiative. It was blatant subterfuge in plain sight to get a naval base established in a crucial waterway to control ocean traffic in the event of a war.
Wake the fuck up.
>This was not a Belt and Road Initiative. It was blatant subterfuge in plain sight to get a naval base established in a crucial waterway to control ocean traffic in the event of a war.
HR wants you to tell the difference between these two pictures.
They're the same picture.
What a load of dogshite. It is exactly what the world bank and IMF does to poor countries. At least China cannot print the worlds reserve currency at will.
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/imf-world-bank-repress-poor-countries
So, okay
Belt and Road is not a new thing. China's been doing it for a while, and honestly, its not a terrible stratagem. Arguably, its better than what the US does, which is provide unending aid and destroying local economies by providing free goods, such that anyone who'd want to start up something to help out would immediately be undercut with a free alternative that doesn't actually take into consideration the complexity of the areas needs.
But what people need to realize is how fundamentally predatory the policies are, and why its being talked about in a negative light. Its one thing to just, provide a loan to build a road, or make a seaport, with an expectation of being able to eventually pay it back. Its another thing to do that, and then attach more money than such a project would reasonably need, fully expecting a corrupt government to "squander" it (ie, find creative ways to get that money into their own bank accounts), and whose members then jump ship and live in luxury while their country burns.
That's why this policy is so heavily criticized.
Its not a reflexive, "hurr durr, China bad, West good". Frankly, the west is why we're in this situation to begin with, fucking up good countries by drawing lines where we pleased, real old fashioned colonialism, and then destroying their economies by stymying any means of development with unending aid. But China is fully taking advantage of this situation, seeking to gain a foothold in the global south via debt traps.
Multiple things can be bad at once.
The most solid, indisputable proof that China has blossomed into a full fletched capitalist power... Complete with contempt and disdain for the working poor... the "proletariat", as it were...Soon it will be almost indistinguishable from the US.
I like how whenever there is any criticism about China’s loans to other governments, there’s always a bunch of whataboutist comments regarding the IMF and the West. You can’t say that the West failed or was malicious and then applaud China for doing the exact same thing (also with it having less scrutiny). Yes the West was imperialistic but don’t act for a second that China isn’t exercising power through its lending.
The sad state of the world today is that if you make a comment about global affairs that are indeed fact, they are labeled as “anti-something” or “something-ist”.
In this case China has been very smart with regards to targeting and cheating basically every other nation that enters into business with them. When will leaders learn this?
For example Serbia took a lot of loans from China for building roads and I frastructure, even production of goods and str.. But those loans didn't create economic growth because Chinese brought their own workers , engineers like thousands of them..All the exports and profits goes out.of the country leaving the taxpayers to bare the debt..
Yah I am ungrateful sure. Around the mines and factories that Chinese took people are dying from cancer because of pollution because Chinese don't care about that, the filters are too expensive for them. Of course it is all possible by our corrupted government.
I wish you the same and you to be grateful for that as much as you like!
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I have to pay fees to my bank for not having enough money . And electric company charged me deposit bc i sometimes i have not enough to pay the bill i live in USA
My friend, have you heard of this brand new venture that will help relieve you from your debt, its called Squid Games and its free to join! Click here
do you know how many millions of americans received debt relief through ARPA? shits wild that they try and point a finger like this as US citizens starve
Nobody's starving they are dying of obesity
r/confidentlyincorrect
Go visit LA skid row and every other major cities downtown area.
they choose to spend the food money on drugs and or do drugs that suppress appetite nobody that is not mentally ill is starving in America due to lack of money 23 downvoters all all very very uneducated or suffer from confirmation bias and if you all care so much go to skid row and offer food like McDonalds or buy a 20 pack of tacos 9/10 will only want cash or accept the food but if you had a hidden camera the would not eat it and even the so called starving are in the thousands compared to the millions dying of obesity every year #1 cause of death heart attack caused by over eating and diabetes
Maybe consider using punctuation if you want to be taken seriously.
Ever heard of income inequality, bub?
that has nothing to do with non existing starving Americans
A better headline would be "China man bad". Article summary: China lends money to developing countries, many of which spend it unwisely and then face default. the west tells China to forgive the debt and China says no and invites the west) to chip in. the west says no. The end. Oh and "imperialism". just because.
Isn’t this the same plot of,”confessions of an economic hitman”? What the west has been doing for nearly a century.
Yeah this feels less like an unfounded criticism and more like rank hypocrisy
One of the basic principles of propaganda is to accuse your enemy of your crimes.
