Massive but great article on the BRI
- The Belt and Road Initiative: the antithesis of Colonialism.
- The war on China : and geopolitical significance of the belt and road initiative.
TL DR:
So: China wants to sell us their shit so they’re helping us build the infrastructure they can use to sell us their shit (and which will be useful to us overall)?
Its more about fostering political cooperation and trade with Eurasia, the ME, and north Africa, and especially having a direct pipeline to fund infrastructure projects in those regions, giving them an alternative to the western-capital dominated IMF and World Bank.
Rather than taking western loans, which always come with promises of wage cuts, privatization, and austerity measures, these countries will now have another option. The west wants to keep these countries weak and dependent on them, whereas China wants and needs to develop these underdeveloped imperialized nations to build a stronger socialist camp / multi-polar world to stand against western capital.
Seems like westerners can’t comprehend trade as a non-zero sum game. So much projection.
It involves building infrastructure all over the world (except North America and Western Europe I guess) to facilitate trade between China, the rest of Asia and Middle East, Russia, South Africa and so on. I don’t know the details but this is the gist of it. It involves laying down of roads, railway tracks, gas pipelines and such.
Also offers low-interest loans for building the infrastructure without requiring changing the economy, government, or welfare systems like IMF and World Bank loans. Many of the loans are forgivable. In some instances non-payment of the loans could involve direct Chinese takeover of some projects, but this isn’t preferable to either side as the goal is to develop local production and employment and not just export Chinese labor
I’ve seen Poland included in the plans and I wonder whether to critically support it or rather oppose it.
Any initiative that weakens the hegemonic chokehold of the US and Western Europe over the global economy is cool and good.
Productive forces go brrr