The Root: Africans in China Say Police Have Told Them to Stop Sharing Stories About Racial Discrimination

[Cicada 5]

https://www.theroot.com/africans-in-china-say-police-have-told-them-to-stop-sha-1843179562

Reportedly, Africans living in China have been pressured to stop sharing reports of racial discrimination by the police. One example was a Ugandan woman who was forced to delete a video of a racist encounter at a store.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

This likely dovetails into their expansions into Africa, they probably don't want to look like the imperialists they're being.

 

[Agema]

This likely dovetails into their expansions into Africa, they probably don't want to look like the imperialists they're being.

Yup.

Too be fair, it won't make that much difference to their spread into Africa. A ton of racism in China can be overlooked by African countries that want assistance building their infrastructure. I've been to Botswana recently on business. The people I spoke to there have no illusions about what China's intentions are: but as they point out, China is getting their development done where the West doesn't, and that's that.

 

[ObsidianJones]

China is outright evicting Africans while blaming the resurgence of the Virus on them

But to Agema's point.

Too be fair, it won't make that much difference to their spread into Africa. A ton of racism in China can be overlooked by African countries that want assistance building their infrastructure. I've been to Botswana recently on business. The people I spoke to there have no illusions about what China's intentions are: but as they point out, China is getting their development done where the West doesn't, and that's that.

I understand how it sounds as a person who lives in America, but it's very, very short sighted. It's not even casting off one yoke to place on another. It's putting on another yoke on top of the previous, loose fitting yoke. That Development is going to come with a price tag that will cost the African people for years to come.

 

[Cicada 5]

China is outright evicting Africans while blaming the resurgence of the Virus on them

Sorry for the off topic, but how do you make links this way in your posts?

 

[Agema]

China is outright evicting Africans while blaming the resurgence of the Virus on them

But to Agema's point.

I understand how it sounds as a person who lives in America, but it's very, very short sighted. It's not even casting off one yoke to place on another. It's putting on another yoke on top of the previous, loose fitting yoke. That Development is going to come with a price tag that will cost the African people for years to come.

Well, potentially, yes.

But there's an extent to which investment is investment. African countries have far weaker ability to invest in themselves and each other in the way more advanced economies can, but still need investment to spur development. African countries have to decide whether the debt or Chinese ownership of their firms is worth it. Ultimately, African countries probably only can take control of their destiny in the long run by developing. As they mature and strengthen, their own economy should (as China's is now) eventually become more important relative to foreign investment and they'll increasingly fund themselves and find more independence. Maybe it's worth tryign to get there faster.

The story goes that China is potentially collecting African countries in a debt trap that will give China vast power to influence them. This is possible, as Western countries largely leave investment to private finance, and private finance is invested on risk-benefit analyses. Implicitly, therefore, China would seem to be pushing aid either through higher risk, lower benefit, and through the will of the Chinese state. However, I'm not sure debt traps necessarily work: African debt has often ended up as a write-off, with a lot of hostility directed towards the creditor. I would suggest if China is over-lending, it may actually more represent a risk to China. (Coronavirus, for instance, will already have blown tens or even hundreds of billions off the value of China's investments.) Or maybe China accepts the risk, and has just decided it's worth it to get its foot in the door, so to speak, for better access to Africa's vast natural resources.

What's also worth bearing in mind is that China is a late player to African investment. Although China is by some measures is investing most heavily in Africa currently, in terms of total investment value (much of which has accrued over time), the largest player in Africa is France - with UK, USA, Netherlands (!) all still ahead of China as well.

 

[SckizoBoy]

snip

I'm curious as to what your take on the racial politics is here because Chinese media is horridly myopic, highlighting to the people how westerners are racist towards people of Chinese descent (and other SE Asian ethnicities as a side note) while conveniently ignoring their own racist conduct which is, as far as I can tell, barely noteworthy in the west.

Has western media become that chicken-shit scared of mainland Chinese influence that (pretty much) the only reporting on this is done by organisations/individuals who cannot be considered to be remotely unbiased where China/CCP is concerned?

 

[Hawki]

What's also worth bearing in mind is that China is a late player to African investment. Although China is by some measures is investing most heavily in Africa currently, in terms of total investment value (much of which has accrued over time), the largest player in Africa is France - with UK, USA, Netherlands (!) all still ahead of China as well.