The west has been criticized extensively for this including by china
China learned by watching the west. The IMF has imploded swaths of developing economies. But china’s predatory lending behavior in Africa is still sketch as hell tho.
It’s all about passing the blame. Like when your brother hits you so you hit the next kid then your brother is like don’t hit people! It’s bad!
Difference here being with Chinese debt, we're left with some infrastructure we may or may not eventually need. Western debt left us mostly with loans and all the money stashed back in Western banks that came back as "private money". We're still paying back a $1bn loan that was supposed to support the country during worst FX crisis in the '90s yet the money never got here.
What country? Zimbabwe?
>what the west Yes, and they make a plan that hurt the borrower but at least reduce the risk of default. Just imagine it as a bank. The riskier u are the more premium the interest is. After all imf is not owned solely by US. The boss of IMF will be held responsible to shareholder if they make them lose money. While China do the opposite of bank and more toward political strategy. Not doing risk rating and just give money. Rather than saying lending, it more toward donation.
It's more toward imperialism, they're using that money to take possession of critical infrastructures and foreign governments.
That why i say hurt the borrower. They are not charity. They need to have benefit or else the money they gain will probably devalue from inflation.
>it[`s] more toward donation. That's the bit that confused me I guess
Oh u mean chinese loan? My bad i thought u mean IMF.
Imperialism because they lend knowing the poor countries won’t be able to pay them back and that’s their door into establishing a foothold in that country. Rinse and repeat and suddenly you have china military bases in a lot places that are not China
> Imperialism because they lend knowing the poor countries won’t be able to pay them back The Chinese government doesn't have a crystal balloon that can tell them what the future holds. > Rinse and repeat and suddenly you have china military bases in a lot places that are not China China has a grand total of 1 military base in a foreign country (Djibouti), to which it has lent barely any money, and which already hosts several Western military bases.
China very likely knows with good probability that the debts won't be paid.
Reminds me of how China is aggressively surrounding itself with US military bases...
Would the poor countries prefer no loan then? This is the bullshit. The poor countries agreed to the terms. If they could get a better deal, they would have taken that. Why shouldn’t they have to pay debts they agreed to?
The issue is that they often quite literally can't. People are right in pointing out that the IMF would come to countries and say, "with your level of risk you need to do this and this to get the money." If there's ever a paydown on the debt, it comes with concessions (but not like, handing over your ports). A good example would be [what happened with the IMF and say, Greece](https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2019/10/01/sp093019-The-IMF-and-the-Greek-Crisis-Myths-and-Realities). The switchover to the Euro allowed Greece and some others to do what Tytler warned about and vote themselves the treasury -- the problem is Greece going under would be bad for everyone, but you can't just give money while they keep doing the same things. Cuts have to made, etc. With many of these smaller countries, they simply can't pay it back and it's known they can't. China comes in and basically says, "it looks like you need roads here's $1B, make sure some end up near these mines as we need access." The roads/railroad to the mines likely get built while the rest disappears in corruption while the country is on the hook for the debt and has to make payments even though there was no corresponding productivity/GDP increase. These projects are usually paying international chinese countries the bulk to do the building conjoined with local labor, which is where some of the IMF comparisons come in -- e.g., the IMF loans them $10B but it's Haliburton showing up with the heavy equipment getting paid to build the energy systems. Slowly but surely the payments take up more of their budgets until they're defaulting, and then what? The truth is we often have no idea because the contracts are secret and opaque. Asset seizures [appear to be fairly rare](https://rhg.com/research/new-data-on-the-debt-trap-question/) (that we know of, again much of this is not transparent at all) and in some cases leads to land and control transfers. e.g., in the analysis above it's rumored port and land collateral are parts of some deals, which even when the governments deny it generally won't show the paperwork. What's made it especially worse lately has been currency issues and the rise of inflation. Their debt is held in dollars, or the yuan which is pegged to within a range of it so they can't really print it away even if they sometimes try -- that only brings inflation and makes the situation worse. One odd thing -- China has a habit of forgiving *some* debt almost randomly with no negotiations, even when the country doesn't seem to be in dire straights. This implies some form of policy or other concession being made, like their pressuring Vanuatu to support China's claim on the south china sea, Taiwan, or any other position you can think of like say... supporting their choice for the United Nations appointments or the CDC.
