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Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

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628 points nodea2345 | 1 comments | 01 Oct 19 11:19 UTC | HN request time: 0.212s | source
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loquor ◴[01 Oct 19 16:03 UTC] No.21126953[source]▶
This might sound alarmist, but do you think China is the biggest upcoming global problem after climate change? For two reasons:

1. China has a totalitarian ruling system. They intend to realize George Orwell's 1984.

2. Present-day China essentially has no ethics. Take the US in comparison. No matter how perverse the people in power become and even if they do messed up things, the US has some founding morals and principles they do not forget. China, in comparison, systematically rooted out these values since the Great Leap Forward. The happenings at Hong Kong and Xinjiang epitomize that.

I do think China's expansionist policy bodes poorly for all of humanity.

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baddox ◴[01 Oct 19 16:34 UTC] No.21127399[source]▶
What policies does China have which are expansionist?
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bdamm ◴[01 Oct 19 16:45 UTC] No.21127555[source]▶
The belt and road initiative is fascinating, including their cultivation of Africa. The scheme where they lend poor nations money to build ports and then when the port authority fails to fulfill the repayments, they simply take over the port and basically establish a Chinese base is rather diabolical. From a business perspective it is brilliant but it does seem rather obviously predatory. I consider that expansionist. Did America do the same with Panama, did UK do the same with Gibraltar? There are some parallels.
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1. jmknoll ◴[01 Oct 19 17:11 UTC] No.21127864[source]▶
100%. This is a standard item from the imperial-power playbook. The author of "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" documented it pretty well.

The basic rundown is that a country sets up international financing institutions, then loans money for infrastructure projects to less developed countries. This is supposed to be spent to hire engineering and construction companies from the lending country, with the promise that your companies will help up-skill the host countries favored companies, which may or may not happen.

The effect of this is that you basically use someone else's money to build up companies and build expertise that you can continue to sell around the world.

Its an obviously great business practice, but very prone to corruption, and ineffective at creating real economic growth in the host country (which is go-to cover story for why its not imperial aggression). The Belt and Road Initiative is basically just this exact strategy writ large.