Comment by nativeit
1 month ago
China has been aggressively developing infrastructure and financial services all over Africa and the rest of Asia.
1 month ago
China has been aggressively developing infrastructure and financial services all over Africa and the rest of Asia.
Yeah I saw this in Cambodia when I lived there. Sihanoukville had become a Chinese enclave almost completely.
Different to the way that French colonialism worked, though. Less direct government, more influence of existing power structures and respect for the local government.
There is definitely an argument that this is plain business investment - China has a lot of foreign currency to invest because of its trade surplus, and there isn't the opportunity within China to invest it all, so it is engaging with trade partners to invest in their economies so that they can increase future trade with China.
You can also make the argument that this is not benign and China is trying to create control over foreign governments with this investment.
I'm kinda "both can be true, but either are better than how we did it"
Go ask anyone in Southeast Asia which they'd rather have colonize them: USA or China.
They'll usually refer to China in terms like the "thousand year enemy".
> Reversing last year’s trend, a slim majority of ASEAN respondents selected China (52.0%) over the US (48.0%) if the region were forced to align itself with one of the two strategic rivals.
https://www.iseas.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/The-Stat...
I’ve only been to Vietnam but the answer there is it’s… complicated.
They’re culturally part of the sinosphere but of course constantly living in the shadow of your much, much bigger neighbour to the north does breed some ill feeling.
The USA on the other hand, well, they’re not particularly popular either for obvious reasons
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Ask Latin America which they'd rather have colonize them.
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That really depends on who you ask. If it's that bad then why did all of those countries sign up for the RCEP?
Grass is greener on the other side. Hegemony on the other side of hemisphere is greener or benevolent.
They've mostly been concerned with resource extraction rather than colonial exploitation like the West. And in fact, they've ditched most of their infra and tech projects in Africa, because of inherent instability in dealing with tinpot dictatorships.
On the other hand, every one in Asia is wary of too much Chinese presence and influence.
resource extraction
stealth colonialism
The alternative is western colonialism Africa experienced before, and bombing campaigns.
Western colonialism is better than eastern colonialism tho. Look at the Russian orgs in Africa.
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