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| HELP NOT WANTED. by Zseni 02/19/2007, 8:40am PST | ||||
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| What’s behind this sudden Chinese drive to do good around the world?
Yeah, what's UP with that? These people keep trying to go around and build up GOOD WILL. The Nigerian government operates three railways, which are notoriously corrupt and inefficient. They are also falling apart. The World Bank — where my friend works — proposed a project based on the commonsense observation that there was no point in lending the Nigerians money without also tackling the corruption that had crippled the railways. After months of negotiation, the bank and Nigeria’s government agreed on a $5 million project that would allow private companies to come in and help clean up the railways. But just as the deal was about to be signed, the Chinese government offered Nigeria $9 billion to rebuild the entire rail network — no bids, no conditions and no need to reform. That was when my friend packed his suitcase and went to the airport. THOSE FUCKING CHINKS, THEY'LL NEVER GET AWAY WITH THIS. China is actively backing such deals throughout Africa; its financing of roads, electrical plants, ports and the like boomed from $700 million in 2003 to nearly $3 billion for each of the past two years. Indeed, it is a worldwide strategy. Beijing has agreed to expand Indonesia’s electrical grid in a matter of months. Too bad the deal calls for building several plants that use a highly polluting, coal-based Chinese technology. No international agency would have signed off on such an environmentally unfriendly deal. You know what I bet Indonesia would have been okay with? Nuclear power. But the really funny part is that if any international agency had signed off on any deal at all, China wouldn't even be in the picture. In the Philippines, the Asian Development Bank, which lends money at low interest rates to poor countries, had agreed to finance Manila’s new aqueduct. It, too, was suddenly told that its money was no longer needed. China was offering cheaper rates, faster approval and fewer questions. It's almost like China used to be a developing country. These guys are PSYCHIC, the way they anticipate what poor countries want and need. States like China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela have the cash and the will to reshape the world into a place very unlike the one where we want to live. By pushing their alternative development model, such states effectively price responsible aid programs out of the market exactly where they are needed most. In place of those programs, rogue donors offer to underwrite a world that is more corrupt, chaotic and authoritarian. So you're saying I can have capitalism, or I can have democracy, but I can't have both? Because that's what it sounds like you're saying. By the way, how democratic is the World Bank, anyway? |
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HELP NOT WANTED. by 02/19/2007, 8:40am PST  Like the World Bank, it's a ploy to rape these countries' natural resources by 02/19/2007, 10:29am PST She would know of their schemes if she had spent any time playing C&C:Generals. by 02/19/2007, 12:30pm PST |