Doesn't that arguably bring up the neo-colonialism argument though? I mean, the French Colonial Tax is a thing, even though it's not technically an actual tax. Foreign companies own a lot of land in Africa, and it's fair to ask whether that wealth is being fed back into the continent. I'm not the person to tell you, but off the top of my head, Botswana did rather well when it nationalized its diamond industry for instance.

I'm curious as to what your take on the racial politics is here because Chinese media is horridly myopic, highlighting to the people how westerners are racist towards people of Chinese descent (and other SE Asian ethnicities as a side note) while conveniently ignoring their own racist conduct which is, as far as I can tell, barely noteworthy in the west.

Has western media become that chicken-shit scared of mainland Chinese influence that (pretty much) the only reporting on this is done by organisations/individuals who cannot be considered to be remotely unbiased where China/CCP is concerned?

Maybe the media landscape differs?

China's at least partially communist, and a signature communist move during the Cold War was "whataboutism" - deflect any criticism of the Soviet Union by highlighting the failures of the United States in race relations. I mean, if the Chinese media is going to criticize anything, it's not going to be stuff from their own culture. In contrast, Western media is more independent, has a Chinese population in many countries, and can't claim to have societies free of racial animosity. That, and there's the "prejudice plus power" train of thought, part of which means that racism outside the West is going to be ignored or downplayed.

 

[fOx]

China is notoriously racist. This doesn't surprise me at all. A country that forces abortions on women, and has concentration camps for muslims, can't be expected to care for the rights of black immigrants. They don't even care for the rights of their own people.

 

[Dreiko]

There's this gif about a guy in a spiderman mask surprising this old Chinese lady and she's barely shook but then he takes the mask off and he's a black guy and she's so startled you'd think he had horns or something. I always thought it was fake but I guess maybe not?

 

[Houseman]

There's this gif about a guy in a spiderman mask surprising this old Chinese lady and she's barely shook but then he takes the mask off and he's a black guy and she's so startled you'd think he had horns or something. I always thought it was fake but I guess maybe not?

There are so many stories of black people in China getting stared at, followed around, watched while they eat, having people come up and touch their hair, taking pictures with them...

 

[Agema]

I'm curious as to what your take on the racial politics is here because Chinese media is horridly myopic, highlighting to the people how westerners are racist towards people of Chinese descent (and other SE Asian ethnicities as a side note) while conveniently ignoring their own racist conduct which is, as far as I can tell, barely noteworthy in the west.

Has western media become that chicken-shit scared of mainland Chinese influence that (pretty much) the only reporting on this is done by organisations/individuals who cannot be considered to be remotely unbiased where China/CCP is concerned?

China is in my view highly nationalist, and with a state-controlled media that greatly amplifies that by increasing feelings of self-satisfaction, especially through suppression of internal criticism and unfavourable comparisons of other countries. Thorough national introspection in media is usually the work of free press. That said I think China is hardly short of criticism in the West for racist attitudes, but what normally gets the attention are "Chinese" non-Han ethnic groups such as Tibetans and Uighurs. I'm happy enough with Western media being a lot more concerned about racism in the West than places like China, precisely because it offers us self-improvement rather than the complacent, smug self-congratulation that countries like China will engender because they treat it only as someone else's problem.

Chinese people as individuals are of course hugely variable, but including its claims on surrounding territories, it seems to me that the country as a whole still has a notion of superiority dating back from the pre-modern days when China was supreme in the Far East. The advent of the European nations and subsequent humiliations up to and including WW2 are a "blip" China's in the process of rectifying.

 

[lil devils x]

There's this gif about a guy in a spiderman mask surprising this old Chinese lady and she's barely shook but then he takes the mask off and he's a black guy and she's so startled you'd think he had horns or something. I always thought it was fake but I guess maybe not?

I think it was Ironman, but yea the Xenophobia and racism is pretty thick in asia, not just China TBH.

 

[Agema]

Doesn't that arguably bring up the neo-colonialism argument though? I mean, the French Colonial Tax is a thing, even though it's not technically an actual tax. Foreign companies own a lot of land in Africa, and it's fair to ask whether that wealth is being fed back into the continent. I'm not the person to tell you, but off the top of my head, Botswana did rather well when it nationalized its diamond industry for instance.

