A dispatch from the BBC reports that Mainland China gets what most of the rest of the world doesn't and has more than doubled its aid to Africa -- to about $5 billion ove the next three years. That should sound like good news ... except for the fact the money comes from Mainland China, which is very comfortable dealing with dictatorships. After all, it itself is a dictatorship and doesn't link development money to human rights reforms. Beijing claims they're just "doing business." Baloney.
Since the money is going right to other henchmen themselves, there is absolutely no guarantee the money will actually go to the people who need it the most. Nor is there any way to check to see the money will even be spent wisely. For all we know, it might be going to build arms, gulags and crush dissent. The most worrisome aspect of it all is this: In exchange for the money, the recipient countries must cut all ties, diplomatic and trade, to Taiwan. The island which Beijing still considers a "rebel province" is home to one of the world's most prosperous and thriving democracies, one so spirited the Parliament there often breaks out in fist fights which make the comedy reels -- but it's a bastion of hope in the Asia-Pacific, one that should be the real beacon to Africa, not the Forbidden City.
The main point is this: China doesn't believe in free thought. The ordinary people in Africa do. China pushes untrammeled free trade. The ordinary people want to lift themselves up and don't want to compete with slave and prison labour in China. China wants to wipe its main rival off the face of the earth, even to the point of using nuclear weapons. The ordinary people of Africa want freedom for all -- in fact, they want their brothers and sisters in China to overthrow their slavemasters in part because they now have the money to be able to do so.
Who's getting the money and loans? Not the people -- but the dictators. This is unacceptable.
Let's face it: Help from anyone is welcome. However, giving that help without conditions doesn't make things better -- it's merely repeating the same mistakes the West has committed repeatedly and especially since the end of colonialism; and now China is doing the same to establish and furthe its hegemony. There's an old saying regarding drugs that should also apply to blood money: Just say no.
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Comments:
Snow17/12/2006 11:44:36 PM
(http://yellowsnowstar.spaces.live.com/)
on the topic of so called bargaining power, did you know that America and China are at odds about human rights as well as trade fairness etc? Well lately China is extremely sensitive about it's human rights record especially since the organ harvesting of live Falun Gong practitioners was exposed by Canadian investigators this year.Well, whenever any top leaders bring up human rights around China, China threatens that such free speaking or criticising will "damage US/China relations" or relations with whatever newspaper or whatever institution it may be. The insttitution know s that if it wants money and trade with China and not conflict, it has to take Chinas stance on human rights or at least be silent about it. This is whats happenning now.So anyone who is feindishly greedy enough to comprimise the good of humanity for some immediate cash from China knows that they have to follow the Communist Party's lead about Taiwan, Tibet, Falun Gong, the olympics, trade, slave labour, pollution, all sorts of stuff. China says that whats most important is saving face and whenever anyone says the truth about their atrocities, they say that its not right for that someone to cause them to loose face. Its really cracked.For America they have been so blinded by greed that for fast cash they have just made a deal to sell 4 nuclear reactors to China! It sure paints a clear picture of the situation doesn't it?! America sells nukes to most populated, hate mongering nationalist,manipulative, cold blooded, communist countryheres a BBC article about the nukes deal http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6187491.stm
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