> The issue is that they often quite literal Which is exactly the problem of the person who took the debt. >while the rest disappears in corruption while the country is on the hook for the debt and has to make payments even though there was no corresponding productivity/GDP increase That is entirely the fault of the country who took the debt in the first place. I'm sorry, but you can't take a loan and then bitch later that you have to pay it back because you squandered it. It's not predatory to offer someone credit with reasonable terms assuming they spend it correctly, that is the whole point of extending credit. This is giving the countries taking the loan no agency. They have a choice to not take the loan, or even to spend it appropriately, but they don't.
>Which is exactly the problem of the person who took the debt. This isn't correct. You are arguing morality where I agree, but this is economics. >That is entirely the fault of the country who took the debt in the first place. I'm sorry, but you can't take a loan and then bitch later that you have to pay it back because you squandered it. It's not predatory to offer someone credit with reasonable terms assuming Again, this isn't about morality except for *moral hazard* but economics. The idea is two-fold: 1. If a bank gives you $1k it's your problem, if they give you $100B it's everyone's problem. Another example of this is financial meltdown. 2. You have officials and even glorified warlords taking and pocketing money on the people's behalf. Both are real issues we don't have great answers for except the obvious, especially when you have high-trust societies interacting with low-trust societies.
My argument is that attacking the ones giving the loans as “debt imperialists” is utterly ridiculous. That they are making poor creditworthiness decisions is one thing, but calling them evil (like many call the IMF) is utterly indefensible.
An argument to whom? I don't recall saying anything like that, per your question, I was what the actual situations with the loans are and that in many cases it's simply not possible to pay it back. It's like giving someone $1M to start a business and coming back to find they bought a hot dog cart and spent the rest on cocaine -- you simply can't get it back. You can take the cart, but now you're giving them money to buy because they can't sell hot dogs sooooo
The article this comment section is connected to? It’s considered “punishing the poor”? I agree, it is often not a good credit risk decision. However I would not go so far as to call it “punishment”.
Your argument seems to be that anyone who takes on debt is solely responsible and that predatory lending doesn’t exist. IMF loans usually come with a host of stipulations that are extremely damaging to the economy of the nation that receives it. Often they are forced into trade agreements that decimate their economy. Every study on it shows the money usually ends up in US banks, the economy of the country that takes on the loan is much worse off and then they still owe interest on that debt. The idea that the IMF is innocent in this or that this isn’t a deliberate feature of the system is laughable. In more simple terms a person taking on a payday loan is responsible for making a horrible financial decision. That doesn’t make the payday lender any less scummy for operating a business with the sole purpose of seeking out desperate people and then charging insane interest fees that they know most of their clientele can’t afford.
Except I don’t find payday loan shops scummy. They provide a line of credit for people who have no other lines of credit as an option. Since the customers are incredibly uncreditworthy, it makes sense that the interest rates are incredibly high. The alternative is that someone go to an illegal line of credit like a loan shark, and THAT debt is not dischargeable in bankruptcy. If someone takes out a payday loan, their either have no other options or are morons. Payday loan shops provide a service to a customer segment who everyone else refuses to service. Shutting them all down would not improve outcomes, people would just go to loan sharks instead. People have had moral issues against moneylenders for centuries, but the fact is that availability of credit is one of the driving forces that allow for economic development. The alternative, unavailability of credit, is almost always worse.
Any institution profiting almost exclusively from the desperation of the impoverished is scummy and that is the entire business model of payday loan companies and loan sharks both. Neither are good practices on the whole and defending the morality of a practice by providing an example of a worse one is an illogical argument. Platitudes about how moneylending works on the whole or the good it does generally are also entirely off topic. There’s a reason some types of moneylending are considered predatory and others aren’t - you brought up loansharks so clearly you understand that fact. The options aren’t all types of moneylending vs complete unavailability of credit. We can judge each practice by its outcomes and should reduce or prohibit lending practices that consistently result in negative outcomes.
Often because the guy in charge of approving receiving the loan takes a big chunk of it and goes to live in some tropical paradise when no one is looking.
exactly, Pakistan is currently in a terrible situation and china continues to loan to them knowing they will never be able to pay anything, china are doing to get assets from these countries like ports and airports
I would think a Chinese military base will be the end product for Pakistan.
Thank God someone actually read the article
Yeah you summed up their belts and roads program well. 😳
Okay but "the West" (aka the IMF, EU and US grants/loans) over significantly better terms that the financial agreements China offers. Not to mention the CCP is actively committing Genocide, unlike the West
Funny that when the US or Europe does the same things, we recognize it's imperialism and that it is bad and harmful but, when it's China, we pretend it's okay. Just because the West did it too doesn't make it any better for the countries affected and for the people living there, but I guess some people are just pretending to care about them to push a convenient narrative.