Fundamentally, when foreign investors own bits of your country, some of the profits start disappearing abroad.

This can be represented by the difference between GNI (/GNP) and GDP. GDP is the economic output of a country. However, in practice, a country collects money from abroad (e.g. foreign investments) and loses money from profits taken abroad by foreign residents, thus GNI. The UK for instance has a GDP ~$2.8 trillion (PPP) but a GNI of ~$3 trillion (PPP), suggesting British residents own more of other countries than residents of other countries own of the UK.

GDP is generally a more useful way of measuring the health of a country's economy and will more closely relate to the income of the average citizen. Consequently there are often big advantages to inviting foreign investment, which should spur job creation and often bring in foreign expertise - anything from material technology to working practices - which should spread development and rising incomes (GDP). A lot of countries might count foreign ownership as a price worth paying to drive that development: Western countries, for instance, compete hard for international investment, knowing full well a lot of that means foreign ownership of their economy. As said, eventually a point should be reached where a country will start investing more in itself and other countries, and we would expect gradually that the GNI would move closer to GDP. China of course is an example of a country that has aggressively (and in terms of accusations of IP theft too aggressively) leveraged foreign investment for development so effectively that it has become a massive net global investor even despite relatively low development levels compared to Western nations.

 

[Sneed's SeednFeed]

Excusez moi is this anti-black l'imperialisme sur mon watch?

 

[ObsidianJones]

Sorry for the off topic, but how do you make links this way in your posts?

Hey, sorry that I replied so late. If no one taught you, it's simply a matter of typing [+url+=website address]Summary of Link[+/url]. But when you do it, you'll type it in without the plus signs. I just added them so there would be no funny scripting errors

For example: [+url+=https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...the-greatest-fighting-games-of-all-time]+Damn Right, Third Strike is the best fighting game of all time[+/url] Just remove the Plus signs, and you'll get this: Damn Right, Third Strike is the best fighting game of all time.

I hope that helps.

Well, potentially, yes.

But there's an extent to which investment is investment. African countries have far weaker ability to invest in themselves and each other in the way more advanced economies can, but still need investment to spur development. African countries have to decide whether the debt or Chinese ownership of their firms is worth it. Ultimately, African countries probably only can take control of their destiny in the long run by developing. As they mature and strengthen, their own economy should (as China's is now) eventually become more important relative to foreign investment and they'll increasingly fund themselves and find more independence. Maybe it's worth tryign to get there faster.

The story goes that China is potentially collecting African countries in a debt trap that will give China vast power to influence them. This is possible, as Western countries largely leave investment to private finance, and private finance is invested on risk-benefit analyses. Implicitly, therefore, China would seem to be pushing aid either through higher risk, lower benefit, and through the will of the Chinese state. However, I'm not sure debt traps necessarily work: African debt has often ended up as a write-off, with a lot of hostility directed towards the creditor. I would suggest if China is over-lending, it may actually more represent a risk to China. (Coronavirus, for instance, will already have blown tens or even hundreds of billions off the value of China's investments.) Or maybe China accepts the risk, and has just decided it's worth it to get its foot in the door, so to speak, for better access to Africa's vast natural resources.

What's also worth bearing in mind is that China is a late player to African investment. Although China is by some measures is investing most heavily in Africa currently, in terms of total investment value (much of which has accrued over time), the largest player in Africa is France - with UK, USA, Netherlands (!) all still ahead of China as well.

I agree to a point, but the place where I disagree is a gulf too wide to cross.

An investment in your company to help you grow is a wondrous thing. It can make overnight success stories when applied to the right market. My favorite example of this is Gorilla Glass. This is the glass that is used in most touch screen devices. It was developed around 2005, to a market that pretty much said "... that's nice, I guess". There was no real reason for it.

Here comes the touchscreen revolution, and you would have been a fool not to invest in Gorilla Glass if you knew of it. This type of investment is mutually beneficial. There is no resource other than the product that can be wrest from the grip of Corning Inc, the developers of Gorilla Glass.

But when we're talking China pretty much owning the railroad they are going to build to get to Africa's relatively untapped oil deposits? Not to mention the materials that are mined and refined in Africa that are normally used to make renewable energy products. This much more doesn't look like an investment in Africa, as much as it's just new colonization. Investment will be just legal means for further subjugation of the continent by a foreign power. But at least this time, it will not come from the gun, but the drafted document that Africans are willing going to sign.

