As far as I'm aware, China has been giving loans to various countries in Africa and building infrastructure in exchange for money and maybe some stuff like recognizing Taiwan as part of China. But why do people say China is imperialist for doing this? Is there truth to it or is it another strain of radlibs eating state department propaganda?
The infrastructure seizure thing is one they go on and on about.
They have one example, Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka built the port with a loan from China, after which Western debt was still the majority of their debt. Western debt was also higher interest rate than the new Chinese debt, so they leased the port to China for a very long time and used the proceeds to pay off the higher interest debt.
People will tell you they did the lease to pay off the Chinese debt, which they couldn't afford to service, but they'd never missed a payment, and again, it wasn't the most expensive debt they had anyways.
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There's a long article in the Atlantic of all places that debunks in detail the Sri Lankan port thing and explains there is no Chinese debt trap https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/02/china-debt-trap-diplomacy/617953/
Yeah, I think this is where I first found out exactly why the debt trap idea was bullshit. I mean, I assumed it was because it was a western "China Bad" meme, but this is where I found out exactly how they were lying.