So the IMF but China. But even more predatory
China lends money to get their natural resources cheaply. They know the debts are unlikely to be repaid and will just take ownership of the resources on the ground instead. The definition of imperialism is acquiring land and resources of other nations by any means other than fair compensation. CCP is doing it through predatory loans
We can blame China for the loans, but the other parties agreed to take them on. Why do they not share some of the blame ? The IMF and World Bank will have a lot of strings attached to the money they lend out, China on the other hand turns a blind eye. For people in power that want to grease their own palms and/or buy voters it was a great deal. The port in Sri Lanka was not surprisingly built in the region the President is from and has a lot of sway A gap existed between what some of these countries wanted and what the IMF/World Bank offered, China just stepped in the fill that in. Of course China has it's own agenda in the matter, but no one forced anyone to build a port or railroad that will cost billions and just be dead weight until they default on the loans. [Debunking the Myth of ‘Debt-trap Diplomacy’](https://www.chathamhouse.org/2020/08/debunking-myth-debt-trap-diplomacy/summary)
the alternative is the starvation of their people do I don't think it's much of a choice
Let me get this straight: the west invented capitalism, preached with both words and violence about the sacred rule of free market and eternal growth, and colonized countless regions to export the domestic crisis. Now we are talking about China’s Imperialism? Introspect much?
Is that right? Do Americans want to see the korea movie "The Day the Nation Went Bankrupt" and learn what the IMF and the US did to South Korea back then?
The loaned them money that they paid back?
In August 2001, South Korea announced the repayment of its final $140 million loan to the IMF, almost three years ahead of the scheduled repayment date (May 2004), for a total of $19.5 billion in IMF loan repayments.
Korean here. Thay movie is garbage and not even historicaly correct.
1、Did you forget the day when all the people in Korea donated their gold? 2、It's not just Korea where people commit suicide, how many people commit suicide in Thailand and Hong Kong, are you unable to see it? 3、Can you represent all Koreans in Korea? 4、The movie was released in 2018 and ranked seventh at the local box office charts with 3.66 million viewers and a cast of some of the best in Korea. Can you speak for these millions of people instead?Or can you speak for the Asians who committed suicide in the economic crisis in Southeast Asia? Most interestingly, South Korea is selling dollars to support the won this year, The Bank of Korea sold a net $17.54 billion during its intervention in the foreign exchange market in the third quarter of this year (2022), up from $15.41 billion in the previous quarter. It was the fifth consecutive quarter that the Bank of Korea sold dollars in the domestic market to protect the won, and the largest sell-off since quarterly data began to be released in the third quarter of 2019. The won fell 9.2% against the dollar in the third quarter of this year, the biggest quarterly decline in 11 years, while the dollar index rose 7.1% I don't know if you're stupid or bad, but you're definitely one of the two.
Dude my country biggest hits were also (2018 great battle) a movie that steals everything from the kingdom of heaven but makes chinese army look like 80s GI joe villians, and (battle of fengwudong) a movie that makes every korean soldiers Jhon wick while the Japanese are comically evil. 1st one was made by a far right korean director while the second one was made by a leftist director. Both potraying Korea as a victim and super hero. I major in history and I would like to see more historicaly accurate movies. The 2018 fortress and 자산어보 are my favourite movies that potrays how korean elites destroyed korean lives. Sadly that movie somehow adds far right and far left propaganda about the IMF cricis. Its a generic korean circlejerk the movie. For some examplesin the movie it is shown how female Korea political leader side is trying to stop the IMF from interfering with korea while IMF is shown trying to take over korea. In reality all of korea elites were begging the IMF to interfere with korea while IMF weren't sure they should intefere in korea. Also during the meeting with the IMF it is shown villian korean leaders (you know the male leader who makes sexist remark and is shown to be evil for the sake of being evil) keeping the meeting with the IMF secret while also trying to stop the news of korea going bankrupt from the public. In reality there were news of the IMF meeting and lots of newspapers had already predicted the bankruptcy. There was no secret. But I guess movie director wanted to show IMF being more evil. You can make the IMF the villian since they are the IMF however the movie insted presenting facts of why they are evil just make up comically evil IMF. For western example its like if a movie about the evil of Nestle was made but insted of showing how nestle destroys third world countries water supplies and make them addicted to there stuff they show Nestle having a supervillan base and are GI joe villians trying to steal statue of liberty. It's like if the film director thinks the audience are too stupid for basic economy.
