Italy’s far-right prime minister has said she will not allow the country to become “Europe’s refugee camp”, after thousands of people seeking refuge landed on its shores, prompting France to tighten controls at its border with Italy.
Giorgia Meloni told the UN general assembly in New York that the huge numbers arriving in Lampedusa, a tiny Sicilian island that for years has been the first port of call for people crossing a perilous stretch of the Mediterranean Sea from north Africa, had placed Italy “under incredible pressure”.
Accepting them here won’t help the millions who remain in their home countries. It’ll only entice them to come too, and that is not sustainable.
Progressives: “So, then we should help the developing world improve to the point they no longer seek refuge? Stop climate change to prevent the future influx of hundreds of millions of refugees?”
Conservatism: “Fuck them! Fuck you! Pay me!”
Yeah, I support the first bit. We certainly can afford to help them in their home countries.
Western economies are built on the exploitation of cheap labour abroad for both manufacturing (China, India) and resource extraction (most of Africa). In contrast, the Chinese economy is built on cheap domestic labour and cheap domestic resources so that it can build things for export. The incentive structure is vastly different, because while the West basically has to act out of altruism, it’s in China’s best interest to create more demand for your production.
So then what’s Belt and Road? I mean the thing is literally run by China so that’s the same thing as using other countries for cheap labor. Only China benefits from Belt and Road, no one else does and all their resources go to those cheap Chinese factories
China is guilty of labor exploitation too, there’s literally videos of Chinese people whipping Kenyans ffs
There’s a video of a single Chinese guy whipping a single Kenyan guy who worked for the single Chinese guy’s privately-owned restaurant in Kenya, for which the Chinese guy was fined KSh 3 million for. The same guy who had two other employees without work permits. Not exactly a good generalization of “Chinese” rather than just “shitty guy in general”, nevermind of “China” as a country… And frankly it’s a rather racist generalization.
China’s Belt and Road aims primarily to build out infrastructure of developing countries so that their economy expands and they can buy more Chinese goods. Infrastructure is incredibly profitable, in general (each dollar spent on transportation is estimated to return something like four dollars in government returns). If infrastructure costs go down, returns go up: would you rather spend $10 billion on two dams or $20 billion on one dam and “oh look you ran out of money to build the second dam and your first dam is breaking because you didn’t have experience and oh no you don’t know how to fix it because you’ve never run into this problem before.” That’s the primary sell behind the Belt and Road: they’re cheaper, they’re less likely to fuck up, and if they fuck up China can audit the problem and fix it. You shouldn’t be restricted in what infrastructure you can build by what you domestically have the capability for, because building domestic capability is extremely expensive and extremely time-consuming (and, well, let’s just say that developing countries aren’t called “developing” because they’re swimming in money).
China doesn’t profit off of exploiting resources extraction as much as it does off of manufacturing products. China’s spent a lot of effort to make sure it’s domestic supply chains are robust, but they’re running out of room to export to the West. They have a strong incentive to make developing countries have stronger economies so they can buy more Chinese goods to grow China’s economy. It’s simple economics.
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That’s a lazy response if I’ve ever seen one. What economic advantage does China have for importing resources and selling to the West?
The West is trying to decouple trade with China. Why wouldnt China optimize for it’s economic future?
Damn you did so much to be where you are. I mean you were born in the right country, that has to be really hard.
How many immigrants have you accepted into your home? Would you like a million more?
A grand total of 0! Amazing isn’t it? So again, how did you get that privilege?
I was born in a shit country and everyone here worked hard over the past few decades to turn it into a decent country, with help from developed ones. That’s how.
Let us assume that you actually come from nothing and made it to a better life. Great job. That however still does not mean that the material conditions given to you are the same for everyone else. You assume that everyone has the same possibilities and opportunities as you do. That simply is not the case.
Ok, and what’s your point? Some people don’t get the same opportunities, therefore they should all move to countries which are doing well? What are they going to do once they arrive? Most of them are uneducated, don’t know the language and don’t have any valuable skills. How are they going to survive in these crowded, overpriced cities?
They can’t all live on welfare payments.
That’s why I support helping their home countries develop, funding education and healthcare, sharing agricultural and manufacturing knowledge. It’ll be better for everyone if they turn their poor countries into developed economies.