Why is it so hard for westerners to create a similar plan to China's that would compete with it? Looking at it even rationally, creating an investment plan for Africa is the only way out for serious economic growth for the EU or the US, from their point of view. Just can it be done, without the debt trap, neocolonial approach, and exploitation? I don't think so.
IMO it's the same reason westerners can't create working utilities, mass transit and medical systems in their own countries. The western political establishment is chained to their ideological view of how money and power work, a pragmatic approach to these things would be in direct contradiction with their idealised view of how markets operate.
Essentially, to remove the debt traps and exploitation from their programs would be a tacit admission that these things exist in the first place.
Because westerners have a huge stuck up their ass about "corruption" and "foreign aid handouts" whenever giving money to black or brown people is discussed. Never mind the fact that these would really just be investments, and are totally compatible with capitalism. The easiest and most effective thing to do would to simply treat Africans as equals politically and offer them standard investment capital for them to use to develop their economies. Just like a start up, rich just give them some money for a share of the profit later. Still exploitative as we know but most African governments would consider this a good deal.
But the west won't even do those deals. They throw on all this other shit into the negotiations. Financial deregulation, defund social services, open your political system to CIA meddling, give bankers special visas, host a NATO military base, ect. West says it's to improve democracy or whatever, but really they are just trying to maximize return on investment by leveraging imperial power. The west figures they could get more money out of the global south by turning them into neocolonies. They don't care about Africans, figure they can keep them oppressed, and pissed China is disrupting their little scam with actually beneficial deals.
Why is it so hard for westerners to create a similar plan to China's that would compete with it? Looking at it even rationally, creating an investment plan for Africa is the only way out for serious economic growth for the EU or the US, from their point of view. Just can it be done, without the debt trap, neocolonial approach, and exploitation? I don't think so.
IMO it's the same reason westerners can't create working utilities, mass transit and medical systems in their own countries. The western political establishment is chained to their ideological view of how money and power work, a pragmatic approach to these things would be in direct contradiction with their idealised view of how markets operate.
Essentially, to remove the debt traps and exploitation from their programs would be a tacit admission that these things exist in the first place.
don't want to
Because westerners have a huge stuck up their ass about "corruption" and "foreign aid handouts" whenever giving money to black or brown people is discussed. Never mind the fact that these would really just be investments, and are totally compatible with capitalism. The easiest and most effective thing to do would to simply treat Africans as equals politically and offer them standard investment capital for them to use to develop their economies. Just like a start up, rich just give them some money for a share of the profit later. Still exploitative as we know but most African governments would consider this a good deal.
But the west won't even do those deals. They throw on all this other shit into the negotiations. Financial deregulation, defund social services, open your political system to CIA meddling, give bankers special visas, host a NATO military base, ect. West says it's to improve democracy or whatever, but really they are just trying to maximize return on investment by leveraging imperial power. The west figures they could get more money out of the global south by turning them into neocolonies. They don't care about Africans, figure they can keep them oppressed, and pissed China is disrupting their little scam with actually beneficial deals.