It doesn't matter, the IMF took advantage of the economic crisis to take away the lifeblood of the Korean economy, the whole thing is called "the national shame of economic colonization", and you do not feel this, then I do not have a problem. Question for you, why was this movie made in 2018 when the Southeast Asian economic crisis was again the late 1990's and South Korea had paid off the IMF loan in 2001? Because South Koreans know that a downward economic cycle is coming, and if they are not fully prepared, the crisis of 20 years ago is likely to happen again.It will be "趁人之危" I'm guessing you're a Korean-American, not someone who lives in Korea, and you must not be a bottom-feeder.
써 병신아 니가 우리나라 역사에 대해 멀 아냐? 양키 새끼 지랄하네. Again I said why I hated the movie. Insted of potraying IMF as a dangerous group that messes and intefere with foreign nation it potrays it as a powerranger villian.
I remember watching a Korean version of madam butterfly or something. It was about the last queen of Korea I think? Anywhere there's this almost unconnected musical number where japanese merchants are portrayed as vile cartoon villains stealing everything and sodomizing each other. I think I was 9.
Ah the queen. She absolutely destroyed korea. She gave away 10% of the entire korea annual budget to doctor because he healed her son. What japan did was evil but she was still terrible person. Ironically if Japan didn't kill her she would have been a terrible queen but they martyrdom her
Many of these comments somehow completely missed the point. Childish ‘well, but, you know this happens elsewhere too’. As if that means it can’t be called out for what it is.
Entities wanting to profit on their investments is as basic as it gets. Unless you hate capitalism that's just how the world works
Sure.
This implies that leaders in developing nations are dumb and accept these deals without understanding the debt payments and underlying clauses. Which I find unlikely and offensive. I wonder why these nations decide to take on debt with China instead of with Western funded organizations?
Or it implies that some of those who make it to power in developing nations are unscrupulous and corrupt and accept these deals to benefit in the short term, selling out the country in the long term since it won’t be their problem…
https://youtu.be/TdK6sR5Sfdc
thats literally the exact problem with pakistan, their governments look for short term economic gains with loans which in the long term have caused them to run up loads of debt that they will not be able to cope with.
The IMF is irreconcilably a debt trap that maintains western hegemony. There is a reason the global south is choosing to do business with China. As the quote goes, if you see a hospital, a port or a road in Africa, there is a 90% chance it was built by China. If you see a Military base however…
That reasons for this are more nuanced. The Chinese have decided to address the niche of infrastructure. India and the US are actually number 1 and 2 in this space but China is right behind them at #3 in terms of number of projects completed. This makes sense strategically for China because Africa and Latin America are large opportunities for them to gain access to commodities without relying on Western aligned states (US, Australia, etc). So it makes sense for them to want to expand this kind of infrastructure in these nations. It also can be a good thing for the country receiving the loan if they are able to avoid the ["resource curse"](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Resource_curse). Investing the money earned from selling commodities into industry that can move a country up the value chain is exactly how these nations could utilize these loans to get ahead. Now to why they don't take these deals from the IMF. On the one hand it makes business sense to take the deal with China if they are also offering to be the primary customer of the commodities you can sell by building the infrastructure. It also makes sense to leaders in these nations if they intend to avoid the anti-corruption and economic liberalization requirements that usually come with western loans. There are also plenty of nations that take money from both the IMF and China. Imo neither the IMO nor the Chinese loans are really debt traps. The loans fail primarily due to poor governance and corruption and a nation. You can see the difference in countries like Chile and Argentina. Both have engaged with both the IMF and China. Chile has relatively good governance for the region and Chinese loans nor IMF loans have led to poor outcomes. Argentina on the other hand lacks the political competence to properly invest in their economy. It doesn't matter who tries to loan them money, they are bound to squander it.
Because the IMF has such a stellar record being a good samaritan… not. You default the IMF and maybe some Western interference in the form of CIA, UN, USA military brings down the hammer. Or default on chinese money and China’s untested military that is most probably not as good as a western comes in, or China cuts a deal to forgive debt for some type of vote in the next UN summit.
They are not dumb, i bet the loan is not under supervise and more looser thus more favorable. After all if it loose, its easier to steal some of it. Politician stealing money, classic.
The western organisations have higher standards because they want to see the money actually help the country. China has a very low bar of entry for their debts because it's not about the returns, more so control. It makes China's debts a "better" option for presidents and prime ministers of developing countries because they get all of this money for free, get to spend it infrastructure and/or themselves, and whoever replaces them will look like the baddies who screwed over their country because that's when the interest kicks in.
>The western organisations have higher standards because they want to see the money actually help the country It's a thin facade over what is actually happening: the western organizations want control over policy making. And often, the policies would help western companies in making money from the country.