I get other people have vested interests in Africa. I even get that other countries put on a show and most likely don't have Africa's best interests at heart. But seeing how China has treated it's own country via business deals, the treatment of Africans in China, the way China handles Hong Kong and Taiwan... Excuse me, ['url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Taipei]"Chinese Taipei"[/url]... it's just lunacy to me to even let them in the door.

 

[Cicada 5]

Hey, sorry that I replied so late. If no one taught you, it's simply a matter of typing [+url+=website address]Summary of Link[+/url]. But when you do it, you'll type it in without the plus signs. I just added them so there would be no funny scripting errors

For example: [+url+=https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...the-greatest-fighting-games-of-all-time]+Damn Right, Third Strike is the best fighting game of all time[+/url] Just remove the Plus signs, and you'll get this: Damn Right, Third Strike is the best fighting game of all time.

I hope that helps.

Thanks, I'll try it out.

 

[Agema]

But when we're talking China pretty much owning the railroad they are going to build to get to Africa's relatively untapped oil deposits? Not to mention the materials that are mined and refined in Africa that are normally used to make renewable energy products. This much more doesn't look like an investment in Africa, as much as it's just new colonization. Investment will be just legal means for further subjugation of the continent by a foreign power. But at least this time, it will not come from the gun, but the drafted document that Africans are willing going to sign.

I get other people have vested interests in Africa. I even get that other countries put on a show and most likely don't have Africa's best interests at heart. But seeing how China has treated it's own country via business deals, the treatment of Africans in China, the way China handles Hong Kong and Taiwan... Excuse me, ['url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Taipei]"Chinese Taipei"[/url]... it's just lunacy to me to even let them in the door.

I'm well aware the history of Western corporations in Africa is poor: corruption, bribery, exploitation, etc. I doubt China's going to be that much more ethical.

I think generally the key to it is for African governments to ensure the investment is controlled to maximise benefit to their own countries, systems agreed to ensure this doesn't happen: reductions in corruption and waste, stronger bureaucratic, legal and ethical infrastructure. But where does that come from? I suspect a growing economy and the human development it brings can be beneficial. The problem is that even corrupt leaders will welcome foreign investment, if for no other reason than it provides a good way of lining their own pockets.

 

[Sneed's SeednFeed]

I'm well aware the history of Western corporations in Africa is poor: corruption, bribery, exploitation, etc. I doubt China's going to be that much more ethical.

I think generally the key to it is for African governments to ensure the investment is controlled to maximise benefit to their own countries, systems agreed to ensure this doesn't happen: reductions in corruption and waste, stronger bureaucratic, legal and ethical infrastructure. But where does that come from? I suspect a growing economy and the human development it brings can be beneficial. The problem is that even corrupt leaders will welcome foreign investment, if for no other reason than it provides a good way of lining their own pockets.

This is already on the way in the East African Federation plan, albeit at the hands of an iron-fisted populist figurehead who sponsors ethnic strife in the Congo

East African Federation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Also the fact that every time any african nation tried to go their own way, to build self-sufficiency or the like, they've been routinely exploited and stabbed in the back through neocolonial violence and exploitation. Corruption doesn't just happen out of thin air. The developed world is gonna continue exploiting the continent for resources and relying on the global south as a periphery for its productive needs. It's a long road to self-sufficiency, and its one that won't be 'good' for the global economy. Neither should it be.

 

[ObsidianJones]

I'm well aware the history of Western corporations in Africa is poor: corruption, bribery, exploitation, etc. I doubt China's going to be that much more ethical.

I think generally the key to it is for African governments to ensure the investment is controlled to maximise benefit to their own countries, systems agreed to ensure this doesn't happen: reductions in corruption and waste, stronger bureaucratic, legal and ethical infrastructure. But where does that come from? I suspect a growing economy and the human development it brings can be beneficial. The problem is that even corrupt leaders will welcome foreign investment, if for no other reason than it provides a good way of lining their own pockets.

The truth of it is, capitalism breeds corruption. Even if it's Africans controlling the companies, the companies will soon sell out their ethics for paychecks. That's the way of the world.

In essence, what I'm sadly forced to advocate for is that the corruption and pillaging of the land comes from the natural inhabitants. I guess that sort of makes it better?