I never said it was "as bad." It's bad though. Probably makes me a white rat or revisionist or something, but I'm of the opinion that African workers ought to receive the benefits of African resources (to the extent that any of this stuff should be coming out of the ground in the first place).
Ah okay. Sorry I was under the impression the argument you were making with the Spanish American War analogy hinged on the assumption that China in the future will be just as bad if not worse than US.
African workers ought to receive the benefits of African resources
I mean it's not like China is giving them nothing in exchange for the resources.
Btw the Yale lecture I mentioned goes into detail about how the fairness of the deals vary from country to country and how African countries actually have quite a lot of bargaining power. So basically in cases where a country gets weaker deals (e.g. Nigeria, Kenya) it's often due to them failing to take advantage of that bargaining power unlike some other countries (e.g. Ethiopia, Tanzania).
I definitely think China in the future will try to push worse conditions on African coutnries as it gains more power, but it will never be as bad as the U.S., British and French were in the 20th century. Why? Because of that bargaining power you mention. The U.S. and China, to the extent to which they may be entering a cold war, are not nearly as large a part of the global economy as the U.S. and USSR were in 1950. Any competition between these diminished powers will give third parties more negotiating power than they had in the 20th century. The original Cold War was not a two sided conflict either, of course, despite the gross oversimplification we find in, for example, Gkalaitza's surrounding comments or U.S. popular culture. But a new one (if it happens) will be even less binary, giving third party countries even more bargaining power (if they choose to use it). We need international leftist and union alliances to put pressure on the governments on all sides of these deals.
I see. I think at this point we're talking about legit actionable criticism that would be based on the actual terms of specific deals, which is different from the typical low-effort takes that get labeled as "endorsing imperialists" which Gkalaitza and many others in this thread have been arguing against.
I never said it was "as bad." It's bad though. Probably makes me a white rat or revisionist or something, but I'm of the opinion that African workers ought to receive the benefits of African resources (to the extent that any of this stuff should be coming out of the ground in the first place).
deleted by creator
Ah okay. Sorry I was under the impression the argument you were making with the Spanish American War analogy hinged on the assumption that China in the future will be just as bad if not worse than US.
I mean it's not like China is giving them nothing in exchange for the resources. Btw the Yale lecture I mentioned goes into detail about how the fairness of the deals vary from country to country and how African countries actually have quite a lot of bargaining power. So basically in cases where a country gets weaker deals (e.g. Nigeria, Kenya) it's often due to them failing to take advantage of that bargaining power unlike some other countries (e.g. Ethiopia, Tanzania).
I definitely think China in the future will try to push worse conditions on African coutnries as it gains more power, but it will never be as bad as the U.S., British and French were in the 20th century. Why? Because of that bargaining power you mention. The U.S. and China, to the extent to which they may be entering a cold war, are not nearly as large a part of the global economy as the U.S. and USSR were in 1950. Any competition between these diminished powers will give third parties more negotiating power than they had in the 20th century. The original Cold War was not a two sided conflict either, of course, despite the gross oversimplification we find in, for example, Gkalaitza's surrounding comments or U.S. popular culture. But a new one (if it happens) will be even less binary, giving third party countries even more bargaining power (if they choose to use it). We need international leftist and union alliances to put pressure on the governments on all sides of these deals.
I see. I think at this point we're talking about legit actionable criticism that would be based on the actual terms of specific deals, which is different from the typical low-effort takes that get labeled as "endorsing imperialists" which Gkalaitza and many others in this thread have been arguing against.