I think so. The Chinese are pragmatists-they go to a sub-saharan African country, and say (in effect): “we will build a road/railroad, fix the electric grid, and build schools and hospitals. In return, we will export the raw materials to China, and pay you a fair price”.
They don’t get involved in lecturing the Africans about human rights, and don’t poke their noses into the government.
This approach provides cash flow to the country, paid jobs, and infrastructure improvements.
It can be argued that the Chinese are exploiting these places, but are they? If no one else is wiling to invest in these places, at least the Chinese are.
Contrast that with the West-we give despotic regimes piles of cash (“foreign aid”)-most of which winds up in Swiss banks. We then interfere in the internal politics, and attempt to influence these governments.
Are the Chinese right?
Sure, why not?
Um, sure, why not?
Just kidding. You make some very good points: fact is, we live in a US-centric “bubble” where, in mainstream conversation, only the US can do right and CHina is always wrong.
http://www.economichitman.com/ Read the Confessions of an Economic Hitman" to see how we do it. The Chinese are much nicer than we are.
Why are you assuming those are the only 2 options? India and Brazil do a lot of trading with China aside from the US.
Option 1: We build infrastructure and create jobs
Option 2: We uphold corrupt dictatorships
Where’d you get the idea those are the only 2 options?
This article may be of interest to you:
Africans are asking whether China is making their lunch or eating it
I’ve seen first hand how Chinese companies will send their shoddier products to Africa and the Middle East, the corruption present in business there, and I’ve talked to Chinese who worked in Kenya about how things are changing. But it’s not all bad, Chinese men are marrying African women more and more frequently.
China also upholds dictatorships, providing aid to Mugabe and al-Bashir among others.
I’m waiting for even sven to come in this thread, but until then, I’ll just say that if China’s way is really better than ours, that would be more of a reflection of how bad we are than how good China is.
Wouldn’t it depend on what your priorities are?
For the US, the priority seems to be a friendly government
For the Chinese, the priority seems to be money
Decide which one you think is more important and base your economic model on that
The shoddier products are worse than poisoned pet food, kids toys with lead paint and the poisonous construction board they sent to America?
The OP is asking which one is morally better.
Yes. Chinese companies have an understanding that the buyers in poor areas (including many parts of China itself) do not care as much about quality and so they downgrade their effort accordingly, and are more willing to take the kind of shortcuts that lead to those incidents in the US.
Hi all!
I don’t think that is the best summary of the Chinese development model.
China bases its development on the concept of creating “mutual benefit.” In practical terms, this means investing in doing business in Africa. This occurs in a number of ways, including marketing Chinese products in Africa, moving industries that are no longer profitable in China due to increased labor costs to Africa, and investing in things like mining. China’s infrastructure investment is mostly aimed towards creating the infrastructure needed to support these business ventures. You can’t run a mine without electricity, after all.
The main reason China works with such disreputable people is that the more reasonable African leaders are already thoroughly in someone else’s pockets. China was late to the game is working with what is leftover. Since China is willing to put up with pretty low profit margins and has stayed pretty true to the claim that they don’t concern themselves with other people’s political systems, this is kind of okay with them.
What does this mean for us? Personally, I think it is a good thing, but not for the obvious reasons. Chinese aid creates competition. For a long time, the West had a pretty strong monopoly on aid, which created any number of inefficiencies. We were able to use our aid in ways that did not necessarily benefit the other countries involved, and a lot of aid didn’t end up really serving much of anyone. Chinese competition will force us to tighten our game, focus on providing African governments with what they really want, and limit our ability to use aid as a political tool. We will have to start providing people with what they are asking for (which is usually jobs) and not pushing worthless “gender empowerment workshops” or whatever the latest development trend is.
China is also doing the one thing we never did, and probably the biggest thing that needs to be done- business. Africa needs business. Africa needs jobs. Let’s see it happen!
I think it’s important not to see Africans as passive subjects in all this. African leaders can and do reign in what they allow China to do. African people are VERY aware and very opinionated about the subject. There is nobody in Africa who can’t talk to you at length about what they feel about China.
Of course, the sticking point to this is that many African countries do not have meaningfully representative governments, and so it’s possible for China to cut deals directly with them that do no benefit the people. Well, we’ve been doing that for hundreds of years. Nothing new.
I was in Sudan not too long ago for a two-week holiday. All the good roads were Chinese-built and many had Chinese-language signs for direction and “construction project” placards. I think it’s a good thing.
Since most African states seem unable to raise capital themselves, it is hard to criticize the Chinese for doing so. In any event, at least the Chinese are providing jobs, and helping the local economy. As for manufacturing,Africa is going to need factories-mines and farms can only employ so many people.
As for the example of shoddily-built roads, people do not realize how hard it is to maintain roads, railways, etc. in a tropical climate-you often get torrential rains that wash even well-built roadbeds away.
After 50+ years of western “foreign aid” Africa is a mess-maybe the Chinese will do better.
The Chinese model’s as good as the American one (and that’s not saying much) but neither of them is the *best *one. The best one would be something like the Fair Trade model and other programs that do more than just build roads (which only lead to resources, not necessarily to where actual people want to go) and power stations (which are often priced out of the reach of the locals).
And the “hands off politics” approach is not best. Yes, the US and other Western countries are hypocritical about the use of it, supporting their own dictators when it suits them, but a completely politics-agnostic approach would not have been a big help to ending Apartheid. We need more political and economic pressure on oppressive regimes, not less.
I didn’t see him mention anything about morals in the OP. But if that’s the case, then my answer would be probably not
Shitty manual labour jobs. IME (Angola, Southern Sudan) a lot of the *good *jobs, the sort that might actually help to build a country up, are done by *Chinese *expatriates. Far better to train locals and employ them.
Shitty manual labor is what mostly illiterate economically backwards nations have to offer. That they’re willing to do it for little money is their competitive edge. So they do these jobs, and they suck, but they have a steady income and are able to afford to raise and educate their children so the next generations will have more to offer and will be better off for it. The government will increase it’s tax base to invest in infrastructure and development, but the revenue will be tied to and answerable to it’s people.
That’s how it works.
I have noticed that Mongolia isn’t fond of Chinese businesses-for some reason they have chosen Canadian and other european firms to develop their mineral deposits.
Maybe a bad experience in the past?
South Africa it was appropriate to use economic sanctions, but that isn’t a one size fits all approach.
Some of the more entrenched African dictators will just steadily reduce quality of life in their country the more you sanction them, as they have to steal greater and greater portion’s of everyone’s stuff as the country’s economy shrinks.
Giving the Africans the good jobs is nice on paper but you don’t train an engineer in a few weeks of on the job training. Engineers, factory managers, people like that come from life of learning up through childhood into early adulthood. China has the educational infrastructure to produce lots of those people, not every African country with desirable natural resources has that. No amount of training can fix that in the short term. So I think it’s best to just get business there and get the creation of wealth going, that’s what will eventually lead to better schools and education systems.
With a good economy history has shown even dictators will provide for their people.