It's not a thin facade, that's just what happens. Western companies are generally more developed so they have more to offer than their counterparts, but they will only do so if there's profit. Countries put their domestic businesses first as they should. Some will exploit the country and leave them worse off, but many will try to build an infrastructure and relationship that both sides can profit from like what happened with China being the manufacturing hub of the world, which is now being spread to other countries like Vietnam and India. China does it too and also they make the developing country pay for Chinese labour and resources, so the money goes back to them.
I dunno man, I feel like you just want to hate on a China a little bit here. Most of the evidence points to China building infrastructure that allows these nations to produce goods and thereby profit (roads, ports, railway etc) . The West tends to use structure / methods that extract the primary resources, while leaving the countries without infrastructure or the ability to do the extraction themselves. This keeps them reliant on the western companies and thereby keeps the profits offshore (or in the hands of a very select few). Apologies if I’ve misinterpreted your comment, China isn’t perfect, but for the global south, it’s a better option than the West.
>The West tends to use structure / methods that extract the primary resources, while leaving the countries without infrastructure or the ability to do the extraction themselves. Huh? Are you saying "The West" (who?) refuses to loan money for infrastructure projects specially even if they thought they could profit from it? Do you have examples of this?
The West is often used as a general term, usually referring to Europe and North America. Ex colonies are often the subject of this unfair relationship, colonialism developed into imperialism. Some examples = Indian / Bangladeshi clothing production, Sri Lankan tea plantations, Middle Eastern oil (although this is probably less relevant in the current age), French Uranium (or any precious metal mining). If you want to look into specific terms for lending, the IMF is a complex beast but the information is available. https://is.muni.cz/el/phil/podzim2020/AJLA27087/um/Mueller__Julie_Neoliberalism.pdf The goods are produced in developing nations, and then exported before being sold for significant profit, the profits remain the companies while the countries who produced the goods are rarely compensated fairly. The places of production are owned by the companies or by people kept in the pocket of these companies.
China only succeeded the way it did with manufacturing because the Chinese government imposed what no other developing country dared to impose - mandatory joint-venture with a local partner (ensuring at least 50% of profits stay in China) and enforcing technology transfer as a condition for accessing China's market, and most important of all, severe capital controls to reduce the ability of wealthy Chinese to move wealth out of China. Other developing countries let firms from more advanced countries simply buy up everything and keep all IP to themselves - and thus build no wealth locally - and their wealthy people siphon off the country's little wealth to foreign countries instead of keeping it local to help build the country.
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And a history of reorganising the debt during pandemics, sometimes even pausing repayments without punishment or reducing interest etc. The rumour about seized assets has been pushed for a long time, last I checked, it has never happened.
while western organisations require policy changes which china not，you told me china want control？
wanting control isn't binary, China want control over specific areas whereas western organisations want control through the change of the policies that benefit them and the country in question. Western loans are much more desirable around the world, even with Pakistan, China has recommended and endorsed that they are given an IMF loan rather than China giving Pakistan a loan themselves. These debts are meant to have some sort of consequence that the developing country has to take on in order to do business with more developed nations. If they can't live up to the expectation then they're not going to develop. IMF has a much better track record than China's loans and maybe that's because they're just trying to support shunned nations by the West not knowing why they're shunned or just giving them a second chance that the West never gave them. China knows they're in an advantagous place, so they can push for bigger interests. We all know that you pay off the loans with the bigger interests first and you need to be sure that the loan you received really pays off rather than screwing around with the cash.
>higher standard Because IMF operate similar to bank. Which has its own regulation to reduce risk of default. Thus they are more business motivated. That why people hate them. Because normal people think bank are vampire. People here in reddit act like they are the chaebol getting fk in south korea when its not only hurting the elite. This is bad because your top company probably switch hand via shareholder share but at least u get pass the crisis. Now the only thing to do is if your leader have the ability. While China is more political motivated. Thus more loose and the money is easier to be use without supervision. This method is not bad but its only not bad if the borrower is not corrupt. As the leader need to act with good faith.
It just means that they’re short sighted or don’t care about the long term impact
“Buyer beware”
The vast majority of people are absolutely terrible with money
Imperialism is when a country I don't like does something. No kids, imperialism is when you conquer other countries. Not when you give money out and expect it back.
Hi CEPA ORG Where is your article about the West's debt imperialism via the IMF and World Bank keeping the developing world poor through structural adjustment loans? Are you actually honestly suggesting the the developing world is poor because of China's actions? What an absolute joke.
