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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   38490 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

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the BRICS New Development Bank (Egypt, Zimbabwe and Saudi Arabi will probably join as well).

So after all those betl-and-road-initiative projects failed, the Chinese want to lose more money and influence?

They lose money, but not necessarily influence, as they can leverage the loss of money for concessions in other areas, such as Chinese access into other infrastructure or concessions to allow Chinese-only installations. And losing money isn't exactly an issue, as a non-trivial part of the belt and road initiative was to find a way to use massive cash reserves that couldn't be productively invested internally and were sitting as American dollars.

They lose money, but not necessarily influence, as they can leverage the loss of money for concessions in other areas, such as Chinese access into other infrastructure or concessions to allow Chinese-only installations

This is what I thought the belt-and-road was for. Pretend loans, that are actually payments to buy influence. But no, apparently the Chinese actually ask for their money back, and do so much more insistently than the IMF etc.

I'm particularly familiar with Sri Lanka. That stuff you might have heard of about the place failng organic farming was BS. That nonsense was government copium because they couldn't buy fertilizer, because they ran out of dollars, because the Chinese had lost patience.

The result was that China's friends in power got literally run out of town while protesters jumped into the presidential swimming pool. The new president is nobody's friend, but is now going cap in hand to the IMF.

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