@axtremus said in Buying Africa:
China throws a lot of money at Africa to build infrastructure with very little strings attached except terms like "if you cannot repay the loan we take over whatever that was built with that loan." China's loans impose no condition on improving human rights or promoting democracy, which makes them more attractive to financing from Western sources. But I do not put high odds on China dominating Africa. A few things I believe will prevent China from succeeding:
China has pretty severe demographics problem, their population is aging fairly quickly, which will be a drag on China's economy
Wealth disparity is another big problem in China. Very wide disparity between the haves and the have-nots, between the rural population and the city population. This does not bode well for long term political stability within China
Racial discrimination. Short term, the Chinese look very good to the Africans compared to the Caucasians with their apartheid history. But many in mainland China discriminate against dark skin complexions, and there really isn't any widespread initiative to correct this widespread attitude. It won't take long for the Africans to wise up to this widespread discrimination and become very suspicious of everything China, if they haven't already.
As it is, I still put a higher odds of China imploding within rather than China dominating Africa as a matter of geopolitical influence.
China imploding from within is a concept I heard a long time ago and China has only grown exponentially in every way since then. On some level one could reasonably assume that statement is part of their strategy to disarm everyone. I wish it were true and even believed it at one time but the evidence is such thin gruel. Make no mistake China is already making big bold and brazen moves. I do think Biden sees it but he doesn’t have his voters behind him. Russia Russia Russia is the only song they know.