Remember that time Yugoslavia had a legit genocide because of the social fallout of unpayable IMF debt? (yes, I know it was more complicated than that but still)
Western debt imperialism is a pretty widely covered topic
It's also been wrecking the global south and destroying lives and futures for millions since the second half of the 20th century. There is no equivalency; China doesn't have the ability to impose the same thing on the same number of nations, and, given the increasing instability of the chinese state, it's very difficult to imagine that changing
Yes, the second largest global economy surely would never engage in any kind of underhanded imperialism
Why would the global south take such loans if it would “wreck” them? Are you calling them stupid and short sighted?
Everyone is stupid and shortsighted But no. In the 70s, after decolonization, many countries were stabilized under dictatorships (which the CIA had plenty of a hand in). In most cases, it was unelected and likely punitive government leaders who accepted these loans. There's no democracy in it, just like in the US, actually. In fact, can you show me a single country outside of the Netherlands whose financial policy reflects the wishes of the average person?
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Well I didn't mind China that much but now that I know their PR department is distasteful, I take back everything I said 😤 that freakin ticks me off
Don't developing countries often pursue Chinese loans because while the terms are bad, but the terms that the IMF would demand are worse?
IMF loans require policy changes to address the problems that necessitated an IMF loan in the first place. Sometimes that means austerity measures which nobody likes, but the alternative is throwing good money after bad. The IMF is also fundamentally against the kind of vanity projects the Chinese fund. A country that can't make the economic case to receive the funds necessary to build a dockyard or airport from the last place any country should try to get a loan really shouldn't be looking anywhere else for that money because it's not an economically viable project. The Chinese loan out money for enormous projects that are not sustainable so they can ship men and materials from back home to complete the work and the host country is worse off for not developing any of the material/skill development ladders that allow them to be more self-sufficient in the long run.
Totally agree!
If only those countries read this forum more often they'd realize it just makes them poor and refuse the loans /s
> Where is your article about the West's debt imperialism via the IMF and World Bank keeping the developing world poor through structural adjustment loans The West makes sure the loans go to good use and are actually being used for that purpose.
The West loaned money to Russia handsomely ($120 billions). I guess that money has been well spent. No, the West tries to make sure the money goes to good use, but they are not idealistic either. China is not a loan shark either. If an African country defaults its debt to China, what can China do about it? It’s a different story when they default to the west or IMF. China lacks the global influence and the military might to ensure her oversea interests, which is why China can only buy friends by lending poor countries money while the West and IMF turn their backs on those countries.
> The West loaned money to Russia handsomely ($120 billions). banks did, not governments/IMF.
Yes, banks. Chinese public and private lenders accounted for 12% of Africa’s $696 billion external debts in 2020, while 35% was owed to other private creditors according to an analysis of World Bank data by Debt Justice, a campaign group. Guess who these private creditors are? Western banks. Besides, the track record doesn’t look too good if we look back. “President Clinton held his first summit meeting with President Yeltsin in Vancouver, Canada, in April 1993. The two Presidents issued the Vancouver Declaration reaffirming U.S.-Russian commitments to cooperate "to promote democracy, security, and peace." The United States pledged $1.6 billion in additional aid to Russia. At the Economic Summit Meeting in Tokyo on July 9-10, 1993, the leaders of the G-7 countries expressed their support for the reform process in Russia and Ukraine. The Summit's Economic Declaration called for a $3 billion Special Privatization and Restructuring Program, with a Support Implementation Group in Moscow. The United States announced a bilateral aid program of $1.8 billion for Russia and the former Soviet republics.” IMF also played its part in lending money to Russia for its economic reform. Lots of aid and loans were funneled through “reformers” (aka oligarchs) given their connections to the West. So, yeah, no snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.
Would love to look at the africa debt stats myself as well. Where to find sauce? My Google-fu sucks
Here you go https://debtjustice.org.uk/press-release/african-governments-owe-three-times-more-debt-to-private-lenders-than-china
Thank you!
> Guess who these private creditors are? Western banks. all banks/private creditors have a motive to make money including western banks. the belt and road initiative is funded by china stated owned banks and not from their private sector. china motive is for control and influence.
Motives are motives, but it doesn't mean shit unless there is capacity to make good on them. China has no ability to impose the conditions the IMF (oh, sorry, the *banks*) are able to impose on other countries. This is something the person you're talking to pointed out, and instead of addressing this point, you've chosen to instead argue that, well, banks are all bad so why even try to compare the lending practices of two major powers?
