And China gets wide unlimited access to African raw matters for decades, all-you-can-eat style.
This is not a gift; Is African countries receiving something but losing control over their fisheries or wood. And if there is an environmental disaster, bye. The African country will keep the mess.
https://globalvoices.org/2021/06/07/belt-and-road-initiative...
The Nigerian writer Tade Ipadeola wrote on X: "The dust at the Lagos-Ibadan rail station is silica dust. Respirable and a known carcinogen. Every building within 100m of this site is currently covered"
"Jack Straw, remarked that what China was doing in Africa was much the same as what Britain had done 150 years ago.”
Is much better than American Indians receiving crystal bead collars, but the underlying system is the same. Both part benefit, but one benefits much more than the other. Is just a soft type of Early Colonialism, not really different than the European trading companies slowly eating India in the past.
Nobody is forcing Africa to give China access to minerals. China is not coming with guns. African leaders have said multiple times that when they say "no" to China, then China says "okay here's another proposal". They don't return with an army to force you to sign. If African nations signed a bad deal then they ought to take responsibility for that. These are countries that are supposed to be accountable for their own decisions, not toddlers. The onus is on them to do their homework before they enter a deal.
If you dislike the fact that Africa voluntarily makes such business deals with China, then maybe you ought to give Africa better business deals, or perhaps even gifts (as you seem to imply that only gifts are beneficial/valuable).
Unfortunately, western countries are doing neither: they keep lecturing about not working with China while also not providing any alternatives. Why do you think Africa deals with China in the first place? Because dealing with China — even if China's deals are not always problem-free — is still more beneficial than inaction and the status quo! Africa benefits more from having roads, bridges, schools and hospitals than from hoarding minerals.
https://dialogue.earth/en/pollution/741-china-s-environmenta...
The Chinese oil company Sinopec has been charged with mass pollution, dynamiting areas of a National Park in Gabon and carving roads through the forest
According to GlobalTimber.org.uk, China is sourcing huge amounts of wood from forests in Cameroon, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Liberia. What is worrying is the illegal nature of this trade
Half of all wood imported from Cameroon into China is harvested illegally. In Gabon, 70% of wood exports to China are illegal. In Liberia 100% is illegal
The case of Nigeria and its Niger Delta oilfields is well known as an environmental disaster area
Put it another way: if on the whole China's business is not net positive, then why does Africa continue to do business with China? Nothing prevents them from kicking all Chinese companies out. Nothing prevents them from giving fines to companies that violate the law. Nothing prevents them from renegotiating. African leaders have been saying for years that China's contributions are still net positive despite problems existing.
I am puzzled. Why are you still pointing out problems? Why are you ignoring everything else I said? This is so non-constructive. Africa does not need the west to give another lecture (pointing out problems only). It needs the west to walk the talk: instead of smearing, offer Africans a better alternative than both China and inaction. Offer solutions, and actually deliver them.
> doesn't mean that [100%] are representative of the whole
Now stop dodging and answer the other parts. Of is that too uncomfortable?
Frankly it concerns me that so few people know that the global south is rapidly losing trust in the west because of our own hypocritical, politicized, insincere behavior. Western media pretty much never talks about this sort of stuff and so most people are still in lala land.