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 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.