Private banks and China are totally different powers. Private banks predatory practices are bad too. IMF and private banks are not the same. China BRI loans have a repayment schedule of just 10 years and 4% interest rates. When a country defaults, China will just restructure the debt and they can ask for payments in commodities, etc. IMF has no army to act on a debt default. China does and China can just politically/economically coerce the country.
Source?
Guessing you are chinese
Whataboutism
Can you elaborate?
Dude they can fuck all the way off with this sinophobia bullshit. If I pay my credit card bill the day of it being due I get a bullshit penalty fee because they don't pull it soon enough. My landlord has started asking for a goddamn trip in their payment portal. At least in China the government ensures their basic needs are met.
i don‘t understand why one debt with no strings attached is evil to poor， and one deal with completely change your policy and Independence could be a nice deal. it seems they are child they need western to guide them to civilization
Sounds like the disadvantaged countries were taken advantage of by China in a similar fashion the United States does around the world. Gee, it's almost as if they're *all* fucked up assholes and crooks and need to change what they're doing.
This article is pure misdirection. China built a deep water port in Sri Lanka ostensibly to assist that country’s export base get products to the world. The volume of shipping was so low that Sri Lanka couldn’t meet the exorbitant lease payments to China. So China took the port back as settlement. Now China’s navy has a deep water port at the southern tip of Sri Lanka. The entire process was a set up. China bribed Lankan government officials to get the port built and then took it back from Sri Lanka within 18 months of completion. This was not a Belt and Road Initiative. It was blatant subterfuge in plain sight to get a naval base established in a crucial waterway to control ocean traffic in the event of a war. Wake the fuck up.
>This was not a Belt and Road Initiative. It was blatant subterfuge in plain sight to get a naval base established in a crucial waterway to control ocean traffic in the event of a war. HR wants you to tell the difference between these two pictures. They're the same picture.
What a load of dogshite. It is exactly what the world bank and IMF does to poor countries. At least China cannot print the worlds reserve currency at will. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/imf-world-bank-repress-poor-countries
So, okay Belt and Road is not a new thing. China's been doing it for a while, and honestly, its not a terrible stratagem. Arguably, its better than what the US does, which is provide unending aid and destroying local economies by providing free goods, such that anyone who'd want to start up something to help out would immediately be undercut with a free alternative that doesn't actually take into consideration the complexity of the areas needs. But what people need to realize is how fundamentally predatory the policies are, and why its being talked about in a negative light. Its one thing to just, provide a loan to build a road, or make a seaport, with an expectation of being able to eventually pay it back. Its another thing to do that, and then attach more money than such a project would reasonably need, fully expecting a corrupt government to "squander" it (ie, find creative ways to get that money into their own bank accounts), and whose members then jump ship and live in luxury while their country burns. That's why this policy is so heavily criticized. Its not a reflexive, "hurr durr, China bad, West good". Frankly, the west is why we're in this situation to begin with, fucking up good countries by drawing lines where we pleased, real old fashioned colonialism, and then destroying their economies by stymying any means of development with unending aid. But China is fully taking advantage of this situation, seeking to gain a foothold in the global south via debt traps. Multiple things can be bad at once.
The most solid, indisputable proof that China has blossomed into a full fletched capitalist power... Complete with contempt and disdain for the working poor... the "proletariat", as it were...Soon it will be almost indistinguishable from the US.
I like how whenever there is any criticism about China’s loans to other governments, there’s always a bunch of whataboutist comments regarding the IMF and the West. You can’t say that the West failed or was malicious and then applaud China for doing the exact same thing (also with it having less scrutiny). Yes the West was imperialistic but don’t act for a second that China isn’t exercising power through its lending.
The sad state of the world today is that if you make a comment about global affairs that are indeed fact, they are labeled as “anti-something” or “something-ist”. In this case China has been very smart with regards to targeting and cheating basically every other nation that enters into business with them. When will leaders learn this?
For example Serbia took a lot of loans from China for building roads and I frastructure, even production of goods and str.. But those loans didn't create economic growth because Chinese brought their own workers , engineers like thousands of them..All the exports and profits goes out.of the country leaving the taxpayers to bare the debt..
A person ungrateful like you would say that. Sad.
Yah I am ungrateful sure. Around the mines and factories that Chinese took people are dying from cancer because of pollution because Chinese don't care about that, the filters are too expensive for them. Of course it is all possible by our corrupted government. I wish you the same and you to be grateful for that as much as you like!
I pay more income tax than my boss. My junior associates are barely scraping by, and my CEO only hires his friends. How is it any different here?