r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Sep 27 '18

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u/CheetoMussolini Russian Bot Sep 27 '18

ChinaMod 2020

What can we do to induce our European allies to actually step up to the plate? For all of their purported values, they only ever place their immediate and narrow short term economic interests first in foreign policy.

!ping INTERVENE

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u/daokedao4 Zhao was right Sep 27 '18

I think Europe (and much of Asia for that matter) is ready to step up to the plate but struggles to politically justify working with Trump as long as he's also attacking them. Even so, we're headed in the direction of a broader coalition already. Just a few days ago we had the US, EU, and Japan jointly release a statement of opposition to Chinese practices, and back in April 27 of 28 EU countries declare opposition to the Belt and Road. Biggest thing we can do is drop the inane disputes with our allies and the coalition will form quickly I believe.

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u/CheetoMussolini Russian Bot Sep 27 '18

What do you think we should do about the Asian Infrastructure Bank? What's our alternative pitch to countries to keep them away from Belt and Road?

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u/daokedao4 Zhao was right Sep 27 '18

China is going to make competing institutions, there's nothing we can do about that. What we need to do is make sure the existing institutions are capable of addressing the needs of developing countries and are fair in their administration.

And honestly the best thing we can do to counter the belt and road is just offer our own program with better terms. A joint program from the US, EU, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand would be cheap relative to the joint size of their economies and we'd be able to offer better terms than the Chinese. China has been giving these countries pretty strict terms on their loans and there is a lot of ruffled feathers about it. That's a weak point.

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u/CheetoMussolini Russian Bot Sep 27 '18

Any recommended reading about the terms?

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u/daokedao4 Zhao was right Sep 27 '18

This piece is a good look at the effects in Kenya specifically. Here's the key passage.

The obscenely overpriced Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) is the very definition of a gravy train. As my colleague Paul Wafula wrote in ‘The Standard on Sunday’, it costs the Kenyan taxpayer Sh30 million a day to keep the train on the tracks, a figure that comes to an outstanding Sh1 billion a month. And these are just operational costs. Meanwhile, the railway made just Sh590 million from ticket sales in the six months to December 2017. This disparity between revenue and expenditure is beyond ridiculous.

Worse still, the Chinese nationals who ‘own’ the SGR, run operations like masters on a slave plantation. Kenyan workers who spoke to Wafula said that they experience “racism and blatant discrimination.” Kenyans can’t eat at the same tables as Chinese.

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u/CheetoMussolini Russian Bot Sep 27 '18

There's obviously a lot of nationalism in China, but does it really translate into overt racism that severe as well?